Rose Gold Sequin coat

A year ago, my friend Giselle saw a gorgeous 1960s ivory sequin trench coat in a vintage shop in North London, and sent me a link to it on their website. It was my size. It was shiny, elegant, and perfect… a dream coat.  I imagine Emma Peel might wear something similar to a New Year’s Eve party.  Stupidly, I decided to think about it for a few days, and someone else snapped it up while I dithered.  I have now learned my lesson with vintage shopping the hard way (it has only taken three times of me missing out on wear-forever unique pieces *eyeroll*).  The Vintage Golden Rule is– DO NOT THINK ABOUT IT or it will be gone.  If you change your mind, you can always sell it, but don’t wait.

After this first-world coat crisis, I started regularly Google-searching for ‘Sequin Trench Coat’ to see if I could find anything similar.  I couldn’t.  I haven’t.  I will keep searching to find my ivory Emma Peel New Year’s Eve coat, but until then this one will have to do.  It lacks a belt and could maybe use a little more tailoring, but I still love it… especially for £80.  It was drastically marked down at Christmas last year and I decided to chance it even though it is a size four (I am not a size four).  I’ve worn it so much already.  It is special but still relaxed, if that makes sense, so it suits a lot of occasions.  Its first outing was to a makeup event for Trinny London, and Trinny Woodall (another sequin-mad woman) demanded to know where I got it while I gloated over how little I paid for it.  She looked at the label inside (it says Peace + Love, a brand from Missguided) and immediately googled it on her phone.  I told her I had bought the last one on the website, but she still double checked.  If I ever want to sell it, I know exactly who to call.

The most recent outing was to a shoe store launch event last week at an art gallery.  If I’m honest, I didn’t style it terribly well in these photos. The sunglasses are especially awful so I cropped them out of as many photos as I could.  I was in a rush between appointments to get these photos done, and I didn’t pay attention to that detail.  I grabbed them to make a change from the several black pairs I often wear, and these just don’t work. Of course I didn’t wear the sunglasses that night anyway, thankfully!

I’m wearing the self-tanner from my last post.  I’m also wearing a favourite pair of sandals that a client from back in my banking days gifted me; they’re Manolo Blahniks from 2005 and I love them as much now as I did then. They’re very well balanced and MUCH easier to walk in than they appear (something I cannot say about most Louboutins).  Back then, I worked with a client in New York who was having  a tough time launching their hedge fund.   The company that I worked for was being unnecessarily difficult with the client.  I’ve never been good at taking ‘no’ or ‘wait’ very easily, so I literally flew to another country to pester my legal colleagues there who were dragging their feet (I openly called them the Business Prevention Unit).  I sat in front of their desks, glowering like a pit bull, until they pushed the approvals through.  The client was so elated to finally be up and running that they gave me three pairs of Manolos as a thank you (remember this was post Sex and the City, so even non-fashion men knew that Manolos were a thing).  Win win.

I know there are a few of you who will want a nonchalant statement of a coat like this.  My searches haven’t turned up much lately, but here are the few I’ve found.  Forget the festival styling of some of them; if you wore it with a smart dress underneath it would work.  I think this is the nicest one, (and on sale) but annoyingly the Saks image won’t show up in my widget below.

Outfit details

Sequin coat: Peace + Love at Missguided
Black wool skirt: Winser London
Tank top: Topshop
Clutch: Hermes
Sunglasses: terrible!
Sandals: Manolo Blahnik