What sort of mindset was I experiencing to battle the first weekend of London summer sales yesterday?  In all honesty, shopping on a Saturday in the West End is hell on earth and I try to avoid it all costs.  Still, I felt like a Saturday challenge and I knew that this was the one weekend that I'd have free to swan around the shops before the sales end so off I went, along with about a gazillion people who seemed to be shopping like it would be their last time in their life.  Heaving numerous bags, sweaty disgruntled men, bruised legs (that would be the sharp corners of cardboard bags jabbing into calves...) and general kerching-kerching going on everywhere. 

So was I the only one to stupidly let the ASOS Ltd 100 pass me by.  Well actually, it didn't pass me by.  I was physically stuck in a meeting dying for a wee and to check the asos.com site (two urges that I thought would never exist in tandem...) yesterday.  What is this ASOS Ltd 100 you ask?  Well, with all my boohoo-ing over ASOS, this time they have come up trumps with a truly wicked concept.  In their second partnership with London College of Fashion, ASOS presented the Ltd.

Ok, so the title of the post is pretty crude especially if people out there are buyers of Rick Owens and worship his haven-like boutiques (sombre havens, mind you...) on a daily basis and honestly, I would if I could but of course it breaks my heart that it isn't possible so then it would not be a bad idea to go down a few price rungs and buy into these brands.  Pudel is pretty self-explanatory as a brand; unisex, androgynous, ambiguous, highly wearable but in an interesting way, you get the idea.  But of course, I'm taking an even more vested interest in them since they have now launched an online shop and their AW08-9 collection is looking pretty swish...

Google 'Standard Deviation' and you don't get anything remotely fashion related.  In fact, I didn't even want to try and understand what came up in the search results.  But add NY at the end and you have a new-ish New York-based online shop named Standard Deviation.  With a dash of La Garconne-minimalist e-shop layout but with a stronger focus on indie labels that all seem to make house-model Alicia Carruth here look like she's pretty much got her perfect pat-pat wardrobe sorted out.   If my wardrobe looked this 'effortless' and 'soignee', well, that wouldn't be me but as with most things, a bulk of these pieces by the likes of Heimstone, Eventide, Future Classics,