On a very cold and blustery morning the Graham St team and our entourage arrived at Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross. By entourage you’d be forgiven for imagining a team of people, carrying warm blankets, talking into walkie talkies, dividing packets of M&M’s by colour and providing soya chai vanilla latte’s with an extra shot, on demand. Alas, on this particular occasion our entourage was my father, husband, 10 month old baby and 3 and 3/4 (3/4 - very important) year old daughter. Graham St had come to shoot our latest collaboration.

Endource have been on our radar for a while now. They are a multi brand shopping website but their uniqueness lies in the specific brands that they have brought together (all the best ones in our opinion) coupled with their stylish daily edits. They approached us asking whether we would be interested in a 3-way collaboration with themselves and Arket. As anyone that has been following Graham St for any length of time will know, we LOVE Arket. So as you can imagine, we were very interested.

I read somewhere recently that ‘arket’ means blank paper in Swedish. I love this, as this is exactly how I see their clothes - the staple items on which to build a capsule wardrobe. Arket have managed to hit that sweet spot between pieces that are designed with a nod to the trends but that will also stand the test of time. They do beautiful tailoring, crisp white shirts in various styles, heavy cotton t-shirts, easy to wear dresses and beautiful knitwear (Arket is always the first place that I would head to for good quality, well designed knitwear on the high street).

Their jumpers often have cool design details like wide cuffs or sleeves that slightly flare at the bottom or buttons on the split of a collar (like the one I am wearing). What they always do extremely well is necks on roll neck jumpers. I have spoken about this on many occasion but it is SO annoying when a high neck doesn’t stay upright and flops down. An Arket jumper won’t do this (not unless it is actually designed to do so), they will sit just under the chin which is such a chic look. You might remember this blog post called Pink, the jumper that mum is wearing is an Arket one and demonstrates perfectly what I mean.

This pistachio quilted jacket would also work well as an insulating layer under another coat, in fact, it would look great under the navy coat that mum is wearing.

NB, pistachio is a big colour for this season.

Perhaps what I love most about Arket is that you are as likely to see a woman in her 60s in one of their shops, as you are a woman in her 30s.

So mum is wearing a style of trouser that she absolutely loves. Interestingly she has a pair in her wardrobe that she has had for at least 20 years that are almost identical in shape but black. She hadn’t worn them for ages but has recently resurrected them. The high waist, with the pleated front and tapered leg is such a flattering shape, particularly if you cinch them in with a lovely belt. Of course heels also help elongate the leg but I know not everyone likes wearing heels (mum started to complain about the comfort of her feet!) in which case a loafer would look great (and if it had a pointed toe, would have the same effect).

The ‘twin set’ is back with a vengeance. A fitted cardigan with matching jumper or polo neck is de rigueur. Here mum is wearing a cashmere polo neck with one of Arket’s classic fitted cardigans. They are so useful - mum already has one in pink and I have one in green.

Tilly took to her role as ‘model’ worryingly well. A ‘duck to water’ might be the most accurate description. I have to say, Arket’s kidswear is absolutely adorable. The designs are cool but the colours are playful and fun so Tilly still looks like a little kid. The quality of her outfit was fantastic and she was comfy too. Of course her dress now has most of her lunch down it and a small smudge where she decided to lean on a felt tip pen but it washed well so it’s a thumbs up from mum. Perhaps the coolest part of her outfit is that the denim jacket has a sheepskin lining which can be zipped out for summer - how neat is that?