#LFW

If you don't know anything about London fashion week (LFW) then you've either had your head in the sand for the last few days or really couldn't care less about fashion. If its the last one, you are really missing out.
For those who do know what it is, it's a week of excitement, anticipation and you're itching to get involved. Well this year I did.
Replying to a tweet that I never thought I'd get a reply from was a frustrating experience. I desperately wanted to be part of the fashion riots but felt it was a lost cause.
Until I got a reply.. "thank you for getting in touch, Bora Aksu would love to have you intern with us this season". Yes! Best news ever, I couldn't help but reply a soppy email saying how grateful I was to get the chance to be part of it.
Leading up to the 14th September I was extremely nervous; what if they're all bitchy? What if I don't understand what they ask me to do? The usual questions that I imagine to run through every interns mind.
Arriving 40 minutes early I felt a Tesco meal deal was in order to calm my nerves and waste some time.
However, if I knew then I would have arrived late as we had to wait 45 minutes after arrival time until we were allowed in.
While waiting all 12 interns were left to converse about what shows they had previously done and what they aspire to do. I felt inferior to the 16 year old boy who had just come back from New York, has a place at Central St Martins and his mother is a stylist for Elle magazine.
Having to wait for so long wasn't so much a problem though, looking round at all the extravagant guests and celebrity spotting passed time quickly. Plus the Bora Aksu staff were lovely, nothing like I expected; apologising every ten minutes about keeping us waiting.
Finally, when we could get in to backstage B, it was chaos. People running around, half naked models changing in front of you. I felt like a spare part and being at the bottom of the food chain as an intern i was asked to move out the way on more than one occasion.
We were taken through to the catwalk and out job was to fill the goodie bags with gifts and show people to their seats- easy peasy! Though the goofy bags were not as straight forward as it first seemed, many gifts were short a couple and someone had put the wrong nail varnishes in and suddenly everyone went into panic.
As you could imagine everyone was racing for front row even though seats were assigned, so I found it slightly awkward having to tell people to move, especially when I wasn't sure who half the famous people were.
I got shoved out the way by some photographers who were trying to picture Kate Nash and Kelly Brooke but to be honest I wanted to get out the way, didn't want to be caught in the back of any of their pictures pulling a face!
After all the chaos had settled it was time to watch the show and I was amazed that we could watch. The place was full, they were running out of seats and after watching the show I can see why. Bora Aksu was simply amazing, even down to the lighting and the music of violins added to the show.
Whilst watching I realised how much I want to be part of this again next season and every season.
The only disappointment I felt all day was that I was promised a T-shirt and gift but never received one!

Revival of the fittest

It seems no one is a stranger to vintage and retro fashion these days, with shops popping up in popular towns and cities, as well as being able to access them on websites such as yayer.com, teapotvintage.com and even eBay.
However, the best things really do come for free as my favourite old time pieces were given to me by my parents. For example, this genuine Levi's denim jacket. I was sorting things out to sell on eBay once, and my dad said he had something I could sell; when he pulled out this dime I refused to sell it on and kept it for myself. Okay it's a little too big but the oversized feel gives it a more relaxed and urban adjustment to any outfit.
Another piece I could not let my mum throw away was her classic polka dot shirt. Ever since I can remember she has had the chiffon piece and I couldn't help but keep it. Maybe it's an attachment thing, I don't know, but I love wearing it open as kimono/cardigan over a simple outfit. Teach my mum how it really should have been worn (minus the shoulder pads and flared jeans of the 80s).
The fashion cycle is an inevitable thing, every 20 years or so fashion repeats itself with a twist, so the best place to look is deep into your parents, or even grandparents wardrobes. However, good finds can be like gold dust and only the strongest fashions should revive; so please leave the shell suits at the back of the wardrobe, where they should forever stay.

Today I'm wearing...

To kick start my long absence from writing for my blog, (due to an internship and holiday to malia) I thought I'd start a "today I'm wearing" post which hopefully will become a regular occurrence.

For those of you who are interested in working with fashion and internships I will soon post a piece on my experiences at Mudpie trend forecasting agency.

My outfit today consists of a sleeveless white shirt, raspberry coloured skater skirt, a tweed blazer, black tights and black brogues with studs. However, I must warn you that while I am writing this waiting for a bus in windy conditions it is not an ideal outfit. Thank god for thick black tights is all I can say. The English weather had me fooled once again, or I just got over excite by the one patch of blue in the sky and based my outfit upon that!

Back to the outfit, the skirt is from Miss Selfridge and compliments the masculinity of the crisp white cotton shirt against the raspberry floaty fabric. The shirt is from river island itself and in fact is a bias cut shirt that came with a black neck tie. It's one of my favourite pieces because it can work with any outfit as well as on it's own; whether you want a basic look or something more contemporary.

To finish the look off I teamed the outfit with a tweed blazer. It creates a heritage feel and adds authenticity to the look, rather than combining colour pop with the skirt. By combining the skirt and the blazer it ages the childlike connotations of a skater skirt and matures the overall look.

I did create a bow tie out of a wired headband, which I really liked,, but with the tweed it looked too geek chic for my liking but worked really well.

My choice of brogues from urban outfitters as footwear was because brogues and blazers go hand in hand in my fashion books. They compliment each other well while the studs give an edge to the clean cut outfit.

The Best of the Brits

You must be a complete technology-phobe if you didn’t realise that The Brits were on last night. My whole Facebook and twitter news feeds were packed with opinions; whether praise or bitchy comments about the winners, performances and of course the outfits.

A real show was put on; the performances were top notch and most of them you could not fault, give or take a few. My particular favourites were Florence and the machine, it was over dramatic but not in a garish way, she’s far too ladylike to produce anything like that. And her dress suited her perfectly. In a dusty pink, the chiffon-like material matched her silky skin and from far away it was hard to tell what was the dress and what was her, apart from the longer train at the back. The fussy details, high neck collar and long sleeves went hand in hand with Florence and the style we all know and love her for and who else would it have been designed by other than Alexandra McQueen?

Another outfit that stole my attention away from the show was Pixie Lott’s. One thing the talented young singer has done here is kept to the number one fashion rule: the LBD. Except swap ‘little’ for ‘long’ as she presents herself in a beautiful floor sweeping Dolce and Gabbana dress. Looking very fifties with the cute ruffles in the dress and pinned back hairdo shouts pin up girl. I love that she finished it off with a velvet red clutch which ties in nicely with not only the British colours but the red carpet too!

Pixie wasn’t the only one to dazzle in black though; I absolutely loved Adele’s floor length Burberry Prorsum number. She looked beautiful and the cinched in waist gave a feminine shape to the dress even though her later actions were far from feminine! Katie Melua and Laura Whitmore also rocked up in LBDs to keep it on the safe side but just didn’t quite catch my eye enough for The Brits.

Floor sweeping and longer trains were a highly noticeable trend along the red carpet last night, and other celebrities like Kylie, Jessie J and Rihanna embraced it with added sex appeal. Firstly, Kylie went for understated sexy in electric blue by fashioning a thigh high split in her YSL dress, flashing her 5ft pins when as she walked. While Rihanna went for the low front and draped back Givenchy Couture dress as she won best international female second year in a row.

However, the most shocking ‘on trend’ – if I can count it as that, was Jessie J in her mesh like red dress by Falguni and Shane. Yes she ticked the floor length with a train trend and also the red but I really wasn’t feeling how revealing it was. Her lady parts were barely covered and although she has the body for it, it appeared slightly tacky. Yes I get that sometimes less is more, but not less material!

I could babble on for days about The Brits and really wanted to get onto how cute the One Direction boys looked in their suits and Noel Gallagher looking laid back in leather but I don’t want to bore you all with a majorly long post. But last night, watching the Brits perform and how they dressed really makes you proud to be British and to see that as a whole we’re making our own mark on the world through music and fashion.

BATOKO

I don’t know if you’ve heard about them before or not but I certainly had not until they started following me in Twitter. So as soon as I saw ‘E-shop’ in their description I decided to give them a look.

Selling modern and vintage clothes I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Although there wasn’t masses of clothing that we’re used to from Topshop and River Island’s online sites the clothes that you do find are good enough. However, some are a bit too out there for me like a leopard print jumpsuit and so on but you can find some lovely pieces.

For example, I found this shirt I adore! You can probably tell why from the picture and what I wrote in one of my previous blog posts but the collar really gives the shirt character. However, my one criticism is that they only seem to do XS/S sizes which could cause a problem. I’m going to order one anyway and hopefully it should fit but it just goes to show this site isn’t for everyone.

However, I still can’t help but keep looking through this website as the clothes are quite different which attracts me to them. For instance I love this dress. It’s so simple and classy yet not boring and down to our ankles.

There were other beautiful pieces on the website as well as some amazing jewellery, although I have seen some of it in Topshop before so may be easier to pop to your local shop rather than buying online. I only wrote about these two as they were in my basket, think I just might have to get them although this isn’t helping my shopping addiction!

www.batoko.com – have a look for yourself!

Cuff a load of this!

This is just a quick short post that I'm writing via the blogger app! I thought I might as well try it out!
Anyway, today I was shopping in miss selfridge and came across this little beauty: a gold ear cuff with crosses. I can't wait to wear it on the opposite side of where I pull my hair over to one side. I think it will look great for my outfit tonight which is a plain black dress. This means it will stand out more and add glamour to the simplistic outfit!
There are quite a few around in topshop too so keep a look out, they're going to be big!

Eye Spy, a Vintage Buy!

If you read my blog frequently, you most probably know I can’t help but sing praises to Urban Outfitters already. Well this post is no different.

However, I am only talking about one section today and that is their vintage range. Lately, I myself just can’t get enough and can’t help but spend money I don’t really have in there. Now, you must have been living in a black hole for the last few years if you don’t own or know about the Levi cut off shorts they do. I recently purchased a pair after about a year (and I am not over exaggerating) of looking for the perfect pair. They were so popular they never had my size, but luckily, I stumbled across a pair a few weeks ago and snapped those bad boys right up! They are o of my favourite pieces and I can’t stress how much I think everyone should own a pair of denim shorts let alone a vintage Levis pair.

Which leads me on to why I love it; even though they are all denim shorts, every pair is different. That’s the beauty of vintage – it’s very rare to get the same thing twice. They have similar items, but none are exactly the same. Perfect! I can’t think of anything worse than having the same things as someone else – you need to embrace your own style not somebody else’s.

Please excuse the chinese takeaway menus!

Enough of me babbling now, the reason for this post was to show off my new cardigan: a vintage grey cardigan with the letter K on it. I already have a ‘Kate’ jumper, so I thought I might as well get a cardigan to add to the collection! I absolutely love it, it’s so preppy as well as vintage and I can’t wait to wear it with skinny jeans and a white tee.

Though, to be fair, I think it would be really easy to buy a letter in a haberdashery shop and iron it on yourself, but I was feeling lazy and can’t resist a bit of Urban Outfitters! I couldn’t be happier with it!

Collar Craze

It seems to me that everyone is going back to school and are on a craze for collars, don’t you agree? I can’t help but be part of this fashion revolution; as a top button girl myself I can’t resist a collar with a bit of attitude and think accessorizing them is a big thumbs up. However, it all depends on the type of collar (who knew a collar on a shirt could have so many different styles and names ay?)

First of all, if you have a Peter Pan collar, you don’t really have to do much to it. But ALWAYS have the top button done up, as it’s not as easy to pull off the open collar look with these. Although, if you want to jazz it up a bit maybe adding some studs to toughen the look could work wonders, as collars are quite feminine and preppy. Or, if you want to continue the trend, maybe try pearls, it’s not hard to do it yourself.

I think my all-time favourite collar is the standard turned-down collar. It works well in so many ways, and can be accessorised really well- which of course is what fashion is all about. A turned down collar on a crisp white shirt is always a winner, and I like to wear mine with either a bow tie or a crossed over piece of material. They are also easy to get away with having the top button loose but I personally choose not to. Another one of my favourites is my black sheer shirt with the studded collar from Zara, it couldn’t be more on trend.

I recently bought a shirt from Urban Outfitters and the collar is beautiful. Right at the point of the shirt it has metal bits which really add to the shirt. It makes it so much more different which I find Urban outfitters do quite a lot with their clothes, you should keep a look out for interesting collar designs.

Another collar that is making its way on to the catwalk is the sailor collar. Traditionally witnessed on sailor’s uniforms (hence the name) it consists of a deep V at the front. I have come across quite a few of these in Primark but haven’t seen one I would like to purchase yet.

One for the men out there is the granddad collar, which in fact is no collar at all, as seen on Olly Murs with his very tight trousers. He pulls it off really well but I think you need quite a relaxed style, and they need to be worn with skinny light jeans to be at their best.

Continuing with this collar debate, you can now wear collars without even wearing a shirt. If you haven’t come across them already you can now buy a collar by itself. I have been looking for one for ages, and have only found them in Miss Selfridges for about £16 but I still haven’t found ‘the one’. They look really good with a high neck jumper if you want the prim and proper look. Or to embrace the messy-cool look, wear it with a baggy top to juxtapose the styles. However, I feel studs would be more appropriate for the second look and pearls for the first.

Take it back to the school days, but this time do your top button up willingly. The more accessories the better and let’s just hope I actually find the collar I’ve desperately been looking for. This is not a trend to be missed!

Steal Molly King's Statement Jeans

Whoever said diamonds are a girl’s best friend clearly couldn’t find the right fitting jeans, as we all know that once you’ve found that pair, you wear them until their last thread. But for this season your best friend is getting a makeover- it’s all about the coloured jeans!

They’ve been in the fashion scene for a while now, and they’re not budging anytime soon. For winter, deep shades like navy, mustard, bottle green and red are perfect to team with a cosy jumper or cardigan; whereas for summer spring 2012 you could invest in a bright turquoise pair to keep on the fashion radar and are perfect for summer evenings with a cute vest top.

Take Molly King from The Saturdays as your muse; she’s the gorgeous po star every girl aspires to be, with her amazing expensive dresses on stage you can’t help but envy her look. But being the natural beauty she is, you can’t help but desire her look off stage too.

Her winter look can be fast-forwarded into spring with her plum coloured jeans which brighten up the outfit instantly. This is reinforced by her on-trend striped cardigan with short sleeves and casual vest top which is the perfect off stage cosy comfortable look, especially with her buckled sheep skin boots we can’t help but want.

In order to copy this look you can get her Firetrap Evelyn jeans for just £55, which is a steal! But to get the rest of her look for less try this beautiful cardigan that’s just like Molly’s from Newlook for just £14, along with a white vest top which is £6 from Topshop. Then slip on these fabulous brown fur trimmed boots which rival the singer’s and you’re nearly good to go.

However the look isn’t complete yet, you need a large bag like Molly’s and what more could you want but this beauty from www.bagsobeautiful.com; the ‘soft red leather bag with padlock’ is enough to finish any outfit and contrast with your bold jeans.

So be brave and make a statement in your jeans.

·         http://www.newlook.com/shop/womens/knitwear/aztec-knitted-kimono_237230909?icSort=-bestSellerScore

·         http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=&catalogId=33057&storeId=12556&productId=4437947&langId=-1&sort_field=Relevance&categoryId=230160&parent_categoryId=203984&pageSize=20

·         http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=&catalogId=33057&storeId=12556&productId=2588293&langId=-1&sort_field=Relevance&categoryId=208544&parent_categoryId=208492&pageSize=200

·         http://www.bagsobeautiful.com/Cat/Leather-Bags/Soft-Red-Leather-Bag-with-Padlock.aspx