the sum of the parts

During the time I took these shots last Thursday, on Oxford Street, I was on the phone with the Crusader. (More about that later, it was indeed a Crazy Day). This sweet girl was looking lost (I normally ask people if they need help with directions: it's such an easy way of doing my one good deed for the day, get it off my plate early on, then I can slack off in the Good Deed dept.)

I know it's my blog and theoretically I can post whatever I like and call it stylish - I mean, what is style anyway? It's so subjective. But I really need to get over my prejudice against the red, white and black combination. (I'm pretty sure I know where that prejudice comes from, or at least, when it started: my best friend growing up, who lived across the street, had this whole extension of the house as her bedroom as teens, and she made it all red and black. It was so.. goth).

Besides mix white into the red, and you've got ballet pink, and thus one of my favourite combinations: ballet pink with black and white. Especially if the white is cream. OR, hot pink with black and cream: yummy. And I love it if it's a sorbet, a warm, tomatoey-orangey ish tone, which this red was veering towards. It's just plain old black white and red: it's not for me. And yet, I like it on this woman.




It's such a mix mash of elements, anyway: that fabulous skirt seemingly made of a thousand cherry blossoms.. I don't think this was intentionally a matchy-matchy top to toe red white and black PLAN. My theory is that this girl was perhaps on holiday, and the day started out possibly hot, possibly not, and she needed a series of layers. At the moment I snapped these, it was suddenly getting almost too hot. And I was too close to get the whole girl in one shot, while talking on the phone, so I just kind of aimed and shot.



But I think this is a perfect example of a bunch of seemingly unrelated elements somehow coming together and working, in a way that might not work on someone else. All because - in my opinion - she seems to have more on her mind than just how she looks. That's what constantly amazes me about the women - and men, too - who blog about fashion. Get us together and after we've compared nail varnish colour and admired each others' shoes, the things we talk about are so beyond fashion. The sum of the parts is always greater than the individual parts. Or something like that.