So it's time for a Midlife Lately - October 25 and as I look through my camera roll I realise it's been quite a while since we've had one because the September catch-up was all about our break in Turkey. I feel as if I have quite a lot to say but also not much. The last two months have been all about family - watching from afar as the eldest handled his first big photoshoot in Miami for [...]
It's been a while since we've done a department store shop so let's look at what's going on at John Lewis AW25. As I explained in my last JL post back in May there's a lot happening behind the scenes as the new team continues to regenerate the brand. Stores are gradually going into a multi-million pound refurbishment project with the beauty halls as the priority and beyond the shops, the build-to-rent project continues with over 1000 new rental [...]
After last weekend's storms I think we can safely say that the season has changed and it's no longer a case of just playing around with ideas for autumn outfits. With that in mind I have a try-on for you which is going to focus mostly on using brown as a base - although for those of us who have a lot of blue in our wardrobes I have a strong navy option too. I'm looking at Boden today [...]
As promised it's a High Street style edit today and it's been a bit chaotic at Midlifechic towers this week so I hope everything makes sense. You see the middle one's visa arrived with no warning on Tuesday and so he immediately booked his flight for the following day... there was a fair bit of clucking on my part to get him ready in less than 14 hours! In the meantime the youngest has been excitedly viewing and finally [...]
Ok, it's time for our seasonal trend update and I'm short on time because it's been a busy week so I'm whizzing through them a bit. If you've had a look around the shops you may have wondered what's going on because it isn't easy to define the Autumn 25 trends so let me take you behind the scenes and give you a little context. As always, the looks you see on the high street now were inspired by the [...]
And so I'm back... from outer space... well not quite but it feels like it. We had an incredibly relaxing week away doing very little which is exactly what we wanted but it doesn't give me a lot to talk to you about today. I packed very light and it was a selection from my usual holiday wardrobe, almost all of which you've seen before. We did very little beyond sleeping, eating, chatting and sliding in and out of [...]
So here we are in September - those of us who are summer lovers have to remind ourselves that it's a beautiful month, as is October. And actually having been to Medellin in Colombia this year where they live in an eternal spring with temperatures always around the mid-20s and the sun rising and setting at around 6am/pm every day of the year, I'm feeling newly enthusiastic about our changing seasons. After the loose days of summer I'm ready [...]
And just like that another month's gone, the last one of full summer which, for me, always feels a bit sad. I love summer... the slowing of the negative news cycle... the freedom that comes with the quiet retail calendar... the warmth that finally reaches the North on a few occasions... and just the general change of pace. People rush around less, faces are less pinched and good times pop up spontaneously. So here's my Midlife lately - August [...]
New friendships - Midlifechic overnighter 2025 Today you won't be surprised to hear that I want to talk about our Midlifechic overnighter 2025 in Birmingham last weekend. But before I go into the detail let's zoom out a bit and ask, "what's the point of these get togethers?" As you know I've been tentatively organising meet-ups since November 2019. Each time I try to take them on a step or two, stretching the time together out a little longer and [...]
This is one of those posts that is all about family and it's where my blog turns personal as a legacy that I hope to pass down. It's a long one and it will hold no interest for some - if that's you, I assure you that normal service will be resumed next week. Others though will understand how the milestones that we reach don't always point ahead, sometimes they cause you to look back along the path that's [...]
We've reached the point in the summer where there are no new clothes for us to talk about so it's just going to be me chatting to you about what I've been doing, wearing and thinking over the next few weeks - let's hope I can make it interesting! So it's a midlife lately catch-up today and we're going back to the beginning of July when we went away for a little break. In the space of ten days [...]
If you read my post on Tuesday you already know that June began as an unexpectedly sad month and yet with 'stop all the clocks' absurdity, life carried on. There were still work deadlines to be met and meetings to go to. The sun shone - or rather it didn't much here - Wordsworth would have some 'pathetic fallacy' context on the fact that we were covered by grey cloud for most of the month. With everything that had been [...]
[Please note before reading, this post talks about the pain of grief and loss] I know you weren't expecting a post today but as I've started writing my June midlife lately I feel I can only do it in two parts because it's been a very difficult month for people around me. Some of you have picked up that I haven't been my usual self - as I write this blog so openly it's been difficult to know how to [...]
And here we are, at the end of June which is officially the point where the summer season ends in British retail. You'll notice that most of the new drops coming in have long sleeves and autumn hues... my Inbox is full of December related stuff but I won't say the word yet! I think you become less tolerant of fashion's rush as you get older and perhaps find yourself more in touch with the seasons outside your window [...]
As the heatwave hits us (even in the North!) it feels like exactly the right time for a summer sale. My Midlifechic Boutique is now open with lots of options ranging from a size 10 - a size 14 (sound familiar?). I'm also clearing the bags and baskets that we used to sell, they're taking up too much space in our office storeroom and they need to go. Lots of clothing items are brand new with tickets still attached [...]
As the weather's continuing to play silly games I'm carrying on with the requests I've been having for more outfit ideas with sleeves. I've just done a huge clearout of my dressing room and I've worked out that summer sleeves are what I'm missing too. I have plenty of summer clothes for hot dreamy holidays but not enough outfits for changeable summer days which, let's face it, [...]
It's a post of two halves today, one part thinking, the other shopping, both in response to reader feedback. The thing that I've discovered over the last year is that I enjoy writing this blog more than writing a book specifically because it's a living thing. The conversations we have in the comments help me to know when there's more on something that we need to talk about - or simply when you need ideas on what to wear. [...]
I was supposed to be bringing you my Summer edit of the latest M&S collection today but sadly they're still battling with their cyber incident and we can only keep on wishing the best for them. What a nightmare it must be with stock levels, I popped into the Newcastle store to see if they'd released many new styles but I could hardly see any at all so it looks as though they're holding them [...]
58th birthday thoughts - birthdays always make you feel reflective don't they? I always think that the time around New Year is a good point for reviewing life as a couple or family and the week around your birthday is a bit more personal, an opportunity to work out how things are going for you. I was 58 on Monday and a new decade is just starting to shimmer on a still faraway horizon. It feels a bit like [...]
I'm back and firing on all cylinders today - if there's one thing that last year taught me it's that it's no longer worth pushing your midlife body through when you're under the weather. Of course this glorious weather helps, I know the farmers desperately need some rain but it's such a joy living in a world when every day brings sunshine isn't it? Anyway I haven't looked at Boden since before Christmas so today I'm doing a bumper [...]
I haven't had the opportunity to do many retail updates this year and yet I know from the survey I did in January that it's your favourite department store so let's have a look at what's going on at John Lewis. I do have a new season try-on today as promised but first I thought I'd give you a quick update on what's been happening since Peter Ruis was appointed Executive Director last spring. I'm sure you'll remember the [...]
I don't often talk about the visible signs of ageing on here - as you know I believe we all need to approach our advancing years with a positive mindset. By midlife most of us have become increasingly aware of what a privilege it is to grow older. The years of being a 50-something are known as sniper's alley for good reason and if we make it through, complaining about looking as though we've lived feels like the biggest [...]
Broadly speaking I look for one of two emotions when I'm trying on something new, they're the gut instinct signals that tell me whether I should buy something or not. The first is the solid and more prosaic satisfaction that says, 'this is going to work really hard for a long time' and that's good - it indicates the discovery of a wardrobe lynchpin that will pull lots of pieces together. The second turns up less often and it's [...]
Wow - the sun's really out isn't it?! As promised, I have a new season try-on for you today and I'm looking at Spring wardrobe building blocks 2025 from M&S. When their big Spring drop arrived last week they invited me to pull together a small Midlifechic edit of my favourite pieces. As we saw in Friday's Spring Fashion Trends post they have a strong focus on the key colour palette of the season which is a tonal collection of [...]
At last it's officially spring, the last few years have taught me not to jinx summer by predicting a good one so I'm just going to say that if it turns out to be anything like the winter we've had up here, it would be glorious. Who knows what's coming weatherwise but new season has landed in the shops and it's time to look at the Spring fashion trends 2025. There were a lot of different looks on the [...]
I'm sure you're already aware that we're living through a period of nostalgia - it's been happening for a while, people looking back to safer, simpler feeling times. You see it with the throwbacks that are going on everywhere - in fashion, in food, in music... amongst the older generations who remember an offline era that was slower and less pressured... and throughout the younger generations too. Top of the Gen Z Christmas wishlist was a 'vintage' 90s digital camera, [...]
Colombia Guide - Coffee Plantation Visit This is the last of my posts about Colombia - I could happily write about our trip for weeks but new season is approaching so I know we need to get onto that soon. Just now though it's still to soon to be thinking about new clothes, the best is yet to arrive in the shops so let me give a different Colombia guide - the Caribbean Islands & Cartagena. You see after [...]
It feels very exciting to be bringing this to you, I just hope there will be enough of us who'd like to spend an evening together chatting over dinner to give us the numbers we need for our booking. I love our evening get togethers but I always leave feeling I haven't had enough time to talk to everyone properly. And the thing is that we have a rare group here - women who have no agenda other than [...]
And just like that I'm back at my desk - it feels impossible that reality and everyday life still exists. Colombia was absolutely the trip of a lifetime and ever since we started the journey home I've been trying to work out why so that I could articulate it here. I think it's because it was so much a road untravelled. For most of it there just wasn't a tourist path and so we were immersed into everyday life [...]
Well hello from Colombia. I thought it was going to be easy to keep blogging while I was out here but this week has been incredibly intense with barely a half hour to rest here and there. If you're following my travels on Instagram you'll know that we're doing an intensive salsa immersion which consists of dance lessons during the day and often trips out to a salsa event at night. Doing that and trying to keep on top [...]
Ok so that's enough of the heavy thinking posts for a while, let's take our very first 2025 look at some easy wardrobe updates. It's so lovely to see the first, very early glimpses of spring. As soon as Christmas was over we used to wait for my dad to start saying "we just have to make it through to the second Sunday in February when we'll be able to have tea at five o'clock with the lights off." And [...]
As promised this is my second rather reflective post on the theme of what 2024 taught me. Today though I'm also looking at lessons from the travel experiment that we've been playing around with over the last few years so that I can write this 'travel in midlife and onwards post' properly. Somebody told me this weekend that I think too much, that I should just get on and live life forwards - and even though it was said in [...]
As it's still January there's nothing interesting in the shops and payday hasn't come around yet so it's another chat post today - how's your month going? I hope you've managed to swerve this week's Blue Monday mood. I know a lot of people get themselves into a pickle about it being a manufactured event but I do think there's something to it. I've noticed that a lot of the chats I've had on the canal when I've been [...]
I'll start with a thank you to everyone who got in touch last week to tell me my site was misbehaving. Midlifechic was having a bit of a midlife meltdown - clearly letting me know that it didn't appreciate being untouched for almost three weeks over Christmas. It seems to be a problem that's only affected PCs and Androids which as a 100% Apple household we were completely unaware of. I've had people working on the back-end this week so [...]
Ways to make the most of 2025 Well hello, how are you feeling as we find ourselves in a bright, crisp new year? And crisp it certainly is - our views out to the snowy Lake District hills are so stunning at the moment that they don't look real. Anyway back to the feeling of a new year. I've caught up with a lot of my favourite people over the last month or so and in my circle the [...]
