Anna's Island Style: Emily Nixon ring

Dress for the heat, our Style Not Age challenge for June

Hello once again, and welcome to our monthly style challenge! Hilda has chosen well this month opting for the timely theme of Dressing for the Heat. Much as I'd like to report that the islands are basking in the UK heatwave, we are in fact sitting under a heavy cloud cover which is making for very muggy weather. My outfit is a preloved offering, but first let's see how the other ladies of the collective have fared...

Emma is basking under sunny skies on holiday abroad and is wearing a leopard print cover-up and gold sandals along with the essentail sunhat by Oliver Bonas. Catch up on her holiday news on Style Splash here.

Jacqui is wearing her cover-up as an open shirt (by Salamander Shirts) with white top and shorts and white Lotus sandals. Catch up on all her news on Mummabstylish blog.

Hilda is sharing her sizzling Sicily style from her recent holiday. The long, cool maxi dress is from Primark and her sandals are by Clarks. See more from her on Over the Hilda blog.

No dazzling sunshine nor holiday backdrop from me, but Steve did land us on a brilliant white sandbar for my photoshoot of this white sundress by ME + EM, a lucky find in a charity shop in Penzance last month where I paid the grand sum of £5 for it! I found a similar one on their website here and it's retailing for £150! And let's not forget to mention that It's Got Pockets!

My green and white swimsuit was a Vinted purchase and works well with the chunky necklace from the bottom of my jewellery box. My sunglasses are old, by Quay Australia.

The beach dress is pretty but also pretty much transparent which might limit the opportunities to wear it, but I did in fact wear it to work last week...

I've added an orange vest top along with my hand made pink and orange petticoat underneath using the transparency to allow the colours to show through. I love the look as it's flamboyant and a bit different to the simple beach cover-up.

I've continued with orange as my accessory colour - nothing new here apart from my Emily Nixon birthday ring (18 carat gold with sapphires and diamond).

I finished off the look with my favourite this season sandals (from Vinted) to tie in with the pink and orange theme. I did actually wear an orange jeans jacket over the top when I popped out at lunchtime, but forgot to capture that version for you...

And one final flash of petticoat reveals the orange trim and pink netting. I'm delighted to find another reason to bring out my fabulous underskirt again.

Many thanks for joining us for this month's Style Not Age challenge. As ever, I do hope you've found some inspiration amongst our offerings!

Anna x

If you're a regular reader you'll be familiar with my peapod trouser suit, a super stylish co-ord from H&M in collaboration with the late Iris Apfel to celebrate her 100th birthday. The suit is one of my most prized possessions, a very special addition to my wardrobe. This summer I've been making a point of wearing it once a week as I feel there's no point in having special clothes that simply reside in my closet.

These photos were taken last night after our drinks party which is taking a break over July and August. My assistants for yesterday's party were Lucy and Issey, two young girls who are spending the summer working at the Garden Cafe on Tresco. The girls are drafted in on Wednesday evenings to pour wine, chat with guests and generally help out with the practicalities of the night. It's lovely to have the youngsters on board - I swear they inject the place with energy!

Issey did the honours taking the photos last night. I was keen to capture the summer flowers that are suddenly in bloom along my garden wall and don't they make a great backdrop to my outfit?

My styling of the suit is always pretty flashy, but that's because I feel it simply lends itself to as much bling as possible. The peapod pearls always get noticed, as they're such an unusual feature. My accessories are: Elvis style bejewelled belt (from Amazon), dancing girl necklace bought from Gallery Tresco many years ago, cowrie necklace by Julian Warrender, another of our Gallery Tresco jewellers, multi jewelled bracelet by Magpie Vintage, again from a Gallery Tresco jeweller and last of all my rings are both by Emily Nixon, one of our best selling jewellers.

My white cowboy boots are by Besson, a purchase from Vinted last year.

The bracelet is created from lots of vintage jewellery that has been deconstructed and made into a stunning, modern piece of jewellery.

If you'd like to read the first post about my (now almost famous) peapod trouser suit see it here. It was also my post to celebrate 7 years of blogging which means it's now 10 years that I've been writing this my online diary of island life, family adventures and Gallery tales. If you're a long term follower or a newcomer, you're much appreciated and I do hope you're enjoying the journey. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit!

Anna x

Hi there! What do you think about my new shoes? These are by Irregular Choice and were a recent find on Vinted, costing me £45. I'm a sucker for a funky pair of shoes so what could I do but buy them when they popped up on my feed.

I'm in the middle of a huge clothes clearout the likes of which I've never undertaken before. The immediate impact of this was that I didn't manage to find the right pair of trousers to create the perfect oufit to compliment these rather fabulous poodle shoes. Instead I opted for this vibrant skirt which somehow offered the right balance of colour and print to please my sense of style.

The skirt is vintage by Jaeger and I've had it for years. The button on the waistband has been moved in and out as my weight has fluctuated from one summer to the next - this year it's static which I suppose is a good sign. The pink stretch belt ties in with my pink Candy handbag. I added a cream floral lace bodysuit underneath with my cream jeans jacket by Jack Wills to top the look off.

The large blue ring is old, pre-loved from a charity shop many moons ago and my other ring is a gold gemstone one with aqua coloured sapphires and diamond from Emily Nixon Studio.

The pearl and heart necklace was a hand-me-down from my sister who's also on a big dejunk currently. The pearl necklace echoes the pearl leash on the poodle shoes, but I know you understood that without my saying. The yellow sunglasses are by Quay Australia - I fancy I've outgrown the Dame Edna Everage look now and will probably move these along too. The brooches will stay however as I do love these old fashioned trinkets.

I wore a big petticoat under the skirt to give that lovely full look - such a simple addition makes all the difference.

The shoes are a joy, adding such fun to this outfit. I'm always amazed at how much pleasure I get from pulling a few interesting pieces together to create a new look.

And finally... I'm going away on Friday, meeting up with my daughter for a busy weekend. I'll be back with all the details on Tuesday.

Anna x

And here we are again, at the end of another month and ready for our Style Not Age Challenge! Say Yes to the Dress was chosen by Emma as this month's theme so without further ado let's see her style offering...

The pale lemon dress is by & Other Stories, shoes are by Coast and Emma's handbag was purchased while on holiday in Abu Dhabi. Emma's cat, George managed to photo-bomb all of her snaps - see more on her blog Style Splash.

Hilda wore this beautiful red dress to a skincare event held by Image in Ireland last week. Her stylish blazer is by Cos - catch up with her full story on Over The Hilda blog.

To use a well worn phrase, sorry Jacaqui, but doesn't she look pretty in pink! This dreamy dress is by Ambrose Wilson and would be perfect for any glamorous occasion - see her backstory on Mummabstylish.

I wore this frilly flamenco style dress last week to an island gathering and my dear friend Fiona took these photos before we arrived. The dress has been in my wardrobe for a while, just waiting for the right occasion and this was it.

The orange satin dress looks like the perfect party dress but wasn't without the usual Anna's Island Style drama. I had tried it on briefly when I first bought it a couple of months ago, but on Saturday I had been cramming in quite a lot of things and had just come back from a sea swim half an hour before the party was due to start. I had a quick shower, dried my hair and popped on the dress, only to find that the cleavage was ridiculously revealing. I'm not a cleavage kinda girl, so that sent me into a spin. Being satin the fabric was too delicate to accommodate a safety pin to hold things together so I rummaged through my underwear collection to try to find a solution and came up with this white bodysuit. It solved one problem but introduced another, that being the huge swathe of lace across my derriere that was now showing diagonally across my bum cheeks through the delicate fabric. Honestly! I added an underskirt to try to smooth things out, but it by no means solved the problem. By this time I was late meeting up with Fiona and also needed to find a lightweight coat to cover up my secondary wardrobe malfunction - first world problems I know, but honestly!

The dress has lots of lovely details, including the deep cuffs and tiny buttons on the sleeeves. I'm wearing my most beautiful Emily Nixon ring along with a ring from a friend.

My bejewelled sandals were another wonderful Vinted find recently and are surely going to be perfect for the months ahead. Pink and orange feature heavily in my summer wardrobe meaning you might see rather a lot of them in due course!

My gold coloured leaf necklace is a vintage piece I found in a shop in Penzance last time I was there. My sunglasses are old, by Radley London.

Despite all the drama, I do love this frilly satin frock and hope to find a style soloution for the next time I wear it. The event on Saturday was my ex-assistant Emily's island hen-do, located in one of the holiday cottages. I'm afraid I didn't get many photos but here's one of the welcome she got as she arrived to find us all wearing masks of her husband-to-be, Bruno.

And here's her reaction...

With legs that go on for miles, Emily is looking as beautiful as ever - she was a catwalk model at one stage in her life which probably is of no surprise. The party went on until late although the bride-to-be was in bed before midnight. Emily and Bruno are to be married on the mainland on the 9th of May.

Anna x

Hello again and thanks for dropping by! Apologies for my week off - it wasn't planned, simply a case of being overrun at both work and home so something had to give. Sometimes I just expect too much of myself which results in burn-out, last week being a prime example of this.

Do you like my new frilly jumpsuit? I wore it for the first time for one of our evening drinks parties recently and my assistant Rachel kindly did the honours with the photos. The jumpsuit was yet another lucky find on Vinted. No labels, no brand, but it's a gem of a piece and a joy to wear. I've added a green stretch belt and the yellow link necklace, both from Vinted too. My sunglasses are from Quay Australia. Rings are not new; the fluted one was a gift from a friend and the other is my Emily Nixon ring.

My sandals were from TK Maxx last summer. I bought them in two different colourways and golly, how comforable they are!

The jumpsuit has a 70's feel and makes me think I ought to be drifting about in a corn field with a chocolate ripple in my hand. Am I the only one who remembers that advert?

Rachel did a great job with the photos, but she did spend most of her time trying to make me laugh, which I suppose is no bad thing. Thanks Rachel, I'll let you help out again!

Anna x

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

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

Anna's Island Style

Dress for the heat, our Style Not Age challenge for June

The peapod trouser suit

The shoes were the starting point...

Say Yes to the Dress, our SNA challenge for April

Frilly jumpsuit

Adidas trouser suit

My rather fabulous new coat