You know that winter is truly on its way here in the UK when you start having to dig around in your wardrobe for jumpers and jackets. This happened to us over the last week and got us thinking that our winter clothing could do with a bit of an upgrade. But what will we be buying? Some nice new Wooly Jumpers? New Jeans? Women’s Coats? Accessories like a Beanie Hat or Gloves? Could be an expensive Winter ahead…….

What will be your top fashion priority for the upcoming Winter 2009 Season?

Winter's on its way again.....oh dear

With June approaching fast, there are probably several hundred websites and blogs with this title vying for your intention on the internet. The reason being, that the writer has read that list articles are a popular, easily scannable type of post which due to the nature of peoples attention span on the web is more likely to get featured in Digg or Reddit and the like – which is fair enough.

However, here are at CCR we are only interersterd in the clothes and if anyone reads our posts its a great bonus (and a big thanks to all that do!).

We proclaim no qualifications or real expertise – just a deep enthusiasm for fashion and a nose for what we feel people are going to be into this summer. We have nothing too shocking or revolutionary to say here, trends are very difficult to predict and sometimes can emerge from nowhere. Many of the Summer 2009 fashion trends were predicted by the major magazines and blogs in February/March – they have their reasons but its only now as we come closer to the actual summer that trends begin to emerge. What they still don’t understand fully is that the main players in trend setting is YOU. The real power to influence lies with YOU – YOU define summer fashion, YOUR choices influence someone, who tells their friends and the effect ripples around the streets.

Anyway, slight rant over – let’s have a look at some clothes! Five fashion trends of Summer 2009:

1 – Denim – Will jeans ever go out of fashion? A perrenial winner, summer 2009 is no different. As well as classic cropped, skinnys and boyfriend jeans, weve seen some pretty cool Denim Skirt and dresses combinations. Peacocks as always have a great range of Denim shorts and  skirts, illustrating that you rarely have to break to bank for this look.

Denim Skirts from Peacocks - cool but cheap, great!

2 – The single shouldered dress and top – wow, tops and dresses with this look can be so sleek and sexy if done right – we’re so glad to see this style blasting back onto the high street. We would have one formal (like the Jane Norman top below) and one informal one-shouldered top, just to cover every occassion!

One shoulder class from Jane Norman

3 – Trousers – there is alot of trouser action on the streets already this year. Jumpsuits, harem, high-waisted and hugely bright colours are what weve come across so far. Fashion chicks have some great examples.

Harem Trousers - big, baggy and back!

4 – Transparency – light and airy transparent tops are definitely a big mover in summer 2009 – a great, versatile style that can look fantastic as a component of a layered ensemble – just be careful with transparent-only layers!

Great chiffon at Urban Outfitters

5 – High heels – the coolest shoes of the summer – literally. We would chuck our cheap clothes sensibiblities out of the window and invest in a pair of top class heels. Some great advice here on making heels comfortable.

High heels - the skys the limit

What are you going to wear this summer? – let us know your thoughts on whats going to be big in Summer 2009!

There is never a shortage of bizarre and beautiful happenings in the world of fashion.

We thought that it would be fun to compile some of our favourite stories of the last few months.

Chinese fashion designer Jiang Zhou uses UFO sightings as fashion inspiration – There are some extremely quirky fashions displayed at almost every catwalk show, but this has to be one of the most bizarre. These clothes wouldn’t look out of place in Mos Eisley Cantina.

Paris Fashion Week 2009 Epilogue – after slating catwalks in the previous paragraoh, we have to rain our tails in a little. Some of the designs from Paris 2009 looked stunning.

Victoria Beckham vows never to sing again YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS – NO! Please dont do it Becks, we love you! – Great little story from Blackbook, if only for their astute analysis of Mrs Beckham, ‘the most self actualized member of the celebrity class’.

Bruno the Movie is on the way! – Yes Sasha Baron Cohen (Ali G, Borat creator) is about to unleash his gay Austrian Fashion Reporter on the movie world soon – there are already Bruno sites popping up all over the web apparently. Should be hilarious, we’ll have more on Bruno soon.

Japanese Robot Fashion Model - are words really necessary here?

Fashion Tips on Denim – Great post from ChicStories on Denims styles, black skinny jeans still seem to be leading the way for us.

Ok, thats just a few of our best stories from recent times – what fashion stories have you came across recently?, let us know……….

Looking into the crystal ball where fashion is concerned is always a dangerous game. Realisitically, not even the great soothsayer Russell Grant himself could have predicted that in 5 short years: a) Skinny Jeans would make a major comeback to become one of the best selling jean styles on the UK high street and: b) UGG Boots would be considered the apex of stylish footwear by a vast majority of the general public. Crazy happenings.

Anyway, we thought that as we are a fashion blog (and everyone else seems to be doing it) we thought that we’d throw our hat in the ring as to what you might be seeing on the UK streets in 2009. Check back on this post in a years time for extra humour value.

From our point of view at Cheap Clothes Rule, 2008 was a transitional year in fashion – there were no huge breakthrough fashions and no designers grasping the style baton. Having said that there were a few fashion winners on the high street this year. Skinny Jeans, Gilets, Retro-Printed T-Shirts, UGG boots and Leather Jackets were ubiqutous in 2008 (although not necessarily worn together!)

What did you love wearing in 2008, fill out our fun Poll!

Ladies – you can never have too many jeans!

Ok, we’re not ashamed to admit it – Peacocks is our favourite shop. Ladies, do yourself a favour and and buy a pair of these jeans right now!

We have posted a couple of times on our love for Jeans, we often wonder how could we live without them? – What would we wear? The alternatives are almost too traumatic to contemplate – Chinos?!, no thanks – pressed, polyester cotton style (Farah’s-eh, nah, im not my dad) – Trackie Bottoms (“i give up”). Anyway, we thought that we would try out this wonderful new Poll feature on WordPress to guage our readers thoughts on the current status of gods own fabric. This poll is for womens jeans, men shouldn’t be afraid to vote either though.