Tall Girl Treat: Lanky Bird Sale

You can't have these, they're mine (you can! They're IN THE SALE!)

While I am usually more than happy to sing the Tall Song Of Joy, and how everything is roses and bells these days and shopping can be a cinch compared to the dark days of my teens, sometimes even my Pollyanna-isms are defeated. Most recently, by trousers.

To my mind, the high street is going through one of its periodic "All tall trousers are godawful" phases. Everything is either jeggings, or shapeless, or humourless and shapeless, or cheap-looking, or something that belongs in the dark days of the 1999.

SO NOT from 1999. Although admittedly she is standing in a bit of a cargo pants stance

I wanted a smart pair of trousers that looked as those they had been designed in 2012/2013. I wanted good quality, thick material that didn't look as though it would immediately catch fire. I wanted a slim to skinny leg that wouldn't make my gams look as though they'd been encased in sausage casing.

This proved to be almost impossible, even after I did what I always do in these situations and bleat to Twitter - are there any actual designers out there who do really long trousers? (No, apparently).

So then I started stalking the Lanky Bird site. Run by the brilliant minds of (tall!) Ali Allinson and Rachael Waring, Lanky Bird are a fairly low-key name, and one I've previously ignored due to my extreme reluctance to pay over £100 for anything, let along a shirt. Given my low mood however, I ended up having a really good trawl though their clothes and - oh my. They have some mega-good trews in at the moment.

The best thing about Lanky Bird is arguably their attitude to length. The trousers come unhemmed, and they will hem them to 36", 37", or 38" for you. (These Haddon Blacks are satin. and make me want to go immediately to the opera or save a small child from drowning.)

I then got flu and forgot all about trousers until this week, when I got an email with the magic word, SALE on it. And so it is that I ended up piling a shopping basket with three pairs of trousers, the day before pay day. All three pairs of trousers pictured here cost between £125 or £144 but are on sale for either forty or fifty pounds. That's trousers that you can get the length of, first go, for £12 more than "Oh, we just add a few inches onto the normal range" Topshop Tall.

The trousers were exactly what I wanted. A couple are a bit heavy on the Fashion Zips, which happen to be a singular Kat bugbear (can we not just have a nice, well-cut pocket and leave it at that?) but all are beautifully-cut. They come in lovely fabrics - I have such a pash for needle cord! - and in colours that I wanted - navy! Grey! Black! - and in a variety of legs that looked distinctly unsausage-making.

I'm less convinced by their dresses and tops, which are fairly shapeless and unexciting, although the sold-out Juliette cream silk shirt is a stone-cold classic, and they would be mad not to make that a staple. Massive sleeves and cuffs look amazing on tall women, who are about the only people who can pull off a piratical look without looking all Hallowe'en Sexy Pirate.

Speaking of cuffs, there are some excellent statement cuffs making this other, otherwise Average White Shirt. much more interesting (was £82, now £45). The cuffs! THE CUFFS!

It's Lanky Bird's detailing that I really like, and where the other tall retailers have really fallen down of late. Look at the patent on the back of this leopard print pump (was £69.95, now £32, size 9 only). It turns a, well, fairly average shoe into something with a bit of individuality to it, a bit of fun.

This black buckled pump has sold out in all but sizes 7 and 8 (also £32 down from £69.95) but it also has that cute black patent stripe on the back, and I think the buckle with that lovely black suede is great. Good shoes!

So, plenty to get started with here, particularly if, like me, your trouser collection currently consists solely of jeans you bought from Topshop when they were going through their Good Phases in 2006 and 2011. Happy shopping, and sign up to the Lanky Bird newsletter for more news of sales.

(They're also on Twitter, although their name meant one of my friends asking me who Alan Kybird was. I nearly died laughing.)