If these beauties didn't have a peep toe I'd have bought them already. But they do, so instead I have to walk into a shoe shop (hell) & an Office no less (hell full of snotty teenagers) & try them on after asking for the biggest size that may not even fit me anyway. I hate shoe shops. I used to scream when getting my feet measured as a child & think of that implement to this day as a form of torture. When I was younger & more insecure I checked out of it almost completely by sticking to unisex trainers, converse etc. & then internet shopping happened & I confess in the past to having ordered three pairs of shoes, tried them on at home & sent two back just to avoid the hell.

It (obviously) has a lot to do with the fact that I have what appear to be freakishly large feet, but to be honest I'd rather be tall & have the right feet to stop me from falling over than be shorter, or fall over. But like half of my female friends have size 7+ feet like me! There's a total conspiracy going on. Fashion magazines tell you to be tall & slim, which I count myself as, & then the high street makes clothes for some hybrid woman, not tall, not short, not large, not curvy, not straight. SHE DOESN'T EXIST.  What was I talking about? Oh yes, shoes... wish me luck! Or just read this & remain open mouthed for longer than is sociably acceptable like me.

Happy day-we-only-get-every-four-years!

Alright, alright, lets get back to the serious business of outfit(ish) posts & better bloggery. In my defence of yet another gif, jumpers are hard to photograph & make look nice, or I find they are, so yeah. I love the men's bit of H&M, every things always made of nicer stuff & I saw a really rad orange & green raincoat in it the other day that brought to mind Marni for me. This on the other hand reminds me of a purple space dyed jumper from a Stella McCartney or Missoni runway last season... Because the only way I can get through high street shopping is to at least know where the *inspiration* has come from.

PLUS I am totally jumping on that whole nail art bandwagon. A little late, I admit. But having watched Super Scrimpers & found this series surprisingly endearing, I picked myself up some ring enforcements and got my reverse french manicure on. With the very F/W 2012 combination of bright red & pink. Now, whilst I may not be up to this standard yet, I am certainly considering the splatter DIY or even the drip one. Maybe that's a little ambitious, have you tried anything?

Oh gee guys, I'm almost at 200 followers. How insane is that? Three more to go! I'll definitely get setting up a competition thingy to say thank you. What free stuff do you guys want? Jewellery, clothes or food? Or paper goods/art? Ah we'll see what I can rustle up...

L.O.V.E

So where have I been? At the Guardian, doing work experience on the fashion desk. Now, like me when I got the e-mail three weeks ago, your probably thinking, "Wow, that's amazing" or "I would love to do that!". Well, on day one I realised that it really wasn't what it cracked up to be. By the second day having been told to turn up to a shoot two and a half hours early, & then surrounded by twats, I really wanted to come home. But I stuck it out, after all I know there are hundreds of people who would kill for the opportunity & I thought I was just being a dick & not making the most of it. While that was probably a low point, it didn't improve much after that.

The biggest problem was that there was absolutely nothing to do. Once I'd gone through the post & divided up London Fashion Week invites between the editors & the days, done the fashion clippings from the days newspapers & got a cup of tea for everyone I then spent most of the day asking if there was anything I could do. I swear I probably did about one full day of work out of ten. & most of that was from me volunteering to overhaul the fashion cupboard (which I did, complete with guardian font shelf talkers) which was a mess after the Christmas rush. I didn't think that not having anything to do would be a problem & after originally thinking they were all too busy to explain anything to me, I later realised that actually the people who were meant to delegate to me didn't have enough to do themselves.

So oh well, I take away the fact that I definitely don't want to work in an office. Ever. It made me completely stir crazy. The highlights were Simon Chilvers liking my car shirt, compliments on a very basic navy cashmere jumper, Imogen Fox & Jess Carter-Morley being nice & better looking in person than in the magazine, & the nice lady who sat on the fashion desk as overspill from features who was the ONLY ONE who asked me about my background or how I was getting on.

Has anyone else done work experience at a magazine? Is it all like this? They seemed to think I'd done loads of work & said I could come back anytime I like so.. I wonder the standard of the other people they've had or if I'm just weird in that I've worked for three years.

Hello guys, sorry for the absence. All will be revealed at the end of this week, but I'm up in London for a bit (photo of my morning wake up view from my brothers sofa). It hasn't been too great so far but I'm hoping next week will be better. Eg, I started on Monday listening to Lana Del Rey & M.I.A & ended with Hole & The Smiths. Uh oh. But it is pretty exciting being vaguely involved with fashion week. In the meantime I am trying to keep up the tumblr (still on NY, behind, behind). Anyway, see you on the other side my lovelies!

This is one of the first high street things I spotted online & then seeked out in real life to try on, size up & purchase. This probably puts me about a decade behind everyone else but for some reason I've always found online browsing & shopping browsing seperate. Mainly because I spent last year online browsing without being able to real life shop, and because I think John Lewis has this whole internet shop not killing real shop thing down. 

Plus, River Island, who knew? I also got an amazing houndstooth pencil skirt that I've been looking for in vintage shops for the past year or so. It was also made in Britain which is pretty rad, no? They're probably the second brand to change my mind about this year, along with Ted Baker. Maybe my hipster/snobbiness is wearing off. I still can't touch a lot of things without screwing up my face or reeling back in horror. But we're working on it. I can seek out the denim, silk, cotton etc between all the polyester and viscose. & I will dammit!

Something really exciting & highly unexpected has happened. Anyway, I don't wanna jinx it right now so here's M.I.A's always epic new video. (yeah totally seamless) By the way, what the fuck is she doing with Madonna? Pretending to be a cheerleader? I love how into it Nicki Minaj is & how blank she plays it... The finger guns into middle finger thing on the highly mental Super Bowl has amused me greatly. Oh & you should all watch this. And this. Yes. I have been on youtube.

Oh how I swore the pastel thing wouldn't touch me. Like the 20s fever we're all meant to have gone down with. But in my defense these are technically too bright to be pastels right? Plus I bought this cashmere to stock up whilst I was in Glasgow AND I already owned this skirt. So basically I just "threw some stuff together" (is it just me that screws up their eyes & wants to hit anyone who says this whilst wearing a clearly strategically picked out outfit?) that I already owned because I like bright colours together & Diane Von Furstenburg on Project Runway in mint & purple was somewhat of a colour bookmark for me.

Blah, all this effort to disrepute the fact that I'm slightly influenced by fashion magazines. Who isn't? They're so pretty!

This outfit was (apart from the tights) all bought from the vintage(ish) shop Episodes in Paris. Having walked out of Kiliwatch offended by the unjustified high prices, we went into here expecting the same but it was much more reasonable. This silk shirt was like €15 which is very decent for silk. Especially in this insane rust orange red colour. I've developed quite a collection of coloured silk shirts but I'm always a bit lost how to wear them because they're so COLOURful. If you know what I mean.

Anyway fashion weeks start this week so in the spirit of getting Elle Collections and re-living the S/S shows I thought I'd channel Stella with this amazing skirt. The last time I wore it was with lurex on Christmas Eve and was told I looked like a little Christmas fairy. Amazing. I always want to look like a Christmas fairy! Even in February!

PS. Young Adult was a lot darker than we were expecting, but Charlize Theron was really great in it & it was actually really good. Anyway, off to Birmingham today for a lace exhibition, toodles!

Colour blocking, nice fabrics & COLOUR makes this absolutely lovely. Kulte's clothes aren't too shabby either. Not that I'm too much of a sundress kind of girl. But it's their zine/magazine  Kultorama that makes me happiest of all. Tongue in cheek art direction & nice big ass full pages of word art. Think I'm in sartorial heaven. Check it out. I can't actually find anything about them but I gather (quite convincingly) that they are French. As everything's in French. Very perceptive that way... Anyway nice images & I'm off to see Young Adult now, happy Monday!

Ok I'll be straight with you, I am in no way shape or form a "beauty" type of girl. I usually flick through the beauty pages of magazines unless there's some pretty packaging. I buy all my make up in Body Shop because I'm too lazy to research anything else. The only beauty products I own in quantity are nail varnish and Coconut Body Butter. But having stumbled across this lovely old shop pharmacy in Bath a couple of weeks ago I have to confess that I might be a little bit of a convert. We were drawn in by this Weleda stuff in the window because I'd read good things about it whilst looking for presents for my sister.

So we went in to sniff it & found another woman who has also heard good things about it & we opened alternate bottles of the stuff to see how it smelt. Anyway the Citrus one was the only other one that didn't smell like washing up liquid or something. Apart from the Chestnut which reminded me of Olbus Oil which I found strangely comforting having put it on my pillowcase every now & then since I was a kid. I was also a little bit of a sucker for the hippy mumbo jumbo on the back, "It captures the strength with which the mighty chestnut overcomes its own weight."

This week I finally got round to trying it because I don't take baths too often (too time consuming) only really when I have a book to finish. & Jesus. Wow. My skin was like properly smooth & it lasted for like two days, seriously. I can't say if I felt "relieved" or "toned" like the packet says. But my skin definitely liked it. Plus it was only £10 & I've used barely any of it, so definitely worth it to make Baths a little more special!

I'm not a very pink type of person. My skin is pink. That's about it. But I seem to have gradually acquired many pink items over the past year or so. & as you may or may not know I have a weakness for monochrome outfits so hey presto pink cropped mohair meet oversized silk shirt dress. It's reminiscent of a dress I saw somewhere that was out of my price range & that, frankly, makes it all the more appealing. Plus it's warm whilst not being too hot for work, lovely. Oh & you can never go wrong with a cheesy name necklace! (thanks Joe)

I was having one of those "Agh I don't know what to blog about!" moments when someone suggested my wardrobe/bedroom. So screw it, I always like nosing around other peoples houses & especially wardrobes, plus I'd just tidied up so here are some of my favourite bits of my bedroom, yay!

1/ Bed, Ikea duvet. Doesn't everyone have one? (or three...) & books! It's my dream to pile them up against my wall like Karl Lagerfield so they form disintegrating mountains or something. Plus a lovely candle from my sister & my stool with all my inscents on it that give my mum a headache.

2/ Wardrobe (or the rail with all the lovely stuff on it) colour coded, of course. Because I have a bit of an OCD about arranging clothes by the rainbow. On the two days I worked in Oxfam I did it to the whole shop. Issues. Yes.

3/ See no evil etc statue from my Grandparents & moomins mum brought back from Finland (Moominland). Plus sunglasses, two new pairs ready for summer. 

4/ Extra special clothes that are too special to go on the clothes rail. Not that they're not all special. Includes vintage 20s crepe dress that's falling apart, 50s velvet dress that fits like an insane dream, mental knitted dress & falling apart dressing gown that I want to do something with. Plus hats & skull shelf in the background.

5&6/ Above my clothes rail I have printed words, nice e-mails & sayings covering up the equation I spray painted onto the wall that is now on my arm. They're all a little outdated, but sometimes I read one & it makes me smile.

 I realise this is highly self indulgent so please just avert your heads if you're not as nosey as me... Oh & HAPPY FEBRUARY.