How The Eff Do You Wear A Kimono?

So kimonos are seemingly omnipresent on the high street this summer, but those floaty, floral, folksy garments have been perplexing me a bit... How would one actually wear one? 

I barely ever use Lookbook but it's perfect for exactly these kinds of crises. Y'see, I'm going on a shopping spree today, so have been doing a little preliminary research on how to style certain items to help me work out what to buy! A prepared shopper is a happy shopper. 

Anyhow, from my findings on Lookbook, I'm happy to see there are a good few ways to wear a kimono - think I'll definitely be on the look out today! 

Here are some kimonos I'm loving the look of:

(Boohoo - £15, Urban Outfitters - £58, ASOS - £28.50)

Don't miss Topshop's amazing array of kimonos either... I didn't include them above because they're not modelled on er, models, so didn't look right in the picture! #photoshopproblems

Will you be trying the kimono look out..? Hope there's some inspiration here on how to style them! 

I'm off to watch Parks & Recreation, eat breakfast and then hit town for a shopping spree! Wish me luck...

xo

I LOVE: Lazy Oaf Summer '13 Lookbook

Sun, sisterhood and feline imagery. What more could you want from a summer lookbook..?! 

Oh Lazy Oaf, my love for you will never cease!! 

Which pieces are you loving from the summer collection? The Fun dress and cat tees are on my NEED-list. 

xoxo

My First London Pub Garden Outing!

You know summer's here when you're glugging a lovely fruity cider in a sunny pub garden. Yep, I lost my London pub garden virginity today with my friend Catherine at The Canonbury. It was very special and she was very gentle with me. 

Check me out in my potential new outfit post location! I'm on the slightly ropey roof terrace area beyond our balcony - it needs a bit of TLC but everyone knows a good brick wall is like a blogger's dream location, so it'll do! 

(Dress - Evil Twin in the Urban Outfitters sale, jacket - Primark, shoes - Sarenza, sunnies - H&M)

We had a Sunday Roast - it was lovely! 

I had a mixed fruit Kopparberg - this shiz tastes like literal jelly! Amazing.

 Then it was onto Pimm's - with a side order of gappy fringe (will be putting an end to that nonsense tonight with some scissors as I cut a new fringe in... Wish me luck!)

The walk home was mostly spent ogling the insanely gorgeous houses round my 'hood that I'll never be able to afford - sob! At least I can look...

And now I'm off to cut my fringe, which could end badly! At least I haven't been drinking Pimm's and Cider today. Oh wait.

xo

Me me me and stuff

The new Company Mag has hit stores and inside is my first mag column and also a feature I wrote about the 'ugly food' that never gets a moment in the Foodstagram spotlight!

Since writing both of those I've also had some more exciting news - I've been promoted to Features Writer on the magazine. So I'll get to write loads more and have some really fun ideas up my sleeve that'll be hitting the pages so I hope you'll enjoy reading them :)

Woop woop! 

Also, I went back to my uni to do a bit of a Q&A sesh with the students along with some other uni alumni who have gone onto do cool stuff. They made a video of myself and another girl from my old course (Fashion Promotion, FYI) Charlotte chatting about what we did and how we've gotten to where we are now. Amazing the different paths people on my course have gone onto!



Going to see Thriller at the theatre tomorrow - so excited! Then hopefully sunning it up on Sunday because appaz the sunshine is BACK from its 8-month hiatus. Woohoo!

You got some sunny weekend plans ahead? xo

Growing Out Short Hair: From Crop To Bob In 6 Months!

I had always loved my short hair but there came a time that I decided that it was starting to make me look a bit old/odd and I just didn't feel 100% 'me'. So I decided to take on the mission of growing out a pixie crop. Which actually turned out to be a piece of piss!

I had always had the logic in mind that I would grow the fringe out first, then gradually try to grow the back out into a 'Pob' situation, like I had started to around the time of this blog post, but it never really worked out. 

What actually worked for me this time round was the opposite - the shorter the fringe, the longer the sides look, so I kept my fringe short short short and let the sides and back do their thing! 

Let's start at the er, start, shall we?

Here I am at Reading Fest on 25th August 2013 with a slightly too-long crop:

Shortly after, leaving the rest of my hair alone, I cut in a straight fringe:

Around 6 weeks later, the sides were starting to come down a bit. I straightened the life out of the sides of my hair to make them look as long as poss! 

 At 8 weeks:

Around 10 weeks into my 'growth', I trimmed my fringe crazy short and kept leaving the sides and back alone. 

On 23rd December, 4 months in:  

Mid-January - more fringe trimming. Lego-tastic!

This is around Mid-January - I started to put my hair over one ear to stop it all looking so lego-like and have more of a 'style' to it. This was a pretty messy hair day, soz. 

February 2013 - the first time my hair started to look more bob-like and less crop-like! 

And 1 month later - around 6 months into the whole growing thing - we have a little bob! Albeit a messy one. I've not had a trim or anything, I've just let it grow, so it's a bit messy at the back (I used to have it shaved at the nape, so growing that part out isn't fun! 

And here's me the other day, 7 months since deciding to ditch the crop. I've started flicking the hair out at the bottom to give it a bit of shape and style. 

So yeah! Onwards and upwards, or should that be downwards (ie: hair growing down... This whole line worked better in my head)

I've still got a long way to go and I know a time is coming where I'm going to have to have a bit of a trim to sort out my scruffy nape and get a layer or two around the crown for some oomph...

If you've got short hair and are thinking of growing it out, I say just go for it! My hair has breezed through the awkward stage so quickly and I'm so happy I stuck it out. It hasn't even been THAT awkward.

I even managed to get my hair in bunches at the weekend! Although they did look ridiculous. It was cool to buy hairbands for the first time in like, 7 years, though!

Hope you've enjoyed my journey from crop to bob!

Any more styling tips for a short-bobbed girl like me? I tried using curling tongs at the weekend. Verdict: TOO SOON. It was ridic.

xoxo

All The New Things

I've been getting my occasional 'loss of style mojo' recently. No matter where I go or what I try on, I just can't buy ANYTHING. Yep, I've been in a right style funk. 

That was until Sunday, when I headed to Oxford Street for a 2 hour lightning speed solo shopping session where I officially broke the spell. I forget that I much prefer shopping alone. Is that weird? 

I bought a new shirt, 2 x new trousers, new boots and a necklace that says LOL on it (my very old one was knackered!)

It was soooo nice to wake up today and have lovely new things to put on!

(Shirt - Forever21, Trousers - New Look, Boots - Topshop Astrix, Necklace - Primark, Specs - Specsavers)

(Boots - Topshop Astrix)

(Shirt - Forever21)

I've been getting lots of lovely comments on Instagram about my ever-growing hair! I'll have to do a blog post of the process of getting just-about-past the awkward stage to help any other short-haired laydees nervous to grow their hair out. It's been SO easy. I can't wait to find out what will suit me when I have longer hair. I know it might sound weird but so many things just don't work at all when you have short hair. Earrings, sporty things, anything slightly mumsy... Can't wait to be free! 

Have you ever lost your style mojo? Sucks, doesn't it? 

xo

Photo Diary #5

Here are a few snap shots of what I've been up to in the past week...

I had my first photo shoot for my Company column! I got my make up touched up by Sophie Higginson - here's how it looked... 

(She used YSL's Touche Eclat foundation and a pink MAC lippie)

The shoot went okaaaaay - despite sharing pics of myself with you lot for the past 6 years, I still actually hate having my photo taken. So despite dying of awks, some nice pics came out... Sneak peek:

Me and Theresa headed to check out & Other Stories - H&M's sister store. If the sister was way cooler. 

The beauty section was intense! How simply cute is this packaging? 

In other news I headed back to my old uni to partake in a Q&A with the students on my old course about how I went from working in Toppers 1 year ago to kidding my dream company into employing me. 'I actually paid Derren Brown to tell me all his secrets...' I told them.

I don't know why Krispy Kreme send us doughnuts all the time at work but I really love it and hope it never ever ends. I jazzed up my A5 DIY paper plate (tutorial to follow! Lol) with some text to add a bit of character. 

Alex and I went back to our native Bexhill to visit our mummies on Sunday. We saw the pretty promenade:

Ever-questionable shop signs:

(ANYTHING?)

And my mum's snogging dogs. They were actually fighting over a ball, but it looked like they were having a tender if incestuous moment. Aww. 

I went to the Marc Jacobs x Diet Coke launch! Loved the retro posters on the wall:

Marcy J! He was small but perfectly formed.

And then it all went a bit downhill on Tuesday because work was hit with some vomiting (etc...) bug that totally wiped us out! I had a pretty dark 12 hours. Then slept for about 24 hours. And starved. And now I'm happily back to my old self, and am busy nomming some Magic Stars. Yummy! 

Hope you've all been having a nice and vomit-free week? x

NEED.

Have you ever seen a more beautiful biker than this floral number new in at Toppers? Second question - can you lend give me £75? 

I feel a spree coming on! What are you lusting after at the mo? (Clothes-wise, keep it clean people!)

xo

Weekend Snaps

Soz for the delay in blogging - been having a total BT-related internet nightmare in the new flat and it's been hellish. Still no official net for the foreseeable but we're managing to intermittently borrow someone else's WiFi so hopefully this blog will reach you...

Thanks for all of the lovely tweets and comments regarding my exciting news that I'm Company's new columnist. I actually wrote my first column today after much deliberation on the subject matter... Hopefully you'll like it! It'll be just like this blog but a bit more 3D. Look out for the May issue (out around April 10th I think)! 

Have had SUCH a lovely chilled weekend with Alex. I've been a good girl and gone to the gym twice but have also contradicted that by eating the most absurd amount of food. Swings and roundabouts, right..?!

Here's what we've been up to in pics: 

Yesterday was amazeballs - we walked along the canal from Islington all the way to London Zoo!  (Making a pitstop for some shopping and tourist-hating at Camden...)

I'm like, obsessed with houseboats.

 You could see Warthogs, Hyenas and birds from the canal! I was so tempted to jump the fence for a free wander around the zoo but good sense prevailed.

 Vintage shopping. Unsuccessful, sadly.

 These boots were made for walkin'. Just as well because we did some srs mileage yesterday!

In the evening we took an exciting trip to the hardware shop to get special plug thingys to put heavy frames on the wall and finally completed our lounge with a frame of Warhol pics and the piece de resistance - a big Amelie poster which shows the restaurant Amelie worked in which we visit each time we're in Paris!  I'll blog more pics of our flat when it's next tidy...

(All furniture Ikea, throw - Primark, Roxy's bed - Amazon (this exact style is sold out but available on eBay)

Dinner was a feast of burgers, chips and onion rings... SO healthy! There's tomatoes in ketchup at least...

Today we got the 73 bus to Marble Arch to try and spend an a Selfridges voucher I got at a press day. It was a bit too overwhelming so I failed at spending it. I was tempted to spend it on some of this adorable Artbox stationery though!

For lunch I took Alex to Bodeans for his first Man Vs Food style lunch experience! We ordered a mahoosive meat platter which was hella unphotogenic, so here's some sauce:

Walked past this glasses shop in Covent Garden which had no obvious name - NEED those dolphin specs!!

Then we went to Blackwells so Alex could continue to feed the book addiction that is putting our bookshelves and indeed relationship under strain! Okay maybe the latter was an exaggeration. But that boy has booky issues.

And that's about it! A lovely weekend of mooching and good food that feels like it has gone on forever. Perfect! 

Have you had a fun weekend? xo