SS'12 (2) Fabulous London Fashion Week

I really am terribly behind with these posts, bear with me! Here are my choices from LFW - by choices I mean things that I would gladly wear from day to day, or bizarre outfits that somehow appeal to my inner madwoman (the one that would love to do her supermarket shop in a tartan three-piece suit)

Richard Nicoll; Burberry Prorsum

It seems block colours is still present on the catwalk, but the idea has shifted from solid colours on solid fabrics to easier-to-wear shades on chiffons and sheer materials. It's nice to see that pleat skirts made a reappearance at Burberry, while the Saturn-like rings at Richard Nicoll seem apt in the year of the Olympics...

Acne; Clements Ribiero; Christopher Kane; Clements Ribiero

Far more common than colour blocking was the introduction of prints at LFW. Here, designers have taken inspiration from nature, with tie-dye, flowers, shells all present (and CR on the far-right arranging his pattern in an interpretation of snake print). Yet these prints are far from soft and girly, the top and trousers suggests an androgynous defiance, and the slip of thigh at Christopher Kane references the sexuality of the miniskirt.

Kinder Aggugini; Ann-Sofie Back Atelje; Richard Nicoll

Texture and structuralism was again brought into play, with velvet, silk, sheer, leather and complex tailoring. Ann-Sofie Back Atelje was an incredibly exciting show, and on a personal note I would happily walk out the house in that Nicoll outfit! 

Jonathan Saunders, House of Holland, Paul Smith

Pastels carried on from NYFW, and were heavily plugged by both Saunders and Henry Holland. This blue and yellow midi dress seems like the most perfect ray of sunshine to complement a summer's day, practical enough for England's unpredictable weather yet cooling in the heat of the Mediterranean. I always love the variations on tartan that Holland comes up with, and the playful use of grunge mesh in a preppy polo top is genious. Paul Smith is always a favourite of mine, I find his clothes to die for: masculine yet impeccably tailored to complement the female body.

Temperley London, Giles, Meadham Kirchhoff, Mary Katrantzou

Lastly, enter my inner madwoman. This kimono-style two-piece from Temperley, complete with turban and sunnies, is extravagant and inspiring. Think Gloria Swanson from Sunset Boulevard (not Hailee Steinfeld for Miu Miu). If I was going to be on the red carpet any time soon, I would wear this from Giles-especially if I was Natalie Portman winning an Oscar for Black Swan! By the way, I bet you anything that swans and swan-related items will feature heavily on the high street in the coming months. This outfit by Meadham Kirchhoff is brilliant: part Tudor courtier, part '20s flapper, part burlesque star, part schoolgirl, part old cushion cover, every bit extraordinary. And I raved about my love for Mary Katrantzou in my first ever post, and I still love her crazy prints that really shouldn't work but somehow totally do!

photos from style.com

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No more braces!

jacket - ted baker, button shirt - UO, belt - thrifted, trousers - San Francisco, boots - Zara

Today is a good day for two reasons. 1) my last visit to the orthodontist EVER which means no more brace/retainer! 2) I've just had an interview at a local lifestyle magazine for work experience/interning, and they've said that they would like to take me on! It's a monthly publication, and in about two weeks they are shooting the fashion spread for their November issues, and I think I am going to be working on it-they're going to contact me soon. I am so thrilled that they have agreed to let me come and work at their company for a bit: I really NEED magazine/editorial work experience if I am to do anything fashion-journalismy in the future, and so this is definitely a huge step in the right direction.

In other news, I am still having camera issues, but I am getting there (hence one blurry picture, one not). I have already decided that a good camera is number-one-top-priority for me to spend my money on - even more than clothes!

Also - I urge you all to go and see Jane Eyre with Mia Wasikowska and the glorious Michael Fassbender. Although I think maybe more could have been done by the director Cary Fukunaga about keeping up the tension and general drama of the piece, it is superbly acted, with a brilliant screenplay from Moira Buffini, and the cinematography of the film is simply exquisite. It's as if every frame is a painting. Plus, you have to look out for a scene-stealing Judi Dench, who bustles around with a sort of lace napkin on her head.

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Delayed roundup of SS2012 RTW (1)

I've been slightly lax on New York/London/Milan Fashion Weeks, but here's a roundup of the best so far... pictures from style.com

3.1 Phillip Lim - aside from loving the pastel colours here, this top has an amazing drape back/racerback detail which I wish I could show you (Lim's inspiration was a kite from his childhood). Secondly, perspex heels are always great in my opinion.

Calvin Klein - I'm still in love with the soft minimalism and nude tones of last summer, and it seems Francisco Costa is too, although it's not surprising coming from CK. I love the pleat detail, and the way this dress hangs off the body. It just proves below-the-knee is sleek and sexy, not frumpy. I'm putting a slip dress on my wishlist for next year!

Marc by Marc Jacobs - It pretty much stole the show in New York, in my opinion (doesn't it always?!) I love the mix of (wearable) colours and fun textures, as well as the fab shoes and that massive orange beach bag. Have a look at the full collection and check out the brilliant swimsuits as well. Roll on summer!

Preen - Firstly, this is the starting point of a great collection; secondly, this is Arizona Muse (when I next go to the hairdressers I'm taking a picture of her in as inspiration). The pixellated squares draw attention in a good way, and, practically speaking, the high neck and tshirt sleeves means you won't burn in the sun - always a good thing.

New York Fashion Week isn't really my thing, I find it much too polished. I prefer the roughness and edgy cool of LFW, which I will cover in a post soon! To balance out the Upper East Side feeling of this post, here is a song by Animal Collective. I woke up with it in my head, and tried to listen on Spotify, but that website (along with Facebook) seems to be slowly dying: I can't get either of them to load. 

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Fuzzy camera

jacket - all saints, daisy dress - reading festival, shoes - UO

Hi all, apologies for the lack of posting, but I have been trying to figure a way to take a credible outfit photo that I won't be ashamed to upload. I've finally alighted on a scheme which involved me sticking my camera to my brother's music stand with a bit of bluetack - if anyone has any better methods (I'm sure they do!) please say! I could do with some advice. Also, I took these this evening in rapidly fading light, hence the fuzzy, awful quality. Will do better next time.

bangle - vintage

I bought this dress at Reading Festival 2010, with my last £20 (I sacrificed supper for it) and it has become my failsafe outfit if I am ever too tired/hurried to decide on what to wear. Like this morning, for instance: I went to a farewell-before-uni breakfast with my friends at the local cafe and woke up FIVE MINUTES before I had to be out the house. oops. So flung on my dress and ran.

I saw possibly the worst/best film today - William and Kate: The Movie - about the origins of the happy couple. It was absolutely dire, and therefore possibly one of the best movies I have ever seen because it was so hilarious. It deserves a watch, simply to check out Kate's awful collection of hats, or laugh at how woefully weedy lovely Prince Harry is.

Other things I have done recently: WORKED a lot and I can now make the best ever cappucino, went to Wagamamas with the gals from my drama group (recommend Cha Han which comes with miso soup-yum), housesitted some Labradors and decided that dogs aren't actually that bad, wrote my personal statement (!), went to London to visit the new mall in the City/attend a Shakespeare workshop, read the whole of Caitlin Moran's 'How To Be A Woman' - brilliant book! 

Oh and I've applied to volunteer at the BFI Film Festival in October, and filled out an application form for the Montpellier language course in November. Hopefully both of those will work out, and ta dah! my gap year will be sorted up until December - phew!

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Lol from This Is England '86

I've just started watching This Is England '86 on 4OD - no idea how I missed this on Channel 4 first time round - only just finished the first episode, but I'd just like to point out LOL'S HAIR. Truly, truly awesome - and the fact that she goes to get married in a plaid shirt, oversized blazer, baggy jeans and DMs. Probably the definition of awesome, actually. I know it gets really rough for her later on in the series (incest, murder etc and all that) but, hey! at least she looks great!

(seriously though, I would KILL for that hair...and am searching eBay for some doc martins...the older and scruffier the better)

from channel4.com

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Zara Woman september lookbook

 Zara emailed their September lookbook to me today - these are my favourite pictures. I quite adore the grey pleat skirt, and although I used to have a cream shirt I think I lost it so I am searching for a replacement. I haven't had time to properly check it out though, as I've been hardcore emailing language schools in France, trying to find one to go to in October. I think I'm choosing between one in Montpellier and one in Toulouse - if anyone has any opinions on the towns, please say!

Tilda Swinton on front cover of Dazed and Confused
from dazeddigital.com

I watched the film Michael Clayton at lunchtime. It's about a fixer lawyer that has to make a hard moral decision - starring George Clooney so it's not as worthy as it sounds. Quite confusing up until the end, when it got really good. Tilda Swinton is in it too, and I have a huge acting-crush on her. (she once brushed past my arm at the bar during the interval of an opera at the ENO - I almost died)

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Uno Dos Tres

Real Alcazar, Seville
shorts - topshop, tshirt - H&M

So I finished writing my personal statement! Well, almost - according to UCAS I am 'two lines over' - I shall finish editing it tomorrow. Having spent all afternoon jammed in front of my computer writing about French-and-Italian related shenanigans, I was thinking about summer, and how it has gone by so quickly. The fam and I went to Spain for the first time ever - I had been once before to San Sebastian, but it was only to go to the aquarium with the school during a French trip. And it was raining, so we didn't even get to go to Zara. This time we did! A bona fide Spanish experience.

To continue the holiday memories, here is a picture of me at the Real Alcazar. The quality is rubbish, but blame it on my brother (it took him several attempts to even get this one acceptable photo). I can feel the extreme 35 degree + heat just by looking at the picture, which is enjoyable after the massive amounts of wind and grey skies that we had today.

Something funny from our holiday: none of us could speak Spanish, but we could all speak Italian, so we kept getting words wrong. To stop us from counting 'uno due tre' and to get us to say 'uno dos tres' instead, we quoted this sketch from Fawlty Towers to eachother - just the first 10 seconds or so. It's pretty good.

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I Am No Good At Love

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'I Am No Good At Love' by Noel Coward - a poem which appeals to me in my slightly despondent mood (the older of our two cats died yesterday, and I've been left feeling pretty sad)

I am no good at love
My heart should be wise and free
I kill the unfortunate golden goose
Whoever it may be
With over-articulate tenderness
And too much intensity.

I am no good at love
I batter it out of shape
Suspicion tears at my sleepless mind
And, gibbering like an ape,
I lie alone in the endless dark
Knowing there's no escape.

I am no good at love
When my easy heart I yield
Wild words come tumbling from my mouth
Which should have stayed concealed;
And my jealousy turns a bed of bliss
Into a battlefield.

I am no good at love
I betray it with little sins
For I feel the misery of the end
In the moment that it begins
And the bitterness of the last good-bye
Is the bitterness that wins.

I read it here this morning.

Tomorrow I promise an update on life, the universe, and everything - and a slightly less depressing post!

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These boots are made for walking

From top left, clockwise: Deena and Ozzy brown chelsea boots; Maje Kassy chaussures black; Zara high heel ankle boot; 
Comptoir des Cottonniers oxblood low boots 


My new obsession...
If I had the choice, I would go with the Cottoniers ones, but I will probably end up buying the Zara pair, purely due to lack of funds. I love my job and everything, but sometimes I wish it was better paid.

That Vogue I found didn't have any pictures of Moss's wedding (forgot that Testino took them for Vogue US-but, um, she's a British model?! So how come they get her wedding photos??), but I loved the feature on the cast of Downton Abbey. (one of the photos) I CANNOT WAIT for that to start again on TV. I maybe showing my inner middle-agedness, but any programme which featured an Indian prince being carried down a corridor in the dead of night after dying during sex...well it merits a watch.

I have to come clean about the whole gap year planning/personal statement writing thang... I haven't made concrete plans for either of them yet - even though I said I was going to. Shocking, I know. And I have work tomorrow and the next day, so I'll probably use that as an excuse as well - but I kind of know where I'm heading PS-wise, so that shouldn't take too long. As for the French plan, well two language schools have sent me aptitude tests, so I have got to get my head around the idea of work again, and get down and do them. Oh, the effort of writing french verbs.

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Not nineteen forever

Courteeners - Not Nineteen Forever

Me (on the right) and the Birthday Girl
Leather jacket - Ted Baker, Top (just seen) - Urban Outfitters

I went out last night to celebrate my friend's birthday - the first one of us to turn nineteen. It's crazy to think that everyone around me (including me) is growing up and leaving home, going on to do new things. It was a student night, and so the music was a mix of nineties and noughties indie. Hilarious listening to Sum 41 followed by dubstep. 

I have a new plan for what I am going to do on my gap year! While trawling the internet, I came across something called a DALF (basically the French equivalent of the Cambridge certificate) and so I think I am going to try and work towards that, and go on a course in France. Since I want to study Modern Languages at uni (French and Italian, by the way) it would be really good to try and get my language levels up before I start. Ive contacted schools in Toulouse and Montpellier, and I'll see if I can't fix something up.

Right now, however, I'm going to read this Vogue that I just found underneath a pile of paper in my room. I did wonder why I'd never read the Kate Moss wedding feature!

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from vogue.com

Vote for Pedro

style.com

amazon.com

Nothing like watching Napoleon Dynamite with your younger brother - I swear he rocks the brown three-piece suit. It's in a similar vein to one from Paul Smith Fall 2007 (interesting where Paul gets his inspiration from...)

Today I have done nothing except apply for various internships which I am unlikely to get, and watch repeat clips of Friends on YouTube as I'm getting nostalgic about its removal from E4. As for the potential job, I can't do it at the moment as my plans are 'too fluid'-basically I want to go to Paris, but don't know when I'm going, so they won't hire me at the moment (unless I stay in England, in which case they'll give me a job). I really need to figure out what I'm doing!

I think tomorrow I'm going to write the dreaded personal statement (again) as I'm applying to uni (again)... I've been putting it off, as I did last year, but now I don't have the excuse of schoolwork. Also, the sooner my application is sent off, the sooner I can leave home and start doing something exciting-like start my gap year, and not feel like I'm on an extended holiday.

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First Post (drum roll please!)

Hi all,
So as of Monday I have decided to take a year out (hopefully without any of the awful 'gap yah' connotations) so that I can sort my life out, work out what I want to do, and apply to University. I am going to chart my success (or failure) here. A personal diary, a fashion blog, a musical commentary, whatever you want to call it, here it is! Hope you like it.

Metronomy - The Look

I'm listening to Metronomy (and pining for summer) while googling 'internships'-this whole process is a bit daunting. I have to spend time in France, Italy-oh and I want to do some acting too...anyone got any ideas they could chuck at me, I would appreciate it!

Wish I was in Venice at the moment actually-film festivals are so much fun. I went to the Berlin film fest a couple years back, and picked up lots of L'Oreal samples and watched 'Hello Dolly' - great film. I absolutely loved Kiera Knightley's dress for the premiere of 'A Dangerous Method'. Glad someone was brave enough to wear Mary Katrantzou's prints! The Guardian, though, only gave the film ** (although better than Madonna's 'W.E' - they absolutely slated that! http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/01/w-e-madonna-wallis-simpson-review) so I'm not so sure whether I will actually see it...maybe just admire the premiere outfits instead.

I'm going to the pub this evening with friends, then heading back there tomorrow afternoon for a job interview. We'll see what happens with that - I've told them I can work all day, every day, up until I leave for France, but I don't know when I'm doing that, so it's all very vague...Fingers crossed, I guess!!

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from www.picowl.com