Getting the swish factor

Picture beautiful, perfect waves. The type that's shiny, bouncy and looks totally effortless - I'm a big fan of the effortless hair look, there's no point in looking like you've had a battle with the hairdryer, straighteners, curlers and a bottle of hairspray! That Serena van der Woodsen easy, breezy, flipable hair. You know what I mean, right? Unfortunately, that type of hair is unattainable by mere mortals. My thick, tumbling locks go flat at the mere mention of a hairdryer so when I had a black tie ball to attend recently, I called in the big guns - Joe's Salon.

I was a little stressed and tired upon entering the salon and explained to the lovely Oray that I wanted 'sort of wavy, maybe a little curly, beautiful hair' in a very vague manner before my hair was transformed. It was a pretty big job, my hair was sectioned and dried using a round brush then my hair was neatly rolled up into a little curl before Oray moved onto the next section. He must have arms of steel after painstakingly tending to my thick mane. After he took the pins out and we shook my hair out, I definitely had big diva Beyonce-esque waves but they settled into a shiny swish of subtle waves which looked uber natural.

I was a little bit stressed about what to wear for the ball and eventually settled on the gorgeous 'Samantha' dress by French Connection. I don't usually shop there but I fell in love with this dress as soon as I saw it. They do an update of their gold sequin dress every autumn/winter and this is my absolute favourite. It's a little low at the front so I had to pin it, but other than that it fit perfectly. I paired it with some semi sheer tights and my lovely charcoal Georgia Rose courts from Sarenza. I wanted to keep the rest of the outfit plain to dress down the gold sparkles a little but the dark tights and dark shoes had a leg lengthening effect too which was a bonus. I was going to go for a black and gold vintage clutch but it just seemed a bit too matchy, so I went for a deliberate mismatch with this stone, highlighter yellow and snakeskin oversize clutch from Marks & Spencer Limited Collection.