OUTFIT OF THE DAY: The Change Beige & Black Kurta

So this is my first outfit of the day post this year! I’ve been hibernating at home in my pyjamas, which are lovely but not much to post about! But I did wear this outfit during the Christmas and New Years break, which was perfect for comfort as well as style!

This is a pretty kurta I received from my mother in law which came from Pakistan. It’s from a Pakistani label called Change Clothing Pk, which is not one I’ve heard of, but they have a good range of casual and formal wear which seem very wearable. I’ve seen a few similar kurta styles like this (I’m sure you all have!) in local shops, and most of them are pretty affordable, and have a lot of everyday designs as well as slightly more dressy ones. This is the outfit I wore, which is a beige and black cotton kurta with a gold and silver print all over.

I’m normally someone who either sticks to just gold or just silver accents when it comes to outfits, but on this kurta it actually looks quite nice to have both. The back of the kurta has a different print from the front, which is something I’ve seen on a lot of outfits, and gives a nice quirky feel.  One of the things I really liked was the cut of the kurta, which is in a wrap shape and has a V-shape cut at the hem.

This is me wearing the outfit – I paired it with a light beige pair of cotton trousers from Khaadi – they weren’t an exact match but it worked well enough, and I preferred these over black trousers. I wore these with flats that I managed to find in beige and black, that looks nice together – a little matchy-matchy but I like it here!

I love how comfy this outfit is to wear, and the fact that it looks stylish without needed to much. I’m pretty sure I could easily dress this outfit up a little more with jewellery and heels, as it looks quite on trend and the colours are quite flattering. I’m leaning towards simpler suits and easy to wear cuts these days, although I think this may also be because I tend to go to less dressier events and prefer to wear kurtas and simple outfits for dinners or just lounging at my mums.

I'll be posting more outfits I've been wearing soon, as well as some bargain finds I've seen online! I often get asked about where to buy casual wear, and I though this kurta was lovely. I've seen a lot of similar designs in local shops - probably where the business owners have bought a bulk from Pakistan and decided to re-sell it on, but there are some pretty ones out there!

OUTFIT OF THE DAY: The Navy Angrakha Anarkali

I've always been a fan of the angrakha (or angarkha) style outfits - wrap-style dresses which wraps across one side of the bodice. I've seen a lot of outfits and bridals which do this well, and I've always thought this was quite an elegant look.

I don't have many angrakha-style outfits, but I do have a few that I've kept over the years. Most of them are long dresses and kameezes which have a classic look to them, which is why I've kept them.

I pulled out an angrakha anarkali suit from my wardrobe to wear for a wedding (the last one on 2016!) recently, and loved that it still looks pretty classic.

This is the outfit - you can see the wrap style with the ties and tassels at the top. I kept this look quite simple, with matching bangles and a silver clutch.

I don't usually show the makeup I use, but thought I'd show one of my favourite highlighters from Make Up Revolution, which I paired with nude lips. I also matching with silver and blue bangles, which you just can't go wrong it, really!

This is how it looked on me, the outfit is a lot more flowy than it looks in the pictures, especially as the bottom part of the anarkali had more material for a 'dress-y' shape.

Outfit - Dhanak Fashions

Clutch bag - Raishma

Shoes - Call It Spring

Bangles - Bombay Looks

As much as I love the current trends of short kameezes and layering, I don't think long kameezes and anarkalis will ever leave the shops or people's wardrobes - they're very flattering, modest and have a classic style to them which I can imagine will still look great in a few years.

I also love that this outfit was so reasonably priced (I recently went to the Green Street branch of Dhanak and loved some of their pieces, which were about £50-80 for heavier formals), and always find it handy to have outfits like this in the wardrobe for various functions!

The Dholki Nights #1: Olive, Orange and Raspberry Dresses

We decided to hold a few dholki nights at home straight after the mehndi night, which were a lot more of a laid-back affair. We had originally wanted to hold them before the mehndi night as a sort of build-up to the mehndi, but there was too much work to do before the mehndi and it made more sense to continue it afterwards as a build-up to the wedding itself!

You may remember my sister's dholki nights a couple of years ago, which were a lot of fun for us, so naturally, although we were all a little tired from the mehndi night, we were looking forward to some fun at home - we would be singing Punjabi folk song with a small drum (or dholki), dancing, feeding all the guests and generally having a good gossip with everything - which was a great atmosphere to be in as a bride-to-be!

This is our dholki area, which was a marquee hired locally, and which we decorated ourselves. I was a little frustrated at first at not being to decorate with the dupattas I had, so my mum and sister went out and bought lots of fabric and they, along with my sister-in-law decorated it beautifully. I loved the mix of colours and the cushions which was a nice environment for everyone, we added some lights, music and tables for the food and it was all ready!

I think the best touch was the flower ball though, which my sister-in-law had made as a flower tree for my mehndi, and which we kept fresh by watering it and hanging it in the marquee for a garden-look!

I was pretty spoilt for choice in terms of what to wear for the dholki nights, I had ordered a few (minimal!) outfits to wear for this time specifically and was pretty excited about wearing my new clothes. This is what I wore - an olivey/lime green angrakha-style dress with a colourful orange, raspberry pink and olive dupatta, which was very comfortable. I kept the styling very simple, with some earrings and a tikka (I took off the earrings later!) and some comfy khussay (I'm sure the collection of khussay I have only come out during dholkis now!). I also matched a set of bangles which were in the perfect colours and added a nice spark of colour.

This is me wearing it, I didn't take many photos because there are a lot of me sitting down and joining in with the singing. I love angrakha-style (wrap-style) dresses and this is the first one I have ordered, which felt a little strange around the bust but was very comfortable. I also loved the pitta or flat metal strips which was embellishing the dress and added some weight to it.

One of my little nieces also coincidentally matched my outfit which made my day - her mum dressed her in a cute olive and orange Maria B children's dress which she looked adorable in. Unfortunately she is also a very lively child and this is the clearest picture I have of her wearing the dress! My sister's eldest daughter also wore a beautiful olive green suit with an orange dupatta which also matched me!

There wasn't really a dress-code for the guests, but they all wore some amazing outfits. One of my closest, best friends wore her mother-in-law's wedding gharara, which looked beautiful and very classy, I can't show the full thing but this is the colours of the gharara:

My sisters wore some lovely suits, my eldest sister wore a blue and silver sparkly outfit which was very pretty, and my sister-in-law wore a gorgeous orange and black printed kurta from RDC London, I don't have pictures unfortunately, but they were lovely! (although here's a shot of the dholki being crawled over by my niece and some of our outfits!)

All picture credits go to my sister, who managed to take more photographs than I did for once! I don't have a lot of other pictures of outfits, so I'll finish off with a picture of some of my nieces and the babies in my family frolicking outside the marquee and posing!

Things I've been doing: June Edition

I thought I'd do a post to show what I've been doing these last few weeks, so I don't disappear too much from blogging! Here's a list, in no order, of what I've been doing, so you can see how what I've been doing:

Making samosas
Just in time for Ramadan time! Every year my mum gets us all involved in making a big batch of samosas and spring rolls in time for Ramadan. I'm no good at making triangles, so I 'help' with all the little jobs like peeling and cutting the sheets, 'testing' the fillings and cleaning up stuff.

Mehndi trials
I did a mehndi trial yesterday with a mehndi artist who was recommended by one of my best friends, who had also used her for her own bridal mehndi.  The reason I was keen on this mehndi artist is that she was reasonably-priced, and she uses her own mehndi which she mixes herself and gives a lovely  dark colour (and I know this from seeing the bridal henna on my best friend, which came out a really deep red). I'll post more about the trial in a couple of days once I have a better idea of how the mehndi and the colour comes out, but here's me taking a quick sneaky picture half-way through the trial!

Housing Hunting
I've been spending a good few months looking at (and still looking at!) properties for myself and the hubby-to-be to move into after the wedding, which has taken up a lot of our time. It's still an ongoing, and very long process (not to mention this blog is about clothes and pretty stuff!) so I won't go into it too much, but we've been learning a lot about how to manage our wedding budget alongside our plans involving where to live. We don't have a massive budget, which is why we haven't planned a big wedding, but in hindsight, this has made our planning a little easier to do as it filters out the unrealistic and expensive stuff that would be too unaffordable for us.

My Dream House. Probably not on RightMove.com though.

Make-up Trials
Speaking of trials, a big one I did was my bridal make-up trial a while ago. I did a lot of research around bridal make-up artists in the UK, and particularly those who were based in London and their prices, looks and styles. This was important to me as well because I am someone who can be a little self-conscious with heavy make-up; and I think that you can wear amazing clothes and shoes, but the first thing people see is your face! I made a lot of enquiries and had a couple of trials, including one very successful one with my bridal MUA who I ended up booking. Again, this is a separate post that I will post very soon about as I have had a lot of queries from other brides-to-be about these.

My make-up trial with my baby niece, which went very well. Not sure I can afford her prices though.

Shopping for outfits
I know, I'm terrible, it's the first day of Ramadan and we're already shopping for Eid outfits. Any excuse to look at pretty things, right? My sisters and I have learned over the last few years that sometimes the weekends preceding Eid can get really manic, especially as people tend to hit the shops all at the same time to look for outfits. We're the type that prefer a quiet life, and would rather order something months before or just buy something while the shops are quiet. Granted, this doesn't always work because we still end up shopping last-minute, or we end up seeing something we love that is part of the newer Eid stocks two days before Eid.

Below on the left is a beautiful white and gold embroidered Sana Safinaz outfit I saw recently (a bit out of my budget for an Eid outfit, I'll admit), which I thought looked lovely, particuarly as an outfit which would suit women of all ages. The outfit on the right is a non-branded outfit from a local shop which was selling afforadable outfits. I've been hankering after a summery, simple outfit and this white embroidered one was quite pretty, particularly as it was in an angrakha or wrap-dress style, which I like. I haven't made up my mind what I want to buy yet, but this is one of the options anyway!

I'll be posting in more detail about most of these, but you can see I've been keeping busy! I'm still doing a few little things for wedding preps, and it's starting to come together nicely which is a big relief as the wedding is only two months away now. I've glad that I've got a lot of things sorted out before Ramadan started, so I can focus on fasting and not being stressed about the little things, although I'm sure there's a few little things left!