Whilst waiting to meet Heidi for Christmas Gingerbread Lattes the other day I found myself in WH Smith. AKA the only place left in Bristol that stocks vaguely interesting or unusual magazines. So sad. Anyway, after the obligatory Dazed, Vogue, Harpers, I-D etc. I drifted over to W with Carey Mulligan on the cover. I hated An Education but I quite like her so I started flicking through, only to find a very lovely "New Season" spread shot by Emma Summerton which was lovely & had lots of weird twin shots (ok, I featured none of them here, but you can view high res shots here) plus a rather lovingly cinematic shoot with Mulligan by Michael Thompson. Anyway, in short, nice images W! Might have to re think them because they've never wholly captured by heart or attention...

Admittedly this is a bit of a cop out as far as posts go. But basically, it's almost the end of the year so I was trying to discuss with my Benny, Cat, Max & Seb the other day - over mulledness & mince pies - about what songs had really hit them this year. It came about after reading a list in G2 that only featured songs from like the last  two months or something. Which surely isn't the point. So here it is! There's only one oldie in there (at the beginning) but it stands for Arctic Monkeys new album as well as the B-Side compilation Jesus made for my birthday. It's also probably the one that pops up in my head unexpectedly the most. & I'm sorry but the last two... I've obviously softened towards the end of the year. What's your opinion on Lena Del Rey? Against my better judgement I've had her youtube mix on repeat & am so close to pressing the itunes pre order button. Do you love or hate?

What were your highlights?

Last week I was feeling a little like I'd peaked too soon Christmas wise. I'd got all my gifts, finished making them, been to Pairs & sort of had a mini Christmas already. Then I came back to miserable weather & work. Boo. So after getting over my horrible illness (pretty much) yesterday I put my Christmas "glad-rags" on to try & get in the spirit. Awesome green & red nail varnish (Barry M Emerald Green & Rimmel Celebrity Bash (THE best red varnish I've ever found)) & my trusty reindeer necklace.

After taking some family friends Christmas shopping, as a sort of tradition I splurged a little on some shiny sparkly awesome nail stuff. (let to right: 17 glitter top coat & strengthening base coat, Barry M mushroom, red glitter & hologram) One of my few female friends Cat informed me that it was horrific to be painting straight onto my nails, as I've always done. So I pronto got on some base coat hunting. I'm not very good at taking care of stuff like that. The mushroom is because I have no like "nude" nail varnish, anyone have any tips? I just like Barry M. Plus, who doesn't want to have Dorothy nails? New Year's Eve pairing with my shoes I think. I don't know if the Dorothy's have ever been on the blog.... ohh teaser. & I was pretty disappointed with hologram. Does anyone have any tips on how the fuck to apply it? I was thinking a cocktail stick to pick out the sequin things so my nail doesn't become like double the thickness with the clear nail varnish that coats it. It'd like a mirror ball though, which is pretty awesome.

Anyway yes so basically the takeaway is that because I have finished buying stuff for other people I'm now buying stuff for myself, very christmassy! Happy almost Christmas though innit.

Ok I know, I'm sorry, I didn't do any of the things I promised too in the last post. Mainly make some timed posts & read blogs & reply to comments. So basically I suck. But in my defence I've been working & really ill (food poisoning ew) since, interspersed with Paris! So yeah... I hope the fact that I managed to actually take some pictures of Paris makes up for it a little. Maybe? Anywho...top to bottom.

View from the top of Galeries Lafayette after we'd negotiated our way through the canteen & shoe horned ourselves into a window seat. The Christmas Tree plus the whole floor of underwear was totally worth the longish metro journey. 

My favorite stuffed to the brim vintage shop in Paris. I tried on lots of amazing underwear type slip dresses & dressing gowns & teddies. As well as, dresses & uhr... a vintage versace knock off gambling emblem printed skin tight body suit that had the weirdest proportions ever. The body was soooo long. But yes. I only bought a couple of things (one for my mum) but scooped up some less exciting vintage from the cheaper stores that are aplenty in Paris.

We sort of made the mistake of going to Le Bon Marche after the 3 hour Eurostar & a night of no sleep. Which led to me having a little bit of a breakdown in the food section. But... anyway. Some food & a sit down later I was fine. To swan around the clothing section, gawping over Givenchy & Celine, pretending we were genuine customers, not just sneakily on our way to the toy department.

Cute graffiti dotted around everywhere. This particular one in the 4th Arrondissement just around the corner from Cos. I know it's a bit of a cop out, but we don't have one in Bristol so it didn't feel too bad. Roughly translated I'm informed it says, "Who do you follow?/What do you follow?" Something along those lines...

Les Arts Decrotifs in the Lourve is my favorite gallery in Paris. It always has the most amazing exhibits. & has a special place in my heart as the place I finally got to see a Hussein Chalayan exhibition. This time round it was Jean-Paul Goude & Stefan Sagmeister. A total contradiction really. The Goude one was overwhelmingly indulgent & at one point I got stuck in the dark on my own with two motorised Grace Jones heads, one of which unexpectedly opened it's eyes & lit up. The Sagmeister exhibition was much more up my street, having studied him in GCSE art (oh, good times) with little snippits about his experiences of different places. Like how he had to ask a Japanese lady on a train to remove a broken Q-Tip from his ear. What an amazing man.

And finally the lights on the Champs Elysee, pretty much why we wanted to go, to feel all Christmassy & such like. They were a tad disappointing. But the Louis Vuitton windows with a circus theme were fun although the thought, "Why would you want to show your suitcases as being heavier than elephants?" came up... A little pissed to have missed the Karl window though. But we made our way to the Christmas market that was hectic to say the least. But full of vin chaud & uhr...churros. Very French.

Image overload. Word overload. Welcome back!

Maria, Laura, Stephanie, Vanamo, Krista & Ina from Hel-Looks.

Hel-looks will always be my favorite street style blog. Because the people are a little bit weird (most of the time) & the things they say are interesting. I like that little snippet of personality. Things like simply, "I'm a hipster" or, Maria's style tip "don't wear stockings to hide your scabby knees". Here's some of my more autumnal & recent favourites. 

Lessons to take away: black is awesome, colour block dresses, men's oversized jumpers, collars & necklaces, winter colour, anything can make a dress, purple & yellow, frumpy skirts. Plus from Hel-looks generally, I wish I could really commit to the ugly trouser thing, I just put them on & think... no. If only I was Scandie.

I'm in Paris! So I've timed some posts & (hopefully) commented back enough people that someone might possibly look at those posts! I promise to take lots of photos & generally be festive & merry all over the place. Au Bon Marche here I come.

A little bit disjointed but oh well, roll with it. Firstly how nice is the orangeish & red contrast of my scarf & t-shirt today? Wasn't feeling very inspired, top & disco pants...yeah, I've gotten boring dress wise. My wonderful scarf was knitted by my mum after I left the original in Cornwall last year, the pattern is like deer antlers, plus it's extra long "Like me" as I said when I first put it on. Haha.

More importantly though UK Uncut, the wonderful people whom there is a link to at the bottom of this blog, are planning some Christmas disruption for the bastards getting away with not paying their taxes. Now, bad banner & branding aside, lets move on. They're having a poll on facebook to decide who to target. Now, as I do not have facebook (I know, it's too hard to explain, basically, I have a phone) please, please, please vote for Topshop on my behalf!? PLEASE!? If I shout at you with caps does that help? I'm sure a majority of you like the world love Topshop, but Phillip Green is evil. EVIL. & it's the busiest of his stores so it deserves to be shut down. The only problem is security... Anyway, follow the linkage. & you know you could make up your own mind or I could try & filter it into your subconcious... Topshop. Topshop. Topshop.

They've even written a Christmas song to go with it, look:

"Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the town,

Cash tills were ringing, snow falling down.

Big business is merry, and with good reason-

For it's the busiest shopping day of the season.

But not every CEO should sleep snug in their bed,

As dreams of big profits dance through their head,

Because any tax dodgers with hop of good cheer:

UK Uncut know you've been naughty this year."

Vote for Topshop x x x

In my second to last year of secondary school a group of girls from my school went to Bristol University to learn about Physics. It was an alright day as far as school outings go, but it also opened up my eyes from electricity & all the other shit we'd thought of as "Physics" up until then. We made ice cream with liquid nitrogen, talked to a woman working on CERN & also watched a CD in a microwave. I got to keep the CD. On Brainiac the things in microwaves bit was always my favorite. & at college I loved doing microwave dyeing on fabric because you'd get really unexpected things happening.

Basically I have a long & checkered past with putting shit in microwaves that you shouldn't. So now that someone has created a tumblr dedicated to just that, photographed beautifully & even made into gifs (!) I no doubt have a new favorite site on tumblr. Microwhat is awesome. Oh & top to bottom: jaw breakers, soap, gummy bears, banana.

Credits: top left, Jill Watkins-Wright, top right, Jean Louis David, middle left, Royston Blythe, middle right, John Carne, bottom left, Gregory Kaoua, bottom right, Andrew Mulvenna. All images via ukhairdressers.com.

Ok so I'll be the first to admit that I'm a bit shit with hair. In fact most beauty things I'm pretty inept with. I blame having a feminist mother. But anyway, my problem is maintenance, if only you could get a haircut & it would just stay like that, not grow out, or look shit after a nights sleep or a wash after the hairdressers. Another problem is that I don't really like the hairdressers, that kind of forced social interaction has always annoyed me. They don't give a shit where I'm going on holiday, I know this. Although both the hairdressers I've had have been absolutely lovely people with interesting things to say, it's still just such an alien environment.

But it's got to that stage again where I can't really ignore my hair & just put it up, pin it out of the way & forget about it anymore. I tried to convince my boyfriend & mum to chop off the back bit that's really grown out, but they both refused. So I have to actually think about what to do with it next. I've had a blunt fringe when I was younger. I've had it longish & wild (horrible). I've straightened it (too much work). I'm kind of over having it short with a bit on the top or really short like here & the second picture. I really loved my halloween afro (here) so maybe I could get a perm? Does anyone know anything about perms? Everyones told me they suck. But I've never dyed my hair or anything so it's in pretty good condition.

The last option is just to get what I have now polished up a little bit. Chop off the mulletty bit at the back, shorten the bits around my face & just sort of diffuse it every morning like the middle two photos. Boring, but at least it would buy me some time! Oh & the last two images are just amazing so I wanted to post them, I would love crimped cat woman ears or a hat of plaits. Wouldn't you?

Sorry guys, I've had 2 days of work (in a row!) so I don't really have any excuse for the lack of posting, or decent posts shall we say, over the last few days. I've mainly just been getting Christmas stuff together, embroidering crows & suchlike, helping out with work around the house (we're trying to clear out our front room & attic) & well, seeing people & watching SLC Punk! & Shag which are both pretty hilarious in their own ways.

Now to explain the photos, which illustrate how slow I am on the uptake of certain trends. I know, I know, bloggers & fashion people everywhere have adopted the detachable collar as a way of adding a touch of the shirt about their outfits for a couple of years now (probably longer). But I never really got this, mainly because I'm not too huge on accessories (apart from rings, which are absent due to above tidying!). Anyway, I have a new love that is collars, cuffs & the bottom of a shirt poking out from beneath a deceptively cosy jumper. This extra bright green one I picked up last year in Paris is perfect because it means I get to revert to my default black disco pants. Very prim & proper I think you'll agree.

Um, what else? Oh yes, the school thing went really well! The kids were actually really nice & I had genuine wisdom to impart upon them. Although the job I was hoping to get out of it turns out to only be 2 days a week on extremely shitty pay, so no hopes of escaping the bookshop hell just yet. How are you guys getting on with all the Christmas stuff?

At work yesterday I got a text from my mum to say that her & the builders were very excited about a FedEx package that had arrived. So when I got home & opened it up I was extremely excited to see the magazine I wrote an article for a few months back. I don't actually know too much about it from the sparse correspondance I've had with one of the editor/contributors but google makes me think it's a publication in conjunction with a boutique type shop in China. It came from Hong Kong.

BUT enough of that, down to the nitty gritty of the fact that it is FUCKING AMAZING. It's basically like someone's vomited up all the best editorials & fashion adverts, along with some kick ass articles and bound it all together in a highly design conscious way. There are little booklets between the big pages, pop ups at the end & even one of those pull the slide & the image changes thing. It took me a while to find my piece, "Sunday Best" & I have to say the black on green niggled me a little because it's properly hard to read, but oh well. To be honest I'm just super flattered to be asked to do this kind of thing!

I'm not sure if the issue is available anywhere online. There are videos of the past issues here, but if you'd like to enquire about an issue if you drop me an e-mail (neonpeg@gmail.com) I'll interrogate them for you!