Meadham Kirchhoff ss '12

By far my favourite show of London fashion week has been Meadham Kirchhoff- not only were the clothes amazing, the show itself was so fun and theatrical. It began with a whole group of Courtney Love style girls powdering their faces and putting on lipstick, and then they all started dancing and the show really began. Later on there were even little ballerinas!

The runway was decked out with loads of streamers and balloons in pastel colours, looking like an old style school prom. If you want to watch the full show in action (which...err...you should!), you can see it here- just scroll down on the left. image from fashionweekdaily
The clothes were such fun too- hearts, rainbows, tutus etc. I adore the pink bodysuit on the bottom right- it has a cape at the back.images from style.com

Felder Felder ss '12

Space age, 90's and snakeskin- give me that shiny dress please!

Just look at the two designers on the right- so beautiful

images from style.com

Marc Jacobs ss '12

Just awesome- cute jackets, gingham shirts.... and plastic wrap!

images from style.com

Rodarte ss '12

Artistic, dreamy, feminine. Another triumph for the Mulleavy sisters.

images from style.com

Preen ss '12

Clean, digital, floral. Absolutely stunning.

images from style.com

Rookie- A Teen Essential

That is no exaggeration by the way, this site is incredible and if you don't have it in your life you are missing out! It was only started on 1st September but already has tons of readers- probably helped largely because Tavi (of Style Rookie) is the editor and told all of her followers about it. I don't think I could ever explain or describe it as well as Tavi herself did, so I will just leave you with her 'editor's letter' from the site:

When I started thinking about the possibility of Rookie a year or so ago, it seemed like a good venue for pure aesthetic enjoyment and smart, fun writing. As my freshman year of high school progressed, I found myself needing something that could be more than that. I suppose that was a result of some experiences specific to me, and some more typical among females my age. But I don’t want to even think about what makes someone “just your average teenage girl,” or whether I fit that mold, or if that’s who will read Rookie. It seems that entire industries are based on answering these very questions. Who is the typical teenage girl? What does she want? (And, a lot of the time, How can we get her allowance?)
I don’t have the answers. Rookie is not your guide to Being a Teen. It is not a pamphlet on How to Be a Young Woman. (If it were, it would be published by American Girl and your aunt would’ve given it to you in the fifth grade.) It is, quite simply, a bunch of writing and art we like and believe in. While there’s always danger in generalizing a whole group of people, I do think some experiences are somewhat universal to being a teenager, specifically a female one. Rookie is a place to make the best of the beautiful pain and cringe-worthy awkwardness of being an adolescent girl. When it becomes harder to appreciate these things, we also have good plain fun and visual pleasure. When you’re sick of having to be happy all the time, we have lots of eye-rolling rants, too.
Infinite big fat thank-you’s to late-night superhero Anaheed Alani, life- and butt-saver Emily Condon, Cool Dad Ira Glass, fairy godmother Jane Pratt, my dad, our amazing site-building team, and all of our wonderful writers, photographers, illustrators, collagers, and thinkers. All of these rascals agreed to take part in this project before there was the slightest possibility of paying them in grownup cash and not candy and mix CDs. THIS IS AMAZING. Do you know how much human beings like money?? We’ve got a special bunch here! They have dug deep into their hearts and souls and Netflix Instant queues to provide the wonderful content for this site, so please, please respect what they have to say. If something rubs you the wrong way, tell us, but be levelheaded and thoughtful. Internet fighting is not only redundant, it makes other people too shy to share what they want.
On that note, do feel free to mosey on over to our You page, where you’ll find out where to submit your writing, brag about how great your friend is, ask questions about frizzy hair, and much more I won’t list here in case it overwhelms your brain.
We post three times a day: roughly when school ends, when dinner starts and when it’s really late and you should be writing a paper but are Facebook stalking instead. (Oh. It’s just me who does that? Cool.) (Also, LIAR.) Every month of this site will be a differently themed issue, and our theme for September is “Beginnings.” Firsts and starts and back-to-school, etc. And, of course, the beginning of Rookie.
From here, you write your own handbook.
Love,Tavi

p.s. even if you aren't a teenager, or even in education, it's still a fun site to read with such a variety of articles which will leave you feeling inspired and kind of fuzzy inside!

Peridot

Only last night I saw this photo on FashionSquad and fell in love. I mean seriously in love, even though I was disappointed with the Black Pearl nail polish I bought from Chanel. Less than 24 hours later and it's all miiine! And yes, it's gorgeous! Definitely my new favourite polish, any time I have when I don't have school or work (nail polish is banned for both- they don't know what they're missing) this will be on my nails.

Believe it or not this photo is actually photoshopped!! (I know, it looks incredibly realistic but I swear that's just because of my super developed skills). In real life it's almost as shiny as nail foils- so sparkly!

Hy-de Hi!

dress- ARK, tights- H&M, brogues- H&M, necklace- belonged to my great great aunt

All summer I've been meaning to go to London in order to take photos of the window displays down Bond Street for my art project, and last wednesday I finally went with my brother. For lunch we bought baguettes and sat in Hyde Park, and I *forced* him to help me take outfit photos! This dress is from a shop in Cambridge which I had never seen before, but it was amazing- similar to Topshop only slightly cheaper and a bit more interesting. The top is sheer but there is an underskirt to keep you relatively decent, which is important when you are walking down Bond Street surrounded by posh people and scary security guards who seem to have sensors for detecting 'commoners'!

I want to create a new header soon but I don't know what feel i'm going for on my blog yet, so who knows when that will happen. I do feel more inspired recently than I have done in a long time though, I have been reading through my reference books and some old Vogue Paris'. I also bought Issue 6 of LOVE magazine off Ebay for almost £15; I had Issue 4 already and though I didn't thoroughly read it when I bought it, both are actually very good.

Camping in Houses

I don't want to ramble on about how amazing my trip to Sweden was (although it was amazing!) so instead I'll just show you these photos. The basic facts are that it was a ten day Rotary sailing camp in Karlshamn, which is on the south coast of Sweden with lots of small islands (archipelago). There were sixteen people there including me, all aged between 16-19, and all from different countries- though there were two girls from Slovenia. These photos were all taking with my Minolta X-300 using film from Poundland.Listening to a talk about the history of KarlshamnAn old street in KarlshamnMe with Andrea (from Spain)From the left: Sara (from Italy), Britt (from Australia), Neža (from Slovenia), me, Andrea (from Spain)Britt cliff jumping!Neža on the dockBritt and Tereza (from Czech Republic)Swedish flags were everywhere!Me again!A street near the centre in KarlshamnTereza and Andrea after an unplanned 'swim'Stefana (Romania) and Robbin (Holland), so cute!The docks we sailed from each dayThe clubhouse- where we ate, learnt, and partied!On the train back to the airportBack in England

A Boy Girl Thing

Apologies for not posting for ages, I was in Sweden for that sailing camp I mentioned! It was so great, I may post some pictures soon. I have also bought several new things recently, some of which are in this post and some I will show you another time. In a few days i'm going away again with some friends to the seaside but only for two nights, so there should be a few more posts up within the next couple of weeks.

I'm sure the title for this post sounds a bit odd, but it's all I could think of to sum up this outfit! I have wanted this corset since I saw it on Amanda's blog some time ago, but when I had no luck finding it after looking in several H&M stores I gave up. Then a couple of weeks back I was buying jeans and saw this one in my size hanging in the changing rooms. Result! Even better was that it had been reduced from £25 to £3. I paired it with some baggy shorts to tone it down a bit, and also tied a jumper around my shoulders for some extra coverage! I don't know when I would wear this outfit but I really liked wearing it.

corset- H&M, shorts- Warehouse, jumper- Whistles, shoes- New Look

Despite owning three pairs of sunglasses I forgot to take any with me to Sweden, which I deeply regretted since the weather was pretty good! However this did make me want a new pair, in particular some cat eye shaped ones. The ones i'd found before just looked a bit too....weird, but these tortoishell ones ticked every box for me so I had to have them! You can also see my new necklace, a nod to the choker trend for a/w but not so dramatic. It's so simple and easy to wear with anything, I think I will get a lot of use out of it! I also painted my nails this morning but just took it off, possibly will paint them all red later.

sunglasses and necklace- both H&M, nail varnishes (from left)- Barry M, Barry M, freebie with Elle magazine

About Time!

In my last post I was complaining about not finding any nice clothes. The very next day I was in Topshop in Nottingham after an open day and found this dress!

dress- Topshop, belt- H&M, scarf- mum's/vintage, tights- unknown

Dusky/dull colours tend to suit me better than brights so even though it does look a bit autumnal I will wear this all year round. Also, because it's so simple I can dress it up or down for any occasion. Best of all it was only £32 minus 10% student discount, which for Topshop is pretty cheap! I made this collage with some of the things I would wear with this dress, if I had them (everything from Topshop). The boots are my favourite, but at £75 even with the student discount I won't be buying them any time soon. On an unrelated note my mum bought me this bag from the Next sale yesterday morning- I really like the colour! The photo doesn't really do it justice, it looks very orange here but in real life it's more of a 'tomato' colour. It only has a small magnet fastening so I'll probably use it mostly for the beach- it will be good to throw a towel and sunscreeen in on my sailing camp in Sweden.

Counting Down To Autumn

I haven't bought clothes for quite a while now, nothing that I've been really excited about anyway, and I think I've realised why. I was worried that I didn't like fashion as much any more (this would be a big problem since I've only looked at fashion courses at university!), but actually I think it's because I just don't like any of the spring/summer trends. Obviously bright colours are everywhere, and I do like how the clothes look but as soon as I try anything on it just looks awful! So I have concluded that i'll have to sit this season out in terms of trends, and instead i'm looking forward to autumn. Earlier I looked through Elle and Vogue's pull out guides to the new season and made a list of what I want to do/ wear.In case it's too hard to read:

A/W checklist

-burnt umber wrap dress- Topshop- like Bottega Veneta

--> too long? try it on

-knee length pencil skirt @ J.Saunders

--> burgundy with black leather waistband, Topshop

- buy/make choker- velvet ribbon? not too chunky

- sturdier shoes, maybe creepers? wedge sole- black

GROW FRINGE!! don't give up

- wear red lipstick more

-maybe buy cheap extensions, plait + make earrings?

- somehow find lots of cheap black sequins + beads to cluster over black socks

- thick eyebrows- use the pencil

--> will look better with no fringe! v. Swedish

-fur gilet- either wear or adapt + then wear!

--> could attach to the black leather arms?

-muted colours, jewel tones, black- forget brights!

Are there any trends that you're particularly looking forward to for autumn/winter, or any you'll be avoiding?

New lengths

Unfortunately it looks like I was very wrong when I said I would be posting lots in study leave! Basically what happened was I decided to watch the Harry Potter films again, and then I thought 'hey I haven't read the books for a while, why not?!'. So I have barely turned on my laptop in the last two weeks because I've been reading, which means that now I have finished all of the books i'm back and have loads to catch up on, both on blogspot and tumblr.

I took these photos weeks ago, at the same time as the orange skirt in the previous post, but I never got around to actually sorting them out and showing you. After one of my exams I had a couple of hours to kill in town before work, so I went to the charity shop for the first time probably in at least two months. I swear they have re-arranged the store every time I go in! I tried on a floor length denim dress which looked kind of like dungarees, as well as a slightly-shorter-but-still-long Laura Ashley burgundy velvet dress. I was so close to buying the velvet dress because it had a cute cut-out bit at the back and a big bow, and I thought I could wear it to the sixth form ball next year (yes okay it's a long way away but oh well!), but it was very heavy and I thought really, will I still like it next year or will I feel frumpy? So I left the shop with the denim dress instead.

dress- charity shop, shirt- H&M, bag- Mischa Barton, shoes- New Look, sunglasses- Urban Outfitters

The front is quite dull I admit, but I really like the low back and straps. Obviously I have to wear it over some sort of top (trust me, I tried without anything and it's very revealing), but I don't think this shirt is quite right. Maybe a simple white t-shirt would be better? I defintely need to experiment more before I find that perfect combination, but I do love this dress.

Self Made Skirt

When I first saw the s/s '11 collections way back I, along with many others, fell completely in love with the floor sweeping brightly coloured skirts at Jil Sander. Because the shapes were so simple and elegant I thought 'hey I could make something like that', but I didn't want to copy the design too closely because that's basically stealing right? Luckily for me I had recently bought a vintage skirt pattern from a charity shop which had several different length options, so I decided just to make a simple skirt but with the brightest fabric I could find. I went for orange because my favourite skirt from the Jil Sander collection was the orange one, and I think it suits me better than pink or red- since then there has been a bit of an orange explosion in high street clothes, and make up!t-shirt - H&M, skirt- made by me, sandals- Clarks

I started making this probably about three months ago but wasn't that dedicated to getting it done quickly, and got stuck on a couple of bits (the instructions for the waistband and hem weren't so clear). I went for the shortest skirt pattern so as not to look too similar to the Jil Sander skirt, but since i'm quite short it's still knee length. The pattern said it was for size 12 but i'm a 10 and it fits pretty well, if anything a little large- I generally ignore vintage sizes because people years ago had much smaller waists!

I do love this skirt but it's a bit bright so I probably won't be wearing it all that often, and it creases so badly which is annoying. If anyone wants a more specific 'tutorial' on how I made the skirt I'll gladly make one, but it was very simple as i'm sure you can see from the design!

A Slight Obsession

Sorry I haven't been posting very regularly, I guess I have been using tumblr quite a lot because it's quicker to post there! However I will definitely still be posting on my blog, just not all of the time. Nothing particularly exciting has happened for me to show/tell you! As you can see, my liking of Dr Who has got pretty extreme:

These were free gifts with the Dr Who Monster Invasion magazine, which is awesome- although I still wouldn't consider myself to be a proper DW geek because that would be insulting to people who know everything about the show! Exciting news though; on July 9th i'm going down to London with a friend to a film con which Karen Gillan is attending!! We've both booked to get a photo with her, and we're also going to the Doctor Who Experience while we wait for the photos to develop since it's just across the road. The question for me now is what on earth am I going to wear?!

I've been wanting to make a large envelope clutch for a while now, and the other day I had the greatest idea of making one in Tardis blue and painting a gold '5' on the flap! If you don't watch the show then that won't make any sense, but I think it's awesome haha. Hopefully I'll have some interesting things to share with you soon! x

Having A Ball

I'm sure that I said ages ago I would post photos of my ball dress but then I completely forgot, so here they finally are! It's a vintage 80's dress which I bought from a fair in Norfolk for £25, worn with some long vintage gloves from a charity shop for £5. All in all a cheap outfit, which was good since the actual ticket was pretty expensive! The food was also awful, but that didn't bother me too much because this dress is pretty tight; I could do the zip up fine but it wasn't exactly comfortable. Whilst I know quite a few people lost some weight before the ball, if I so much as think the word 'diet' my body panics and I have to eat everything in sight!
The dress itself is navy blue with a v-shaped bodice, and the hem falls just above my ankles. The skirt is also navy blue but has black polka dot netting over the top- cute! Unfortunately the netting got ripped at some point in the night, I assume it got caught on something, but it's not like I'll ever wear it again anyway.This is the 'official' looking photo from the night, i'm on the right with two of my friends. Can't say it's my favourite photo ever, but oh well. The dress worn in the middle is the girl's mum's bridesmaid dress from her wedding in the 80's. Also, I just made a tumblr for those of you who are interested! I'm not sure that I chose exactly the best time since i'm in the middle of exams and should be doing lots of revision, but with any luck I won't turn into one of those depraved tumblr obsessives who go into hibernation whenever the site goes down (though this appears to happen to all users, so I guess it's inevitable). I will obviously still carry on posting as usual here, but my tumblr will be more of an inspiration board rather than me saving photos from across the internet.

Sharp and to the Point

You have seen this shirt before when I first got it, but since then i've taken the fabric scissors to it! Since it was a size 12 it was too big and also a bit too long, and I wasn't happy with how unbalanced it looked because of the large shoulders. In the previous outfit post I wore it with the front knotted up and high waisted shorts, which was okay but didn't quite work. I decided to make it into a cropped shirt, but rather than a straight hem I decided make it slanted. It took literally twenty minutes- really quick and easy!shirt- Topshop, trouserse- H&M, shoes- New Look, necklace- V&AThis necklace is incredible, I got it from the V&A when I was on the csm short course for £8. It's such a great statement piece but it's also really lightweight, unlike some necklaces which are dripping in beads and jewels so are so uncomfortable to wear! I wore it on the last day of the course and both of the course leaders complimented me on it, so it's definitely a winner for me. You could probably make one yourself with a short length of fringing and

Slithering Around

I got very bored revising this morning so thought I would take a few photos of my new top for you (I also watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone due to my boredom, but that's a separate matter). I bought it last friday, when I was browsing Topshop before work because I wanted some new sunglasses. I am going to return the sunglasses this week because they are too big, but whilst I was wandering around I stumbled on this top. It was the snakeskin print which first attracted me, and I really like how it's slightly sheer- although I must admit I didn't realise just how sheer until I looked at these photos!top- Topshop, trousers- Mini Boden, boots/bag/bangle- charity shops

As you can see the arm holes are very low which means your bra is completely on show, so generally I would pair this with a plain vest top or long sleeved top. What I really like is how the top is so floaty and feminine, but the snakeskin print makes it feel way edgier.

I'd quite like to get some new jeans soon, I fancy a skinny black pair because these are quite blue. I'd love to get a different style of jean but because i'm only 5'3" they don't really suit me, so i'll just have to stick with the skinnies! In my dream world I'd love to own a pair of the black skinny jeans by Georgia May Jagger which are slightly high waisted and have lace up side seams (they were in Vogue a couple of months ago I think). But it's getting a bit close to summer to be buying black jeans, so maybe i'll have to wait until autumn.

A paler shade of black

Just a very short post to show you my new nail polish! I popped into town today as mum had booked me a Clinique appointment to sort out which products I should use for my skin, becuse I literally use nothing on it at the moment! While that was happening I was sat opposite the Chanel counter and noticed that they seemed to have way more nail polishes in than the last time I looked, so when I was done I went over to have a look. There was a 10% price match on plus I get my discount (this was in John Lewis) so I thought I would get one while the price was so low. The lady behind the counter was really lovely and let me try a few colours on my nails, and in the end I went for 'Black Pearl'. From a distance it looked like a dark green but it's actually more like a dark silver; I don't know if any of you have watched 'Red Riding Hood' but it looks just like Solomon's silver fingernails. I really like the colour but I must say i'm not especially impressed with the quality of the polish so far, it seems really watery so it's hard to get it neat. It also took ages to dry so I kept knocking it, which was even worse considering it took two coats to get the colour even and strong.

Jumper Rework

I must say this isn't my favourite outfit ever, but I wanted to find something else to wear this Karen Millen jumper with so felt a need to experiment. I sort of like it with these shorts but they are a bit baggy so I have to wear a belt, which I really don't enjoy for some reason. It was also quite chilly on this day so I wore some over the knee socks, but I think they made the outfit look a bit washed out and weird. It also meant I had no idea what shoes to wear!I am so obsessed with these little hoopy earrrings right now! They were from a set of about 12 pairs from H&M for £1.99 so obviously aren't the best quality, but they sure aren't the worst. When I wear them I feel like a cross between a pirate and one of those 2 year old chav kids who have their ears pierced pretty much at birth, which I think is a pretty funny thing to feel! I really want to get my ears pierced again, either another in my lobe or my cartilage on my left ear. I am on study leave as of today and don't go back for a month, so inbetween my exams I'm determined to post more regularly- I have several things to show you (including things I've made and things I have bought). I have my more revision heavy exams first but they will be over by thursday so definitely after then things will get busier around here!