Hell Bunny ‘Paloma’ cardigan, £24.99

I pretty much live in cardigans. Seriously, I’ve no idea how I’d manage to dress myself without them. Not only am I a permanently cold person (a natural consequence of living in the UK, unfortunately), I seem to mostly feel the cold in my arms, so if they’re cold, the rest of me will be freezing. Bare legs on a chilly day? No problem. Bare arms on a fairly warm day? Pass me a cardigan – and also a space heater if you have one, because I just can’t do it.

This “always cold” issue does, of course, make it tricky to wear a lot of dresses. Almost all summer dresses have either short sleeves or no sleeves at all, so without my trusty cardigan to keep my arms warm, I’d probably only be able to wear them a handful of times each year, excluding vacations. I’ve built up a fairly vast collection of cardigans to allow me to do it, but with a few exceptions, none of them are quite right. For some reason most of the cardigans available on the high street seem to be cut in a loose, boxy kind of shape: that can look fine with some clothes, but with the type of dresses I like to wear, it can very easily look frumpy, which means I’m permanently on the hunt for the type of fitted, cropped cardigans which can be worn with dresses without totally hiding the shape of them.

This week, I finally found one. The perfect, 50s-style cropped cardigan is Hell Bunny’s ‘Paloma’ cardigan. Hitting right at the waist, this has long sleeves (The three-quarter length ones which dominate the high street look good, but even those aren’t always long enough for me), and a stretchy, fitted shape, which doesn’t swamp whatever you’re wearing it with. Did I mention that it comes in lots of different colours? Or that it’s only £24.99?

I bought this emerald green version specifically to wear with the dress in the photos, but I’m already planning to  acquire a few more: as with shoes, I always think that when you find something you love, you might as well buy it in every colour!

[Dress c/o Trashy Diva; Shoes c/o Sarenza]

I bought my cardigan on eBay, but you can also find it here.