Antidote

I hadn't actually noticed this before, at least not to such a degree, but this year, November has arrived and brought the Christmas floodgates crashing down with it. Come November 1 and Christmas trees are springing up in city centres and Christmas dinner advertisements are sparkling their way through television breaks – and it all just feels a wee bit too early for me.

The thing that annoys me about this is not actually the transparent consumerism of it all, but is in fact the amount of time that starting Christmas in November shaves off the best season of the year – autumn (of course), which is a season that should really be made the most of for as long as possible, in my opinion. 

As an antidote to all this, I recently went on a little trip to Westonbirt Arboretum, the UK's national arboretum, to surround myself in some autumn leaves and long shadows for a while.

Broguing Again

One of the unexpected highlights of keeping a blog such as this one is that it often provides a very accurate picture of just how long things last. At the moment I'm looking for some brogues/loafers/oxfords, to replace my previous version, which have finally given up the ghost after precisely 22 months (one month of which was in New York, notoriously tough on shoes) – quite a good record for a pair of shoes from Topshop in my opinion.

It seems to me that brogues have come a long way in 22 months, actually. When I wrote my original post on brogues in 2010, I sat my slightly menswear-inspired loafers beside Ben's proper, serious brogues and there was a clear demarcation between my shoes (for girls) and his (for men). Twenty-two months later, and this seems much less the case.  

Twenty-two months have passed and now our taste in shoes is hilariously similar. I'd wear his if I could. 

All the fascinating historic brogue details that I wrote about back in 2010 (the British Long Wing, the Austerity Wingtip) all exist on these more feminine brogues, even if their meanings remain just as little-known and obscure. What I like best about them is how they seem so much sturdier than girls' shoes often are – these look as though they might even last forty-four months, plus a month in New York.

Top Row
 Hobbs Hadie Brogue; Toast Chiara Brogue

Low Row
 Hobbs Hart Loafer; Madewell Aberdeen Tow-Tone Boot; Hobbs Hart Loafer