ACM x Marks & Spencer | Mystery Gift

The most wonderful time of the year, a time when family's get together, people exchange gifts with one another and the festivities are in full swing. As Editor-in-chief of ACM I was approached by Marks & Spencer Menswear Team to see if I would be up for teaming up with them to do a festive feature.

The idea was simple - I would provide a buyer/designer at M&S with information about me and my personal style to help them select a gift, for me (which I would know nothing about until it arrived at HQ) from their premium gifting products in the M&S menswear 'Gift Collection'. I would then as I am doing now, talk about how well they chose a gift that matched my personal style and show how I would style it for a Christmas themed party.

I received my gift just in time for Christmas, and I must say they matched the gift with my personal style very well. A lightweight formal cotton shirt from their 'Autograph' collection. This long sleeve button up features a cutaway collar, two button cuffs and a nice polka dot print. It came nicely packaged in a gift box too, adding that special little touch for the holiday season.

So as mentioned the idea behind this post was to show how I could put this shirt into an outfit for a party I may attend over the holidays. I have kept things simple, and chose three quality garments that I feel offer a mature, smart casual look, to team up with the M&S shirt.

It may be classed as a formal shirt but that's not to say you cant wear it a little more casually. If your off to a friend or family members party you want to look smart, yet you want to be comfortable. With that said, we decided that wearing this shirt under a grey two pocket, heavy knit cardigan was the best way to go.

The cardigans large v-neck enables the shirts two main quality's (polka dot print and cutaway collar) to shine through, whilst the heavy knit will keep you warm. We teamed the shirt and cardigan up with some slim fitting dark indigo jeans for a more relaxed feel and some suede shoes with a small crepe sole to finish things off.ACM

www.marksandspencer.com