Neon Bible

Although the weather in London begs to differ, spring is starting to, er, spring in the city and on my run this morning, the gardens of Kensington Palace were in full bloom. Brights are definitely in this season, which is lucky for me because I love intense, clear colours like fuchsia and turquoise.

Kensington Palace Gardens in the spring

Clashing colours are also in, apparently (as demonstrated by the above flowers) and this is a trend that makes me a little more nervous as I tend to pair my brights with a more neutral grey and navy. But a trip to a proper Tesco (one with clothes!) this week meant that I acquired two dresses in colours that were slightly out of my comfort zone: a coral lace shift dress (they only have the bright teal, pink and cream versions online) and an orangey coral wrap dress with an iris, cream and green floral print (again, they only have the teal version online). Tesco were doing £5 off £30 spent on clothes, so I got the two dresses for £25, which would buy you a casual tee at Anthro, at best.

Coral flower-print wrap dress

I am particularly pleased with the shift dress as I've been trying to find one for ages but I think I just finally hit lucky on the fit front, as the size six was perfect for me. In fact, I liked the dress so much that I ordered the teal version too. It's probably a good thing I didn't see the pink version before today, too, because I quite like having something coral in my wardrobe--I think the pinky shade of this dress suits my skintone. The only slight problem is that I have so many pink things in my wardrobe that pairing it with the rest of my clothes may prove tricky. Case in point: I have liked Longchamp's Le Pliage totes for years and after months of patient waiting allowed myself to buy a new one in one this season's colours, cyclamen, a deep, bright pink. I had been hoping to buy it at the Heathrow duty free when I go to Cannes next month but the assistant in Selfridges told me that the new season colours would be arriving around then and I didn't want to miss out.

The clash

And this is the result: coral + cyclamen. I made sure to keep the rest of my outfit and makeup very neutral--grey Aritzia jacket, nude ballet pumps from Minelli, Revlon Lip Butter in crème brûlée and OPI nail varnish in My Pointe Exactly--but I'm still not sure whether I'm brave enough to clash outside my living room.

The nail varnish is part of OPI's New York City Ballet collection and in the bottle, it looked like a pale, yellow-toned grey, but it is very sheer and took me four coats to get the colour in the photograph below (my hands are still in desperate need of a manicure!). I like the colour in real life, though; it's a pale bluey-purply-taupey grey.

OPI My Pointe Exactly, four coats