Over 2 months later...

It's been over 2 months since I last blogged... Life's been a bit busy as per usual, and the giving up blogging through the summer seems to have become a bit of a habit. But here's a few pictures I've taken and just haven't gotten round to uploading:

 First up there's this favoured work outfit of mine. The top and skirt are both Marks and Spencers, and everyone used to think it was a pretty dress. The belt is good old Primarni.

This outfit is made up of an old band tshirt that I customised because I didn't like the tee-style of it. I teamed it with a vintage skirt and my boots to rock that punk-chick look... Oddly enough, this was the comfiest I've felt in ages. And I bloody loved it.

So lots of other stuff has changed, and I'm now about to be starting a new job over at the designer outlet village as a supervisor in a handbag store, bye-bye pub! It's been an exciting few weeks.

And back to the fashion and music - the 2 things I adore:

I bloody love this song, even if it is from some one who was part of a manufactured band... but it's a pretty catchy tune:

BUT, what is it she's wearing? It's too short to be a dress, but there's nothing properly with it to be a top... She has got a body underneath, but it just doesn't work for me. Don't get me wrong, I love the print of it, and I like the concept to a degree, but it just looks like she's forgotten her trousers. Maybe I'm getting cynical in my old age, but it just doesn't make sense.

Just a quicky...

Last week, I rediscovered one of my work dresses from my London days, and decided to start wearing it again for my work now. I forgot how much I love it, even if it has prompted lots of Sergeant Pepper/The Beatles comments from people...

And tonight I randomly decided to dig out a couple of pieces I haven't worn in forever. Not going to lie, I'm feeling quite pretty at the moment.

(Jeans, Vintage; top, Topshop; scissor necklace, Vintage.)

I'm kind of quite conscious of how badger/skunk like my hair is at the moment now all the dye has come off the bleached bit, I'm getting ripped at work about it constantly by punters and friends alike, but y'know what, I like it. It gives me the opportunity to do whatever colour I want, whenever I want, and I love that freedom.

So I was a bit Naughty.

I kind of went shopping a little bit... Just a little. With a friend... In T K Maxx.

And I bought this gorgeous lace top that I plan to wear as a body as such - so more for layering purposes.

I also put this on whilst in the middle of a lazy evening so wearing my sweatpants (New Look), and then layered it with a cropped top (Primark) I randomly bought for an 80s night we're having at work soon.

I then put on the new dress I bought that's quite different for me... It's still black, it's still close fitting... But instead of being thigh skimming, it's "maxi" length... and when I say it's maxi, I mean it would be on a slightly shorter woman, but on me it's calf length

And I may have got some new shoes as well at T K Maxx, being the shopaholic that I am. Oops.

 I am going to end up financially ruined if this shopping malarkey keeps happening.

But the dress is so versatile... it looks great with a belt(Primark), or if I fold it back up, it's a great knee length dress. W in.

Anyway, I'm done being vain and taking lots of pictures of myself for today. I will find something else to post about soon that isn't shopping/me related :)

Yesterday we got our foster dog! Her name is Bonnie and she's extremely overweight, poor thing. She's been placed with my family to try and get her weight down, and hopefully we'll be keeping her at the end of this.

But check how cute:

Awwwwww :)

Unfortunately I didn't get to spend masses of time with her yesterday before I had to go back to work, so I missed her first walk with us as well. Instead, I took her out today and this is what I wore:

This is one of the "pretty" new tops (Primark) I mentioned in my last post, which I threw over my black skinnies (Topshop). I also "sexed up" my hair as ya do :P

Yesterday

Yesterday I went shopping. I spent far more money than I should have, but I refuse to regret it because I got some really pretty things.

Pretty things that include this new dress that I wore today:

Dress from The Square, necklace is a gift from a friend.

I saw it about a week ago, and having watched The Notebook the night before, I lusted over it for it's gorgeous style... So when I saw it was still there yesterday, and I tried it on for it to fit like a dream... Well I just had to have it.

No doubt the other handful of things I bought will be making their appearances over here as the weeks progress. And now I'm back off to the pub.

Summer Days

The sun is shining, and I've got my pasty whites out.

Denim skirt (Vintage) and tshirt (H&M).

Keeping it simple for a productive day. But damn I want a body to wear with skirts like this. Otherwise I just have to keep tucking in my skinny shirts.

Just a short one for now - I'm checking out Clothes Show Live's website for last year's outfits, and details of this year. Can't wait for it already, and it's still over 6 months away, but it starts up on my birthday this year. Win!

Weekend

So this weekend ended up being crazy busy with work. Think uber long shifts, and minimal amounts of sleep between. None the less we had planned a Sunday Session for after work (on Sunday, funnily enough), so I was determined to drag myself through that. Picking an outfit was a bit difficult to start with but in the end I went for the "screw it, that'll do" approach. I think it worked pretty darn well. See, what I needed something that was awesome enough for night out, but casual and "normal" enough for walking back in the morning from boyfriend's house. This is what I went with:

Gotta love black skinnies (Topshop) for their ability to be going-out and casual all at the same time. Then I grabbed my (just about decent) grey top (Topshop) that is a tiny bit see through in the wrong light... tucked it in and puffed it up (not that you'd know it in this picture). To compliment it I popped on my anchor necklace (Camden Market) that I adore, grabbed my hoody (Primark) and my new handbag (River Island) and headed on out after going heavy on the eye make up.

I'm ashamed to see that I look worse for wear in this picture, before I even started drinking. Goodness only knows what I looked like by the end. But I accounted for that by "sexing" up my hair before I left, and preparing my make up to be smudged and get messy. Then I had my trusty sunglasses to hand ready for the sunlit morning walk that I enjoyed this morning with a major hangover - I learnt the hard way that me and Sambuca don't like each other.

Needless to say that post shower, today's clothing was my hangover uniform of skinny jeans and the first t-shirt I picked up. Normality should return tomorrow hopefully :)

Bank Holiday

Just wanted to stick a quick picture up of today's outfit cos I loved it, and still am loving it.

Sunglasses (Primark), hoody (Primark), top (H&M), necklace (Vintage), crops (unknown), handbag (River Island), zipper ring - friendship ring finger ("borrowed" from a friend of a friend), chain ring - middle finger (DKNY @ Beaverbrooks).

Today I went shopping with a friend and managed to get myself a brand new handbag (which of course caused me much excitement). I also bought myself some more hair dye to redo the bleached sections of my hair which were starting to look grey. I was oddly okay with the "grey"ness, but thought it would be fun to get some pink back in my hair.

And now, despite having a severe case of man flu (yes, I know I'm a girl, but whatever) for the last week, I'm off down the pub. Win.

Vivienne Westwood

Have a watch of this. I found it thoroughly interesting, and love how down to earth Lady Viv seems.

Today and Yester-year

I was planning on blogging back on Thursday, but because the weather was so completely amazingly lush, I stayed out in the garden instead of coming in to tap out a blog.

I really wanted to blog on Thrusday though to brag about the sheer number of outfit changes I made my way through.

I started the day in a little vest top thing and jeans, cycled to work where I changed into black trousers and black work shirt. I then changed back to my jeans and vest thing to cycle home. Once home, I changed my jeans for a skirt, because it was lovely & warm, but also to try and get some colour on my legs.

Then I'd left my work trousers at work, so I left my skirt (Tammy) on, and swapped my vest top for my black work shirt (H&M) and had a little strap top (Primark) underneath. 

I then swapped skirt for trousers once I got to work. So my, my, my, wasn't that a busy outfit day. But not too busy for me to get a picture of one of my favourite outfit combinations.

In other news, this weekend was crazy busy at work. Saturday night was a rammed night of karaoke (always... "interesting") and made far more entertaining for me by me and one of the other barmaids acting like complete twazzocks - dancing and singing at the top of our lungs behind the bar. That's right, we're THAT cool.

Sunday wasn't so busy work wise, but went out for a "Sunday session" as the lads called it.... I wore my Henry Holland for Debenhams dress, threw on a hoody and some dolly shoes to complete that little look.

And then today, having only had about 3 hours sleep (we hit it hard last night, didn't get home til 4.30am, woke at 7.30 and couldn't settle again - fail), I've been just chilling in jeans and a tee. Nothing interesting, BUT "Last Night at Chateau Marmont" arrived in the post today. So now I'm desperately trying to finish "Chasing Harry Winston" for the second time, before I start on this one. And until then, I'm just going to enjoy the new book smell. Cos I'm cool like that.

"Ribena on Acid"

That title... that's the colour of my hair now from when I went back for a top up because the "permanent" colour had faded too quickly. So I went back in and my amazing hairdresser put this colour in instead:

Pre-hair-dye session, I spent most of my morning faffing around over what to wear. What a fun game that is.

Originally I was tempted to go with this:

Dress (A|Wear), necklace (stall @ Camden Market), tights (unknown), wedges (Primark).

Then I realised that I can't drive in those wedges, and the tights wouldn't work with flats. And as much as I loved it being all bright and bold colour look, I felt it was probably a better look for the likes of London than out in villages.

So instead I swapped the red tights for ("Crystal") nude ones (Falke @ Selfridges), added my boyfriend cardigan (New Look), and put on boring flat little ballet pumps that I have no idea where they came from...

This was the final outcome.

I'm desperately in need of replacing my boyfriend cardigan as this one is falling apart at the seams; literally.

Oh, and super excited because I've just ordered Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger. I've seen the "The Devil Wears Prada" film (about a gazillion and one times), and have also already read, and now re-reading the books of "Everyone Worth Knowing" (finished yesterday for the 2nd time) and "Chasing Harry Winston" (started this morning for the 2nd time). So I figured it was about time I had the 4th book she has written so far.

Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before she does another one, cos I love her books. I always find it quite simply impossible to put them down.

News is Fashion; Fashion is News.

It never ceases to astound me the way that two worlds can cross paths so much and end up so interbred and interlinked.

And nothing astounds me more than just what I put as my title, news as fashion, and fashion as news. These two subject vary greatly in importance to people, with news often being deemed as the important one, and fashion being the exciting little bit of distraction from the depression that the news casts over the world.

Yet at times like with John Galliano and Kate Middleton's wedding dress, the fashion world becomes the news. Then there's the times like with the Japanese earthquake/tsunami and events like World AIDs day, when news becomes fashion. The latest evidence of this being the fashion relief thing being run in America to raise money for the Japanese victims, as covered here in Vogue. 

Then there's the interbreeding that goes on between fashion and news on the television - the female presenters are expected to always look their best, to look business like but fashionable. In all honesty, when was the last time you saw a news presenter, on BBC for example, wearing the same outfit within a month? I don't think I've ever seen it, and it's a joy of their job. 

I'm still trying to figure out when exactly this turn came about - when the 2 topics became quite so intertwined, but I can't quite place my finger on it. Has it really always been this way?
Have we always cared what the Prime Minister's wife is wearing, and how this reflects on the current economic climate (remember the outrage at SamCam wearing an expensive designer dress when her husband had just announced major spending cuts?), or has this become a more recent development in the shallowness this world is displaying?

So many thoughts on all of this. If there were more readers of this, I'd ask for thoughts and opinions, but y'know... Not gonna happen.

You wore what?!

Today I had to walk to physio. Anyone who knows me will know I don't DO walking. In fact, I simply don't really do exercise (probably part of the reason I've ended up needing physio). Anyway, I had to walk, so had to be warm but cool, but I also needed to be vaguely practical so that the therapist could get at my legs which are in need of physio. So, just a wee bit of a challenge then.

And this is what I ended up going with:

Shirt (Uniqlo), strap top (Primark) and leggings (H&M).

I then combined it with these accessories:

Converse (well... go figure) and handbag (Jimmy Choo for H&M). The laces I bought in some boutiquey type shop when I lived near Oxford. Ahh I miss that place sometimes.

Do you think I could pass this off as the sporty trend? Cos I'd like to pretend that I could, haha. 

It's rather bizarre that today seem to be like a mass-wearing of Converse day. I saw a handful of people wearing them as I walked to the physio centre (and in a small place like the village I live in now, that's saying something). Also Converse seems to be making regular occurrences in my twitter feed. This seems to be down to Stylist Magazine getting a twitter discussion on about the wonderfulness that is Converse.

Try and get a massive Converse revival going, yeah? Got to love the hi-tops for the win.

Real Women (Pakistan Fashion Week, Day 1)

I just wanted to write a quick post about real women on the catwalk tonight after having a browse through pictures on the Telegraph's website from day one of Pakistan Fashion Week.

Now normally, on the catwalk it seems that all the models are stick thin, with concave stomachs and couldn't get a muffin top even if you stuck them in the skinniest jeans you can find. Hats off to them, a lot of them are naturally that thin, or just find it easy to maintain a lower weight, awesome. Buuut, it does make you wonder how  clothes would hang on "real" people in the "real" world.

Yes, yes, I know these models are real people themselves, and some of them are absolutely lovely, but that's their profession to maintain their bodies to that high standard, and when they're doing their job they're not quite "real". If that makes any sense.

Anyway, looking through these pictures from Pakistan FW, I saw this picture of an outfit I rather love, and was shocked to see the model has an actual stomach. Not fat, but sure as hell not concave.

(Nickie and Nina design at Pakistan Fashion Week 2011. Picture taken from here)

And out of all the models I've seen in other fashion shows, she's one of the prettiest.

I also can't help but feel this outfit just wouldn't work on a tiny stick of a woman. You need actual breasts to make that top work (which I love, and want one of, if I actually had breasts of my own!); and I don't think the skirt would look right if it was on a "woman" who's hip bones you could clearly see defined.

Over here in the UK, I don't think you would ever see a model involved in Fashion Week with curves like that, which is a shame, because I honestly believe that some of the designs would look better on this sort of figure.

Digressing back to the picture slightly (can you see my thought process is a bit jittery tonight), for some reason this outfit really reminds me of a belly dancer's outfit. I desperately would love to have a top like that, but I have no idea what on earth I would wear it with or for.

Dear Diary, please give me this top and a reason to wear it.

Insanity

Insanity is a word that basically sums up my entire life, not just from my clothing choices (why wear tights with a mini skirt in the middle of winter - blue legs are waaaay cooler!) but also with the general maintaining of my life style. I can go from doing nothing for days on end, to having jam packed weeks.

Last week was one of those weeks, so I didn't get around to posting much. But also, oh my gosh, did you see the beautiful weather?! Gorgeous sun pretty much every day. Fantabulous.

And last Wednesday a friend came round for the day and we sat in the garden enjoying the sun, baked cakes and drank beer. We're amazing cool. And this is the lovely outfit I concocted because I was feeling rather boyish in a girly sorta way:

Jeans(H&M), tshirt (boutique some where), underwear (Debenhams), belt (Primark).

In all honesty, I didn't actually wear my jeans this low all day because my mother, and friend, would have had a fit. I did, however, have the desire too all day. And had to constantly fight the urge to pull them down a bit more.

This week is (thankfully) looking a bit quieter after the business of the last week, but who knows, that could all change. I've hopefully got a friend coming out tomorrow, which'll be awesome. And then nothing until work on Thursday.

Newness.

So firstly, here's the new clothes I bought the other day:

Both H&M. I rather love both. Have had many compliments on the new work shirt.... whilst at work, funnily enough.

And now for the big newness:

That's right folks, I've had my hair done. It's been dyed a few shades darker than my usual mouse-brown... And the pinky-purple chunks added in.

Oh AND I took the plunge, and got a bit shaved off. Here it is:

Sooooo happy with it all. Just ignore the weird face... But note the amazing colour of the back chunk, aaaand note the colour of my nails. I bought a new Essie nail varnish there as well.

All in all, I am one epically happy bunny.

Kinda like this one

(found here)

5 Days

So today it's 5 days until I get my hair cut & dyed, and boy I can't wait!

At the moment I'm not really sure how I want it cut, but I am seriously contemplating having a bit shaved... 

Kinda like this, but not quite so extreme.

 (btw, how hot is she?! - Image found here)

I was also planning on getting chunks dyed pink. I'm not sure if I'm just gonna have pink now because pink was such a big hit on the runway this last few sets of Fashion Weeks, that pink hair seems to be every where, and I don't want to do it just because it's "trendy"... I don't know. We'll see.

If I do go pink, I want it neon pink. That goes without saying for me really - I don't do things by halves, it's either full on glaring colour, or it's none at all.

I might even go for pink and blue or something. Or pink and black. Ahh, so many ideas.

Oh and today I went shopping. I bought new jeans and a new black work shirt. Pictures will no doubt appear at some point of both. Awesome.

Outfits

Sometimes I like to wear boys clothes, back comb my hair and put on red lippy.

Yesterday was one of those days.

Yesterday was one of those days, and I ended up in this little outfit after work. Tshirt (Vintage, "borrowed" from a male friend), Jeans (Vintage, from a friend of a friend).

Today I decided to go a bit more feminine... not much, but a bit. I'm also enjoying the fact that the sun is out and shining. It's not even that cold. For I was perfectly happy out wearing just these:

Jeans (Topshop), Tshirt-dress-thing (Tammy @ BHS) and belt (Primark).

I'm still going with the anti-pencil-eyeliner thing for the moment. It's been nearly a week since I last wore pencil eyeliner. I'm still undecided if it's a better look for me or not - but I do know it's giving me the panda-eye syndrome far less. Win.

Random Play

I've been having a bit of a crappy week this week. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel - as there always is - and I'm persevering  in getting to that light.

My Saviours this week have mainly been a couple of good friends who have listened rather than judged; alcohol and music. I've mainly had my music on shuffle, just because I've been getting sick of any artist if I listen to it for too long, and thankfully, magically, 9 times out of 10 my shuffle has managed to pick songs that reflect my mood perfectly.

This got me thinking... Wouldn't it be awesome if we had wardrobes that could do that? Like sense our mood and randomly pick out an outfit to represent it, or help mask it as the case may be.

I mean seriously, if you got up feeling really happy, wouldn't it be fantastic if your wardrobe just produced this outfit for you to wear for the day:?

(Found on this post, from this blog)

Or if you were having a crappy day and just wanted to hide away, yet still feel kinda cute in your outfit, if it gave you something like this:

(Found here)

Then, wouldn't that just be cool?

There could be endless possibilities and options if you could just make your wardrobe reflect or hide your mood as you wish. Without having to go that hard slog task of "what does this outfit say about how I'm feeling?"... I mean, don't get me wrong, half the fun in getting dressed sometimes is picking the pieces for your outfit, but if you're having a real shit day, or are buzzing with happiness, then picking out your outfit can just be a bit too much on top of it all.

That's my thoughts anyway. In other news, I'm going to be pink haired soon! Monday 21st March here I come to have an awesome cut, style and colour by my favourite hairdresser. I'm also flirting ever so slightly with the idea of letting him shave a bit off of my hair (and dye that shaved section bright pink!). Just like a subtle bit. We'll see, I'll talk to him about it.

 I keep disappearing for weeks on end and that rather annoys me. I really wasn't joking when I named this blog the Not So Daily... because it rarely is daily. Oops.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I went shopping for some essentials, and ended up *finally* finding a dress that I kinda instantly fell in love with. I've worn it a few times since I bought it, but here's a picture I took especially to show a friend what my pretty new dress looked like.

Isn't it nice? Not bad for high street (Henry Holland for Debenhams) methinks. My favourite way to wear it at the moment is to put on some crappy cheap tights, and then wear my heeled work boots. It looks pretty groovy. Then because it's still not Summer yet (boo) I usually just chuck my hoody (Primark) or boyfriend cardigan (New Look) on.

In other news, I went to London last week and did a bit of shopping. £30 worth of hosiery anyone? Because yeah, that's blatantly not what I spent... Oops. This week I get to enjoy the mammoth task of sorting the last few bits of my room out, having moved into this house well over a month ago... There's not many boxes left to go thankfully, but even so, I hate doing it. I'm sorting all this crap out from years and years of living in Oxfordshire, and all the rubbish I accumulated over those years is now in dire need of being sorted out. How rubbish is that?
But oh well, I have a new bottle of Essie nail varnish at last, and a place where I can actually buy it in person. Wahey. I'm also thinking of booking myself into for a cut and dye pretty soon. So it'll be like I'm an all new person, with my new style job - restaurant manager at the pub I work in, go me - my new ability to buy non-black clothes and my generally new positive outlook at present... Then yeah, it's looking like 2011 might actually be a pretty groovy year.

And yes, the 1990's did call and ask for their word back, but I just told them I use it ironically.

Average

Today my outfit was just like my title - average. It was uniform black skinnies (Topshop), white strap top (Primark) and this cropped jumper (Superdry) I bought as a 16th Birthday present to myself... Does that make the jumper retro? After all, it's over 3 years old now, and cropped stuff has kinda been trending a smidge hasn't it?

And I even decided to mix it up a bit on pose... Just for laughs.

But why bother taking a picture of this outfit? When after all it is so painfully average. Well, it's more because I was proud of the make up I did to go with it. It may not be massively special, but usually if I try to use a pencil liner on my eyelids, rather than just rims, it looks smudgy and teenager-y and crap. Today I was rather chuffed with the results so though I'd share:

I used a green eye pencil  (Avon) to line the rims of my eyes and the lids, green eyeshadow (Avon)on just my upper lids and brown-black mascara (No.7 @ Boots) on both sets of lashes. Because the mascara is old, it meant I didn't get too much of an over the top look as well, which is what usually discourages me from putting mascara on my lower lashes - I feel I just look clownish if I do with normal mascara.

I also used a pink lip pencil (Boots) that I actually used during my more emo/neon/whatever-it-was phase to line my eyes. But this time I used it properly and stuck it loosely on my lips after applying lip balm to give a subtle pink-ish look. And this was the final result up close:

I was quite happy as a whole, and I'm surprised but pleased to report that it's mainly stayed there all day as it should have done - a rarity for me!

Renewed

Today's inspiration that is stuck in my head is 40s pin up. I'm not entirely sure why, because I can't find a picture of the exact look I was going for when I tried Googling it. So maybe I don't mean 40s pin up, but those are the words floating in my head. The image in my head is like a thin, but curvy Marilyn Monroe style woman in a loose shirt with most of her hair being held back by a rag of fabric whilst she does the house cleaning. In my head this woman does have like strawberry blonde curls, but obviously I can't do that with my hair just for a day.

So here's the outfit I ended up with. I'm also quite proud to say that the key elements of it are vintage as well.

Hair tie thing (vintage - "permanently borrowed" from friend), denim shirt (Vintage - Mum's wardrobe),  belt (Vintage - friend of a friend), leggings (H&M), white strap top (Debenhams).

Now all I need are Marilyn Monroe's curves and I'm good to go :)

Dear Diary,

Please can have my lips bedazzled like this sometime:

Found from a Google search leading me here.

This is how Jessie J wears her lips in part of the music video of "Do It Like a Dude", and I have to admit, if it wasn't going to be time consuming to do, and I wasn't guaranteed to lose majority of the stones in 5 minutes flat (cos I'm clumsy, alright!) then I would totally do this for a rocking night out. 

Ok, so it would get in the way for that sneaky kiss on the dance floor, but you just have to accept it I guess. Either have awesome looking lips and no kisses, or average every day lips and kisses. Tough choice, I think not.

But yeah, check out that music video too, I adore a lot of the outfits, and make up choices, in it. That said if you're easily offended, don't watch or listen to the explicit version on YouTube, much better to wait for it to come on a music channel on your telly.

Get On With It.

So this week, my biggest style challenge is finding things that keep me vaguely warm, yet don't touch my arm where I have 2 massive infected sores (cause unknown at present).

After a while, the whole "jeans and tshirt" combination gets a bit dull, so yesterday I decided to drag out a dress (Illustrated People @ Topshop). Shocker, I know. But how does a dress keep me warm? Well, with a pair of opaque tights (Redherring @ Debenhams) of course... chuck on a boyfriend style cardigan (New Look) that is loose enough I can get my arm through, but is able to hold itself when I roll it up to keep my arm uncovered, and you have a winning outfit.

Well, in my opinion anyway.

That's what I wore yesterday. Today's outfit isn't worth the effort of taking a picture, it's just a simple tartan mini skirt (New Look), black tshirt (M&S) and my LadyLuckRulesOk?! Necklace. I'm not keen on doing practical today, so needless to say I won't be going out of the house because I don't feel like freezing parts off!

In other news, tonight (Wednesday) on channel 4 at 9pm, Mary Portas: Secret Shopping is on. This series is one I blogged about at the beginning of the year after I saw an article on the Guardian's website. I watched last week's episode and it was rather interesting, if a little frustrating for me at time. I'm a strong believer in good customer service, and some people's attitudes to it - including managers - appal me. But ahh well, tonight's episode is about the hard sell, which should be entertaining to watch as I'm completely against the hard sale. If some one is pushing products on me, I always walk away and leave everything. Do it subtly, and I'm likely to buy more. Simple stuff people. 

New Stuff.

It's been a crazy last 12 months, and I am now living in the 4th different place in those 12 months. I've gone from my family home in Oxfordshire, to London, to a temporary flat in Wiltshire across to the newly refurbished new family home also in Wiltshire.  

And this is where I plan to stay for a little while at least. Which means I'll be getting my blogging back on track.

Starting with my girl crush on Ke$ha. She was interviewed on 4Music today around lunch time and I just fell more in love with her the more she said. She's completely crazy and obsessed with everything that has been considered a fashion faux pas in the past... Yet some how she still makes it work. She admits to having a thing for mullets, and beards, and is in love with all stuff 80s. Her general craziness just makes me happy. If you can find the interview online some where, go watch, it's intense stuff.

And as proof that I'm nowhere near as stylish as her, or crazy or anything... here was the somewhat dull outfit I wore today, but loved anyway.

Jeans (Vintage from friend of a friend), t-shirt (Tesco), cardigan (New Look) , Gold bow necklace (Vintage).
I have to be honest, I love this new tshirt as it's rather versatile. With these jeans it looks nice and casual and is deliciously comfortable. But pair it with a smart skirt or smart trousers, and it looks impeccably formal. Especially if you pop a jacket over the top. So it's rather lovely and a bit of a win-item for me. Cool.

And on a random last note. If I woke up one day and was a man, I'd totally want a handlebar moustache. Something like this methinks:

Which I borrowed from The Sartorialist

Are We Being Served?

Ok, firstly, I know I've been away for forever again. As I said in my last, brief, post; I do have my reasonings, and I am genuinely hoping that my lackings will stop soon as it looks like I'll be moving into the house soon. Which means constant internet access, and my own space as well, which thus means I can start putting pictures back up.

For now though, I want to discuss an article I read today on the Guardian's website, under their Life & Style. It's about Mary Portas, the woman who really made her fame with Mary: Queen of Shops. I have to admit I was completely absorbed with the series, as I personally am a great believer in great service, John Lewis levels of customer service, not Primark service.

In a slightly more professional sense, Portas has worked well towards making her name, originally starting in 1982 as a window dresser for Harrods. From there, she moved across to Topshop. She then finally made her name with Harvey Nichols when she moved there in 1990, turning around their image completely. And then she culminated this growth by setting her own business, Yellowstone, advising multiple stores.

This article that I read today wasn't just a run down on her achievements, or a focused look at her personal life, but instead - to me at least - it gave me an insight into why service can be important to people. There seems to be an obsessive perfectionist side to Mary, noted by the journalist in reference to the fact that when Portas finds the right phrase for what she wants to say, she repeats it multiple times. I personally can understand this, as I am much the same. And to me it reads as if Mary wants to pass on this perfection to others, and isn't afraid to vocalise it - then help rectify and perfect it, unlike many consumers who are happy enough to whinge but never really act on it.

Anyway, I don't know about others, but I really want to change the way service is provided across the country. I know I personally can't make a big change on my own, but none the less, I vow to try to only use stores where you get a service, such as John Lewis. It may cost more, but isn't it worth a few extra pennies to get some one ask if there's anything else they can help with? Or to actually get greeted with "Good morning/afternoon" or even just "Hello" when you approach the paypoint rather than just getting "NEXT!" and greeted with a moody face?

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but that's my vow for the year - to try to make use of customer service. And to be a good customer too - to say thank you when some one has been helpful. To ask to speak to the manager to compliment the staff, not only to complain.

And in case you're interested in that article about Mary Portas, it's here on the Guardian's website. And she also is a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, reviewing stores on a weekly basis, with constructive criticism being brought across in a bitchy way that does make me giggle but is also often fair. Check some of her columnist work here.

Anyway, will leave it there for now. Happy New Year everyone, things will be up for improvement here, promise.