Paisley prints and pongs

Today's shoot started out so well with this lovely paisley print shirt and these fab palazzo pants making a stunning debut. However, Polly's ever ambitious need to add a touch of authenticity to our photo shoots led us to relocating beside these newly stacked lobster pots. Smellyvision might have been useful here to let you share the experience. Fresh from the seabed where they had lain, baited up with rotting fish, these pots were rank! My face tells it all I think. The things I have to do in the name of fashion!

Clashing and mixing prints is a somewhat new and joyful discovery for me. I think it was a couple of years ago when this trend hit the fashion scene and I've dabbled with it on and off since then. It seems to work best when you have a thread or story running through, such has the floral theme I wore the other day. The size of print pulls this look together plus the muted colourway. I love trying things out to see if they work and that's how this outfit was created. I'm happy to say that I'm no longer the slave to fashion which I used to be when I was younger. Age has taken away that need to be bang on trend, but I do still enjoy seeing what the magazines are touting. I'll often see a certain item which will inspire my own take on something. What's brilliant about being in your 50's is that most new trends are merely re-hashes of a fashion from years ago. I remember reading some fashion tips recently and one piece of advice was if you wore the trend the first time around then you're too old to wear it second time. Sorry, that's not a bit of advice I'll be following. If you'd like to wear a mini skirt/hot pants/flapper dress/oxford bags or whatever you want to revisit, then I say go for it. I won't be having the fashion police dictate to me nor should you!

Trousers: Tesco. Blouse: Top shop. Sandals: TK Maxx. Handbag: charity shop. Liberty doll pendant: Charlie Dodge. Turquoise ring: old. Blue ring: charity shop. Turquoise bangle: old. Green pearl bracelet: old.