BLAZER ARCHITECTURE

I love a structured blazer. With the London skyline as a backdrop, it brings together my two favourites in life – stylish tailoring and architecture. Suit blazers are often seen as a corporate item of clothing, however, thanks to the oversized trend and the return of the pretty-woman-esque 80s blazer, they can be anything but corporate.

This is why I love today’s look so much. Worn on a typical ‘dress down Friday’, with a professional yet relaxed feel i.e. pairing this power blazer with these loose fit jeans. You really can wear this look anywhere, from the office to a Friday night out and even weekend lunch dates with friends. The look is powerful yet elegant and laid-back. The structure of this blazer draws parallels to strong architecture and when worn, naturally commands presence. A perfect example of how fashion can be your armour and expression in everyday life.

We shot this look at one on one of my favourite locations in London – the borders of the city and Shoreditch – with some of my favourite buildings in the background. A perfect way to look back at the square mile and walk way from a long week to an evening out in a fabulous outfit!

So for a little life update to explain my non-existence on social media, I have taken a few short vacations and moved jobs in September returning back to my old stomping ground in Canary Wharf. But the biggest news of all is that I had my civil wedding and a month of beautifully intimate family moments – celebrating my fathers 60^th, my in-laws 40^thwedding anniversary and spending lots of quality time with family. I think the civil wedding will require a dedicated blog post very soon! It really has been an overwhelmingly beautiful month.

With so many celebrations and events, I’ve not had any time to think about buying clothes. What I can safely say, is the last years wardrobe has me fully prepped for this years Winter. I haven’t done a Winter workwear wardrobe update yet, but whilst walking past Zara in Canary Wharf and doing a quick spot check of Net-A-Porter’s ‘New In this Week’ section, I’ve been so happy to see Fall trends showcasing heavy check and tartan prints.

Given I bought this blazer from Zara in April, it once again goes to show that some trends stand the test of time and re-enforces my thoughts on responsible wardrobe purchases! I checked out Sandro Paris in Canary Wharf and found blazers in similar prints and colours to this one, but the big difference for me was the quality of materials they used in their blazer compared to the one featured here from Zara.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this blazer, and this may sound like a Zara bashing, but I have really got present to just how much I have spent in Zara and how easy it is to fall into a fast fashion addiction. I have touched on having a responsible wardrobe, but just last week I did a major wardrobe cleanse and realised just how irresponsible I have been.

I filled a huge bag of unwanted one-time worn clothes, which is currently being passed around various family members before it makes it way to charity. What shocked me was that everything in that bag was from either Zara or Topshop – and it easily could have been worth up to£1k worth of clothes based on initial purchase pricing.  And yet so often I would feel I still had nothing to wear..… wtf?!

How on earth have I got myself into this situation? I checked my Zara account and saw that I had 20 items in my shopping bag! My last purchase from Zara was this blazer and 2 others in April, and it is still serving me well in November. But the question is quality versus quantity?

All three blazers in that April-Zara-spree were in the £80 region or more, and reduced to£20 in the sale (very sad emoji moment), highlighting the quality issue – if it can sell for as low as £20 and Zara needs to make a profit, then obviously making the blazer was even cheaper. As such, I have found that the quality after washing/dry cleaning has not remained.  Especially on my pink suit featured in this blog post.

Having seen similar blazers at Sandro Paris collection, with the richness of the materials used and yes a heavier price tag, I have become aware of just how much better it is to have less with timeless quality. Part of being responsible and sustainable is actually just buying and using less. I would now happily swap out that bag of unused clothes to have three Sandro Paris blazers for life any day.

So my challenge now is to see how long I can go without buying from Zara or Topshop whilst embracing my love of fashion!

Have a great week!

Priya xx

Zara blazer (Similar styles at Sandro here, here, here and here) | Topshop Orson Jeans | Louis Vuitton clutch (similar here and here) | Gianvito Rossi shoes

Photos: Emma Pharoah