Or are they pulling the wool over our eyes? It's the time of year when we see lambs in the fields when we're out on our school-holiday jaunts, and lambs feature in Easter imagery with Jesus called the Lamb of God in the Bible. Polish families make sugar lambs, and many of us will eat roast lamb on Easter Sunday. In the UK, especially in Yorkshire where many of you will be, we're unlikely to have a heatwave, so wearing our woollies is still a viable option over the Easter holi

The sun is shining, the lambs are gambolling and the daffodils are blooming. The clocks are about to spring forward, and the Easter holidays are imminent. Now could be the perfect time for a spring clean and a wardrobe reset. The spring equinox was on Friday, and there are longstanding links between this annual phenomenon and sustainability. In the northern hemisphere, the spring equinox is the beginning of astronomical spring. It occurs when the northern hemisphere begins ti

Recently, I got to meet one of my favourite contemporary crime writers, Elly Griffiths. Before she said anything else to me, she admired the colour of my coat! Prior to entering the Merchant Adventurers' Hall in York for the talk, my friend had recognised me from a distance because of my apple-green coat. But can colour do anything for us other than prompting compliments from writers, and making us stand out on a dark, wet evening? You may have heard of dopamine dressing . Do

'Green' Sleeves: sustainable style and wellbeing Ask me which industry I work in and if I'll tell you that I work in the wellbeing sector. With the core pillars of empathy, diversity and sustainability at the heart of my personal styling business, it's clear to me that transformEd styling by Charlotte is part of the wider wellbeing sector. I'm aware, however, that this alignment might not be obvious to everyone. My first article this week therefore takes a look at the link be

The sad reality is the need for it: an interview with Anna Bergfors for International Women's Day I had the great privilege of interviewing creative director at StudioBergfors, Anna Bergfors, for International Women's Day. Here, Anna reflects on her personal style evolution, the significance in the current climate of International Women's Day, the need for greater inclusivity in the fashion industry and the challenges the queer community are facing. Read the interview here or

An Interview with Ollie Smith for LGBT+ History Month 2026 Hello, Ollie! Welcome to the interview. Please tell us a little about yourself. Cool. My name’s Ollie, and I happen to be Charlotte’s future son-in-law, being engaged to her oldest son, Josh. We are due to marry in July 2027. I live in London with Josh; we’ve been here for coming up to five years. I’ve previously worked in the trans healthcare space and a little bit in HR. Right now, I’m in a customer service role whi

Are you feeling blue? Moody Blues And seemingly out of the blue, we find ourselves in the third week of the new year, with yesterday being 'Blue Monday'. The third Monday of the year has since 2004 been dubbed Blue Monday, allegedly the most depressing day of the year. The concept originated as a marketing ploy by Sky Travel to encourage more holiday bookings – exploiting post-new-year depression at (in the UK) a dark and cold time of year.  In this blog post, I'll focus on t

All that glitters... All that glitters isn't gold... in fact with sequins, the colour may be golden but they're basically plastic. Small discs of PET or PVC, they are far removed from their high-status, luxury origins. The word sequin itself came from the Arabic word sikka meaning coin and there are also links to the Venetian  zecchino.  In both cases, these were precious coins sewn into fabric. Stocking fillers to landfillers Bearing in mind that sequins these days are petr

No-Sweat Solutions: Your Christmas Sweater FAQ Answered! Q When can I wear a Christmas jumper? A Like putting up the Christmas tree, when is early too early? It would be a waste of a garment if we only ever wore them on Christmas Jumper Day, so any time from 1st December or even Advent Sunday seems legitimate to me. If you're taking part in an event (perhaps a Christmas fair) before December it could easily be deemed seasonal (and draughty-church-hall-appropriate!). And if yo

An interview for Transgender Awareness Week 2025 I recently had the pleasure of interviewing fashion designer Jen Hartmann. Here, Jen talks about his fashion label, Baal, his quirky upcycling designs and his long-term project to create clothing sizes with transgender women in mind.  Tell us a little about yourself, Jen, and about what you're working on at the moment My name's Jennifer Hartmann. I'm from Germany, but haven't lived in Germany in almost 10 years now. I lived in

The Fashion Industry and the Purple Pound Today is Purple Tuesday which is recognised globally as an opportunity to raise awareness about the customer experience for people with disabilities. Celebrated annually on the first Tuesday of November, Purple Tuesday highlights the need for greater inclusion and accessibility. In Hull where I live, the Minster and other buildings will have been illuminated in purple from around 4 pm. Below, I take a look at the fashion industry thro

Does my tum look big in this?! All change Many things can change our body shape such as puberty, pregnancy, childbirth, illness and medication, and of course the change: menopause. Perimenopause and menopause can affect our body shape leading to us carrying more bulk around our midsection. This in turn can mean styles we felt confident in previously don't seem to work for us. You 're a natural  As women, our natural shape typically is to have some curve in our abdomen (think

In 2017, Vogue UK appointed its first Black editor-in-chief, Ghanaian-born Edward Ennifulm, responsible for modernising and bringing greater diversity to the publication. Under his leadership, Vogue portrayed a transgender woman on its cover for the first time and has featured disabled models. Enniful's replacement, Chioma Nnadi, was born in London to a Swiss-German mother and Nigerian father and uses the title Head of Editorial Content for her role leading Vogue UK. I've pic

October is ADHD Awareness Month. A study last year in The Independent found that as many as 2 million people in the UK alone could have undiagnosed ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), with the study suggesting that 80% of those with ADHD are undiagnosed.  Do you ever find buying clothes or choosing daily outfits a chore? It's ADHD Awareness Month but you don't have to be an ADHDer to take something from this blog post on 'de-stress' dressing. Impulsivity   For th

Breast Cancer Awareness Month I’ve been moved by the women who shared their breast cancer stories for this article. I’m no expert, have no lived experience of breast cancer, so this is a tribute to those women and all the others who are going through treatment, have survived or lost their lives to breast cancer. Breast cancer bulldozes its way through someone’s body and can consequently batter their sense of identity, blow apart their perceptions of body image and destroy the

An interview with Kerry Harrison It's 1st September and the beginning of Oxfam's annual Second-Hand September campaign. To celebrate and to raise awareness of the joys and benefits of shopping prevloved, I interviewed Kerry Harrison who stood as the Green Party candidate in the recent mayoral elections in Hull. Here, she chats to me about sustainable approaches to the way we dress, about pressures from society to conform, about gender equality and about her own evolving style

What is Plastic-Free July? Plastic Free July started in 2011 in Australia and has become an annual movement to discourage the use of single-use plastics. But what has this got to do with the fashion industry? Beyond improvising a poncho out of a bin bag at a festival or creating an emergency hat out of a carrier bag in a heavy July downpour, we're unlikely to wear single-use plastics.  Pack it in If you buy clothes online, look into a brand's use of packaging. Websites should

Wardrobe woes or wardrobe wows? Spring, with its links to the age-old concept of the 'Spring Clean' is a great time to review your wardrobe. It's a transitional season between the coolest and warmest times of year, giving us a greater awareness of how much of our wardrobe we actually wear. For those who have separate collections of clothes for summer and winter, it might be the time when you move a few pieces across from your summer wardrobe. Anyone confident that the warmer

Although finding a personal style that reflects us authentically can be transformational for anyone, when I founded transformEd styling by Charlotte I wanted the name of the business to include 'trans' to show that being a trans ally is important to me, and that my personal styling and colour services are a joyful and safe space. It was therefore an absolute privilege to celebrate International Women’s Day 2025 by talking with Debi Saunders about her style as a trans woman, h

Is red the colour of love?   Visit any retailer or online advertising space this week and you’re likely to see red. Is this a useful reminder to buy your loved one something for Valentine’s Day or do you metaphorically ‘see red’, viewing it as yet another marketing ploy or perhaps a depressing reminder that you’ll be on your own on 14th February? Red in colour theory In my newsletter last week, I referred to pink as ‘red’s softer, more romantic sister’. If pink is the colour