Other favourites of this year

A few more of my favourite things that has provided inspiration and kept me going this year.

Favourite designer piece: Louis Vuitton dress as worn on Vanessa Hudgens for Instyle magazine.

It doesn't first strike you as an amazing piece, but it stuck in my brain for ages. I love the different parts of it, and she looks amazing in it. It's also shiny which is always a good thing.

Favourite high street piece: the bear hat!

The bear hat from River Island is actually amazing. It has been worn by Katy Perry and many others. It's so warm and snuggly, I always feel lost without it, if I leave it in the house on the way to uni.

Favourite films: 5oo days of summer and New moon

I know New moon is predictable, but I love the books and think the films have been done in a good way, and with Death Cab for Cutie on the soundtrack, how can it not be good. Although the Twihards do irritate me. 500 days of summer is great. Zooey Deschanel is just fascinating on screen. The fashion and styling of the film is great.

Favourite TV: Gossip girl, True blood and the Vampire diaries.

Gossip girl is just great, as much as I want not to like it, as it is quite unrealistic and cheesy at times, I can't not watch it. I never thought I'd get into True blood or Vampire diaries, but again, they're quite addictive.

Favourite music: Friendly Fires and Florence and the Machine

I saw both of these at the NME tour at the beginning of this year. I'll always remember Florence getting on stage and start singing, and the whole crowd just went silent in amazement at her voice. That hasn't happened to any other support I've seen all year. And her cover of Halo in the live lounge was one of the best in my opinion and was voted 3rd best live lounge ever by Radio 1 listeners. Friendly Fires are amazing too, I loved seeing them and really want to see them again. Their songs make me cheery every time I hear them and the lead singers dancing is so good.

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My best dressed in 2009

Blake Lively - She wore this versace dresses on one of her many tours on the red carpet. I love the colour and the daring split, she has amazing legs.

Emma Watson - Emma has really grown up with her fashion sense. I like how the flower vinatge Ossie Clark dress is so summery even though it was tipping it down at the premiere.

Katy Perry - I'm actually obsessed with her song done with 3oh3, it's so addictive. This Marchesa gown has so much going on, but it really works.

Leighton Meester - I think her style has been amazing all through the year. But my favourite was this Louis Vuitton outfit, I love the colours contrasting with the black.

Olivia Wilde - her style has also grown so much this year, I love how dramatic and daring this dress is, it reminds me of a mermaid and she looks amazing in it.

Sienna Miller - This Jonathan Saunders dress is a bit of a love/hate, but it was one of the most memorable for me. I love the colour, pattern and shoulders, and think it really works well on her.

Ashley Greene - I think she is going to be one to watch in the future. I love the simplistic nature of this dress, but think it works really well and I like the metallic waistband.

Kristen Stewart - I love how bold she's becoming with her fashion sense, and this Balenciaga dress really stood out, as it wasn't just monochrome like the majority of her choices.

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Chanel adverts

Well it's getting to be christmas time again, so therefore there is a new chanel perfume advert. Now perfume adverts are notoriously weird and have no relevance to the perfume, however, there is something alluring about the chanel adverts.

It started a couple of years ago with Nicole Kidman, and then there was one with Keira Knightley and the most recent one uses the beautiful Audrey Tautou who actually played Coco Chanel in the film this summer.

There is something magical about these adverts, whether it's the scenery, lighting or music but it always inspires me and gives a romantic feel. I think it's quite refreshing to see an advert that's not cheesy or in your face which can usually be the case with most products.

Another perfume advert which I like is the Boss orange advert with Sienna Miller, it's cheery and fun and I like the fact that it's simple and to the point. I love the music in it too, which is Drive my car by the Hot Rats.

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10 reasons why I love winter

1. You get to wear all varieties of warm, snuggly clothing. Hats, scarfs, gloves, slippers, knee-length wooly socks, you name it!
2. You can only wear boots at this time, it's far too warm to wear them any other time of the year. Just bought some brown boots with gold studs on them yesterday, good times.
3. I get to go home and see my mum, my family and friends and my cats! <3
4. You can get all snuggly in bed at night, especially with a double duvet!
5. Christmas, enough said.
6. Christmas day - one of the only days you can sit around and do nothing and eat a ridiculous amount of food.
7.Playing in the snow, I'm still a little kid at heart.
8. Christmas jumpers. I'm still yet to find the perfect jumper at a reasonable price.
9. Christmas socials. One of the only times you can dress as a bauble and no-one bats an eyelid.
10. It's the best time of year to watch Love Actually and Elf.

.....and, the Christmas Coke adverts, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without these!

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Why is shopping so good for the soul?

So after spending weeks and weeks of doing the most complicated university project I've come across, it was finally deadline time at 10 this morning. Once I had handed it in, I felt enormous relief, and how did I celebrate, I went shopping!
Now living in Sheffield and wanting to have a good shopping trip, I headed towards Meadowhall. On the train there, I got more and more excited, especially when I saw the turquoise roof. I know this is kind of sad, but it had been the light at the end of the tunnel when I was swamped with work.
I started to wonder, what's so good about shopping? why does it attract so many people into shops week after week, to buy things that they don't necessarily need but want? and when it gets extreme, sends many people into thousands of pounds worth of debt.
I don't have the answers, as it is surely much more complicated that it first seems. But for me, I love clothes (as I am a fashion design student) and I love having a new outfit. I like changing my look when I feel a bit boring and buy things that make me happy. I used to shop a lot more than I do nowadays, going clothes shopping almost every week, and looking back these times were when I was most unhappy. Shopping gave me a bit of happiness and time alone with my thoughts. However nowadays, it's just because I fancy another top or dress!
Shopping will always be good for the soul even though it is a materialistic thing, it gives people time to escape into a world of colours, sparkles and pretty shops, and I personally don't see anything wrong with this.
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Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson

As I was perusing my regular fashion blogs today, I stumbled across these photos taken for Harper's Bazaar magazine of Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson. There's something kind of good about them, I like the dramatic dresses and backgrounds. The prada red dress is my favourite. However, I think the black hair is a bit weird and some of the photos seem a bit too posed. Buy hey, maybe I've just watched too many vampire-related things recently. This is just my opinion, make your own mind up!

(photos taken from Red Carpet Fashion awards blog)

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Introducing Sid....

I love this picture.

It's from Love magazine, Issue 2. I love Sid and his Louis Vuitton rabbit ears, one stylish bunny!
I now want a rabbit of my own.

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My favourite purchase

Look at what I bought! It's a hat with a panda face on, I love it so much. One of the great things about it, is that it's so warm, but the best benefit is seeing people's faces when you wear it!



















Me with the bear hat and with my new red hair ( geeky photos I know). It's redder than expected, but I like it anyway.
Sorry for the lack of posting recently, been rather busy, but I'm on a reading week now, so will get some reading done and will report back.

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The weirdest video I've seen in a while

I was tols to watch Cheryl Cole's new music video yesterday, so have just watched it this evening. I can describe it in one word: weird. I have nothing against Cheryl Cole, I respect her for how successful she's become, when many reality tv winners just go off the radar after a couple of years. But this new video is just strange, partly because she doesn't have her other four band members around and partly because of her weird clothing. She has so many changes of outfits, which range from a lacy bodysuit thing, a black outfit with spikes out of the side, a white top and leopard-print trousers (which just look like pyjamas), a militray jacket with leather-look leggings and my absolute favourite: a sleeveless hoody that just looks like a kid's tigger outfit. Also, as one of my friends pointed out, she looks really like Janet Jackson in the military outfit and the way she dances.
I couldn't find any photos of it to show you, but here's a link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMiy_UsrPDs

enjoy!

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McDonalds in the Louvre, really?!

So I was reading the Metro on my long commute to uni the other day, and came across an article saying that there are plans to open up a McDonalds in the Louvre in Paris. I found this really weird, why does the Louvre want to open up such a cheap,grotty restaurant in its lovely building? Although the Louvre has said that they will try and create a McDonalds 'in line with the museums image', I can't imagine wandering around looking at the paintings and sculptures with the smell of burger and chips in the background. Surely it'll ruin the whole atmosphere that the Louvre has spent millions to create. I'm quite intrigued to see if it will actually come to fruition, it would truly be a big win for multi-national consumerism.

ooh, must write something about fashion: long gloves and long boots are the way forward for me this autumn!

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Beautiful photos

I've been doing lots of research over the past week, and came across these advertisement photos yesterday for Erin Fetherston.

hmm, pretty photos. I love Erin Fetherston's clothes, they remind me of fairy-like creations! And Zooey Deschanel makes a great model, the last photo is my favourite.

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Crazy make-up makes my face hurt!

So all around the music scene, female artists are getting a bit creative with their make-up.

Obviously, it started with Bat for Lashes's Natasha Khan, but then others followed, the most recently publicised being Lily Allen. And this all looked very good to me, so I tried it:

Now granted, I was going to a UV party which was the reason I drew blue stars on my face. I used eyeliner to do it, but guess what? It wouldn't come off my face, I was scrubbing for quite a while and a whole day after my face is still red where I rubbed it and I still have bits of blue on me.

So to the artists that wear this crazy make-up, I commend you for not looking like an idiot and your faces not reacting the way mine did!

(Maybe I just need better make-up remover)

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In need of some new faces

I bought this month's vogue a couple of days ago, and I wasn't surprised to see Sienna Miller on the front yet again. Vogue seems to use the same people for the front cover time and time again. Kate Moss has been on the cover of Vogue a grand total of 26 times, now whilst she is one of the most famous British models ever, there is a limit to the amount of times I want to see her on the front of a magazine. And I was thinking, doesn't she or the photographers/stylists/make-up artists get bored of doing a cover with the same model? And I don't think Sienna Miller has been on the cover nearly as much as Miss Moss, but again I don't want to see her time and time again on my magazine. I also learnt an interesting fact about her and Vogue whilst researching, they photoshopped her head onto a body of a model for a front cover of Vogue. I had a look at the picture, it does look a bit weird:

Why did they do this? Sienna Miller is an actress but does loads of modelling, so clearly other companies feel like she has a suitable body, so why photoshop someone elses body in there? It just confuses me!

I will continue to read Vogue every month because it is a useful resource for my fashion knowledge, but when I see the same people on the covers time and time again it makes me not want to buy them purely for that reason. If other people feel the same way and don't buy the magazine then surely they're losing readers each month. I have also started to buy American Vogue because they have much more interesting people on the front and other British magazines get great people too, I think Vogue needs to review their front covers.

Sorry, rant over, I just woke up and saw Sienna Miller staring at me and it annoyed me!

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Why I love Mark Fast

As I was on the bus on the way home from uni today (beginning of second year, arrgh!) I was reading the Metro. And in it was an article that made me very excited. Mark Fast, a knitwear designer, at London Fashion week used size 12 and 14 models. These curvier, healthy women caused much uproar with a stylist and casting director quitting.

But this was an amazing breakthrough to see a leading fashion designer refusing to use underweight models, I hope this continues into other fashion weeks.

How young is too young?

Recently as I was perusing my regular fashion blogs, i came across a photo of Taylor Momsen. Taylor Momsen is a 16-year old actress who is a regular in Gossip girl in case you didn't know. And this photo sparked a debate in my mind:

Should a girl of 16 be wearing this?!

Now while I'm not one to criticise Taylor Momsen as a person because I don't know what she's like, I have to ask what she was thinking. Either she was trying to play this rebellious teenager who was performing with her new rebellious band or she was trying to appeal to her audience. But by wearing something like this, the only people I think she could have possibly attracted is pervy men.

As a 19 year old girl, I have been on a few nights out and I know that even when I'm wearing a perfectly normal length dress and opaque tights, i still have pervy men trying to get close to me. So it begs the question why is Taylor Momsen trying to wear the least amount of clothes you can, does she really want the attention from these sorts of guys? I know for a fact that if my mum saw me wearing or even considering wearing something like this, she wouldn't let me out.

It continually confuses me as to why women and girls feel the need to wear tiny clothes in order to attract men. Taylor Momsen is pretty and could look great wearing a lot of things that actually were decent. So why is she parading around in pants and suspenders? It just worries me that young girls who are fans of Gossip Girl will see her wearing things like this when she's not on the show and think this is what they should wear, and this is a very scary thought indeed.

Sparkles galore

As I was shopping in Meadowhall the other day, I noticed a definite theme in womenswear for this Autumn: Sparkly clothes. Embellishments with sequins, beads and shiny material were on so many pieces of clothing, I was in my element. As a confessed magpie, I wanted to buy so many things: blue-sequinned jackets (although they did cost £50 which slightly put me off), leggings with matt silver decoration on the bottom (which I am likely to buy tomorrow!) and many many sequinned tops. I settled for a black tshirt dress with sparkly shoulder pads, which I thought was enough sparkle to be used for daywear or at nighttime. I can tell that I am going to have to restrain the amount of spending on clothes this winter if the sprakly items continue to fill the shelves in my most frequented high-street stores. Also, my very sparkly silver skirt that I bought last winter is going to come in useful this year too, I may have to wear it to see Florence and the Machine on monday!

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Fairytale lands

I've always had a thing for Juicy couture advertisements.

I thought I'd let the pictures do the talking.This is my favourite:

I love the variety of colours in this picture. I love all the exaggerated pieces, the variety of fabrics and colours. I sometimes wish I lived in a fairytale, life would be so much easier!

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