I still call it my new bag, but my Cath Kidston blue spotted shoulder bag, and matching purse, was in fact a kind birthday present from Chris’s family for my fortieth last year. It goes with everything I own for spring and summer, but I thought it worked particularly well with this casual linen tunic dress…
I bought the dress from ebay, and the label says Stella Rosa . I like the fact that it’s a simple throw-on dress, but it has design details to stop it looking boring. The sleeves cover my upper arms, but have little buttons to hold them above the elbows on warm days. And the detailing around the neckline – all the flowers and leaves have been appliquéd in the same colour as the dress – looks beautiful.
Right – onto the bag! They obviously know me well because this shade of dusky light blue is my favourite for outfits (would I sound too vain if I say because it matches my eyes?!) and I love the retro spotty pattern. It’s the perfect size – I can even do the zip up with both my photography and vlogging camera inside, and it has all the pockets I need. If I were to change anything about it, I’d put a zip-up pocket on the side that hangs next to my body so I can feel my phone vibrating if I don’t hear it ringing. But that’s just me being pernickety! There’s an inside zipped pocket where I keep all my little bits and bobs that I carry around, such as pro-plus, plasters, ibuprofen and business cards. And there’s a couple of other open pockets on the other side where I keep my notebook, pen and receipts.
The strap is adjustable and has plenty of length for me to wear cross-body and sling it down by my hip where I like it, and there’s also a shorter handle. This is the first bag I’ve had with that extra handle, and it’s revolutionary! I’m always going to look for future bags with the shorter handle too! Because, as I carry a lot around with me, the bag can start to get a little heavy for my shoulder, so this means I can carry it like a tote bag when that happens. Perfect.
Another bonus is the oilcloth material which makes the bag practical and long-lasting. Even in the summer you cannot rely on the weather, so everything inside stays nice and dry in a downpour; and of-course you can just wipe it clean, so it will last forever I expect.
And let’s not forget the matching purse. Again, I can rave about the design. Previously I had been trying a separate money and card-holder system, however this purse combines the two perfectly. On one side there are plenty of spaces for cards, with wider pockets for things like books of stamps or whatever. And on the other side there’s the zip-up bit for your money. No more tricky faffing around at the cash machine.
If you can’t tell already, I’m very pleased with my birthday presents, and if you watch my vlogs over on my YouTube channel, you’ll see that unless it’s a particular occasion calling for a different bag; throughout spring and summer I wear this all the time.
To match the colour of the bag and the style of the dress, I chose my Clarks lagenlook style blue shoes to wear with this outfit. But yes, I agree, they do need a clean.
As the eagle-eyed among you might be able to tell, we actually took these photos in spring when the blossom was in full bloom, but linen is a great fabric for this time of year so I thought it was fine to put up this belated fashion blog post now. This dress has proven to be a good ebay buy and I love it; the tunic shape and the neutral stone colour gives it a mori-girl feel.
By the way, we took the photos at Basildon Park, a very pretty National Trust property not far West of London. (Have a look at the blog post if you’d like to see the photos I took that day as well.)
Shop the look:
Unfortunately, this exact style of bag in this colour is no longer available from the Cath Kidston website, however if you like it, keep a look-out in shops as I’ve seen it in the sale at a couple of branches recently. The name is the Cath Kidston button spot curve shoulder bag in seafoam blue. Here are some that are very similar:
