Fashion

Royal Wedding Public Holiday

| Richard

I took the opportunity of an extra public holiday this year to make the most of it and headed out to Epsom to see GT, arriving just in time to see the ceremony itself on the BBC.

The British do this sort of thing so well and the happy couple looked just that: happy.

Then out to do some shopping: a new LBD for GT to go with her Jimmy Choos as it’s the start of formal dinner season again for me; the first one is coming up in less than two weeks’ time. I actually enjoy going out shopping for clothes with my partner: my chance to play Gok Wan and choose dresses, bags and shoes for occasions. GT is a tall, leggy athlete with a great figure so choosing the dress was relatively easy and we soon ended up with a great ensemble: an asymmetrical, above the knee black dress and a black clutch bag with silver clasp and chain that will go very well with those Jimmy Choos, some silver drop earrings and her long, black hair curled over to one side. For good measure, we also bought a stylish black raincoat that we’d been trying to sort for a while. And yes, the coat and heels go very well without anything else on 😉

Travelling back this morning, I decided to take the Victoria train instead of the Waterloo train as I wasn’t in a hurry to head back and felt like a change of scenery for my route home. London has plenty of that and my new route on such a beautifully sunny day reminded me why I love living in London. London is a great place to live and work and my frequent visits to see my partner of four months are enjoyable and hassle-free, especially when compared to the weekly 7 hour round-trip drudgery (let alone the hideous expense) I used to have to endure to see the cheating, lying, slut ex-girlfriend I had the misfortune to have up in Grimsby, itself a horrid and depressing place to have to visit, let alone live.

The Royal Wedding and my thoughts about those wasted years reminded me that the ex-girlfriend had always been really keen to get married and was always banging on about it: the identity of the unfortunate groom is less important to her than actually being married which is her true priority – anyone will do! Must be the cakes and flowers she’s so keen on 🙂

Right! The call of a nice pub lunch on the Thames calls! I love my life!

Photoshoot with Jo-Louise

| RHMP

I had a most enjoyable day yesterday doing a shoot with Playboy model Jo-Louise Kelsey. Despite suffering with the flu, she was the consummate professional: natural, ready to discuss ideas and superb in front of the camera (and not to mention stunning!). It was good to work with a truly professional model. Some of the results can be seen in the art nude, lingerie, lifestyle and headshots sections of this site: see my portfolio.

Model: Jo-Louise

Pointy Shoes

| Richard

Can someone please explain to me the point of pointy shoes (ho ho)?

The other day, I was on my way to a meeting and had some time to kill and as I am now wearing work shoes every day, I thought it might be worth buying myself some new ones.

Now I’m a size 9 generally and that was – as far as I knew – Mr. Average when I was younger, though nowadays it appears that bigger is the norm. Anyway, you don’t really want to look like a cross between between Krusty the Clown and Aladdin, I’d have thought, so why do blokes seem to want to buy ridiculously long shoes with pointy or cut-off pointy ends?

I tried on a Hush Puppies pair that looked like a halfway decent Oxford but hadn’t realised the extent of the shaped toe which made the shoe a good couple of inches longer than my present pair. Why?

Oh! Suit you, Sir!

| Richard

Really quite chuffed today. I’ve been meaning to buy a new suit for absolutely ages now and the opportunity presented itself today.

I was dragged in to Norwich to help choose between a couple of different pairs of glasses for Mrs. RHM. As we walked past Moss (the shop formerly known as Moss Bros), I noticed they had a sale on, so I popped in to look at what they had.

I had been hoping to pick up a lightweight wool suit from around £250 from M&S so I had a quick poke and was very pleased to find a Cerruti 1881 fine lambswool two piece suit. In 42R, that comes with 36R trousers that I thought might be a problem: my jeans choice is always Levi 501 34L. The assistant, James - who it must be said was a digustingly stylish bloke – said that the trousers were probably akin to a 35″ due to their cut and flat front. Hmm…

So I tried the suit on and it fit really well (I reckon). The best bit was the price: marked down from £299 to £199 to £149!

It’s last season’s style with a three button jacket, but I’m fine with that: part of James’s sales patter was that they’d no doubt be featuring exactly the same suit in this year’s collection at £300 next week, though having looked at the Moss web site, it’s likely they’ll be two button jackets.

I tried it on again when I got home with a decent shirt from Charles Tyrwhitt and my business shoes and I have to say it looks superb.