Wear Your Greens our SNA challenge for March

Hello again, and welcome to this month's Style Not Age challenge! Every month we take it in turns to choose a theme for us to portray in our very own way. It's fun to see how differently we approach our subject reflecting our own personalities. This month Jacqui came up with Wear Your Greens so let's start with her, shall we?

Jacqui's outfit in fresh green and white is from Primark with shoes from New Look. As ever, Jacqui exudes a healthy glow, her smile the finishing touch in this spring green feature. Read her back story on Mummabstylish blog.

Emma's suit (from Monki) is a fabulous mix of green and fuchsia, the contrasting colours popping against each other.  The pussycat bow blouse is from The Hippie Shake and handbag is Fenella Smith. See more from her on the Style Splash blog.

Hilda has shopped her wardrobe for this month's challenge. You see her here in her favourite role as Grandma to baby Nova - the best accessory ever comes from Hilda! Catch up on all her latest news on Over The Hilda blog.

I bought this rather fabulous trouser suit from Vinted. It's by Joanie Clothing and can still be found on their website here. The print is called Art Nouveau in this glorious green and coral colourway. I bought it as new, still with tags attached for the price of £75 and it currently retails at £160. The Joanie website is a wealth of vintage style clothing and is well worth a browse.

My coral chiffon and ruffled top was also a Vinted find, but from last year. The pairing is a great match colourwise and earned me a few compliments on the day. Fiona and I took ourselves off to the beach just 100 metres from work to capture this flamboyant look. She said the print was very William Morris and I have to agree with her.

My cute little circular handbag is by Dune. I bought it from TK Maxx a couple of years ago and it's been a useful addition to my bag collection - when you need a yellow bag, well no other colour will do!

It's a year now since I bought these floral Dr Marten boots (from Vinted). I've worn them such a lot but they still look pretty clean and smart, don't you think?

Dressing up for work is the best perk of my job. I do so love playing to the gallery ('scuse the pun) day after day. Wearing my greens will forever come to mind about this suit as it was the first time I've worn it, but most definitely won't be my last.

My thanks to Fiona for risking getting her feet wet on the rising tide. It was the 5 o'clock rush hour and we were in the midst of buses meeting the Firethorn and guests returning from a day out - the rush added a buzz to our shoot.

Many thanks to you for joining us once again. Did we inspire you to Wear Your Greens? I certainly enjoyed this one - hope you did too!

                                                                           Anna x

Spring has sprung!

Hurrah, spring has indeed sprung! This is from today on Tresco (Wednesday 26th of March) a beautiful bright blue morning that surely imbued everyone with the feel-good factor here on our sun-kissed island. Tresco has recently hosted a Wellness Week followed by a religious retreat both with resounding success. For those of us who live here it's no surprise to see how well these breaks are received; it reflects the lure of this special island. 

I'll admit that I'm a fair weather kinda gal whose mood is influenced by sunlight for its natural high. The brilliant blue sky is a joy to behold. The sunlight on the water is a joy to behold. Simply being on Tresco is a joy to behold!

I felt more than a little giddy on my way to work this morning. Sunshine is all I need to feel good and golly did I feel good!

The outfit of the day was chosen to reflect the bright morning and the optimism it fills me with. I bought the ASOS suit from Vinted last year. I had to rework the trousers as they were too big, but it was worth the sewing challenge (see more of that here) to get them right as it's a fabulous suit now. It seems I might be a bit colour blind as I've considered this to be a lime green but it's just yellow to everyone else. Hey ho!

The multicolour bodysuit in a retro print and suede trainers were also from Vinted and the yellow sunglasses are from Quay Australia. 

If you're interested in another wellness retreat, Gem Hansen is hosting a Restorative Retreat on Tresco at the end of November - see more about that here. 

                                                                            Anna x

Adidas trouser suit

Hello there! How are you? We've been so lucky this week with sunshine making a regular appearance. It's such a simple pleasure to see the sunshine - it's the best mood-lifter ever! I'm feeling brighter, more motivated and defintely happier this week. 

I've managed to ditch the coat this week and have gotten by with gloves and scarf to keep the wind at bay. I've pretty much shopped my closet for everything and yet it's still a make-me-happy outfit. I think the only new addition is my cute and compact handbag, a Steve Madden gem that I bought when I was in Truro in December. I love that it's both a handbag and an across the body bag and I do use it both ways.

You'll have seen this coral Adidas trouser suit before and yet it's still looking fresh. I was delighted to be stopped by a lady on the road who wanted to pay me a compliment on my bright and colourful outfit. It's somehow even nicer when a complete stranger pays you a compliment isn't it? She couldn't believe that it was made by Adidas - it's quite formal compared to the usual sportswear of the brand.

There's nothing new with my jewellery: the necklace is old from Topshop, sunglasses old from Radley London, my beaded belt was from Amazon, rings are by Diana Porter and Emily Nixon.

As I mentioned, I'm feeling much brighter this week and that's spilled over onto the home front. I've been watching re-runs of Sort Your Life Out and it's created a real need in me to actively engage with my clutter and start to make a difference. Already, just in the space of a few days, I've relocated bits of furniture and ditched quite a lot of junk. And the wonderful thing is that it becomes quite addictive. I'm finding moments in my day, just while waiting for the kettle to boil for example, when I can throw open a kitchen cupboard and see exactly what needs to be moved on - it's so liberating!

I rediscoved my love for these ornate trainers by Replay and tied them in with my equally colourful floral roll neck (from Vinted). As ever, the outfit of the day is always chosen to please me rather than worn to attract comments from others, but of course, it's always a bonus if it garners compliments, which it did several times. It strikes me that if my outfit makes others smile, gives them joy, well what a lovely thing that is!

                                                                            Anna x

My little ray of sunshine

Hello lovely! How are you? Last week I had a little Orla Kiely moment when I wore my new Orla raincoat and dress to work accessorised with my Orla handbag. It was a drizzly start to the day which gave me the perfect opportunity to don the lightweight raincoat for its first trial. The coat was a Vinted buy recently, a note of resignation to the fact that even in springtime it rains, but maybe I don't have to be kitted up in full wetgear.

I love the iconic prints of the Orla Kiely brand for their homage to the fashion of the 60's. The strong, bold prints and colours are the epitomy of joyful dressing. 

My Stem Leaf print handbag was a present from a girlfriend and has been a constant favourite of mine over the past years. Read about the iconic design and the talented designer here. 

My fabulous dress was a recent buy, again from Vinted, in response to the gloomy grey days that seemed to be wearing me down. Winter depression has plagued me over the years and one of my ways of battling through it is to drench myself in colour. Today's look is indeed all about colour drenching with yellow being a wonderful antidote to the damp morning when I opened the blinds.

A yellow dress clearly called for yellow tights (by Snag) and yellow suede boots (ASOS). 

I donned my bright yellow necklace to compliment the look along with my Radley sunglasses. Grey hairs abound currently as I wait for the appointment to have some colours sprinkled over my tresses and oh golly, I can't say anything about the jowels and saggy neck apart from the fact that I'm 67 and am not inclined to be doing much to hide the years. This is the true passage of time showing on me now and much as I would accept a magic wand to turn back time, it's not really an option.

And so, as I stand here on my self-imposed confessional, I have to say that my fitness levels have dropped significantly over the winter. I've not had a swim since September and my walking has been sporadic to say the least. However, I find that the brighter evenings are helping to motivate me to get out after work into the evening glow for a brisk walk of the island. I have a lap that takes an hour which dovetails neatly between finishing work and preparing dinner. As for swimming, well I've had various legitimate excuses to stay out of the water and the final one being that I'm waiting for the horrible easterly wind to abate before I throw myself back into the sea. But trust me, you won't be seeing any swimsuit shots for some time...

The outfit isn't for the faint hearted, that's for sure, but it certainly kept a smile on my face. The look could almost be a rousing call to arms, to encourage everyone to don a sunny colour in defiance against a dull weather day. Feel free to join me!

                                                                        Anna x

My rather fabulous new coat

Sometimes lady luck just smiles upon you... Well, that's how I feel about this rather fabulous new coat that I found as I was browsing through Vinted last month. If you're a regular reader then you'll know that I love everything ornate, in fact the fancier the better, so this coat almost had my name emblazoned across it! The beautiful embroidery sold the piece to me straight away and when it arrived it was everythig I'd hope it would be.

The brand is Savage Culture, a boho brand from what I can tell, and is definitely worth my investigation in due course. Anyway, after the first wear I discovered that the buttons were all a bit small for the buttonholes and so I set about remedying that by customising the coat with some buttons from my button box. Most of them are ceramic, bought from one of our suppliers when I used to stock buttons in the Gallery. 

The length is great, the fit is perfect and it seems like the ideal coat for this time of year when it's still chilly enough to need a coat, but not necessarily a winter coat. This is my springtime special, I would say!

This was my outfit of the day for yesterday, the first day the Gallery opened up after our winter break. The dress has been featured on the blog before (see here) but this time I've added boots and tights to extend the wearabiltiy of it. The brand is IVIVI and was a Vinted purchase.

 I wore a long sleeved thermal top underneath the dress and the tights are bamboo ones from Boots - a cotton feel that are cool and comfy. 

The patent boots are from Topshop from years ago. I've had them reheeled recently and am so happy to have them for a while longer.

Sunglasses are old (from Radley London), the fabric necklace was from Vinted, the perspex ring was a charity shop find and I'm also wearing my beautiful birthday ring.

We've been blessed with good weather for the past few days. What about you? Does it feel more like spring with you? As the season begins with us once again it does help to have this gentle easing into another year of hospitality on our tiny island paradise. Do pop in to say hello if you're ever on the Isles of Scilly - Tresco is definitely worth a visit!

                                                                                    Anna x