over and over again

Once again it's that time of year we all know and love. Funnily enough, though, this year TTH hasn't been as much of a repeat offender as she has been in previous seasons (remember that fall/winter when it seemed like all she wore were those damn drop-crotch khaki pants???). I think the fact that she's been taking less accessories means she has more room in her closet for other exciting things. Like Dries Van Noten checked shirts and Balenciaga skirts with naughty thigh-high slits. Still, she can't help herself. especially when it comes to skirts and pants. I think that TTH is the same as me - I have any number of coats, jackets and tops that I wear all the time and I tend to repeat my bottoms endlessly. I casually drop musings like this into the conversation to prompt the thought that, perhaps, I'm just as amazing as TTH when in fact I'm writing this in the daggiest pyjamas known to mankind with a biro pen hanging from my mouth. Glamour!!!

Oh and thanks for that leaving-half-your-shirt-out tip Taylor. I guess I was sub-consciously drawing on it in my post below. Great minds, you know...

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no party

tommy ton for style.com

The most conspicuous absence this fashion month hasn't been Yasmin, surprisingly. In fact, it's been the lack of jewellery and accessories on perennial arm-party favourites. Think Christine Centenera and Taylor Tomasi-Hill. Yes. Taylor Tomasi-Hill. She of the riotous arm jewellery candy that often mixes cuffs with bangles with chains and watches. She who, it has been said, would jangle as she walked. She who has made her reputation as the veritable queen of accessories. Look at that! Not even a watch! And Christine, pared back and the atypical modern woman as per, with a single string bracelet and fine chain, looking like something magnificent from the future. What is going on here? I like to think that it is a reaction against this, and a move towards delicate, simple jewellery. For the past couple of months or so I've really enjoyed building up my fine jewellery collection, just wearing one piece of at a time and making my statement that way. TTH is the accessories editor at Marie-Claire and should know a thing or two about that. Her spreads for the magazine are often complete cacophonies of accessories - bright backgrounds covered with product in bulging, bountiful presentations. I'm excited to think that next season her spreads might be more simple and minimal. It seems more modern, more, well, grown up to wear less jewellery. To find your favourite pieces and stick to them. It's not about having a uniform, but rather about being comfortable with knowing your tastes completely. There is a self-confidence that comes from wearing just one or two pieces at a time. You don't have to think too hard, you just pick up your favourites from the dresser where you leave them and slip them on, almost without thinking. After a while people notice that you wear them all the time and they become an inherent part of you. And that is the best thing about jewellery.

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bucks fizz

Taylor Tomasi from Jak and Jil, Closet Visit, LA in Bloom

Why does everyone else have the perfect orange nail polish and not me? I saw on the Clare Vivier tumblr that the brand was OPI. Hmmph. That's helpful. I need the name! The name! Can any helpful nail-polish addicts out there give me a hand? This kind of whizz-fizz colour doesn't come along every day, you know. 

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step back to reality

Don't we all love how real Taylor Tomasi is? I mean, sure, we may not all be able to afford not one, not two, but three Burberry Biker jackets, and Celine pochettes in electric blue, but we can dress in the Taylor Tomasi way. That is, investing in a few key items and wearing them over and over again, spliced in with your classic basics and your kooky extras. Sure, she's packing light for fashion week, but we all know that the best thing about Taylor's style is that she wears things more than once. She's the classic repeat offender, as opposed to that stereotypical image of fast fashion - the Fergie view of style where you wear your Louboutins only once before storing them away in a vault never to see the light of day again. Taylor's style is far more real. Mine would be too if I paid $15 000 for a shearling biker jacket.  You simply can't afford to wear these things only once, even if they are statement pieces, even if you're going to be surrounded by street style photographers. And I honestly think that's what they love about Taylor too. Her fashion month style is like a wonderful game - which pieces has she worn before? and with what? and when is she going to wear them again? And doesn't it make you feel better that really, she's just like us, she has to cull her amount of shoe-packing and condense her shirt and skirt amounts to a mere few. Maybe she even travels economy class and is lumped with excess baggage fees if her smythson case has too many isabel marant skirts in it! Maybe she's just like us when we get a new purchase and have to wear it over and over again until we're sick of it? Yeah Taylor. Don't try to fool us with your immense chic-ness and innate style. Really, you're just like us.

So, here's episode two of Taylor's style anatomy. Thank God for Fashion Month.

 net a porter, refinery 29, fashionologie, street tonic

 mr newton, candice lake, harpers bazaar, fashionologie

team peter stigter

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packing light

vogue.com, streetfsn, street fashion 5xpro, jak and jil

Did Taylor Tomasi only bring one clutch to fashion week? We all know she likes blue and that she likes wearing her favourite things over and over again (just like us, right?), but isn't this taking it a little far? Won't we get sick of seeing that pochette all the bloody time? That beautiful, buttery electric blue leather pochette with the discreet gold embossing, the perfect minimal period to a high fashion chameleon's sentence. That beautiful masterpiece of accessory design with its perfectly practical shape and single zip, it's almost pencil-case like purity that opens out to give easy access to the items within? Well it certainly leaves more space for clothes. And anyway, it's Celine. Who's kidding, we'll never be sick of it!

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on your bike

tommy ton for style.com

I suppose if you must wear shearling, and in this february chill sometimes you have no choice, you better make it Burberry. Nothing else has that rocker-razor-sharp edge to match your fiery hair, or that molasses coloured casual-cool to match your charcoal sweater. Nothing else can be simultaneously hard core and chic, all with just a change of colour.

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Red Red Red

streetfsn

Taylor, How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how you are the definition of a style icon - someone who inspires and invigorates your personal manner of dressing by constantly pushing the sartorial envelope. You embody the idea of a fashion chameleon, someone as comfortable in studded trainers and junya watanabe blouses as you are in celine cardigans and isabel marant shoes. I love how you mix and match with aplomb and polish - you manage to throw things together in a totally unique and exciting way, but you do it with that lick of new york 'up town' sheen that makes it all look OK. I love how you can be minimalist one day and maximalist the next - life's short, why should you have to devote yourself to one camp and one camp alone. I love how you inspire me to try new things, to give knee length skirts a chance, to think (just think, mind) of lopping off my hair to a sharp, chic bob, to get a big cosy oversized knit sweater, to find something - anything - in chartreuse and wear it proudly. I love how when I'm in a fashion rut you remind me of just how exciting it can be when you wear things that you love. It doesn't matter what people think or say about what you wear, if you like it, you should wear it with a smile, and it makes me long to head back to my wardrobe and bury myself in all my favourite, slightly silly clothes, like my Opening Ceremony burnt orange and red swing coat, my alexander wang heels and my Gap men's parka.

But most of all I love how I don't feel the slightest inclination to copy any of your looks. I'm not cool enough to pull off tulle and trainers and army skirts and I'm not chic enough for thigh high boots and high collars and burberry biker jackets. I'm just content to sit back and enjoy the show. Honestly, it's much more exciting and inspiring than anything that comes down the catwalk. At ease, soldier.

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new lengths

unknown, cafe mode, street tonic

 After being a devotee of calf length skirts for so long, I'm having to come to grips with the fact that one of my favourite lengths of the moment is the knee length. Shorter than knee length I will never venture - despite my year 11 self being devoted to edie sedgwick and other such 60s mini-skirt afficionados, that ship has well and truly sailed - but those skirts that skim just below the knee are looking very interesting from this vantage point indeed. It is no coincidence that two of my favourite outfits from this past fashion month happen to be both Taylor Tomassi Hill, and both knee length skirts. The formula is simple - Taylor plays it simple with plain, slightly a-line pencil skirts, adds an uncomplicated top (sheer cream or off the shoulder charcol sweat shirt), sweeps her fiery mane into an updo and adds a litany of accessories from her favourite scarf, to alexander wang booties, to an armful of jangling bangles and the final touch - her classic cat eye sunglasses. Both looks knock it out of the park. Both looks capture that kind of nonchalant ease of style that the best dressers have without even breaking a sweat. 

The second look is actually my favourite outfit of hers. Ever. And the reason I love it isn't the off the shoulder sweat (although that is great), or taylor's classic accessory bonanza (although that too is wonderful) or even her casual, messy bun (which is also fantasticly undone). No, it's that skirt. That glorious, glorious skirt. You're not worrying you're going to step on your hem, and you're not anxious that you're flashing everyone as you walk. It's the kind of skirt you can slip into without thinking at all, which is just the kind of thing I'm after right now. It goes with everything - knee length is the most suitable height of all, why else would they insist upon it for school uniform? - and complements all. It is the right height to show off spectacular shoes, whilst not being so short as to make it tricky to find tops that don't cover it completely. Knee length. I never thought I would be wanting one of these so desperately, but here we are. Help!

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