Spring 2023 10 Looks by Kay Davidson

Ever see a picture and feel drawn to it? Do a double take, perhaps even questioning what you are seeing?

This is exactly what this image did.

A friend who is currently working in East Africa sent it to me with the intended subject being the flooded airstrip. A grass runway rests somewhere below those muddy waters. It normally brings vital support to this community and it hasn’t been useable for almost two months due to climate change associated increased rainfall.

Amidst this...

If I asked you to name a product that every one of you have in common with one another, plus you rely on it so much that you take it with you everywhere you go, would you know what it is?

This product is a 2.7 trillion dollar industry, employing 75 Million people globally, producing an estimated 100 billion units per year.

What if, apart form being one of the oldest products crafted and traded I also tell you that it can actually enhance a person’s performance and mental well being?

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Where do you start to reduce your fashion carbon footprint? By knowing the impact of the choices you make. To that end I have put together my Top 10 hierarchy of sustainable fashion habits in order of their positive impact. 
No. 1
Wearing the clothes you already have.
It’s not as dull and boring as it sounds; honest! There is no better way to keep your impact on the planet down, because the most sustainable clothes are absolutely those already in your wardrobe. The only...

The fashion world rotates around the seasons. January and February each Spring sees a sequence of global catwalk events, premiering Autumn Winter collections. This year of course, with a stark difference to previous years, as they are almost all digital with no physical audience in attendance, no jostling for that prestigious front row seat to the catwalk action. As the weeks roll on, certain fashion capitals may have reduced numbers of socially distanced audiences...

I love winter for the fact that I wear opaque tights, boots and skirts without having to worry about my unsightly varicose veins. This week I was pondering over what to wear for a business lunch and wanted to be quite relaxed, not too corporate but also not to look like I was ready for a night out with friends. 

I was struggling to think of a skirt that fitted the bill. They were either too office like, being the pencil skirt that stopped just above the knee or too much like fun social...

As the fashion giant Gucci announced this week that it will axe over half of its seasonal fashion shows from the runway circuit I was clapping out loud at my desk.
What does this statement potentially mean and why does it make me so happy?

Typically there are five major catwalk shows in the brands annual calendar. Not only is this now going to be reduced to only one in the Spring and one in the Autumn but they are also pledging to make “seasonless” clothes, dropping the...

What’s in a name?

I’ve been meaning to pen this blog for quite some time and now seems to be more appropriate than ever, as we find ourselves evaluating what really matters to us in life, in the midst of COVID 19 lock down. With brands across the fashion spectrum cancelling orders in factories in some of the worlds poorest countries, leaving workers with no income, hundreds of thousands of people are now faced with starvation and the fashion industry has hit a new low.

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This week was my first trip of the season to London, slightly later in the year than normal but I have had to supervise my recovering pup, who wasn’t allowed to go play rough and tumble with his girlfriend at the dog sitters; confined to restricted exercise post op. It’s not easy keeping a dogs enthusiasm for adventure and playfulness subdued for 12 weeks! At half way through his recovery I thought I could chance a little getaway to research and browse this seasons high streets...

I was ironing a pair of jeans last night that I had resurrected from my collection of ‘out of sight clothes but not out of the house clothes’.  They had been deliberately put in a storage bag then tucked away in a fairly inaccessible cupboard above my wardrobe, not deemed worthy of a space in my day-to-day wardrobe for over five years.

Why had they not actually left the house with other items donated to charity over that time, especially when I hadn’t worn them in so...