Pale dresses with a hint of pink can evoke very delicate, Grecian-ish images. This dress is a bit more conceptual and Commes Des Garcons inspired, rather than a frou-frou, overly frilled affair. To avoid a girly overload, wear with a pair of lacy ankle boots and a few standout accessories (not too many, as to not overpower the dress), and some illuminating powder to emulate a glow that suggests you aren't too delicate and waifish.
In my opinion, colours such as tan look best with neutrals, so the look stays classic and elegant. For this gorgeous skirt, I paired it with a white chiffon top that would keep the floaty lines of the skirt. The shoes ground the look (and the heel matches the skirt - bonus!) and cute accessories keep the look from being too serious.


Nude doesn't have to be classy and romantic all the time, though. This embellished tunic can lend itself to a grungier setting, with the help of a black cardigan and tights and studded brogues (STUDDED BROGUES!). Quirky accessories complete the look and give a bit of a twist to an otherwise classic piece.

So there you go! Do you wear any form of the nude colouring?

x

After a whole 20 years of celebrating Christmas, here are some tips that I have picked up along the way. Hopefully they will keep you from snapping at the Christmas table and throwing mashed potatoes all over your cousin who decides to bring up politics and religion while everyone is sitting down at dinner.

Before Christmas Day:

♥ Clean the house. Obviously not the most cheer-inducing thing that you can do, but you don't want to get home from a week of celebrating with the family and have to do the laundry, wash the dishes and such when you just want to lie on the couch digesting all the food from the past couple of days.

♥ Buy enough wrapping paper so that you don't have to give presents wrapped in a JB HiFi bag. You're probably rolling your eyes and thinking "Well, clearly I always buy paper", but when you've done the Christmas Eve shopping dash, it's pretty devastating when you are missing that extra couple of centimetres of wrapping.

♥ Pick an outfit for Christmas Day. It might sound horribly girly and over-the-top but it kind of sucks when all your favourite outfits are in the wash and you have to wear a singlet, shorts and thongs to your family dinner. Plus, families are extra camera happy at this time - just something to be wary of...

♥ OK, this IS horribly girly and over-the-top, and not a tip so much as a confession, but I always sleep in nice PJ's on Christmas Eve so when I leap up at six a.m to dig into my Christmas stocking I look OK and not like a drooling, rat's-nest-headed bag of crap.

♥ Remember that not everyone can have an awesome Christmas. St Vinnies has their annual Christmas drive and it is a very worthy cause to donate to.

On Christmas Day...

♥ Bring along a range of batteries to go in the toys you buy the younger children in your family. Even if you didn't supply the gifts yourself, you will be the coolest aunty/cousin/godmother in the world AND you won't have to play hide and seek out in the sun for five hours.

♥ Keep the peace at the dinner table. If your grandparents are strict Catholics then don't start spouting off about how much you hate organised religion. If your cousin has dropped out of uni recently then don't loudly ask why. If your aunty is still single then don't point it out repeatedly in front of everyone. All of that can wait until another time.

♥ Don't get too drunk. On Christmas there's a lot of champagne flowing, people refilling your glass, a need to wash down that Christmas ham with something yummy... but it is a bit awkward for the rest of the fam when you're dancing on the table or vomiting into your pudding. Save it for New Year's (or, you know, never).

♥ I think Christmas is kind of like the races in the sense that everyone's dolled up but forgets to wear sunscreen. Here in Perth it is meant to be in at least the high 30's for Christmas so please remember to sunscreen up!

♥ If you're a poor student like me, TAKE HOME SOME LEFTOVERS. I didn't do this last year and cried when I was craving a turkey sandwich the next day. Don't worry about looking greedy, everyone will be jealz that you bagsed the best bits of the feast.

♥ Enjoy the time with your family. Even if you have to go the Christmas Day mass, even if you have to face interrogation from the grandparents*, even if you have to fake enthusiasm at ANOTHER pair of socks and undies, it's still pretty great.

x

*Not MY grandparents, obvs, who are pretty freakin' awesome.

Whatever you believe in, this time of year is pretty crazy. There are Christmas parties, lunches with family, meeting up with friends, that weird period between Christmas and New Year's when no one knows what's going on, and then finally New Year's, after which we have a little break. So, you need a fantastic outfit to get you through any situation! Here are my picks...

You need a dress for: Making a statement on New Year's Eve

You need a dress for: The day after.

Coloured tights have been popping up in a lot of my favourite style blogs at the moment. Gala Darling wears them, Rebecca from The Clothes Horse has been wearing them for years, and Susie Bubble is a champion of coloured legs!

It may be stinking hot in the southern hemisphere, but in the cooler months there is no better way to inject some colour into your outfit. Whether you team coloured stockings with a short dress to really make a statement, or you have a flash of colour peeking out from between your skirt and the top of your boot, it's a fantastic way to liven up an outfit without a lot of effort.

Here's a few ways that I can imagine wearing them. I've gone a bit boot-mad because I really, really, really miss winter.

The first outfit is where tights are the focus. Let the colours of the tights dictate the tone of the outfit - these ones are kind of Beetlejuicy, so the outfit has a delicious Tim Burton flavour. To really keep the focus on the tights, keep the rest of the outfit in similar tones to really offset the colour. This may seem a bit matchy-matchy but it does help keep the focus on your lovely legs!

If you can see the pictures in the collage above, you'll see there are some very clever outfits where the stockings are the same colour as the bottom half of the outfit. This makes the lady in question's legs look even longer and leaner. You could just do this with black, of course, but if your bottom half is going to look fabulous why not do it in colour? Keep the top of the outfit in neutral colours so that it's not taking away from the colour going on down below.

One of my favourite looks is to have a flash of colour poking out from between a long skirt (or in this case, coat) and boots. After all, if it's too cold to take your coat off, why keep the best part of your outfit under wraps? This outfit is all about unexpected details and contrast - a sparkly beret with a chicken talon around your neck, a bag masquerading as a Parisian postcard, and a flash of the most obnoxiously coloured stockings you can find under a heavy, almost masculine coat and flat boots.

Hope that has helped inspire some confidence to break out the colour! In case you were wondering, my favourite brands for tights are Dangerfield, Jonathon Aston, and Sportsgirl.

x

Collage credits, l-r: Doe Deere, We Love Colours blog, We Love Colours blog, Modcloth, from my computer, We Love Colours blog, The Clothes Horse, We Love Colours blog, Modcloth, from my computer, We Love Colours blog, Modcloth, Gala Darling, We Love Colours blog