3 OF THE BEST: LEOPARD PRINT DRESSES (FOR EVERY BUDGET)

Every wardrobe needs a leopard print dress, as they're so easy to wear and style. 

London based label Rixo have just launched their first knitwear collection, and the knitted animal print 70s style midi dress is a highlight. If your budget doesn't stretch to Rixo, at the opposite end of the scale, Warehouse have this great high neck animal print midi which looks way more premium than it's £42 price tag. I also love Free People's take on the leopard print midi, overlaid with a floral print, that offers a new spin on the style. The best thing about leopard print dresses? They complement just about every colour palette and personal style; I like to style a mine with flashes of pink for a nod to an 80s aesthetic but you could wear yours with tonal hues or bold pops of colour. In short - anything goes. 

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OUTFIT POST: RIXO LONDON MINI WRAP DRESS

A few weeks ago I fulfilled a long-standing London ambition and paid a visit to The Barbican Conservatory. If you've ever visited Barbican Estate you'll know it's an other worldly kind of place, a brutalist masterpiece that divides like marmite. Some find the ambience oppressive, but I personally love the architecture and would give my right arm to live in the postcode. The Conservatory is hard to access because it's open on select Sunday afternoons only, when I can frequently be found nursing a hangover. It's so worth the effort of a trip however, a tropical hot house of flora and fauna intertwined around imposing brutalist concrete work. The contrast between the botanical and the mad-made is extraordinarily beautiful AND there's real life terrapins in there too. 

The tropical 'Cuba Print' dress that I'm wearing is a long-term sartorial crush for me. It's from a brand called Rixo London that I first came across in Paris when I was working in the same showroom as the Rixo founders during fashion week. The trip to Paris was ill-fated (I ate some dodgy salmon tartare, contracted food poisoning and projectile vomited allover my hotel suite) so I promised myself that after such a crappy experience I'd treat myself to a Rixo dress one day. Two years down the line and I picked this one up for less than half price from Depop, it was still eye-watering expensive, but worth every penny. The cut is so beautiful and so flattering, I think every girl needs a little wrap dress in their wardrobe. This exact Rixo dress isn't available any more but there's lots similar on their site. 

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