I fear it may be time to throw in the towel

I have been shopping at Per Una. 

The butt of so many jokes for such a long time, I've hit 40 and all of a sudden, I take a swift trip to M&S (ok so we may have been in there for about an hour in the end) and have come out with a Per Una coat.  

In my defence (as clearly I was always going to have one) it was Per Una Speziale.  And I can't even describe to you how it does not look like its image online, in the flesh.  Even the lovely ladies working in the shoe boutique (we now have a shoe boutique, clearly modelled on LK Bennett, for their Autograph and other higher end shoes, complete with staff, seats and everything - even a computer screen that lets you put looks together.  As this comprises of looks from their website this is about as much use as a chocolate teapot) said they hadn't even noticed the coat in Per Una (probably because they were about 25 and never venture into that part of the store) and one went to order one online to pick up later.  They also did say from looking at the online pic they wouldn't even have recognised it. 

It is beautiful.  It is also now only £110.  It also comes up tiny.  Mine is a 14 and believe me, I couldn't go any smaller.  To be fair, in coats, I would normally prefer to take a 12 as I do have broad shoulders but this is a snug 14 even with my linebacker top half.  I haven't had time to take a photo (it looked pants earlier over my leopard print top) but as you can see from the photos below, the different of clothes on a normal person is staggering.  The leather on the arms is like butter.  Delish. 

Per Una Leather Sleeves Faux Fur Coat now £115

And I would love to say that that was the only thing I saw and the rest made me think of mum jeans, fleeces and interesting ribbon effect scarves (that are always reminiscent of a grown up version of Tagggie blankets that were all the rage when my kids were little).  

To me, Per Una could always be summed up as where you went to buy clothes that looked as if someone from a very inferior Project Runway had been given a bag of jumble and asked to use them to design a range of clothing for middle aged women.  Suffice to say it was never the first destination for me in M&S.  To be fair, it was never a destination for me.  I won't lie - I will admit that this coat was dumped on a sales rail in the Autograph section otherwise I would never have found it. 

Well, blow me down with a feather when I went to see if I needed another size and ended up in Per Una land.  It's not bad.  It's really not bad at all.  

Another thing which I saw which looked great and I didn't pap as I thought oh they can't possibly mess a photograph of that up.  How wrong one can be. 

This is lovely. I would possibly (ie definitely) wear it as a jacket as opposed to a top with nothing under it.  And maybe not team it with black "slacks". (oh ok they're probably boot cut jeans but dear lord, they're too short to start with....)

Per Una Cotton Rich Textured Biker Cardigan £39.50











Clearly it looks slightly wonky as I'm taking a photo but I adore this.  Also the sleeves are just slightly tacked up, so if you do have monkey arms like me, you could let these down and hey presto, a coat with fabulously long sleeves.