Exams over... At last

Well, the last exams I'm going to take in this place are over... Management Studies has the awesome feature of seriously early exams that means that we lost our Easter vac, but can enjoy all of what the approaching summer has to offer! I do have a project to do, but it's nowhere near as stressful and much more structured than the impending doom of exams encroaching upon one's happiness and health!

So... I am going to try and return to the blogosphere. Slowly, softly, perhaps, but freedom awaits in a few months with graduation, and as I'm still unsure what the future holds, I might manage to reinject some life into this little side project of mine. I do miss it when I drop off the face of the earth for months at a time, and since I will be rejoining T-B in London-town in July, we might even get the occassional photoshoot done!

Anyway, what brings me to the computer today? It's another installment of the fab Aussie Angel initiative. I am, as ever, slow on the uptake. Claire posted about it a while back, and I'm proud to have my little "Luscious Long Tribe" pack which arrived at college today.

The wonderful people at Aussie have sent me a Welcome Pack for "surviving until your Tribe party" - in July, and when I'm supposed to be in France, but that may not happen, so I'm keeping an open mind!

They have been so generous and sent some of their lovely, yummy Luscious Long shampoo and conditioner, a mini brush, a compact mirror, some badges to display my allegiance and some chocolate... I have to admit that the chocolate will be going to The Boy, as my body hates me and does not allow the consumption of dairy. The Boy will likely be very pleased...

Awesome huh!

In other news, I went shopping for the first time in yonks today. After almost giving into a tapestry bag covered in cats in Ark Vintage in Cambridge city centre, and trying to decide whether I should buy oversized stripy shorts from Joules (- my new shop crush... All those pretty candy colours! All that outdoorsy blowsiness! YUM!), I wandered into Karen Millen. Now, I don't have much occassion to wear what they do best - gorgeous luxe night-out wear - but I have to admit, they have upped the ante from what I remember from the last time I seriously browsed in there, as a teenager... Searching for hot house party outfits, out for the afternoon with my mum, shopping on the King's Road. I seem to remember coming out of there with an outfit involving an orange crochet shell encrusted halter top... Strange memories. Sigh. Nostalgia.

Anyway. Browsing in there today was rather fun. And I have to admit to falling for a dress... A £165 dress. GULP! As a girl who shops either vintage or designer sample sales, I get a bit cranky shelling out almost two hundred quid for glorified high street. But that's the snob in me. (Please don't hate me! I just have an issue with our hardcore, wear-it-once, who gives a shit about quality, consumer culture...) But here I must admit I can see where the money is going. Ish.

The embroidery is awesome and it has the most darling bow at the back... Sigh. If only I had the money, or the event to wear it to!

Right. That's all for now folks... Xxxc

We're Angels. Obviously.

Ok, so this is very very very tardy, even by my standards, but today's post is about being an Aussie Angel!!! Along with Claire, Winnie, Nicola et al, I was contacted as one of 50 bloggers to get the Undercover Aussie treatment...

It all kicked off with a treasure hunt to Chelsea Farmer's Market, where I also popped into the food bit to find some sheepsmilk yoghurt and rice flour! We were sent a key and a clue to find the "silo", and when we turned up, we got a lovely box of goodies including Aussie products, a Topshop voucher and a spa voucher!!! Uber uber exciting.

I haven't used them yet, mainly as I'm saving them for uni supplies. Living at home in the summer = use parental posh shampoo time!!!

I do use Aussie's 3 minute miracle on a very very regular basis, as long hair gets a bit damaged, and it JUST SMELLS SO DARN NICE!!! Thus, I have to admit I'm rather excited about trying their normal shampoo and conditioner! I will also post about Topshop and spa choices when I stop working all hours and get back to Cambridge where one has time to take a breath and treat oneself!

Anyhoo... Next stop, a week later, was Adee Phelan's salon in Covent Garden for hair styling and lots of champagne! We were allowed to take up to two friends along, so I brought two uni college girlies, Sarah and the lovely Becks, T-B's gf. IT WAS SUCH FUN!!! Claire was also there with some of her pals, and we all ate lots and lots of jelly beans and got a bit merry on the champers and cocktails provided when we went down the road to The Hospital bar!

Claire and her amazingly glam hair...

Me and my crazeeeeeeee but lovely stylist!

Becks and her shampoo... Loving the Lana Turner-esque eye hiding!

Sarah really loved her goody bag!!!

Angelically Posing...

Not so angelic...

COCKTAILS!!! Yum.

Pretty! Sparkly! :-D

We three have better hair here than Charlie's Angels!!! Fit.

Shocker - I ended up with curly hair for several days! Woop woop!

Night night!

Xxxc

Dumdumdeeedum... Skipping Along to Another LFW Show!!!

Short post this evening... Might be something to do with the huge lack of sleep I've been living on lately ( - I'm a massive insomniac - ) and also work being really quite hectic at the mo. Oh, and the lovely, and slightly expensive, very merry evening out I've had. Sigh.

Anyhoo... As you may have noticed if you read the lovely Claire's blog, The View From Here, we went to another fashion show on Monday evening.

Claire - Glam as ever...

Moi straight from work... I look like a small child hehe. (Take note of the velvet hair scrunchie... I am newly obsessed!!!) Wearing: vintage Escada wine silk shirt, Luella bag, Cheap Monday self-studded jeans, M&S sandals, Boots bordeaux velvet hair scrunchy.

It was the Maaike Mekking show at CAMP near Old Street - very East London, very too-cool-fash-un... Claire and I had a great time commenting incessantly on everyone's ensembles, and yumyumyumming at the red velvet cakes that were on offer. (Not so much at the wine though...)

The show, which annoyingly started almost an hour late, did present some rather cool clothes, the stand-out ones of which I attempted to get good photos of in poorly lit conditions on a poor camera. Like Claire, I felt that a lot of the clothes were let down by some rather shoddy modelling. If you're going to have non-professional models, then at least brief them on how to walk, the speed at which they should go, and that they should STOP at the end of the runway. I missed some photo ops on my favourite pieces because a couple of the girls moved far too fast and didn't even pause for breath at the end of the white carpet... Sigh.

However, I did appreciate several elements of this collection. Aside from the cupcakes, I rather liked the oriental details, the cut outs and the subtle definition of the girls' silhouettes behind both structured and loose clothes. The show was simple, but by having them walk against a wall, the shadows emphasised the free-flowing movement which made several of the pieces rather interesting. Saying that, one of my favourite pieces was a rather stiff white dress, so maybe I should just shush! ;-D

This floaty pleated trouser and white top with bra-as-outerwear thing going on was rather special and I was sad not to get a better shot... I think the collection, with it's muted but striking pallette and hints of lovely pattern-creativity was overall good. I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as Saturday as the crowd was a bit too hip for little ol' me, and the lighting and models - annoying, niggling details - really put me off.

Adore this dress... Great brocade-esque details.

Scary China Doll look... Love the shirt though!

But maybe the cupcakes and the white dress, cute white shirt and pleated trousers may have been worth the adventure into East-London-Land for me...

Night All!

Xxxc

This Fashion Life

Well, as everyone knows, it's mid-London Fashion Week...

At work, the only reasons one notices this fact are that my boss keeps leaving in the middle of the day dressed to the nines and we have had to stuff thousands of party invites including one addressed to "Ms Anna Wintour"!

However, Claire (of A View From Here) and myself have been a *little bit* fashion-week-y this weekend...

First up: Yesterday, we went to the lovely Romina Karamanea show (part of the Vauxhall Fashion Scout schedule). We have made it a policy to always try to get a plus one, so we both get to go to lots more stuff as we tend to get invited to different things! Yay blogger mates!

We got all dressed up... Of course!

Claire wearing her AMAZING sample sale JP Braganza dress...

Little Ol' Me wearing: H&M lace and ribbon jacket, H&M charcoal tee, vintage belt, H&M skirt, H&M crushed velvet leggings, ToyWatch, vintage (mother-acquired) "Chelsea" boots and Luella black leather bag (just seen).

The Romina Karamanea show was just so cool. We were queuing outside Freemasons' Hall for fecking ages, and again inside the venue, but it was great for people watching and architecture-porn-spotting!!!!

Freemasons' Hall is so kitsch and really rather fascinating to explore... Claire noticed the pentagram on the front step, and I was rather enamoured with these light fittings and all the autumnal colours of stained glass!

These two girls really fascinated me. I adore these bird headbands that have done the blogging rounds, but had never seen anyone out and about with one on... Too cute! She had this great asymetric haircut too. I went to my hairdressers after the show and showed this photo to two of the stylists. Hilariously, one of them had seen the same girl, with the same crow, only two days before at Victoria tube station! Yay for fashion freedom! Love the bleached look of her friend too... They both just looked so perfect and out-of-time - they made me cheer for London's ability to nurture and celebrate such quirkiness and confidence!

Anyway... On to the show!

Romina Karamanea - Ready-To-Wear - Spring/Summer 2010

presented at Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London as part of Vauxhall Fashion Scout LFW September 2009

Thoughts???

Mine: Amazing Square Shoulders... Shoes that seemed harder to stand still in than walk... Lots of graphic, block printing... Easy flowing fabrics and much more structured pieces mixed together to create a quite cohesive and interesting show. The notes spoke of a collection inspired by "engineering and industrialisation, everything is linear and robotic. There is a theme of disconnection..." Quite like the times we live in eh! The pre-show video sequence was also amazing, detailing the corsetry techniques, speaking of destruction and construction, and celebrating the form of the model lopping her long black hair off to reveal the monochrome laced clothes. All in all, a great show that struck the right balance. Not all of it was stuff I'd wear, but there were certainly enough pieces in there that had me salivating to ensure I keep a close eye on what this girl gets up to next!!!

More to come on our LFWeek-end exploits soon!

Night!

Xxxc

Secretary Chic

Gosh I'm bad at this lately... But I'm crossing fingers that I'm going to get my mojo back as I'm starting to get excited about styling again. I've had a good week and have made a select few purchases and started thinking dreamily about the return to the gilded spires of Cam.

Don't get me wrong; I adore London and my people in it, but working where I do has in some ways stifled my love of fashion even as I've been immersed in it. Odd eh!

Something about the worthless feeling that comes of interning. Not for me really.

The rest of the office have spent today organising an event, while I *miraculously* was not called upon to work said a-list extravaganza, and had an extremely fun and fashion-filled day despite non-work-involvement. Woop! More to come on today's adventures in a later post...

Firstly, however, I want to do some catching up!!!

Here is a photo shoot that T-B, his lovely assistant / girlfriend Becks and I did in his set pretty much the night before before I set off home for the summer... So mid-June time. Yikes! Haven't I been a bad blogger this summer!!!

Peeping, Laughing, Not Yet Sleeping...

Wearing: Face a Face glasses, vintage mustard blouse (bought from The Stylish Wanderer), ICB silk skirt, Kate Kuba navy suede shoes, ToyWatch, Vintage silk scarf (bought at Ark Vintage in Cambridge) and vintage navy suede belt.

I went to T-B and Becks' for (yummy scrummy) dinner tonight... Their new flat is AMAZING but it's wierd to think when I return to Cam in a fortnight's time, they'll still be in London. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! They're both grown-ups now!!! Or maybe not... Hehe.

Right. Off to sleep with me... Early rising tomorrow!!!

Xxxc

Green Light at the end of the dock...

Now I'm the first to admit that I've been crap at this blogging malarkey of late... It's been bloody ages since my last post, and I haven't even been checking in on other people! Naughty huh.

I've been working at my internship since the end of June and I think that I just needed to separate work and play a bit. Inspiration has been oddly lacking, and I've been madly dashing from one "London thing" to the next, so updating online hasn't exactly been a priority!

My life of late has been hectic to say the least, filled with lots of time with friends, theatre, film, art and yummy food. Claire from The View From Here is teaching me how to bake, and life's really rather satisfactory.

Work's fun as I work with lovely people, but I have come to realise that as much as I love fashion and clothes and making visual statements through my wardrobe; creating a character, I don't want to make it my career... Which I guess is why I haven't been online. I need a bit of separation between work and play.

However, with fashion week coming up, and work being frenetic, I thought now would be an *ideal* time to start blogging again (see the slight sarcasm?)!!! ;-D I won't be around commenting too much, but I'm going to try to post content more often.

So. Where to start?

Well, first up, I have a couple of reviews and an update on my current addictions:

1) my name necklace

Okay, so Sex and the City is a looooong way gone, but I got sent a Cassiopeia name necklace by the lovely people at mynamenecklace.co.uk! Exciting times. I shall put up a photo as soon as I can, but my camera is currently not exactly working. It's silver and I wear it several times a week. It makes me smile! It's good quality and came in a lovely purple gift box too. I'm a sucker for pretty presentation... The only reason I don't wear it every day is that as far as jewellery goes I usually prefer gold, and I wish I'd asked for an 18" not a 16" chain, but overall I'd really recommend this website if you are going to get one! I certainly love mine, and if I weren't completely broke I'd get myself another one!!! I rather like the acrylic necklaces like this one. So thanks to Steve for getting me involved!

2) borders and frontiers teeshirts

Again, everyone's got one of the Tavi tees by now, and the Igor and Andre blog ones are doing the rounds too - and you all look GORGEOUS! But since I haven't been online much lately, I thought I'd just spare a moment to wax lyrical about these tees. These are my favourite basic wear-with-anything-anytime tops. I wear them to work with skirts and belts and on the weekends in city or country with jeans or dresses. The cotton is so thick and yummy and though they blatantly don't exactly make me look stick thin, I love them anyway... The adorable Drew even sent me this lovely specimen new one that, bad me, I'm not sure which blog it belongs to, but I adore, which again I will have to wait to put pictures of up as camera = dimwitted. I am also *loving* Rumi's one and have had a long term crush on the one by Bonjour Girl... Wish (as usual) I wasn't so darn broke!!!

3) lots and lots and lots of theatre

My life of late has revolved around shows... I love that the calibre of things being put on in and around London this summer has been so high. As I had saved up to enjoy my time at home, I've done a tonne, and loved every minute of it.

A few highlights:

Dominic Cooper in Phedre. Love Racine. Love his arms. Sigh.

Ian McKellen in Waiting For Godot. Perfect. Bumbling through Beckett. A Class Act.

Arcadia... Just a lovely play.

The Mariinsky Ballet at the Royal Opera House - not technically theatre... The Homage to Balanchine was amazingness personified, and their Sleeping Beauty was breathtaking.

Jerusalem at the Royal Court. I've loved Mark Rylance since he was artistic director at the Globe, and he's just AMAZING. Such stage presence. Such a beautiful voice. Such a great play.

I've also been to a lot of Proms - managed 5 concerts in one day on the bank holiday!!! And a lot of film... Anyone who gets a chance to see Mid-August Lunch SHOULD!!!

Okay, enough rambling now. I should sleep. I'm off to the Tate in the morning bright and early to see the Futurism exhibition with one of my closest friends who has been away in Edinburgh for a month... Woop!

Night. I promise there'll be more pictures next time!

Xxxc

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down...

So I come home for the summer, and have to move out again in the space of two weeks...

Hmmmmm. Not ideal. Basically, our entire house is being rebuilt around us over the course of 5 months for reasons far too dull to go into, and all furniture / books / clothes etc that we don't use on a regular basis has to either be chucked or put into storage! Of course this was the plan, until my roof sprung a second leak, waking me up at 4am during the other morning's thunder storm... So now I am moving out, and into my old maths tutor's house ( - she's also one of my mum's best mates - ) for a while... Of course, this would be fine if my room wasn't Stuffed With Stuff, and we had more than 24 hours to do it.

Thus, all of this is why I might be a little lax on my posting every day rule for a while, but I'll do my best!

Anyway, life chat over with...

And onto some of the promised (for weeks) photos...

This post is dedicated to the finalists garden party, given by the Master of College in his gardens... Think Pimms and reminiscences and commiserations about how screwed we all are with the current economic climate haha. It was great fun actually, and I'm afraid it's a dress you've seen before ;-D - This wasn't a photoshoot in athe usual style, as obviously, T-B was taking photos of the event, not just me and my crazy outfits, but there were quite a few nice photos anyway!

- Oh yes, I'm just so serious... (And the old dude in the background is "The Master". Lovely guy.)

- Me sticking my tongue out in photos may be replacing the ubiquitous twirling ;-D

- How kwl is her dress?!?!

- The amazingly comfy, if slightly out of focus shoes, which cost me £15 quid in M&S and I wear ALL THE TIME! (Either those or the same ones in black which I also have :-D) - Oh, and evidence, that I don't iron my clothes hehe!

- The only full length shot... How serious do I look? ;-D


The outfit, elements of which have all been used before, was: Vintage handmade dress, M&S sandals, GAP shell pink cardigan and Vintage tooled leather bag, with my ToyWatch and BarryM purple nail polish.


So there you have it... Garden partay numero uno. Sorry it's taken me so long to post... I really do love this dress...


I'd had such a rushed morning before this, having overslept into a breakfast meeting, so I had to rush out in jeans and t-shirt and no make-up, knowing full well I had two garden parties later. Of course, I was late to both... And looked rather the ghost having just shoved on the first make up I could find, i.e. my going-out-foundation, and no blusher... (as I'd left it in T-B's kitchen cupboard. Don't ask!)

It seems weird to think that I've been gone from Cam for 2 weeks... It's also amazing how much one changes on starting work and settling back into big-city life. I'm much more routine-ised, and my style's subtly shifted; probably partly due to the environment I'm working in, but also because of how I'm feeling I guess... Up until yesterday, I had no idea what was going to happen when I've finished my internship in October. I was basically still waiting on an official decision from Cambridge's Business School as to whether I had been accepted onto their Management programme for 4th year. If not, I would have to get on applying for more internships and jobs in fashion PR and Marketing which is probably the career direction I'm going in...


And yesterday, the crisp white letter headed Judge Business School, University of Cambridge came in the post... And I've been accepted! So back to the 'Bridge in October. I am really excited, though I was quite ready to get on with "real" life... Scary eh!


Right. As usual this was supposed to be a short post, so I must be off!


Xxxc