adulescent

Another 30 Days

2010-05-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

Hopefully by now, you've had a good gander over at 30 Days of Flats and hopefully, you've enjoyed it. Following on from the positive response, I've decided to continue with the theme of 30 Days and make it a series. Today, I've started a new chapter, 30 Days of Sun in honour of the lovely weather so lo and behold, let me introduce you to my sunglasses collection:

I'm not dead

2010-04-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what you may believe from my lack of posts on here, I can confirm that I'm not dead - I just kind of fancied a break from blogging. Okay, more than a break - a sabbatical if you will. Until my break, I'd been blogging continuously for almost a decade in various different forms and I kind of just felt it was time to back away from the computer for a while.

Anyway, there's good news for all of you die hard enthusiasts. While I may not be posting on here very often any more, for the next month I'm doing a little fashion challenge over on tumblr. For thirty days, I will be attempting to wear a different pair of shoes from my collection rather than the same four pairs that I seem to wear over and over. Some of you might remember The Great Shoe Cull of 2009, which will go some way to showcasing my rapid shoe buying habit.

So for the next month, please redirect yourselves over to:

http://30daysofflats.tumblr.com

...and I promise that I'll try to come back here soon.

Let's get festive

2009-12-24T07:31:00.000-08:00

Sunday, Monday and La Wintour

2009-09-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

Whoops, I forgot to post my link yesterday, sorry. To make up for it, here is a photo of Anna Wintour that I took at today's Jaeger London show as I sat across the shag pile carpet runway from her:

Until I have time to write up my full round up of the week, head over to the Daily Express website for my daily photo blog of LFW:

For Sunday's post, click here

For today's post, click here

LFW SS10: Where the hell am I?

2009-09-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

You may be puzzled by my disappearance during London Fashion Week. As hardened readers will know, twice a year I relinquish my lacklustre blogging and go hardcore during LFW. However, this year I'm blogging for my work place and unfortunately, I cannot face doing two separate lots of photo editing each night, nor can I write coherently for four hours straight. So I'll make you guys a deal. I'll post links to my official efforts each night and then I'll do a round up of everything next week, when it's all over.

Sound good? Yeah? Great. Now, go read here:

LFW Friday - click here

LFW Saturday - click here

If Vogue is the Fashion Bible, is Anna Wintour Jesus?

2009-09-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Much has been made of The September Issue, a documentary that follows Anna Wintour and the team at US Vogue, as they put together the most important issue of their publication and by far the biggest issue ever of the fashion magazine. For the last six months, as were gradually drip fed clips and information, my desire to see a film has reached new heights. I had to see it. Many stories abounded of bootleg copies floating around New York and the desparation of fashion editors worldwide to see it.

Having missed every press screening, I was determined to watch it on the opening night and I succeeded, being the first to dash into the Curzon Mayfair’s 8:50pm screening with a friend. For the first time in years, I walked out of a cinema completely inspired. Not since seeing Baz Luhrmann’s take on Romeo and Juliet, have I felt this way and for the record, I believe that the R&J flick feelings had a lot to do with Leonardo DiCaprio and my raging teenage hormones.

The film is has very limited screenings but you can see the London listings here. Sorry, rest of UK, I’m sure your google skills will net you the information you need. If for some reason, you have been living in a dark cave of a mountain in Outer Mongolia for the last six months and have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, watch the trailer here.

I am officially in love with Grace Coddington.

Bunny Brown 1994 - 2009

2009-08-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday evening, we said goodbye to our dear elder daschund, Bunny. On Wednesday, he’d stopped eating and we’d presumed that it would be a 24 hour thing, as it often was with him these last six months, as age had begun to take it’s toll and his digestive system wasn’t what it was – he could clear a room with one of his farts (and look very pleased about it too).

By Thursday, he took a turn for the worse and my mother called me at work - I raced home, as did my boyfriend. Late in the evening, fearing the worst, we rushed him to Medivet, a wonderful 24 hour veterinary service in Richmond. It turns out that we were just in time – his temperature was very low and he was about to go into shock. He was placed on a drip to rehydrate him and given hefty doses of antibiotics to combat what was presumed to be a bad gastric infection.

And we waited.

On Friday evening, we went to visit and he looked slightly happier but he still wasn’t all too well but we had a glimmer of hope and we clung to it. Unfortunately, that changed the following morning – he wasn’t getting any better and four days without food was clearly weakening his condition. It was awful to see him in that state and as much as we may have selfishly wanted to keep him alive in some hope that he might get better, we knew it was best to let him go. The same evening, we drove back to the vet’s, who said that it was unlikely he would recover which helped to reassure us that what we were about to do was the best decision. We spent time with him, stroking, hugging and telling him just how much he meant to all of us and then we stayed with him as the vet administered the injection.

Since his passing, the last 48 hours have been awful. The house is incredibly quiet without his incessant barks and our other daschund Holly is miserable, snuffling around and trying to find her constant companion.

It's the small things that break our hearts - coming home and not hearing his distinctive patter of feet, the empty bed, even his collar that he hasn't worn for months that hangs on our coat stand. But as we keep telling ourselves, we must remember the good times and over almost 16 years, there were plenty.

Rest in peace, my beautiful boy.

I do bands too.

2009-08-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

So, remember a while ago, I mentioned that I was doing a test with a band? Well, I realised that I never posted the results and as I'm embarking on another test shoot this weekend, I thought it was about time to share the results of my previous efforts. Working with bands is a pretty different but equally fun ball game, as is men's fashion, something that I am still only an amateur explorer of. So, without further ado, I present to you Rochelle: The Test.

Photographer: Caroline Leeming
Makeup: Ruth Brophy
Hair: Lynda Darragh

This is just a small selection of the shots from the day, if for any reason you'd like to see some more or throw me some work, drop me a line. In the meantime, check out the people you've been ogling: Rochelle.

A tale of two legs - week one results

2009-08-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

I apologise that I haven't blogged since my introductory post for this latest series in my quest for ever elusive skinniness - first, I had a bout of food poisoning and then I caught a throat virus, which I'm still battling. Unfortunately, neither of these illnesses have much affected my appetite, so I haven't lost the requisite poundage that often comes with being ill that I'd hoped for.

Anyway, enough of my recent medical history, let's get on with the experiment's results thus far, yes? After all, that's probably why you're here. And as I've mentioned in my previous post, if you think you're getting photos of me in my pants, move along now. I'd also like to point out that owing to the medical reasons mentioned above, I only made it to the gym twice last week, which may've adversely affected results. All changes from last week's measurements are listed in brackets.

LEFT LEG
Top of thigh - 21" (-1")
Mid thigh - 19 1/4" (-.25")
Above knee - 14.5" (-.5")

RIGHT LEG
Top of thigh - 22" (no change)
Mid thigh - 20.5" (no change)
Above knee - 15" (-.25")

As you can see from the above results, my left leg is showing more signs of improvement, although I'm guessing that this is largely to do with the fact that it had a lesser fat percentage before.

I'll be back on my thrice weekly gym routine again from tomorrow, now that my throat virus has been downgraded to a nasty cough so hopefully there'll be more of a difference next week.

Tune in next Monday for the next riveting chapter of a tale of two legs.

A tale of two legs

2009-08-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

I have never been one of nature's skinny people. Bar a stint for about four years when I was travelling and at university when my metabolism went nuts and sped up resulting in me miraculously losing almost 20lbs (yeah, I would've hated me too), I have always been a little bit squidgy. Not fat per say but defintely with a layer of puppy fat that didn't need to be there.

Last week I decided to take the matter in hand. Having spent months haemorraging money to the gym that rarely made use of, I figured it was time to actually start visiting before my membership expires. Now, I may not be one of nature's skinny people as previously mentioned but I am also not naturally sporty or physically inclined - the thought of jogging is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat and thanks to a dodgy knee that likes to dislocate, I have managed to avoid most sport since I was 15.

But I went; I Powerplated, I crunched and I sweated my little heart out on the cross-trainer (oh, evil machine!) and you know what? I can already see a slight difference. It's miniscule but it's there.

And now, I'm going to help it. You may've read a spate of articles in various newspapers last week about a product called Boob Tube from Mama Mio. It apparently is considered a Wonderbra in a tube and does miraculous things to stop your boobs from sagging. Well, I'm not quite at that stage yet but another one of their products has come to my attention, Shrink to Fit.

Described as boot camp for bulges, because lipo sucks, it says that it's full of "ingredients that will reduce the appearance of cellulite, water retention and sponginess and restore elasticity to significantly improve the appearance of your skin". So, the theory goes that if I rub it into my wobbly bits twice a day for a month, I will soon have the skinny thighs of my 19 year old self. Or so I would like to believe.

Ideally, I would test this solely by itself without the exercise to help it but since I would quite like the aforementioned skinny thighs and time is of the essence (a holiday in September), my body is about to take a double whammy of fat blasting.

To see whether it's actually working, I am willing to measure and post the diameter of my thighs but I draw the line at photos. Nobody needs to see me in my pants as the numbers are bad enough:

LEFT LEG
Top of thigh - 22"
Mid thigh - 19.5"
Above knee - 15"

RIGHT LEG
Top of thigh - 22.5"
Mid thigh - 20.5"
Above knee - 15 1/4"

My left leg is slightly thinner due to my bad knee which has been cast in plaster and immobilised several times but it'll be interesting to see if there are major variants.

Check back next Monday for the first week's findings.

I wouldn't need a million dollars

2009-07-27T13:19:00.001-07:00

...I just need someone in the UK to start stocking La Mer Watches. Surfing around on my usual blog trip over breakfast this morning, I came across these pieces of fabulousness over on the The Cut. At $110 (£66), I could just about afford the awesome Grey Multichain watch, pictured below:

However, should funds fail me in my imaginary shopping extravaganza, I would happily settle for the equally lovely Black layered watch with gold studs, at $96 (£58):

Or even a plain version in Gun Metal, a truly bargainous $84 (only £51!). Until they start stocking them in the UK, I have a feeling that I will need to fall upon the mercies of my American friends and beg them to buy one for me.

Hey, you. Nice trailer.

2009-07-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

Even though July's not even over yet, I'm already getting excited for March 2010. The reason? Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland:

If I had I would NEED a million dollars

2009-07-20T15:18:00.000-07:00

So, my last object of lust may not have been as bank breaking as some others but for today's, I would definitely need many, many more dollars.

Are you ready?

This little beauty from Balmain makes me feel a little funny but in a good way, I hasten to add - it's like the beautiful love child of Balmain and Chanel. The chains! The lambskin! The quilting! Those shoulders! It's almost too much to take in.

But at €8075.00 (£6,943.56 or $11,398 if we're in keeping with the dollar theme), I will have to continue to lust after it from afar. That or start playing the lottery.

Soon, my pet. Soon...

(via Blogue)

In the meantime, I may possibly placate my desire to shop with these cute Marc by Marc Jacobs mouse pumps, currently on sale on brandalley.co.uk for only £79, down from £219.

Be still, my beating heart.

If I had a million dollars...

2009-07-13T14:51:00.001-07:00

As a rule of thumb, I generally avoid the sales. Fighting a 15 year old for the last size 8 black dress in Topshop is generally not very dignified and certainly won't help my current bank balance. Nor will it get me any closer to my dreams of a stream lined wardrobe. Guides always advise having a list of items to look for and constantly reassertions of remaining focused but funny things can happen to a girl when presented with row upon row of alleged bargains and before you know it, you've bought a lime green lycra catsuit that's a size too small.

But browsing over on Kabiri's sale today on a whim during an afternoon lull, I came across this fabulous Wendy Nichol bracelet:

Down from £210 to £105, it's beautiful enough to have me seriously considering parting with the pennies. And that's why online sale shopping can be just as dangerous as a wander down the high street these days, hopefully minus encounters with brightly coloured lycra...

Please feed the models

2009-07-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

(via Jak&Jil)

Where to start?

2009-07-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

I know that I've been away for a long time and a lot has happened in that time that I should blog about. And perhaps the biggest story of that time has been the passing of Michael Jackson. Tonight, as I got home I sat down to watch the huge memorial to a man who hasn't left the front pages of every magazine, newspaper and website in the last 12 days. I found myself becoming quite emotional at all of the tributes but it wasn't until the end, when his daughter took the microphone.

Bearing in mind that this is a child whose father took every pain to keep his kids out of the spotlight and away from the papparazzi at every opportunity, for her to suddenly speak in front of the hundreds of millions (possibly even billions) around the world who were watching was incredibly brave. As she voiced her love for the 'greatest daddy in the world', my heart broke.

For all of the dredging up of stories, dodgy jokes and endless speculation of debts and mysterious doctors that have been sensationally splashed in every form of media, it was easy to forget that in this chaos there lies a very real story of three children whose collective world has been turned upside down. Although no doubt, there are already many videos out there of the moment floating on youtube, I've chosen not to look for any or indeed include links to it. That poor little girl's devastation was heartbreaking enough the first time.

I don't really know where I'm going with this post and my boyfriend thinks I'm an emotional freak but I felt I had to write something. I guess something like this acts as a reality check on our own mortality.

I'll be back soon enough to fill in the blanks of stories from the last few weeks soon enough. Until then, tell someone you love them.

Hey, Fatty! - Whoops.

2009-05-13T13:15:00.000-07:00

I realize that I haven’t blogged in quite some time, despite my assurances to you that I would blog every day during the hell that is the Hey Fatty diet. One of my many reasons is the fact two weeks ago, I fell off the wagon somewhat spectacularly at the New Look party. Having not eaten much, once I hit the champagne I was away to put it mildly. I was bold enough to go over to Peaches Geldof and Samanda and start up random conversations with all three and I’d like to issue an open apology for my drunkenness. I also accosted Swarovski Crystal Head man, (real name Phillip), who I have previously met during LFW. He didn’t recognize me but was kind enough to humour my requests for a photograph of his scalp, which was covered in lots of butterflies, as you’ll see from the photos below:

Phillip of Lazygramophone.com

Peaches Geldof, who was far too friendly or humouring my drunkenness. I can't decide.

BB's Samanda. Can you see the scared smile?

And now, back to business. I will fully admit that having lost 10 lbs, the joy went slightly to my head and I’ve not been as strict with myself in the last week. This morning on the tube, lacking a Metro, I decided to tally up everything that I’ve eaten in the last 9 days and the results are below. I’m yet to weigh myself but I have a feeling that my weight hasn’t shifted at all. Still, I luckily still have the better part of two weeks to whittle away those last few pounds before I’m forced to reveal my bikini body for the first time in a year. However, the progress can definitely be seen (and felt) from the fact that I can fit into a brand new pair of Topshop Baxter skinnies (waist 26) without having to lie down on the floor to do them up. Enough pratting on, let’s get to the food diary:

Wednesday 29th April

Lunch - EAT prawn salad, banana, water
Snack – none
Dinner – tuna handroll, salmon nigiri, salmon sashimi
Party – copious amounts of champagne and red wine

Thursday 30th April (this was the day that I was so hungover, the thought of any food other than fatty junk made me feel physically sick)

Breakfast – none
Snack – none
Lunch – none
Snack (at press day) – two Portuguese custard tarts, water
Dinner – sweet and sour chicken hong kong style, boiled rice, crispy seaweed, prawn crackers, half a can of coke

The half can of coke was probably the best tasting can of Coke that I’ve ever had. Having not drunk what was essentially my life blood and only form of caffeine for a week and a half, it was like manna from heaven.

Friday 1st May

Breakfast – banana
Snack – none
Lunch – Salmon salad with brown rice (M&S), five king prawns
Snack – none
Dinner (for the boyfriend’s birthday) – Steak, handful of fries, 3 glasses of red wine

Saturday 2nd May

Absolutely no clue. Must investigate.

Sunday 3rd May (Boyfriend’s Birthday BBQ day – no actual defined meals as such)

3 small hot dogs, 5 tbsp coleslaw, handful of carrot batons, handful of cherry tomatoes, 2 breadsticks, crisps. 4 Kopparbergs, fruit from the Pimms bowl.

Monday 4th (Bank Holiday)
Breakfast – none
Snack – none
Lunch/Dinner – (Yo Sushi) tuna handroll, edamame, salmon nigiri, chicken gyoza, chicken katsu, can of Coke
Snack – bag of Wiltshire ham crisps from M&S, ½ Bulmer’s pear

Tuesday 5th
Breakfast – banana
Snack – none
Lunch – prawn salad, banana
Snack – apple, Wiltshire ham crisps
Dinner – grilled tandoori chicken in wheat free pitta, 1 poppadom, 1 ½ glasses of lemonade, 1 Bulmers pear

Wednesday 6th
Breakfast – bacon sandwich, can of Coke
Snack – none
Lunch – Vital salad (lettuce, chicken, egg noodle, tomato, sweetcorn, peppers and chilli/ginger dressing)
Snack – Prawn crackers
Dinner – Halloumi, 8 smiley faces, corn on the cob
Thursday 7th
Breakfast – 3 mini fruit skewers
Snack – none
Lunch – Grilled chicken superfood salad (Leon)
Snack – half a cupcake, small bag Toffee popcorn
Dinner – half a large pizza (Dominos)

Friday 8th
Breakfast – banana
Snack – none
Lunch – 2 pieces seared tuna and coriander nigiri, 2 pieces seared salmon nigiri, 4 pieces salmon maki, 4 pieces tuna maki, packet of McCoys flame grilled steak crisps, coke.

Saturday 9th
Breakfast/lunch - 2 carrots, 2 tbsp low fat coleslaw, 1 tbsp tarmasalata, 1 wholemeal pitta, 4 slice halloumi cheese, grilled, 2 glasses of red wine
Evening out - 1 Kopparberg pear cider, 2 glasses of red wine, McDonalds cheese burger, handful of fries

Sunday 10th
Breakfast – worked through
Lunch – 2 carrots, 1 tbsp tarmasalata, 2 tbsp low fat coleslaw, 4 slices halloumi, grilled chorizo
Snack – none
Dinner – roast chicken breast (minus skin), green beans, salad with dressing, 3 toffee poppets, handful of Nandos crisps, toffee popcorn

Monday 11th
Breakfast – banana
Snacks – Sweet chilli sensation crisps
Lunch – 2 salmon nigiri, 2 tuna nigiri, 1 tuna roll (4 pieces), 1 salmon roll
Dinner – grilled chicken, cucumber and spring onion salad

Tuesday 12th
Breakfast – bacon sandwich and can of coke
Snack – none
Lunch - 2 salmon nigiri, 2 tuna nigiri, 1 tuna roll (4 pieces), 1 salmon roll
Snack – none
Dinner – chicken fajitas, 3 Kopparbergs, toffee popcorn

Wednesday 13th
Breakfast – fruit stick, orange juice
Snack – various canapés
Lunch - 2 salmon nigiri, 2 tuna nigiri, 1 tuna roll (4 pieces), 1 salmon roll
Snack/Dinner – various canapés, champagne

More stories of recent adventures tomorrow, I promise.

Hey, Fatty! Day Nine

2009-04-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, where there's a press day, there's pretty much always temptation and today, once again, temptation won. Let's have a little recap, shall we?

Breakfast (at event) - Large glass of orange juice, mini apricot pastry, smoked salmon 1/2 mini bagel.
Snack - none
Lunch - small prawn salad (EAT), 2 tbsp coleslaw, banana, water
Afternoon (at events) 3 smoked salmon finger sandwiches, one beef, 1 peach bellini. 4 pieces tuna and cucumber inside out roll, 1 raspberry bellini.
Dinner - 3 wheat free fish fingers (baked), handful 3% fat oven chips, peas, baked beans, small glass of apple juice.

Not bad but not great either. I really need to step back up on my water drinking. I've noticed that now that I've hit 120 lbs, I'm not dropping the weight as quickly as I did last week but at the same time, I'm also being absent minded and not drinking enough water. Not good, must do better.

Hey, Fatty! Days Seven & Eight

2009-04-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

Forgive me dietary father, for I hath sinned.

After posting my last blog, I went off to play Blackjack and drink Kopparberg. These two combined unleashed a rather reckless side of me and having watched the boyfriend polish off four bags of crisps in front of me - I cracked. I practically shouted 'I can't take it anymore! Give me junk!' and dove onto a packet from the multibag that he'd bought a few hours earlier.

And oh my, I felt guilty on Sunday morning. I could practically hear my fat growing again and it didn't get hugely better for the rest of the day. Admittedly, I slept through anything resembling an actually breakfast time and the whole day seemed to get pushed back an hour or two with the lovely weather. I had been craving sushi all day but it seemed that everywhere we went, we were foiled and we settled on the next healthiest quick food - Nandos. Now that I've confessed my food sins, I'll get on with the munch count:

Sunday
Breakfast - none
Snack - none
Late lunch - chicken pitta, chips and 2 perinaises.
Snack - none
Dinner - carrot sticks, cherry tomatoes, 2 tsp sour cream & chive dip, 3 slices of mozzarella, 2 small pieces of brie, 5 slices chorizo.
Drinks - 2 glasses of apple juice, bottle of water, 1 bottle of Kopparberg

Today
Breakfast/snack - green grapes
Lunch - beetroot salad and cherry tomatoes, fillet of mackerel, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar
Snack - 2 handfuls of baked pretzels
Dinner - 3 small skewers (1 breast) satay chicken, beetroot salad, heated wrap flat bread.
Drinks - water only

Spurred on by last week's weight loss, I'm starting to be able to say no to foods. As often as I dream of eating more crisps, I think of the end result and somehow deep fried potato no longer seems so appealing and I never thought I'd say that.

Hey, Fatty! Days Five and Six

2009-04-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

So, it's the weekend and as the boyfriend has so rightfully pointed out, as I've done well so I'm allowed a little slip here and there, which is how I ended up eating takeout last night. I'm combining today and Friday's food posts in one to catch up. Let's start with yesterday:

Breakfast - mini bacon sandwich, 2 1/2 large glasses freshly squeezed orange juice
Snack - none
Lunch - small prawn salad (EAT), banana, bottle of water
Afternoon snack - none
Dinner - 1 piece of tandoori chicken, 4 tbsp pilau rice, 1 piece of peshwari naan
Drinks - 2 cans of Kopparberg

And on to today:
Breakfast - none (slept through)
Snack - none (slept through)
Lunch - same as Friday dinner (leftovers)
Snack - Muller lite strawberry yoghurt
Dinner - grilled chicken wrap
Drinks - (so far) 1 can, 2 bottles of Kopparberg

I estimate I'll probably have another Kopparberg before the evening is out but we'll see. I'll post any additions tomorrow. I also went to the gym today for over an hour - half an hour of Powerplating plus half an hour of cardio to try and work off the takeaway.

More gym tomorrow. Yeay.

Hey, Fatty! Day Five, part i

2009-04-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

I know they say that curiosity killed the cat but I decided to weigh myself to test the waters and see if the diet was progressing at all and drum roll please...

(pauses for dramatic effect)

I've already lost 7 lbs! I'm 120 lbs! Hurrah! Now to the pub for (moderate) celebrations.

Hey, Fatty! Day Four (as told on Day Five)

2009-04-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of posting last night, by the time I got home I was far too exhausted and drunk to write anything vaguely coherent. Without further ado, I present yesterday's food:

Breakfast/Mid-morning snack - grapes and 5 slices of mozzarella
Lunch - Half of a beetroot salad, 1 small fillet of mackerel with lemon
Afternoon snack - handful of organic walnuts
Dinner - 7 slices chorizo, 3 tbsp light coleslaw

Admittedly, dinner wasn't really dinner as I was at the Converse Music party where I consumed four vodka and orange drinks so I didn't eat until about 10:30pm, which isn't good so I kept my portion small. I'd also like to point out that I detest vodka but since it was either that or beer at the shindig, it seemed like the lesser of two evils. I know that I shouldn't drink if I really want to lose weight but believe me when I say that to get through that party, I needed a few drinks.

Anyway, it's Friday night and I'm heading out for a few drinks after a long day and an even longer week. Check back later for what I ate today. I bet you can't wait, right?

Hey, Fatty! Day Three

2009-04-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

While I may not be great at the whole dieting thing, I must say that I'm pretty good at falling off the wagon, as seen by today's lunch and evening alcohol intake. Oh Dear. Judge for yourselves:

Breakfast/mid morning snack (merged) - small bunch of purple grapes and 5 thin slices of mozzarella
Lunch - cajun chicken wrap with small portion of chips, salad
Afternoon snack - none, too full from lunch
Dinner - Smoked Mackarel fillet with lemon, 2 slices of brown toast (no butter), small portion of beetroot and lamb's leaf salad with balsamic vinegar, 2 tbsp of light coleslaw

Today's bad things - 1 1/2 small flutes of champagne, 500ml Kopparberg Pear Cider

Whoops. Now, to bed early with me - Not only am I absolutely exhausted but I have to be in town at 8:30am tomorrow for the Matthew Williamson for H&M opening. Oof.

Hey, Fatty! Day Two

2009-04-21T13:28:00.000-07:00

If ever there was a thing to get in the way of a diet (or thinning, as I prefer to refer to it), it's a press event and today, I had two. I started the day with a breakfast event on the roof terrace of Soho House and ended it with the press preview and shopping event for Barbara Hulanicki for Topshop. Both had plenty of scrummy delights and led me to temptation. Oh and inbetween, who could forget that it was also Ben & Jerry's free cone day, coinciding with the hottest day of the year so far - 21C. Damn them. Now, onwards with my (shameful) food diary for today:

Breakfast - large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, quarter of grilled bacon sandwich with a smear of ketchup
Mid-morning snack - small portion of green and black grapes
Lunch - 3 carrots, 2 tbsp tarmasalata dip, small beetroot/pepper/lettuce salad with balsamic vinegar
Afternoon snack - 1 scoop of B&J cookie dough in a waffle cone (BAD but yummy)
Dinner (at Topshop) - 1 1/2 small portions of salmon on brown rice with pomegranates, 2 bites of thai style halibut with rice, three slices of chicken breast, 3 small lumps of mozzarella. 1 shot glass of Dime bar cheesecake, 1 bite size chocolate fairy cake, 2 1/2 glasses champagne

Although my dinner may look like I ate a lot, the food portions were no more than a few forkfuls so I don't feel guilty. I do, however, feel guilty about the champagne. Bad bad bad.

While at the Barbara Hulanicki event, I bought the little aomeba/leopard print peach coloured skater skirt. The dress version literally sold out in about 10 minutes, with people stalking around trying to find cast offs. Among those in attendance that I saw were the ever present Jo Wood, Christopher Kane and OMG, Cilla Black. I promise to post photos tomorrow.

In the meantime, please check out the awesome Salad Club, a blog about yes you guessed it, salads and run by a girl I went to University with.

Without further ado, I bid you farewell - I'm off to pack a lunch and do some form of penance for my (minor) champagne guzzling.

Hey, Fatty! Day One

2009-04-20T14:43:00.001-07:00

Without further ado, I present day one's food:

Breakfast - Innocent Mango and Passionfruit smoothie
Mid morning snack - none (forgot)
Lunch - EAT Thai noodle salad (noodles, carrots, spring onions, cashew nuts and sesame seeds) and grapes
Afternoon snack - green seedless grapes
Dinner - palm size portion of steak, beetroot/cabbage/lamb's leaf/cucumber salad, handful of oven chips, 2 tbsp of light coleslaw
Snack - handful of baked pretzels, grapes

BAD THINGS - five percy pigs, 1 midget gem

Earlier when we were going from aisle to aisle in the supermarket, I couldn't help but gaze longingly at all of the bad foods but it'll be worth it. As well as eating more healthily and not drinking alcohol, I'm also trying to drink around two litres of water a day. So far, I'm up to just over 1.5 so far, still another two glasses to go before bed. I know I'll probably bore you all endlessly with this project, so I figured I'd champion a blog a day too. Today, I fell in love with this one while surfing at work:

whatisrealityanyway.com

I want to find out what kind of filter or effect Krystal uses on her mini-shoots. I want it, along with most of her wardrobe. But not until I shift 14 pounds. And on that bombshell, I'm off to make my lunch for tomorrow.

Hey, Fatty! - Prologue

2009-04-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

I return to the blog tonight rejuvenated and with a mission in mind. Let me explain - earlier this evening I ventured into my mother's bathroom to steal her nail varnish remover for a Sunday night pedicure and saw the scales by the door. Having not weighed myself in quite a while, I hopped on without a second thought. What popped up on the electronic display startled me. While at university, I was a tiny 107 lbs and while I was admittedly happy with my tiny frame, my face (as my mother and friends have now told me) looked somewhat skeletal.

Upon leaving university, I initially didn't put on any weight as I had a very active job as a costume assistant on films and it wasn't until I gave this up and retreated to a desk job as a fashion intern that the weight began to creep on. Sitting static and grazing on sweets and other junk all day, I put on four pounds, then seven and so on.

Up until this evening, I thought I weighed about 117 lbs but according to the scales that I used earlier, I am now 127 lbs. My first thought when I saw those digits was HOLY SHIT. My mother has been ribbing me for some time about putting on weight but up until that moment, I hadn't given it that much thought. Although I still fit an 8-10UK in every store, I've noticed recently that my face is lacking the distinct cheekbones of days gone by and that the gap that used to exist between my thighs is somewhat more minimal these days but that figure shocked me and so I've decided that it's finally time to take action.

I'm not saying that I want to go back down to my university weight. I understand now that at that weight I was actually UNDERWEIGHT for my height but I have decided that I would like to reach a happy medium of 113 lbs. In other words, I need to lose a stone (14 lbs). I'm not going to jump on any weird crash diet band wagons or start popping pills - instead, my intention is to lose 3.5 lbs for the next four weeks with a combination of better eating, no alcohol and moderate exercise.

As part of this, I've chosen to chronicle my attempts on here with a food diary and progress reports. Not only should this hopefully keep me in check and stop me sneaking off to eat Macdonalds but also it should get me back into the swing of blogging, so everyone wins. Check back tomorrow for the first installment of Hey, Fatty!

Easter ills.

2009-04-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I was hopping back on the blogging band wagon, I've gone and caught the boyfriend's flu and lost all hearing in my right ear, as happened some weeks ago. This has therefore relegated me to bed for the majority of the bank holiday weekend and means that I've spent most of the four day weekend unable to stare at my computer screen as it makes me feel even worse and ergo, undone all of my blogging intentions.

Of course, now that it's Monday night and I have work tomorrow, I'll wake up at 8am and feel fine. Great. And before you say it must be so nice to spend the time lying in bed, I do not call scraping all of the skin off the tip of my nose, having watery eyes and constant sneezing/sweating/general grossness relaxing.

Humph.

The Great Shoe Cull

2009-04-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

I will hold my hands up and admit that recently, I have become rather, shall we say, occasional in my posting so I thought that this evening I would remedy that and tell you at long last about the Great Shoe Cull.

When I was at Uni, I lived in Converse. They were all I wore, aside from my biker boots in winter. Back in those days, I was relatively uninterested in shoes. Wary of heel related injuries to my [at the time much worse] knee, I stuck to flat shoes and it wasn't until the dawning of ballet pumps that my shoe collection really begin to grow.

A few weeks ago, in a fit of madness one sunny Saturday morning, I decided it was time to take action against the ever growing army of shoes that were littering the room. So bad was the problem that my boyfriend had taken to threatening to move out and I figured it was time to do something about it.

I started by crawling into the dark recesses of my wardrobe, long a dumping ground for shoes and throwing out everything I found on the floor. Soon after, a mountain obstructed the wardrobe entirely:

Please bear in mind, that this is just the beginning. Next, it was the mounds under the bed. Then under the window (boots only) and finally all of the pairs to be found around the room. Before beginning the cull, I decided it would probably be a good idea to sort the mounds into piles of types in order to access the problem accurately and get rid of shoes that I didn't really need. That much. It feels wrong writing that sentence but hey ho.

So, without further ado, each category in photos. Admittedly, there were certain pairs of mainly boots that I culled or threw in the bin immediately but this is still a fairly accurate represenation. I'd also like to apologise for the fact that blogger has chosen to rotate nearly all of my landscape photos into portrait so you may wish to turn your head to view. Anyway, we'll begin with boots:

BEFORE

AFTER

Next, trainers:

BEFORE

AFTER

Next, even my burgeoning heel collection fell victim:

BEFORE

AFTER

And finally, the ballet pumps. As you can see, I pretty much buy these compulsively:

BEFORE

AFTER

After each edit, the shoes were all packed by category and colour into plastic crates (as seen below) and listed.

Perhaps I was a little obsessive compulsive but I hope that this will mean that they stay in their crates rather than ending up in groups around the room. Since the cull took place, I've also extended it to my hanging wardrobe and accessory pile so hopefully one day I'll actually regain control of my wardrobe. And you may ask what will happen to all of the shoes that have been relegated. Well, they'll be split into three piles - ebay, charity shop and homeless shelter - once the wardrobe cull has been completed. All that's left is the battle of the shelf wardrobe, which should take place over the coming Easter weekend. Wish me luck!

Beeeeeep...

2009-04-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Normal services shall resume shortly, please be patient.

Best phishing email. EVER.

2009-03-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

From my junk mail filter this evening...

NOITIFICATION‏
From: FBI (fbgvous1@poczta.onet.eu)
Sent: 23 March 2009 13:27:40
To:

ANTI-TERRORIST AND MONEY LAUNDRY CRIMES DIVISION
FBI HEADQUARTERS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
935 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE,
NW WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535-0001 Website: www.fbi.gov

HAVE A NICE DAY,

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL ADVICE FROM THE FBI, FOREIGN REMITTANCE/TELEGRAPHIC DEPT. (FRTD), IT HAS COME TO OUR NOTICE THAT THE ADB (AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK) AND C.B.N (CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA) AFRICA HAS RELEASED YOUR PART OF INHERITANCE/CONTRACT PAYMENT OF 10,500,000.00 U.S DOLLARS INTO FIRST UNION CORP BANK/MORTGAGE IN YOUR NAME AS THE BENEFICIARY.

THE BANK IN AFRICA KNOWING FULLY WELL THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH FACILITIES TO EFFECT THIS PAYMENT FROM EUROPE TO YOUR ACCOUNT, USED WHAT WE KNOW AS A SECRET DIPLOMATIC TRANSIT PAYMENT S.T.D.P TO PAY THIS FUND THROUGH WIRE TRANSFER. THEY ARE STILL WAITING FOR FINAL CONFIRMATION FROM YOU ON THE ALREADY TRANSFERRED FUNDS, TO ENABLE THEM CREDITING INTO YOUR ACCOUNT ACCORDINGLY. SECRET DIPLOMATIC TRANSFER PAYMENT ARE NORMALLY FUNDS RELATED TO DRUG/TERRORIST AND MONEY LAUNDRY SYSTEM OF PAYMENT, WHY MUST YOUR PAYMENT BE MADE IN SUCH SECRET TRANSFER , IF YOUR TRANSACTION IS LEGITIMATE AND NOT RELATED TO DRUG/TERRORIST AND MONEY LAUNDRY, WHY CAN'T THE BANK IN AFRICA VIA EUROPE EFFECT DIRECT TRANSFER INTO YOUR ACCOUNT THAN SECRET DIPLOMATIC PAYMENT TRANSFER.

DUE TO THE INCREASED DIFFICULTIES AND UNNECESSARY SCRUTINY BY THE AMERICAN AUTHORITIES WHEN FUNDS COME FROM THROUGH SUCH PAYMENT PROCESS FROM EUROPE, AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST, BASED ON THE RECORDS WE HAD IN THE PAST ALWAYS IDENTIFIED SUCH METHOD OF PAYMENT AS DRUG/ TERRORIST/MONEY LAUNDRY FUNDS, TO AVOID PROBLEM WITH THE US GOVERNMENT AS SOON AS THESE FUNDS REFLECT IN YOUR ACCOUNT IN THE U.S.A, IT IS OUR MANDATORY OBLIGATIONS TO ASCERTAIN THE DOCUMENTATION AND CERTIFICATION OF THIS FUNDS BEFORE THE FINAL CREDITING INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.

WE ADVICE YOU CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY, AS THE FUNDS HAVE BEEN STOPPED AND HELD IN OUR CUSTODY PENDING WHEN YOU WERE ABLE TO PROVIDE US WITH A DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY SEAL OF TRANSFER (DIST) WITHIN 3 DAYS FROM THE UNITED NATION INTERNATIONAL FUND MONITORY UNIT (UNIFMU) THAT AUTHORIZE THE TRANSFER AND CERTIFIED THAT THE FUNDS ORIGINATED FROM AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST IS FREE FROM TERRORIST/DRUG AND MONEY LAUNDRY OR WE SHALL CONFISCATE THE FUND. WE WILL ALLOW THE FUNDS TO BE RELEASE INTO YOUR ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY YOU MAKE PROVISION THE REQUIRED DOCUMENT.

YOU WILL BE DIRECTED WHERE AND HOW TO GET THE DOCUMENT IF IT IS NOT IN YOUR POSSESSION. THANKING YOU FOR YOUR TIME,

FBI DIRECTOR
ROBERT S. MUELLER III

Every time I read it, I hear the Fonejacker's voice.

Colorize me

2009-03-13T14:53:00.000-07:00

At long last, the story of last Thursday night, accompanied by photos from my iPhone. Let's read on, shall we? We hit the Ray-Ban Colorize launch party at Ultra Lounge at Selfridges and what a night it was - greeted at the doors with free-flowing mojitos and beer, we knew we were in for a good evening, short as it would be. This was further added to by the giant bowls of jelly beans dotted strategically around the room, yum.

The event itself was to launch the new Ray-Ban Colorize Kit(available exclusively at Selfridges) which allows you to customise your pair by drawing on the arms and frames. It was also a preview of an exhibition of Fender guitars that have been customised by 10 artists that will be auctioned in aide of Oxfam later in the year.

Apart from Jelly Bellies and free booze, they also had areas where you could try on different Wayfarers and get your polaroid taken, cool wall prints, plus Esser and DJ sets from Mystery Jets and Lou & Nova for music-slash-entertainment.

What they didn't tell you about was the small area tucked in a corner where you could go and test out the Colorize Kit on your own pair of Ray-Bans. Word began to spread through the crowd that this area existed and once it was out, people started flocking like bees to honey. Unfortunately, the free pairs ran out quickly, sending those trolling for freebies scrambling at a display unit that was purely for trying on (but not manned). Don't you know that in these hard times, fashionistas will fight for free sunnies? We witnessed one girl having a pair of aviators prised out of her hands after she'd already drawn on them. Ouch.

Ambling back into the room, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that Esser were actually pretty good. Often at these kind of thing, you get bands playing who are achingly cool but also painfully shit. We even had a little boogie.

I'm even debating checking them out again, which doesn't happen often. While we were bopping along, we noticed various highly recognisable faces in the crowd, including the following: Jo Wood, Alexa Chung, Nick Grimshaw and drumroll please, Amy Winehouse, fresh from the Caribbean. I know that you've probably skimmed through the above to get to the photos so I'll just get on with posting these:

Alexa Chung, who spent the evening being pretty low key and watching Esser.

Above: Amy Winehouse, sucking her thumb, after she had run around, leaping (literally) on Wood, Grimshaw and a variety of other people in the crowd. She did look far healthier in the flesh, with a slight tan and fuller figure but she is clearly as mad as a box of frogs.

Having casually stalked Wino, we got bored and decided to play with some sunnies at one of the trying-on points. My partner in crime took the following photo of me trying on aviators:

You got a Polaroid snapped (which you were encouraged to write something witty on) wearing a pair for their wall:

Opposite that wall, they had another featuring lots of photos of presumably famous people wearing Ray-Bans:

Having wandered around for a while, we had to leave to hit another meeting and thus missed a certain 'face' so desperate for some free Ray-Bans that she started clambering up to help herself to a fistful of sunnies at a five finger discount. One of the chandeliers, pre-mugging:

However, it was once we'd left (sans goodie bag-boo!) that things started to get very interesting indeed. Lurking by the loos, waiting for my friend, I couldn't help noticing a familiar beehive floating around the Cath Kidston section of the Lower Ground Floor, picking up pretty much everything like a floral-obsessed klepto. I'm not sure if the woman marching Amy Winehouse back to her minders in this photo is the staff member for CK, a random member of the public or one of her own team:

FYI: Amy is absolutely miniscule. I'm small myself but she's teeny tiny, even with the beehive. As we left Selfridges a short while later, the girls walking out of the door in front of us got a serious case of papping. I'm sure that there are several photos lurking on WENN of me looking slightly confused - if only I knew who it was.

Now, as lame as it is, I'm going to retire even though it's Friday night and I should - according to British tradition - be having the time of my life being sick in an alley somewhere. Next time - Quiksilver for Women's gig-slash-launch party and the bad things I did at the Burberry Sample Sale.

Silent scream

2009-03-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry if I seem to have disappeared again. And I was doing so well, right? After the craziness of fashion week back-to-back with my boyfriend's sister's wedding with a side of crippling throat virus, I felt I owed it to myself to slow down for a few days. Unfortunately, that was not the case as it was back to the swing of things in the office plus a band shoot on Saturday. Once again, I found myself doing a long week and sleeping most of Sunday in order to be ready for Monday.

The good news is that I intend to kick back and relax this weekend so just the thought of that is reinvigorating me as I type and I'll no doubt be back and raring to go later this week, with tales and photos from the Rayban Colorize party last week - Amy Winehouse, Esser and the riot over free Raybans all to come.

The bad news is you'll have to wait til next time.

Testing, 1, 2, 3?

2009-03-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, I'm meant to be doing a couple of test shots with a band that my boyfriend works with. So far, I have had little to no contact with them and subsequently, have no idea what direction the shoot will take, which is making me panic a little. Okay, a lot.

It has however reminded me that I never posted photos from my last test from sometime back in October/November so I figure in the absence of any other posts, you might like to see these. There was no real story, other than maybe black. It was very much a shoot for finding my feet and playing around to find out what I liked.

Et Voila!

Photographer: Caroline Leeming
Makeup: Ruth Brophy
Hair: Lynda Darragh
Model: Isobel at Nevs

You only love me when I'm fashionable

2009-03-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

During LFW, my blog traffic spikes dramatically. I'm not sure how people find me, as I don't pop up high in google searches normally but clearly, one way or another people managed to sniff me out.

Of course, now that Fashion Week is over and I'm being lazy about posting my videos, my traffic has dropped back down and I'm free to post intermittently rather than at all hours of the night. Videos will come later this week, once I have a bit more time to edit them and maybe even put them to some new music. Unfortunately, I'm as busy as ever - I'm currently running between my day job and a freelance project that I'm doing at the weekend, all while dealing with a virus on my vocal chords (as finally confirmed by a doctor this afternoon). I don't know if you've ever tried to go a day without talking - like, maybe a sponsored silence - but it's bloody hard when you're a chatterbox like me.

In the meantime, please amuse yourselves with some of my new obsessions:

This is why you're fat dot com featuring the McGangBang, a close cousin to the SteakMac.

F My Life dot com always makes me feel better. "Today, I told my boyfriend that I don't like his facial hair and that he should shave it off. He replied, "You first."

If you can't wait for my next post, follow my inane ramblings on Twitter.

Bleugh and other stories of illness

2009-02-28T15:22:00.000-08:00

So, I'm on day 10 of the flu that struck the day before Fashion Week and I can't seem to shake it. Having pretty much managed to ignore it all through the course of LFW, it was Wednesday when I was at last sitting back down in the office that it really crept up and smacked me over the head.

Of course, the timing was fantastic as Friday was my boyfriend's sister's long anticipated wedding and as we headed down on the Thursday, I could feel it taking hold but it wasn't until I woke up yesterday with no voice that I realised quite how bad it was.

My voice keeps on returning and then disappearing again, along with my ability to focus on anything. Thankfully, we're now home after the hairiest drive home through flu-addled eyes and I've crawled into bed in the boyfriend's Incubus hoodie, some pyjama pants and a big ole beanie in order to rest, rest and rest some more in the hopes that I might actually be okay for Monday. If not, it'll be a trip to the doctor's for me to score some harder drugs than just the Nurofen and cough syrup that I've survived on until now.

I know that I promised to photo videos this weekend but it may have to wait until the glow from my laptop screen doesn't make my eyes feel like they're on fire. I promise to return as soon as I'm better.

LFW AW09: Tuesday is currently delayed.

2009-02-24T15:26:00.000-08:00

Guys, I'm sorry. I'm so tired, I tried to write a really long blog about today but my connection is running really slowly tonight and uploading photos is taking forever. Well, long enough to severely piss me off. Rather than sit up til 1am again blogging as I have on previous night, I am going to be kind to myself, go to bed and post it tomorrow in full rather than tonight without the accompanying imagery. That would be lazy. There's a possibility that I might return in 10 minutes when the guilt kicks in, but I may also be passed out on my pillow by then.

We'll have to wait and see.

LFW AW09: Tuesday

2009-02-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

Fashion flu struck me down with full force when I woke up this morning. I just about managed to get into the office but spent most of the day battling to focus on my computer screen. As such, I haven't edited yesterday's post so as you read it, please pretend it's still Tuesday. I hope that makes sense. There's no post about today as I only had a tickets for Carolyn Massey and the flu made it seem so far that I didn't go.

===

Depending on how you look at it, today is the last day of London Fashion Week AW09. There's still the menswear showcases tomorrow but as of today, Womenswear is officially done. I am partly sighing with relief but also a little sad. After weeks of organising, stress and then the actual traipsing and exhaustion of the event itself, it seems to disappear in the blink of an eye with nothing but a few blisters and the odd goodie bag to show for it. Now, it's roll on, September.

But let's not get too melancholy, there's still today to talk about. I had to finish off doing the tents, so there's was little time for shows but I still managed to cover a few. The day started at Osman Yousefada at the Science Museum. I really liked the collection, in it's regal futuristic lady kind of way. Boiled wools, big jewel embellished necklines and clean, sculptural lines galore. Judge for yourselves:

Afterwards, I stayed at the same venue for Ashley Isham, whose front row was certainly interesting: Tess Daly, someone from GMTV, Jade Parfitt, Erin O'Connor and Michelle Collins, who has certainly pulled it together since the last Ashley Isham show:

I have to say that from the collection, the first three quarters of his collection didn't really rock my socks but the final quarter with his formal dresses had some really great pieces. Compare and constrast:

and the final portion:

Share your thoughts in the comments section. Next, we headed over to Vauxhall Fashion Scout for Avsh Alum Gur. The collection featured ball dresses with huge exaggerated netted skirts with quirky prints to cat suits embellished with 'credit crunch' in diamante, as well as more wearable pieces such as the fluted strapless dress and purple cardigan coat.

From here, we headed back to the tents to finish off doing the rounds at the exhibition and to grab a free Topshop lunch box, which was awesome. Mine contained a smoked salmon and picked cucumber sandwich, mini caeser salad, banana, two amazing choc-chip cookies and a passion fruite and pineapple juice. Yum.

After we finished, we headed up to Bora Aksu and like a lot of others, ended up missing it because the venue was overstuffed, which was a real shame. So, we killed some time and then headed to Emma Bell, over at Vauxhall Fashion Scout. Approaching the venue, I gulped at the site of the long line of Hoxton Trendies snaking down the pavement. If there's one thing that this Fashion Week has taught me is that if you look like you know where you're going, you'll get there. Posse in tow, I marched to the front of the queue where a man dressed head to toe in sequins was having a hissy fit at not being included on the guest list as his friend's plus one and therefore not being let in.

Summoning all of my courage, I side-stepped sequin man and mustered an 'Excuse me, are you letting in press?'. The doorman immediately snapped to attention.
'Of course, of course. How many of you?'
I pointed at the crowd on the pavement and before I knew it, we were in and skipping out on the fancy-dress explosion of a crowd grumbling outside. We had to wait for about half an hour in a rammed, hot and angry crowd before the show was ready to run and people could finally enter the room where the show was being staged. Once more, armed with a good ticket and with three people clinging on in a chain, I marched up, waved my ticket in the air and there was someone grabbing my wrist and leading me on.Suddenly, we were front row for the show. Awesome.

The show started with a performance of 'how much is that doggy?' by Scottee, a performance artist, who was dressed in a full on dog costume and lime green glittery heels. A violinist in face paint accompanied him while a montage of silly photos of dogs was projected onto the walls.

Finally some clothes appeared and it was a completely crazy collection but clearly popular with the I'm-so-weirdly-dressed-I-must-be-cool crowd, judging by their whooping. There was no celebrity front row but they did have Sam and Amanda (the annoying twins from Big Brother) and Jodie Harsh walking the catwalk. Finally, I'm shut up and post some photos:

I was meant to head out to both the FAD awards and then the Osman afterparty but fashion flu was setting in and for a moment, I hesitated in the tube station. East to Green Park and the party or West to home and lying down? The pull to my bed was far greater than that of free booze and so off I trotted, another Fashion Week over.

Coming soon: video of all of the final walks.

LFW AW09: Monday

2009-02-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Oof, another exhausting day, coupled with the fact that my feet have spent all day being blistery and painful, which did not make me a happy bunny. Let's get straight to it, shall we? I started the day at Ossie Clark, which looked suspiciously empty - I suspect a lot of fashionistas were nursing their hangovers from the various parties that were on last night. I really loved the collection, very 70s and beautiful, jewel colours and flowing fabrics with lovely oversize floral prints. The models, including Jourdan Dunn all had beautifully blown out flowing hair that worked so well with the clothes. Sigh. See for yourselves:

From there, we headed to the V&A for the Stephen Jones exhibition which is AMAZING. So beautifully and thoughtfully laid out with his studio replicated in the middle, every iconic hat is in there. Go and see it, that's an order. I couldn't take photos as they were filming interviews with the man himself so that's added incentive, YOU MUST GO.

From Stephen Jones, I was meant to head back to the office until my boss said I should go to Erdem with him and never one to pass up a hot ticket, I tagged along and was successfully smuggled in and seated despite the constantly checking of tickets (which I didn't have). Gorgeous, gorgeous show with a base pallette of navy, with huge florals on top and ruffled collars. A lot of dresses reminded me of last year's Balenciaga SS with nipped in, tailored top halves and then blown out bottoms. Spotted in Erdem's front row were Samantha Cameron, Lydia Hearst and Jo Wood. Upon leaving, I even managed to snag a goodie bag that someone left behind. Not bad for someone who didn't have a ticket! On with the photos, which are rubbish I know. It was very bright and my camera doesn't cope well with high levels of exposure:

I had to go back to the office and do some proper work after Erdem and hit the tents to visit the Exhibition but my hard work was rewarded with one of the most talked about shows of the day, William Tempest. It was quite a late show but definitely one worth going to. The clothes were beautiful and totally lived up to the hype. Very angular, with beautiful oversized pleating and interesting almost painterly fabrics and rich, dark silks. Lovelovelove. Emma Watson, Jade Parfitt and a heavily made up Sophie Anderton made up the front row, along with Zezzi Ifore. Roisin Murphy was meant to come but to my knowledge was a no-show. Boo.

I would post a photo of what I wore today but it wasn't that exciting, mostly things from other days as I was too exhausted to even think about what was going on so I'll just list it. Grey boyfriend blazer - River Island, pale pink silk scarf - Vintage, grey bow back jumper - Prada, grey stripey tee - Topshop, black jeans - Topshop and olive green Converse low tops. All topped off with my safety pin clutch which seems to be going down very well. And now, I'm going to go to bed at a decent hour. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am at this prospect.

LFW AW09: Sunday part deux

2009-02-22T13:48:00.000-08:00

It's been over twelve hours since today's adventure began and I've just arrived home at close to 10 o'clock. To say I'm tired is an understatement. All of my friends think it's terribly glam and yes, sometimes it is but there is also a lot of standing around in the cold, waiting for the clipboard bitches to declare you worthy of entering the venue.

Anyhoo, now that I've aired most of my bitterness, let's get to the shows, shall we? I promised you photos earlier from Betty Jackson this morning, I believe. First up, the front row:

And now, some clothes:

My personal favourite item was the handbag-backpack bag, which was a fun piece but I'm not sure how it would translate to every day life. Either you'd get pickpocketed constantly or end up tripping over on the backpack straps. But fun nonetheless.

After Betty Jackson, I had a little break and whizzed over to High Road House in Chiswick for brunch with my previously mentioned and much neglected friends before heading back for a blowdry at Toni & Guy's onsite press salon. It's a little oasis of calm where you can lie back and enjoy a little bit of follicle pampering. I also love it as it means that I don't have to wash my hair tonight and because I'm slightly unhealthily addicted to their Resurrection Style Dust. Seriously, I'm not being paid to say this, ever since I discovered it a few weeks ago, I love it.

From the salon, I had to run to Eley Kishimoto. From the second I saw the invite for this, I was curious. Styled like a retro boarding pass with an indian print pattern, it was very true to the show which featured lots of 1960s style air stewardess references from the cute skirt suits to the felt hats worn with lots of different outfits, as well as their signature graphic prints. Pre-show, they also had sound effects featuring tannoy calls and other airport related noises which were fun but made it difficult to make the usual fill-in calls as I waited. Anyway, enough gabbling, let's have some photos:

After the show, I made a mad dash to the press lounge to check my emails for all of thirty seconds and literally barely made one of the last buses heading to Aquascutum, where a guard of dishy men in suits and black overcoats lined the way. The wait was pretty long and the cold was starting to creep in, which made people slightly irritable but all was forgiven once we got inside and the show started. While I was waiting outside, I spotted Alexa Chung and Anna Piaggi heading in and must say that Alexa has the skinniest colt-like legs I've ever seen.

On our way out of the show, I couldn't help but be tempted by a photo of the dishy men and after very little cajoling, my colleagues leapt between them for a photo op:

We had a little time before Jaeger so went to grab some dinner at the cheap chinese round by South Ken station and then headed back to the BFC tent once more for our final show of the day. We got there in the nick of time and grabbed our seats. Front row for the show featured Alexa Chung (again), Erin O'Connor and Tamsin Egerton, I couldn't see any more as we arrived so late. At least this year we weren't as late as last seasn, they slammed the door in my face.

After Jaeger, owing to the fact that we only had tickets for PPQ's party and not the show, we hopped in my car and headed off to the Met Bar's pink drinks party for a quick mingle. It was a truly awesome affair with mini chorizo hot dogs, mini chips and tempura veg in cones, candy floss and lots of other tasty treats. However, the cold, tiredness and the fact that I was driving (and a little bitter from lack of tickets) meant I headed home rather than continue the night at PPQ's pose fest.

And now it's almost midnight and let me tell you how glad I am to be lying down right now, before it starts all over again at Ossie Clark at 9am tomorrow. Before I finish, here's what I wore today: Blazer - River Island, sequin tee - Kate Moss for Topshop, Jeans - Topshop, shoes (replacing leopard print Office ones which ripped open my feet) - Topshop, clutch bag - Bodhi, skull ring - Butler & Wilson.

At last, to bed. Hurrah!

LFW AW09: Sunday

2009-02-22T03:00:00.000-08:00

Just a quick stop in between activities. I got up at the butt crack of dawn for Betty Jackson at the tents. Mistakenly thinking that it started at 9:45, I was being leisurely until I checked my ticket and realised it was actually a 9:15 show. Cue much panicking, running around and then driving like the clappers to make it on time.

I even ran from my car in the world's most umcomfortable shoes. As you all know, I do not run under most circumstances but for this, I well and truly pegged it, trying to ignore the pain from my leopard pumps as they dug in more and more painfully. Upon getting home, I checked my heels and sure enough, I've got blisters the size of pennies. Time to dig out some plasters and comfier shoes methinks.

Anyway, back to the chaos that is LFW. I picked up a copy of The Daily today which is a free paper given out during fashion week and I was quoted in the feature about Twitter. I will scan and post later tonight after the second half of the shows plus parties.

Betty Jackson this morning was fun - once again, it was another show where at first I couldn't help but think more of Spring/Summer than Autumn/Winter with the number of pastels floating down the catwalk but this was quickly rectified by lots of mohair and greys, forest greens and so on. Unfortunately, my camera flipped out on me again and most of my photos are blurry but I'll see what I can do later. Spotted in the front row - Lorraine Kelly, Dawn French, Melanie Blatt (All Saints) Erin O'Connor balancing a small child on her knee and Jade Parfitt. Betty's son Oliver was taking command front of house, making sure the Vogue girls got to their seats and everyone was happy, while looking very dashing (if I do say so myself).

Right. More later, I'm off for a much deserved brunch with some very neglected friends.

LFW AW09: Saturday

2009-02-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

It's been another busy day in the land of LFW and now as it's ten to one in the morning and I have to be up at eight, I hope you'll forgive me for what I hope will be a short post. Let's work our way through chronologically, shall we?

I started a little late this morning owing to my exhaustion from yesterday so I didn't get to the tents until John Rocha. By way of happy accident, I ended up front row for this show. By way of another happy accident, I ended up sitting next to Jessica Brinton from Style magazine, who is quite possibly one of my favourite fashion journos. She ended up grilling me about twitter after she saw me tapping away at my phone while I waited for the show to begin. I explained that I twitter from everything from the shower breaking to who I see at shows, which I think she found quite bizarre but hey. I always gabble when I'm put on the spot like that.

Now, some photos:

From John Rocha, we pottered over to Topshop's Unique show which is held in a disused underground warehouse behind the University of Westminster. This is always one of my favourite shows and this year, I was fortunate to have my own ticket rather than a cast off. The invite itself was pretty cool - I'll scan and post at a later date. Less gabbing, more photos, right?

Sadly, I had to miss Nathan Jenden but it worked out pretty well as standing around outside trying to figure out what to do and where the hell my lighter was in my bottomless pit of a bag, I happened to come across Pixie Geldof, Daisy Lowe and Susie from Style Bubble (one of my favourite fashion blogs). Unable to find my lighter, I chanced my arm with Pixie and her giant cooker-lighter, who was more than happy to trade a flame for one of my fags:

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Susie from Style Bubble

Everyone leaving Unique's venue:

Then, it was a little break and catch up with a friend before we all trekked to Holborn for the Basso & Brooke show at Bloomsbury Ballroom. I got there in the nick of time but not quick enough for a seat so I plopped down on the floor by the photographer's pit. We all couldn't help but notice that it was a particularly spring-like collection for Autumn-Winter. Judge for yourselves:

Then it was another quick break before the biggie, oh yes. VIVIENNE WESTWOOD RED LABEL! Spotted in the audience: David Walliams with Erin O'Connor, Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud, Alfie Allen with Jaime Winstone and Lily Cole. And those were just the ones we could see although the catwalk was equally as glam - Jo Wood, Alice Dellal, Jourdan Dunn and Daisy Lowe. Unfortunately, it was at this point that my camera decided to go a little mental and refuse to focus properly so these are a little bit of a mixed bag:

I have lots of video from today but I plan on doing one giant post with all of the footage at the end of the week. Well, I've got to keep you hooked somehow, don't I?

And finally, what I wore today. I look like a bizarre midget in the photo but please try to look past this. It's late and I'm tired so this will have to do. Anyway... Shrunken leather jacket - New Look, white and grey striped oversized shirt - River Island, black zipper edge top/dress - Topshop, grey tank dress (underneath) - Topshop, grey butterfly and skull scarf - Alexander McQueen, Safety pin clutch - Bodhi, black quilted pumps - Office.

And now, it's almost half past one and I have to be back up and out in less than eight hours. I swear, I don't know what I'm running on these days beside Vitamin Water and cigarettes.

LFW AW09: Friday

2009-02-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

After one day, I'm already exhausted and possibly drunk. I hit up 3 shows and an exhibition in the grand scheme of things and already the day is taking it's toll but I think I'm getting over the flu despite it all. Today, I went to Paul Costelloe, Caroline Charles and Ashish, followed by the London College of Fashion curation course exhibition. So, allow me to talk you through.

Paul Costelloe opened LFW, in grand tradition. This year, the two tents have been merged into one giant space which is a tad bizarre and will take serious getting used to. Before the show, Harold Tillman (head of the British Fashion Council) announced the new venue for LFW as of next season would be Somerset House. Hurrah, only 4 stops from my office, as opposed to double digits. Spotted in the front row: Jennifer Saunders, Erin O'Connor, Nicky Hambleton-Jones and crazy hat lady, back again. Hurrah!

Notes on Paul Costelloe, as written in my notebook: 60s silhoutees, trapeze hemlines, jacquard - gold, bronze, silver, red. Exaggerated shoulders with leather patches, oversized collars and neon pink wide leg trousers, awesome cutaway jumpsuit. Hair big, curled, piled on top and disshevelled with hangover sunnies. Photos to follow:

Where to follow on with Caroline Charles? The only positive thing was Amber Le Bon opening the show and the devil's wife-to-be dress at the end that made the whole audience go "what. the hell?!". I will post video footage at a later date.

The third and final of the day (thanks to the never-ending chasing of PRs for tickets) was Ashish, which wins hands down over everything. Sequins, sparkles and giant pom poms rules the collection, aided along wih music from VV Brown. Simply awesome, I took as many photos as I could, including of the pre-show entertainment featuring a trapeze:

At the Exhibition, Swarovski Headed man suddenly appeared and after the numerous drinks I'd consumed, I felt confident enough to go over, chat and take a photo:

And who knew, he has an actual name and indeed, blog. Click here to check it out. Now, I am far too tired to deal with youtube, videos and the such so I figure I will dedicated a post fashion week blog to pure video footage. Goodnight all, I have an early (and busy) start to tomorrow. Sleep well and dream of handbags.

~~Fashion footnote~~ What I and others wore today: (L-R) Me - River Island blazer, Illustrated people tank, Topshop Jeans, Topshop ('00) boots, Vintage silk scarf, Chanel handbag. Tory - Luella blazer, American Apparel Dress, Ri2K handbag. Toby - Paul Smith blazer, American Apparel dress, Chanel handbag.

LFW: AW09

2009-02-19T16:47:00.001-08:00

T minus 9 hours and 10 minutes.

Come the morning, let the circus begin! As with last season, I'll try and post about as many shows, outfits and events as I can get to. Until I can get to a computer, I'll be tweeting to your right or here - depending on how you take your twitter.

My name is Adulescent and I am a shopaholic

2009-02-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

Tonight after work I had the pleasure of being taken to the UK premiere of Confessions of a Shopaholic. Having been bombarded with the adverts for weeks on end, I must admit that I was particularly curious, especially as I loved the Shopaholic books when I read them. I found it interesting how they changed it so heavily as the books are set in London (with the exception of Shopaholic takes Manhatten) and Becky Bloomfield is painted as a pretty ordinary girl with a particularly bad credit card addiction.

I have to say that I enjoyed the film immensely. There were countless moments where I found myself laughing out loud while simultaneously horrified at the similar shopping patterns between the protagonist and myself. Of course, it's silly and girly and men will absolutely hate it but by god, if you're female and have ever even had the smallest rush from parting with your cash in exchange for something pretty, you will love this film. And Hugh Dancy is definitely a nice buffer between gags as the film's resident eye candy.

A lot of people and critics have commented on how very poignant it is that the film has come out when the economy is still in freefall and we are paying for all of the plastic bashing that we previously took for granted but it's the perfect light and frothy film with a deeper meaning about the dangers of debt that will hopefully strike even the tiniest of cords with the audience.

And finally, the fashion. Patricia Field of Sex & The City and Devil Wears Prada fame took the reigns of the costume department for another romp through high fashion via the wardrobe department. While I cannot fault her for her styling, I found that it was a little uninspired in that I could name pretty much 90% of the main characters' SS08 wardrobes. And the bridesmaid's dress just resembled Carrie's famous tutu from the opening credits just a little too much. But I will give her props where props are due, as pretty much all of the actors looked superb.

And now, a few photos from the ~~red~~ pink carpet:

heading in

fans lining the barriers

They even had a mini fashion show outside the cinema, featuring a model wearing a dress made up of shopping bags emblazoned with the film's typeface alongside a selection of beautiful SS09 fashion. LOVED it.

Oh and as a footnote, can I just say that Isla Fisher is absolutely miniscule and gorgeous in the flesh. She must use a step ladder to kiss Sacha Baron Cohen (of which there was sadly no sighting). Other celebs seen were Duncan from Blue, that girl who used to be in As If and Bianca Gascoigne who was mightily overdressed and backcombed to within an inch of her life.

Now, exhausted and happy, I'm going to bed to cuddle my 2.55 and dream of compulsive shopping.

Pinch me

2009-02-16T14:49:00.001-08:00

Many months ago, when I was still an intern and starting to get on my mother's nerves with my only-get-paid-minimum-wage freeloading, she offered me the ultimate bribe - that when I got an actual, proper job in fashion she would buy me a Chanel 2.55. I was at that point lusting after it like some love sick puppy, glued constantly to Ebay, trying to find an actual real one for a bargain price (highly unlikely).

The plan backfired somewhat for my dearest mater when only a matter of weeks later, I landed said proper fashion job and I set about gluing myself to Chanel's window displays. Months passed and I began to think that it had been an empty promise, merely an additional motivator to getting an actual job (apart from the raging overdraft, constantly empty wallet and torturously gorgeous items surrounding me in various fashion cupboards across London). My mum disappeared off to Berlin for six months for work and I gave up on the quilted dream

But then, oh then... On Saturday, my mum finally returned home. As we sat on the landing with her showing me lots of beautiful vintage finds from markets, suddenly I found a snowy white carrier bag in my hands, bearing those six amazing letters - C. H. A. N. E. L.

I am not ashamed to admit that for the first time ever, I squealed. Really loudly. And now, I have my baby. Aaah!

No prizes for guessing what I'll be rocking come fashion week on Friday!

Valentine's quickie

2009-02-14T03:07:00.000-08:00

Good morning all and Happy Valentine's day. Just a quick note to say whether you're with someone or not, have a kick ass day. I am dragging the boyfriend into town in search of a YSL manifesto and a copy of Katie Grand's new baby, LOVE magazine. In the meantime, enjoy some random totally un-Valentine's day photos from my iphone.

Cheap store round the corner from my office that sells coats, scarves and so forth for very little money. They put up new signs every day and this one made me laugh.

Everyone's been raving about Selfridges London window displays with their white futuristic grecian theme (which are rightly beautiful) but I thought this one, on one of the side roads not on Oxford Street was much more fun. BUNNY ARMY!

Hanging on the phone to PRs for hours and chasing tickets for LFW can be soul destroying so I've been working on my rubber band ball while I listen to lots of crap on-hold muzak. I only started it yesterday lunch time but by the end of the day it was spanning more than 5cm. Next week is entirely devoted to chasing tickets so expect this thing to grow.

Right, time to get dressed, put on my comfiest shoes and get to manifesto chasing. Wish me luck!

Hair 'em, Scare 'em.

2009-02-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

I have what can only be described as a love-hate relationship with my hair. When it's behaving itself, it's one of my better assets and when it's not, it has the ability to drive me insane and make me spend irrational amounts of money on hopeful (and often hopeless) improvement.

Lately, it has been of the latter variety. As you may've noticed in some of the photo posts, my head has been looking somewhat square of late. This was due to the fact that I hadn't had it cut in close to four months and I was beginning to resemble something like a blonde unkempt sheepdog, if blonde sheep dogs existed and had dreadlocks. Owing to the thick nature of my hair, all of my carefully sheered layers had grown out and my sweeping fringe was nonexistent, leaving me with a mound of too much shapeless hair.

It was time for an intervention of the hairdressing kind.

With my car back in action and able to get me to north London, it was finally time to take my hair in hand and some scissors to it. After an hour in the chair under the skillful eye of the wonderful Mark, I felt like a new person.

Of course, a haircut cannot get rid of my grey pallid winter skin and eyebags, so I've decided to jazz up my new hair photo with a little saturation and my awesome trashy yellow sunglasses. My hair looks pretty short in it but in reality, it actually still comes down to somewhere near my elbows on the bottom layers in a slightly asymetrical overly layered and slightly 80s cut.

Behold!

I will take a more succinct (and realistic) photo when I get the chance. Please note, my hair is not actually yellow.

T to the V, Thomas Vicary

2009-02-08T13:59:00.000-08:00

On Friday night, I had the pleasure of heading over to Home House to the salon show of Thomas Vicary's AW09 collection, courtesy of the lovely Fluff PR. The salon show was a nice warm up to LFW, which is a mere two weeks away now (gulp) and generally far less stressful, what with the bonus of Tanqueray Gin cocktails and nibbles to put everyone in a good mood.

I spent the evening hanging out with Bianca from the blog Fashion Slant, who even featured my Bodhi bag in her own round up of the evening. Details of the collection that I loved - exposed zips, intricate pintucks, a deep ruby red featuring heavily and the shredded jacket which I loveloveLOVED. Lots of photos to ogle below:

The Crowd...

The Clothes...

And the man himself, Thomas Vicary...

Fashion Footnote:
I loved Tobi's (who interns for both me and Fluff) hair:

Inspired, I finally decided that it was time to shell out for a haircut. Photos tomorrow (hopefully).

Dirty Girl in pictures

2009-02-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

As promised a few days ago, below are some photos of what precisely is wrong with our shower:

In case you're wondering why we had to tape the word 'NIE' across the front of it, the incident happened late at night and we couldn't warn our polish housekeeper, so we figured if we taped the word 'no' in polish, she'd get a rough idea not to use it.

As you can see from the photo above, the metal hinge has completed sheered off. There's still no word on when we'll be getting a new shower so in the meantime, I'm having to make use of the bath. I didn't really think I liked baths but for now, it's my only option if I want to be able to share enclosed spaces with others without force.

And now to post about something infinitely more interesting, Thomas Vicary.

Dirty Girl

2009-02-04T14:49:00.000-08:00

ARGH, we have no shower. Well, technically we do but we don't have our shower. Last night, as I was trying to get out of our shower, the door suddenly snapped off one of it's hinges. Not good, considering the door is made of thick tempered glass and particularly heavy. Being in a considerable state of vunerability (ie wet, blind and naked) made it difficult to figure out exactly what was going on until I had found a towel and was able to re-focus, only to find the shower door at a particularly odd angle, swinging from the top hinge.

Not good. We managed to patch it together with some electrical tape to stop it falling off it's remaining hinge and crashing onto any unsuspecting victims in the bathroom. Matki, the makers of the shower calmly reassured me that they can send me some new hinges but my dad pointed out this evening that there's no way we'd be able to get the door off, let alone replace the hinges. So, tomorrow another call will have to be placed to have a new shower fitted. Ball ache.

Photos of our artistic taping to follow tomorrow.

Slip 'n' slide

2009-02-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

Like much of the South East of England, I woke up yesterday to be confronted by six inches of snow covering everything. Also like much of the country, I was stranded at home as buses were pulled out of service and the tube pretty much shut down. Unlike much of the country, I was actually forced to work from home much of the day after my planned page for this week got pulled in favour of something a little more seasonal.

Now, it's one thing when you're stuck in an office and can't go and play in the snow but it's another wholly torturous thing when you're faced with oodles and oodles of virgin snow in your back garden, just waiting to be lobbed, rolled into snow men and snow-angeled in.

Just look at it! But gallantly, I struggled on and on with my work until it had got dark and every last bit had been finished. And then finally, we got to go and run around and be twenty-five going on five. Unfortunately, the boyfriend has far better aim and throwing skills than I do, so it was me who ended up with snow everywhere, while I only nailed him in the face once.

We also tried rolling snow men but both made our respective balls so big that there was no way we could lift them and instead we ended up with snow blobs.

On the treacherous walk to the station (buses in our area were still dubious), we saw plenty of artful snow men although I think my favourite has to go to the snow men I shall christen 'Saudi and the Tiny-head':

They were almost enough to make me fall on my ass on the ice, which was plentiful and made our walk double the time and we slid along the pavements with alarming regularity. Nothing like a little threat of falling on one's ass to get the blood pumping, it must be said.

Gardening for adulescents

2009-01-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, the boyfriend and I came home slightly merry and in an attempt to get to my side of the bed, I ended up falling into the shelf and knocking my most newly acquired cactus to the ground. The little cheery mexican style pot that it resided in smashed into millions of pieces and since then, it has sat naked in it's plastic pot, looking more than a little neglected.

Every week, I'd look at it and think that I must stop at Homebase that night and pick up a new pot for it and of course, I'd forget or it would be raining or so on and I wouldn't.

Today, I went on a crazy cleaning mission to finally sort out the afore mentioned shelves and of course, in the course of cleaning I once again came eye to spike with the cactus. I admit that once again the Homebase promise came to mind and was equally swiftly forgotten until I sat down about half an hour ago to watch TV and bag up all of the stuff I'd set aside for the charity shop. One of the larger piles was of old jewellery from my teens, amongst them plenty of brightly beaded plastic bracelets and suddenly, a craft project was born.

I fished out an old candle jar that I'd previously thrown in the bin and started figuring out that this indeed could probably be made into a new plant pot. And so, below is a step by step photo guide of my re-potting adventure. I apologise for the crappy quality of the photos, my camera battery died so I had to use my iphone.

the unwitting victim

candle soon to be plant pot

the work station (for reasons beyond my understanding, blogger has decided to rotate this photo)

a work in progress

taa-daa!

And so, there you have it. The cactus has a new home and I have a new use for some kitsch old bracelets. Hurrah!

Can't change your spots

2009-01-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned on twitter, I really shouldn't have gone to Topshop. What started off as a tipsy wander around with the mantra that I wouldn't buy anything ended up in a serious bank account bashing. One of the things that I bought was this printed dress with a leopard on it.

As we all know, I'm more than partial to a little animal magic so I fell irrationally fell in love with this straight away. The print goes all the way round with a tail and all on the back and for £18, it's recession friendly too. Unlike the rest of my purchases but more on those another time.

Hopping on the band wagon

2009-01-29T14:36:00.000-08:00

Since we'll all agree that I've been pretty crap at updating, I've left all integrity/dignity/what ever you want to call it behind and hopped on the twitter bandwagon. Click here to join the adulescent twitter cult.

My new love

2009-01-26T13:49:00.000-08:00

Remember the bag I fell in love with? Well, two weeks ago in my desperate quest for one, I started scheming about how to get my hands on one. First, I called the PR to see if there was any way I could get one. That turned out to be a dead end so I was back to square one and so, I did what any handbag-lust crazed girl does and turned to Ebay.

Someone, somewhere must really like me because lo and behold, within twenty minutes of scouting out the UK and US sites, I found one in California. The opening price was $400 and there was a buy it now of $550. Jumping up and down, I made my boyfriend email the woman right there and then (I love ebay but have no account of my own for precisely the dangerous temptation it would bring). I will spare you the long winded story but needless to say, I won and the bag finally arrived on Thursday, just in time for my trip to Berlin as you can see from the ode to Susie Bubble photo above, taken in my mum's amazing apartment.

Farewell, old friend.

2009-01-14T15:15:00.000-08:00

So, tonight we say goodbye to a part of British music history as Astoria plays host to it's last ever gig before being bulldozed to make way for Cross Rail, a new rail line that will allow people to get from Essex to Maidenhead a little faster.

I feel a particular sadness in that as a teenager growing up in London, Astoria and Mean Fiddler were an intergral part of my social life. Whether it was going to gigs or blagging our ways past the bouncers at Club X on weekends, I spent a many a night at the great venue. It is even the place where I got my first ever concussion at a Less Than Jake gig sometime around 2001; I got clocked on the back of my head by a full can of beer that had been lobbed from the seating area during a bottle fight.

And I know that they're building a new music venue to replace it but the new venue will be around 6000 capacity whereas the entire point of the Astoria was that it was a relatively intimate venue of 1600-2000 where you could go and see small bands and big bands alike. And I'm sure that the new venue will have state of the art facilities and loos that actually lock but it won't have the spirit of this rickety old place.

And so it is with heavy heart that I bid you adieu, fair Astoria. May you rock on in peace.

'09 and feelin' fine.

2009-01-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I last blogged, sometime back in mid-December. It's not that I haven't wanted to blog or not had anything to blog about, it's just that I couldn't find whatever is in me that makes me blog for a while. And I really needed to clean my room before my boyfriend dumped me among the piles of clothes.

But rest assured, I shall be back to it very soon, armed with news, pictures and anecdotes. In the meanime, go check out a couple of these blogs instead:

- The Things Laura Likes - does what it says on the tin. Lots of clothes. LOTS.

- Wanderful - A boy, a girl and a chihuahua named Mister travel round America in a Tab.

- Daddy Likey - Winona writes hiaku about chlymidia, shoes and everything in inbetween.

oh yeah and lest I forget, Happy New Year!

Lust Have

2008-12-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

I’m in lust. I know I say this at least once a month but this time, it’s serious. So serious that I’m considering parting with a sizable lump of cash in order to make my dream come true. The object that has inspired such irrational feelings? A handbag. Well, it’s always a handbag, isn’t it? But this is a Bodhi handbag. And I want it.

Ever since I saw the snaps of Little J from Gossip Girl carrying it during a funeral scene, I have longed to swing this beautiful clutch by it’s oversized gold safety pin handle as I skip happily down the street. But the question is, can I afford it? At £500, it’s a serious amount to splurge on a bag that I can probably only carry at weekends and evenings. And at this point, my inner bank manager kicks in and starts listing everything that I’ve blown stupid amounts of cash on recently, such as my iPhone (for the record - best. Investment. Ever.) and I start thinking, what can I do to get this and quickly, before it goes out of season?

Never have I been so traumatised by a handbag. Never. And no, I'm not going to tell you where you can get one as I'm being selfish and want to make sure that should I scrape together the cash, I can have one. So ner.

Oh. My. God.

2008-12-13T05:49:00.000-08:00

I usually try to steer clear of ebay, in order not to stray into the path of temptation and things like this are exactly why:

It ends in less than 2 hours and is an absolute steal (currently) at $400. I'm telling myself that even if I bought it, I would probably manage to blow the electrics and that's why I can't buy it.

Sigh.

Mmm...

2008-12-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

I love beef jerky almost a little too much, so imagine my delight when I came across a veritable WALL of it in the local supermarket yesterday. Mmm, tasty...

The Ice Storm

2008-12-02T21:52:00.000-08:00

So, I know I've been promising to blog for sometime and I do still owe you all a post about the RE:Fashion Awards and that will still come but there is good reasoning behind my lack of posting. The last two weeks have been crazy, prepping for a trip that I'm now on. This blog comes live from Breckenridge Colorado, a little ski town where I'll be based until next Monday, which is coincidentally also my 25th birthday.

After a hellish 20 hours travelling yesterday to get here yesterday, I am now firmly settled in an incredibly retro condo up in the hills. By retro, I mean that everything is made of polyester - my shredded elbows are testament to this, as is the rather scary light show of static energy that I was treated to in bed last night, where every move caused a little spark in the dark. I also get an electric shock from whatever I touch, meaning I currently resemble Einstein a little too much for my liking.

Ooh, and did I mention my other rather exciting little piece of news? I was finally allowed to upgrade my phone and I am not officially an iBore. Oh yes, I blew almost a week's wages on my iPhone and it would've been great, had it not decided to go psycho on me last night when I tried to sync it but it seems far better now.

The above photo ties in nicely to both subjects this evening - these are the rather fabulous snow boots that I bought from Primark for £10 for the express purpose of this trip, taken on my iPhone in six inches of snow. There's currently a blizzard outside, so I will now retreat to the safety of my cheap polyester sheets. More soon.

Knucklegate

2008-11-14T08:16:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned last night, I got my knuckle banged up at work. And now, the photographic evidence of damage sustained:

It's a lot smaller and normal coloured than it was yesterday but it's still pretty painful and makes typing a bit annoying. In case you can't tell which one it is, a red arrow has been provided for your convenience. And yes, I know that my hands look like uncooked sausages in this photo.

Injury time

2008-11-13T16:19:00.000-08:00

Originally, I had planned to post all about the First RE:Fashion Awards that I attended this evening. Unfortunately, just about an hour before I left work for said awards, I was leaving the loos when an incoming person slammed in really hard as I reached for the handle and slammed a metal bar into my hand. The second knuckle on my left hand took the brunt of the force and as it's now double it's natural size, I'm typing one-handed. Therefore you'll have to wait until the swelling and pain subside for photos and gossip.

Sleep well, I'm off to dig out some Neurofen.

Tales Photos from Bruges

2008-11-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the lack of posts, it's been a busy week. On Monday I went to Bruges for two nights for a work shoot. It was freezing, with a crazy mist that seeped into your bones. I took a lot of photos of buildings, which I will now proceed to bore you with:

And then there's Bruges at night...

Along the way we also discovered other random oddities:

We were only there for two nights and worked most of the time but even so, we still got to check out pretty much all of Bruges but I did learn that it's small, with a disproportionate number of chocolate shops.

The weather and Westfield

2008-10-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

The cold snap that's been making itself gradually known all week has finally, for want of a better word, snapped. As I left work tonight, an almighty drenching greeted me and just as I put up my rickety emergency umbrella it naturally only got worse and turned into full on thunder and lightening. Fun times when you're holding what is a metal framed invitation to bolts of the latter.

This of course was also the night I decided to take home loads of stuff that I've been accumulating. Heavy stuff. That meant I had to plod at snails pace all the way to the station, holding my crappy umbrella in place after it blew out approximately 20 seconds after I put it up.

And now, it's snowing outside. I didn't quite believe it at first but it's starting to settle which is both good and bad. Bad in that it means its officially cold (and probably slushy) but good in that I now have a legitimate reason to wear my Uggs to work. I'll have to carry normal shoes with me for work but once there, I'll just conveniently forget that my feet are snuggly and warm. Oh yes.

And now, onto more important things than the weather. Ladies and gents, in 35 hours, the biggest city mall in Central Europe opens. Welcome to Westfield London; 256 shops, 50 food outlets and conveniently 10 minutes drive from my house.

I must confess that at heart, I am a Mallrat. Whenever I am in the States, I love nothing more than wandering around the giant Meccas of spending that dominate the landscape. I know I sound shallow but it gives me a mindless type of joy to wander from shop to shop for hours, and then sate my appetite with Panda Express. Okay, so Westfield won't have a Panda Express but I'm sure that somewhere in the fifty eateries, I'll find an acceptable alternative.

Roll on, Thursday.

Friday wish list

2008-10-24T04:38:00.000-07:00

Oooh it's Friday and I don't want to do any more work, so let's go for a little internet shopping, shall we? There's so many things I want, need and must have. Here are but a few:

First up, I WANT these awesome pillow covers from Urban Outfitters:

Then, obviously I NEED a new pair of jeans, following crotch gate so I'll buy these from Topshop.

And then, when I fly to Berlin in a few weeks, I clearly MUST HAVE new roll-on case and what's a little Chanel between me and my overdraft?:

Available at bluefly.com for the bargain price of $3836USD (RRP $4795). In that case, I'll take two.

Annoyed face

2008-10-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my two favourite pairs of skinny jeans that I virtually live in had begun to split at the seams. Considering that I alternated between these two pairs day in, day out for almost four years, they've done pretty well. One pair is blue and one is grey. The blue were simply wearing through but the greys (the oldest of the two) were starting to split along a seam but being the resourceful soul that I am, I grabbed a needle and thread and with a bit of effort, managed to stitch them up enough that you wouldn't know.

At the beginning of the week, I reluctantly had to put them in the washing machine after I dropped balsamic vinegar down one leg. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I am not gross, I was merely concerned in regard to their fragile state.

Sure enough, last night as I peeled them off after another day of wear, I noticed that although my handy work had held up, two new holes had emerged in the fabric and they're not the kind that can easily be stitched as they're not on the seam. I'm going to need to do some serious mending if I want to wear them again without flashing my pants to all and sundry.

Most annoyingly, Topshop, where both pairs are from, tweak the cut and style every season so they're never the same. I tried some on the other week as a just in case measure to no joy. So now, I begin the lengthy journey of once again trying to find jeans I love and as any woman will attest, this is no easy task.

ARGH.

Sad face

2008-10-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today is a dark day in fashion. The brilliant Richard Blackwell, fashion critic, journalist, tv presenter and author of the famous Worst Dressed List, passed away yesterday aged 86. For those of you not familiar with his work, Blackwell was the man behind an annual list of the 10 worst dressed women which was published in January every year, insulting stars with scathing couplets.

You can find lists from the 2000s here. Amongst frequent offenders were tabloid trainwreck trio Britney Spears (6*), Paris Hilton (4*) and Lindsay Lohan (4*).

[* - number of appearances on the list since 2000. Britney would've probably scored another had she not been spared in 2007 on account of her meltdown.]

Mr Blackwell, we salute you and your fabulous work.

Repent, REPENT!

2008-10-17T03:11:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gentlemen, the end is nigh. Expect the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to come thundering past your house and toads to start falling from the sky because Paris Hilton is the new cover girl for Nylon.

First, Peaches Geldof gets a job there and now, the queen of the vacuous has made it onto the cover. That's it - Nylon, it's over.

And it's not me, it's you.

Check out more photos at fashionista.com

The Love Bus

2008-10-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

Remember how the other day I said I was having a spendaholic moment? Well, now something even cooler (and more expensive) has come to my attention. The Union Jack bus from the Spice Girls' movie is up for sale on ebay.

I'm not a huge Spice Girls fan but imagine driving round London in a Union Jack bus. Now, that's a statement. And look, it's parked nose to nose with the Kate Moss Rimmel bus:

Thankfully, my overdraft won't stretch to £3,500 or else I would totally be on that and probably bankrupt several times over.

Boot lust

2008-10-08T04:35:00.000-07:00

I think I have shopping on the brain. Despite my current financial situation being absolutely dire following last weekend’s blow out spending spree, I continue to lust after these beautiful Frye boots.

If anyone in the UK knows where I can buy them, please drop me an email and I’ll send you something fabulous in return for this crucial information. Believe me, I’ve pretty much exhausted every route and I think if I email their PR one more time, I may be blacklisted.

I love them, I want them, I NEED them in my life.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

2008-10-07T06:00:00.000-07:00

So, following the sadness of the blazer that never was, I have bounced back triumphantly. Last weekend, my mum came back from Berlin (where she's currently working) for a weekend and on Saturday, we hit town for a little retail therapy.

I was meant to be good, seeing as its taken me 5 months to clear half of my overdraft and I'd done that officially that morning but my mother and I should never be allowed to shop together. We are both of the school of 'you only live once so you may as well look fabulous' and the knock on effect was that I plummeted straight back into my overdraft with aplomb.

I've been umming and aahing as to what to channel for this season's inspiration but on Saturday I was decidedly inspired and shopped like I meant it. I bought the following:

And this is why I am once again poor but at least I'll be poor and well dressed.

Milan: the great model debate

2008-09-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

My apologies, I've been lacking in internet but dying to post and now there's a scheduled blogger outage in less than an hour so I'd better be quick.

I've been flipping through the shows from Milan on style.com and I came across the Prada show. Cast your minds back if you will, to 2006. Milan was the first major city to take on the Healthy Model Body Mass Index, enouraging designers to use models who might actually occasionally eat and not be running solely on laxatives and coffee. So imagine my surprise when I came across this model:

I hate to be a fashion killjoy but this girl looks like she's about to drop dead and the glassy-eyed look so often adopted by models as they stalk down the catwalk actually looks real. Those ribs! Those legs! I can understand that clothes hang better on skinny people but corpses? Come on, Miuccia, that's just not right.

But it didn't end there, oh no. Step forth, model from the Jil Sander show:

And let's not forget the girls at Etro, whose shoulders could have your eye out in a bar:

Still, I suppose that with the economy in its current state, it won't be long before many of us are rocking shoulder blades as lethal weapons.

And now, to lift the mood ever so slightly, one very angry looking model from the Prada show:

Girlfriend's about to beat yo ass down.

[all images from the awesome style.com.]

Boo-urns

2008-09-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'm a little bummed out this evening. On my way home from work, I took a little detour to go and mooch around Topshop. I'd seen an awesome black boy cut fully sequinned blazer in the vintage section on Thursday but as I was lacking in debit card following Walletgate, I couldn't buy it there and then.

All weekend, I tried to put it out of my mind, while some little voice in the back of said mind screamed 'You must have it. MUST!'

Armed with the resolve of if I can't get it out of my mind, I have to have it, I trotted down to the vintage section and you guessed it, it was gone. I'm not really surprised, it was an awesome jacket. And I suppose I kinda ruined that whole story by admitting that I was bummed out at the very beginning. I wouldn't have been bummed out if I had that blazer; I probably would've started with I bought the most amazing blazer today but no.

Ah blazer, perhaps it wasn't meant to be. Which is a real shame because you would've slotted into my wardrobe so perfectly. Sad face.

And now my second disappointment. I bought some Tarmasalata from the local supermarket last night and thought hmm, I'll have a little snack since its 11pm, I'm bummed about the blazer and I didn't eat dinner. Diligently, I chopped my carrots and a side of some good mozzarella, got a big dollop of the dip and went to settle myself in front of Law & Order. But it's salty. Really, really salty. And not good salty, gross salty.

So, now I sit here, bummed out - no awesome jacket and no good tarmasalata.

Tomorrow owes me.

LFW: Take a picture, it'll last longer.

2008-09-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

After LFW ended, I slept pretty much all weekend. The week in all of its sparkly glory, had finally caught up with me and I nose dived into bed, where I stayed except for the occasional trip to the fridge and a brief sojourn to buy contact lenses.

On Friday as I was running back to the office to sort out a last minute catastrophe, one of my interns and I got stopped by a photographer from iVillage.co.uk. I didn't think anything would come of it but lo and behold, today we were featured in all of our matching twinny glory. I would like to point out that it was a complete coincidence and in no way planned.

It would've been great if someone had told me that my dress had slipped down to my knees. C'est la vie, there's always next season.

I'll post more photos and outtakes tomorrow.

LFW: Friday

2008-09-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

I had tickets for pretty much everything today but due to unforseen circumstances, I only made it to one show today, Ashish but oh, what a show. I found myself happily snapping away the most I have all week.

Maybe its the magpie in me that made me love the heavily sequinned collection but there were so many pieces that I loved. As I've mentioned, lots of sequins, plus army coats and badge coated jumpsuits. Maybe I wouldn't wear the jumpsuit or the tiny denim hot pants with hands on the ass but I would certainly rock one of the playing card dresses. This is a collection that I can see totally see Topshop and a number of other high street retailers ripping off.

Without any further ado, I present today's collection of somewhat blurry photos:

And the final final walk of the season:

And on that note, the season ends. As much as I loved my first experience of LFW in full on fashion mode, I am really glad that its Friday and I can now sleep for the next two days and fully recover. Fashion week is good but it's also bloody hard work.

LFW: Thursday

2008-09-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

Today’s recap will be very brief as I didn’t go to any shows bar the Neurotica salon show in the evening. If, like me, you’re prone to a bit of Dragons’ Den viewing, you may remember Neurotica from one of the earlier episodes of the current series. The designer, Victoria McGrane was picked up by Peter Jones from the panel and subsequently funded to extend her diffusion range that sells in the flagship Topshop on Oxford Circus. The man himself was there to support it and we all got pretty excited.

I preferred this collection to the one seen on Dragons’ Den but that could be largely affected by the lack of ugly tights that were paired with the pieces on the show. Great hair and makeup on the models also helped, with the kitsch croquet/garden setting adding to the fun of it. Unfortunately, it was rather hampered by the lack of seating, which meant that people kept wandering onto the impromptu catwalk and I really, really didn't like the shoes and socks. Bleugh to them, bleugh I say!

I didn't get any footage here as there wasn't really a final walk, so here's a lot of photos instead, featuring Peter Jones:

Tomorrow's going to be another busy day, so on that note, I bid you farewell.

LFW: Wednesday

2008-09-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

So, a catch up on yesterday. I'm seriously starting to get fashion week fatigue - my feet hurt, I think I may've trapped a nerve in my shoulder and I'm running on cigarettes and the free bottles of Evian that they give you in the foyer of the BFC tent but for all the pain, it's still quite exhilerating. As this is a catch up, I'm going to be brief so that I can get onto tonight's show and this time, I will actually be brief, unlike yesterday's essay.

I started out at Betty Jackson, which I really liked as a collection. It was one of those collections that I think would translate really easily to actual people's backs, as opposed to just looking good on models.

I've noticed that there's been a lot of orange at the shows this season and while it's a colour that not many people feel confident enough to wear, I think it's going to be a major player come next year. None of my photos came out well and blogger is being difficult, so I'll have to post it tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a photo of the cool lights that they had:

SPOTTED: Jennifer Saunders and a lot of others whose faces I recognised but names I didn't know.

Thankfully, I had a break between shows to nurse my head and recover from my hangover, which was much appreciated. On to Jenny Packham, which had lots of sparkle and pink. I imagine that someone like Katie Price would love it. I wasn't totally enamoured to be honest but that could be because they gave me a standing ticket so I had to queue forever before I got in.

Again, my camera chose to act up but I did manage to get a photo of crazy hat lady. Noone knows her name but apparently she's a hat designer. She wears crazy creations that often measure over 18 inches tall and thankfully, the organisers have finally taken heed and stopped seating people directly behind her. Here's an example of what she wore yesterday:

As I've previously mentioned, my camera has been a bit rubbish this week, so the video of the Jenny Packham final walk is a little overexposed and will have to be posted tomorrow, owing to blogger's bad mood.

LFW Tuesday (again)

2008-09-17T14:54:00.000-07:00

So, happy news! I was pretty inconsolable at the loss of my wallet last night but the fashion gods have smiled on me - amazingly, someone found my wallet, looked in it and found my Met Bar card. They then called the Met and let them know, who then contacted me. I get it back tomorrow afternoon. Hurrah!

Now, onwards - or rather, backwards - to yesterday. Since I've got to do two days worth and its pretty late already, its mainly going to be visual this evening. So, without further ado... Ashley Isham had the craziest floor. After making us wait around for 45 minutes, we got ushered in to the show space, where we were confronted with a psychedelic floor:

Unfortunately, my camera has gone a little nuts and overexposes lots of stuff so my footage of the final walk is pretty much unusable but I did quickly snap this when I realised what was going on with my camera:

Spotted in the front row: Michelle Collins (formerly Cindy Beale from Eastenders), Jenni Falconer (GMTV) and Lisa Butcher (What Not to Wear).

Next, it was on to Eley Kishimoto, which was a bit of a mixed bag. I liked the patterned tights, cute block colour dresses, Salamander sequin dress and the biker helmet:

The final walk is a bit overexposed, watch at your peril:

The final show that I went to yesterday was Amanda Wakeley. I wasn't particularly inspired but I'll let you be the judge. Unfortunately, I didn't get a single photo in focus so its just the final walk:

After Amanda Wakeley, we headed straight out to Harrods for the Rock & Republic launch party, where I saw a very pinched looking Tamara Beckwith wearing her sunglasses indoors and wielding a giant Selfridges bag like a guard. God knows why, there was one photographer who was there to cover the event and no paps. Odd.

From Harrods, we headed over to the Met Bar for the Pink Drinks party, hosted by the awesome Jamie who was dressed as Willy Wonka for the Fashion Candy theme, including giant lollipops outside:

From there, we headed over to Mahiki for a quick drink and a bit of a boogie with some of the girls and boys of Tatler in order to get us in the mood for the Swarovski/Giles/Rocks Magazine party in Holborn. After a quick drink and a bit of shape throwing, it was time to head to our (hopefully) final destination of the night.

We hopped into another cab to get to Giles but by the time we got there, we were losing our energy and seeing the long line of Hoxtonites waiting to get in, we decided it was time to call it a night and head home. By all accounts, the Giles party was huge, dark and rammed. I don't think I could've coped with not being able to see 5 feet in front of my face and judging from the size of my hangover this morning, I think it was probably a wise choice.

As I was waiting for my car and lamenting my wallet, I saw Tamsin Eggleton (St Trinians') arriving in a fabulous green dress. I think I may have a new girl crush.

As you can see, there's good cause for my exhaustion and on that note, I think I may have to leave today until tomorrow as its midnight and I'd quite like to go to sleep.

LFW: Tuesday

2008-09-16T17:21:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of post tonight but some fucker stole my wallet earlier this evening and my mind is currently focused on that. Reports to come later:

Ashley Isham
Eley Kishimoto
Amanda Wakeley

..and a bunch of parties.

LFW: Monday

2008-09-15T12:31:00.001-07:00

I love morning shows at the BFC tent. This morning, it was rise and shine for John Rocha at 9:30 but of course, everything was running fashionably late. The foyer to the tent was rammed full of the fabulously dressed nibbling gingerly at mini smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels and the odd pastry, washed down the lots of boxed juices, all courtesy of Marks & Spencer. Yum.

The show started just before 10am and this time, it was a far more civilised affair. I've been trying to figure out how best to describe the dresses but there's not really one particular word or phrase. So, instead, I can only describe them as prom-like dresses with dropped waists, overlays and bibs - if that makes any sense? I'm not sure. I tried to find images but it seems noone has them up yet. So, I'll have to give simple descriptions of my favourites:

- Cream dress with coral coloured petals and net overlay

- Electric blue ruffled dress

- Black dress with gem encrusted bib and similar one with a gem scarf

Things that I didn't like:

- The hair. Pretty much the same as PPQ, tight-tight buns on top of the head. It's like the fashion version of a Croydon Facelift.

- The slouching male models. I hate to sound like someone's mother but slouching, particularly in a model, is not attractive. They all looked like petulant teenagers, sulking along the catwalk because they've been made to.

And now, more things that I did like:

- The music. It was later identified to me as Talking Heads. Again, I'm going to sound like someone's mother but it's nice not to be subjected to modem-like noises that seem to plague a lot of shows. I don't like being distracted because my ear drum has burst, thank you. Talking Heads is good, Talking Heads let me focus on what I'm seeing, not on whether I need to start wearing ear plugs.

- The fact that there was more breakfast as we left. Cue a mass flocking to the bar to stock up on more fuel between shows.

I wish I had more shows to tell you about but unfortunately, after John Rocha, I had to go back to the office to do some work and therefore missed a lot of the shows. At the end of the day, I rushed to Jaeger, only to have the door slammed in my face but
all clouds have a silver lining - I got see Naomi Campbell stalking along to the backstage area while the show was still happening.

She looked very inch the Supermodel; huge dark glasses, Louboutins and 3 fawning minders leaping around her. Very exciting! Unfortunately, I couldn't get a photo as it all happened so fast - long legs get you places far quicker than the average human limbs. A slightly less starry spotting was the very Ronsealed Victoria Hervey again, looking even more skeletal than normal, wearing sparkly Gina shoes.

LFW: Sunday in Pictures

2008-09-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

I promised more pictures, so here they are. Many are blurry and I apologise for that - I'm working with aged technology.

Spijkers en Spijkers

Topshop Unique

Ossie Clark

PPQ

Also spotted at PPQ:

- Nicola Roberts from Girls Aloud. Her new hair would look good in Editorial - it kind of reminds me of those Miu Miu adverts featuring Lindsay Lohan - but it just looks ridiculously fake in the harsh light of day.

Adele - only fleetingly over peoples heads.

LFW: Sunday stories

2008-09-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

Oof, I've just rolled in the door from a crazy day as your intrepid reporter at London Fashion Week, the first of six days of pure peacock watching. I started off the day at Spijkers en Spijkers at Vauxhall Fashion Scout this morning, a very interesting collection: lots of ruffles on everything. While I didn't really warm to the pinks and violets, I loved the dresses in oyster grey and peach and the fabulous ones that were studded all over. The second half heralded lots of leopard print, which the trashy side of me secretly loves just a little too much to be healthy. My favourite piece though was probably the black silk jumpsuit with tiny little hot pant shorts, you can see it in the final walk, unfortunately the quality is quite bad as my camera is pretty old and crappy:

After Spijkers, we jumped on a bus and headed over to Baker Street to go and check out Topshop Unique, one of the hottest tickets in town, in one of the most amazing venues:

Before the actual show started, they had a reception with lots of yummy miniature portions of traditional English grub - prawn cocktail, cod and chips, bubble and squeak, bread and butter pudding, all washed down with champagne. I was starving and grateful for the sustenance and bubbles - who wouldn't be?

Anyway, back to the clothes. The collection was really heavily 80s inspired - lots of bleached denim in the form of candy coloured jumpsuits and fun printed pieces like horse shoes and arrows through hearts on jackets, more jumpsuits and dresses. All of the models had hugely backcombed hair with scarves tied in them. One girl in a rust coloured ensemble had a matching denim jacket tied in her hair - sounds weird but it worked. My favourite pieces though were the backless jersey dresses with low hanging draped fabric. Not screamingly obvious but very sexy none the less.

In the front row, we spotted Alexa Chung, Peaches Geldof, Roisin Murphy and Cory Kennedy. I bumped into Cory after the show during the bottleneck to get out and when I mentioned that I liked her blog, she agreed to pose for a photo for mine. She was very sweet and patient when my camera messed up and waited until I got the snap I was after. I couldn't help noticing that she's also really tiny. We were both in flats and were pretty much eye-to-eye and I'm only 5'3". That just made me love her a little more:

Unfortunately, blogger has decided to mess up uploading videos for this evening, so I'll have to add some of the videos tomorrow. From Topshop (which ran late), we pegged it back across town to the tents for Ossie Clark.

I was amazed to see Alexa Chung in the front row in a completely different outfit to the one she'd worn to Topshop. The fashionistas sitting around me started to snipe about how it was a bit try hard but I bet every one of them would've loved the opportunity to change between shows, although I must admit I did see their point.

Ossie Clark featured lots of beautiful diaphanous dresses in rich jewely colours - pea green, burnt orange and deep purples, as well as his signature bold prints. Oh, and the embellishments. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He had that stunning girl from the current Topshop ads walking too and for a brief moment, she made me buy into another dreamy beach life. Believe me, if I were built at a height where maxidresses didn't double as a street sweeper-slash-tent on me, I would so be in there, snapping everything up:

[OSSIE VIDEO WILL BE ADDED TOMORROW, HANG TIGHT!]

After Ossie, we had a short break where we had to do some work. I was glad not to be hopping onto any tubes or buses to march off to another destination and was glad just to plonk down for a while and file some copy before it was off to PPQ.

I've never seen the BFC so rammed. We had seats but in the loosest terms of the word. I had one butt cheek precariously balanced on the edge of a bench, legs in the aisle in order to avoid falling to the floor. And the show had started even before the models hit the runway.

Spotted on the front row: Jodie Harsh in amazing gold sequinned leggings, Victoria Hervey sitting with Russell Simmons (yeah, we couldn't figure it out either), Kimberley Stewart (in what appeared to be silver foil), Peaches Geldof (again, still don't like her), Pixie Geldof (interesting new haircut), Roisin Murphy (again) and Cory Kennedy (who had changed outfits), along with lots of people whose faces I knew but names I didn't.

I have a lot of photos from this show but I'll have to post most of them separately as otherwise this will officially be the longest post ever. I didn't love PPQ this season as much as I have in previous ones.

I think I may've been distracted by the elaborate hats. I am a firm believer that accessories should accentuate or make an outfit, not overshadow it. And this was most definitely a case of the latter. A shame really but I'll let you judge for yourselves when I post the videos tomorrow but here's a taster of one of the finer confections:

As I type, the PPQ party is currently kicking off in Piccadilly and I had intended to go but an exhausting day and some none too fresh sushi means that I think it's probably safer that I skip it and recover. I've also just heard that the queue is ridiculously long so I think it was a wise decision. It's another busy day tomorrow and I still need to figure out what I'm wearing. A fashionista's job is never done...

28 days later

2008-09-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

I admit, I'm not always very good at keep this place updated; I've been very busy recently so here's a brief overview of everything from the last four weeks.

I returned the shoes in a moment of sensibility. Good. I then promptly walked next door to Topshop and spent their equivalent and then some on a new pair of jeans and a dress. Not good.

I flew to Dublin for an overnight press trip and during the only spare hour we had, another one of the guests and I went to go and check out the main shopping area. While we were walking around, we came across the Louis Vuitton store. The current window dressings all have a security theme, which I first saw on baglady.tv. Being the loser that I am, I held up our expedition to get a photo on my phone (my camera had generously packed up that morning). Anyway, here you go:

Isn't it awesome?

In other news, we temporarily have three dogs. We're dog sitting a very cute but very energetic sausage called Thandie whilst her mother is away shooting. Our dogs weren't particularly enamoured by the whole experience for the first week but thankfully peace has been brokered. Minus the odd hiccup when Thandie tries to jump on our dogs (who are both a little old and would rather eat, sleep and scratch themselves than run around like lunatics all day), they all get on rather well these days:

Unfortunately for me, our new arrival, although extremely cute, is currently teething and as such, anything chewable must be kept firmly out of her reach. In the five minutes that my new(ish) and favourite nude leather pumps were left sitting on the floor, the darling dog managed to chew clean through the toes of said shoes, leaving them unwearable and me without good day-to-day shoes.

Which leads me to my final point, London Fashion Week, that kicks off bright and early tomorrow morning. This is my first official one, not sneaking in on other peoples' exhibition passes or spare tickets, so I'm doubly excited. I will probably want to crawl into a hole and hibernate by the end of the week but until that moment comes, I'm going to try and enjoy every moment of it, with as many posts as possible.

And on that note, I bid you goodnight. Some of us need our beauty sleep. Yaaawn.

Uh, guys?

2008-08-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else find the new Orangina advert creepily over-sexed? Now, I'm no prude by any means but seeing jungle animals in bikinis twirling round stripper poles and a lap dancing Octopus doesn't make me thirsty and it certainly doesn't make me think hmm, I must buy Orangina next time. And I quite like Orangina.

Judge for yourselves:

Happy Friday!

My humps

2008-08-14T15:33:00.001-07:00

For those of you who may have been momentarily excited by the title of this post, I'm sorry to disappoint you but it's not anything to do with what Fergie illustriously refers to as Lady Lumps. I apologise for any interest caused.

For the last two weeks or so, I've had a strange hump/lump on my forearm, just above my elbow. How and why this mystery blemish originated is beyond me. It was simply the case that I woke up one morning, lo and behold, I was lumpy of arm. Now, I know most people out there will be thinking that the protusion on my arm is the result of a drunken bump into something but seeing as the lump emerged mid-week, is solid and has no bruising, I've pretty much ruled out this potential source of lumpiness.

I've also noticed that the lump fluctuates in size. Some days, it'll be tiny, barely discernable. The next, it will be a raging pink and demanding attention, often after I've spent sizable hours leaning on it at work. It's understandable - I'd be pink and angry if someone spent 8 hours leaning on me too. The weird thing is though, it's not tender, its not purple and the fact that it comes and goes as it pleases fascinates me to no end. I spend countless moments throughout the day examining, poking and prodding it - at least if it hurt under duress, I could justify it's presence but the fact that it seems completely indifferent to any pain inflicted is slightly alarming. I know that in today's digital age, I should be sharing photos at multiple angles of the lump but due to it's difficult position and the fact that my camera is pretty rubbish, I shall have to leave it to your imaginations until a later date.

So far, only one lump, right? Not quite. To match it, I also have a lump in my ear but I have a feeling that you've probably stomached all of the lump news you can today and on that note, I will end our lesson is adulescent swellings. To make up for it, please enjoy Alanis Morrissette's brilliant piss-take of Fergie's dancefloor classic, as mentioned earlier.

New Acquisitions

2008-08-04T15:46:00.000-07:00

So, I've been promising myself not to shop for the last two weeks. Have I stuck to it? Hell no. On Friday, I went to the My-Wardrobe.com sample sale, where I bought a Tara Jarmon silk balloon top and a great Et Vous Cotton-cashmere knit dress. Both were reduced hugely - the top was originally £256 and I bought it for £40. In girl logic, I saved £210, making it a bargain. In boy logic (as according to my boyfriend), I still spent £40.

So, I said I wasn't going to buy anything else but coming back from a show tonight, I thought I would stick my head in Miss Selfridge and the giant Topshop for a little nosey. Not to buy anything. Oh no.

Well, that lasted all of about 20 minutes and I walked out with two pairs of shoes, one from each store. From Miss Selfridge:

Mmm. They're actually a lot lighter in terms of colour than this photo suggests, far more nude in tone.

As regular readers will know, I can't wear heels but that didn't stop me from buying these. I love little details like buttons and zips on shoes and although I'm still undecided on whether to keep them, I'm erring more to the keep than return frame of mind. Another great example of girl logic.

My other pair of shoes are slightly less exciting - just nude coloured pumps from Topshop for everyday use and also to go with my new TJ top but they'll be the shoes that I will not get told off for buying, so they make me happy too.

Anyway, a whole post about shoes. I promise, the next one will be slightly more interesting - about an altercation in a curry house. Ooh, I bet you're intrigued...

Stuck on You

2008-07-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

Imagine my surprise today when I picked up my copy of the Metro and saw a familiar face on the cover, grinning back at me. Turns out that a guy I knew at Uni, Dan Glass, now works with Plane Stupid - I'm not really surprised as he was always quite the eco-warrior at University.

He was receiving an award for his work with the group, which was to be presented to him by PM Gordon Brown. Dan managed to utilise the chance to the absolute max by gluing himself to the PM. Check out his interview with CNN by clicking here.

Dan, I salute you!

Ouch.

2008-07-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

I think I walked somewhere in the region of 8 miles today, pounding the pavements in very thin shoes and fighting my way through the swathes of tourists that inhabit central London during our summer months. As you'll probably know, I don't like tourists, no matter how good they are for our ailing economy.

As a result of my trekking, I'm knackered and my feet hurt something chronic. This does not include the two parties I went to tonight, which have only added to my exhaustion. I'm going to go and lie in a hot bath now. Gossip tomorrow.

PS still no sign of the sunglasses. Boo.

AWOL, again.

2008-07-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'm really annoyed. A while ago, my silver sandals disappeared two weeks after I had re-discovered them and put them in a supposedly safe place. This week, it's the turn of my yellow sunglasses. We're all heading off to Truck Fest* and they're key to my well being.

They're a rare breed in that they don't squeeze my head and give me brain ache when I wear them for too long, unlike the majority of my other sunglasses. They are awesome 80s style plastic aviators and I know I could go buy another pair somewhere like Topshop but it won't be the same and I know that the second I do, the AWOL ones will appear.

I am therefore determined to hunt through every handbag that I've worn in the last two months in order to find them. I will not give up, as I have had to do with the sandals. I will find this missing piece from the puzzle of my wardrobe, even if it takes the rest of the week.

Speaking of festival related activities, I was really impressed when I nipped into the big Tesco near Ikea (where I'd been to buy a crate of delicious Kopparberg) and found myself walking out with a new sleeping bag, inflatable camping mattress and a bubble gun amongst other purchases, all for £30. I was tempted to buy a new tent but common sense won out on that one. At least this year we won't have giant boulders digging into our spines.

*NB: truck fest has nothing to do with trucks, cars or any other vehicular activity.

Minor Grievance #372

2008-07-07T14:18:00.000-07:00

So, my sunny mood could only last so long and appropriately enough disappeared as soon as the actual sun did and the skies opened up. One thing I will never understand is why people in London insist on carrying giant umbrellas in town. I could forgive it if there were four people jammed underneath it but when there's one very smug banker under an umbrella with a diameter of 2 metres, I begin to see red.

These tossers take up the entire pavement as they stroll slowly along while everyone has to veer sharply out of their way for fear of having an eye poked out by a spoke and ends up in six inches of flooded gutter water.

And then, they get on the tube and insist on carrying the thing under their arm with the sharp pointy metal capped bit sticking out a foot behind them. And of course, they forget about this potential weapon and either swing round and inevitably clock you square in the face (particularly if you're short like me) or pump it with great vigour as they walk, causing those behind them to do a dodging dance the entire way.

Walking to and from various stations today, I was almost stabbed six times, got smacked in the shoulder and then got stuck behind a banking moron who was braying into his crackberry about his lovely weekend in the Cotswolds while twirling his navy and maroon golfing umbrella in his hand, spraying all those around him with even more rain water. But he was dry, so that's okay.

People, if you live in a city, buy a small folding umbrella. Not only will you no longer have the threat of litigation that knocking someone's front teeth out brings looming over you; you will also cease to be a twat in my eyes.

Twenty eight three days later

2008-07-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

So, it's been three weeks since I last posted, the night before I started my new job. I hate to gush but for pretty much all of it, I love it. I'm sorry, I realise that my happiness is probably incredibly boring to the rest of the world so console yourselves that the accounts department at my new employer is crap. I've been driving myself even deeper into debt than my soon-to-be-forcefully-reduced overdraft allows until they finally pay me. It's weird to think that I'm actually getting paid an actual wage rather than expenses or at best, minimum wage. Except, it still hasn't happened so I guess technically I'm still working for free.

I've been forced to studiously avoid all shops and when I wore evil shoes to work the other day, I was in the horrible position of not being able to afford some cheap replacements on my lunch break and had to suffer painful painful shoes all day. I never thought Birkenstocks could drive me to rage but apparently it's possible. Let's just say I won't be wearing those any time soon again.

But if painful shoes is the worst to happen to me this week, I'd like to think it's been a good one. In other news, I went to see John Mayer last week at Brixton Academy. Never have I witness a more placid crowd, all politely sipping Cider, swaying gently and recording the entire thing on their mobiles. As I was too. And as soon as I find all of the appropriate cables, I too will be boring you with the out of focus footage.

Ooh you lucky people, so much to look forward to!

(Actual) Working Girl

2008-06-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

I have news. Big news. Maybe not HUGE news, nothing earth shattering but in my world, it's pretty damn near asteroid sized. At last, my days of interning are over.

After 18 months of slave labour, I. Have. A. Job.

And I start tomorrow.

Gulp.

Warning: Wildebeest seen mid-air

2008-06-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Ladies and gents, I have done something I thought I would never do. Be warned, pigs are flying somewhere near you - I have joined a gym.

Those who know me will know I am the least likely person to ever be found in a place of public exercise or come to think of it, private exercise. However, the last 18 months of sitting at a desk job have meant that I have seen my waistline expand slightly and my levels of fitness, abysmal as they already were, sink to new lows.

So, yesterday the Boyfriend and I went to our local gym and signed on the dotted line. It's not the first time that I've belonged to a gym, I'll be honest. Years ago, following my first knee dislocation, I belonged to the extremely posh gym that is round the corner from me. However, when my membership shot from £40 to £120 once I turned 16, I decided that I couldn't allow myself to watch my mother pay through the nose for something I hardly ever used. Now, the £80 fee is deducted from MY bank account, which will hopefully be enough motivation for me to hit the cross-trainer.

That, or it'll be a very expensive lesson in my own laziness.

Minor Delays

2008-05-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, I'm useless at keeping this place up to date. My current job leaves me more knackered and stressed than before. I never realised how much I loved the answering machine in my old job, when in manic moments I could just ignore the phone and let some harassed PR harass my voicemail, rather than me. These days, there's no such luck.

I spend an awful lot of my day with the phones ringing off the hook, gritting my teeth to stop from sounding too irate when I finally answer, while simultaneously dealing with a million and two emails from more harassed PRs so by the time I get home, you'll have to forgive me for wanting to stay at least 5 feet away from a computer at all times.

It may sound strange but I end up coming up with ideas for blogs when I'm in the shower. Some people sing, I compose blogs as I soap up. Unfortunately, by the time I get out of the shower, the remains of my energy and resolve have gone down the drain, along with the remains of my shampoo.

In short, I apologise. I am rubbish. Normal service will hopefully resume over the weekend.

Network Suicide?

2008-05-05T14:53:00.001-07:00

Back in the day when social networking first kicked off and the invites started rolling into my inbox, I resisted at first as I'd never really made any inroads with my original network of choice, Friendster after they kept freezing my account for no apparent reason. However, the numbers building in my inbox slowly started to mount to levels I couldn't ignore and gradually, my resolve crumbled. I hold my hands up and admit that I signed up to Bebo, WAYN and Myspace in the first wave of those networks popularity.

My interest in Bebo and WAYN didn't last more than a few weeks past the initial sign up date but I kept up with Myspace as my friends and I were dotted around the country/world at university. However, even that pissed me off. Once everyone found Myspace profile editting sites that generated the HTML for you, even the most special of individuals had all manner of flashing, sparkly .gifs and moving backgrounds. It meant everytime I clicked through to one of these amazing pieces of java abuse, my computer would freeze and die, often taking the essay I should've been working on with it.

Then, I found Facebook, the great leveller. Everyone was gradually signing up as they were more towards the end of their university time as it was, at the time, an institution only networking site, meaning that there was less awful grammar, no silly backgrounds and a distinct lack of ~*~StIcKy CaPs~*~ [shudder]. Thank the lord.

I quickly switched to Facebook, occasionally logging into my Myspace but not really using it and forgot all about Bebo and WAYN. Tonight, I went to check my email and to my annoyance, I noticed that the WAYN messages I had set a filter to ignore had started creeping through. Deciding enough is enough, I logged into my account and headed for settings, determined to end it once and for all.

But I couldn't. My little pointy arrow hovered over the button but I couldn't click. I have friends who in the heat of the moment have committed Facebook suicide, only to come back a few days later. Would I do the same? I admit that the word IRREVERSIBLE in red capitals that freaks me out a little, praying on my insecurities. There is no going back What will I miss out on? I haven't given a shit for two years but when it comes to actually clicking and deleting a piece of myself from cyberspace, it's enough to give me a case of web anxiety.

The Barometer of Shoe

2008-04-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

I have finally had the first glimmer of hope that spring might actually, er, spring at last. Yesterday, for the first time this year, I wore ballet pumps without my toes turning blue or soggy. Of course, my enthusiasm was short lived when it rained this morning, forcing me back into my boots but by lunchtime the rain had shifted and my legs were baking. Thankfully, I had a random pair of plimsolls under my desk and after sharing my roasted tootsies with everyone, I was relieved of my leather sweat chambers.

I don't want to jinx it but it's meant to be nice for the rest of the week. Fingers crossed - it's about time we had some decent park-dwelling weather and an excuse to break out the spring-summer wardrobes.

Holidays and Handbags

2008-04-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post since we got back from vacation but somehow, I just didn't get round to it, probably because there isn't that much to tell. I never found my silver sandals which pissed me off but I got over it once we hit the warmer shores of Gran Canaria. We ended up booking on the Thursday and going on the Saturday, much to the relief of my mother who was bouncing off the walls with frustration at the lack of our ability to secure anything for our budget.

Admittedly, it wasn't like our last holiday in Cyprus, which was civilised affair in a very nice hotel. This time around, due to the blasted messed up Easter holidays, meant that our money didn't stretch as far and we were in very basic but nonetheless pleasant accomodation. The same could equally be said about our guests. We were surrounded by a range of interesting tattoos, bald heads and pastel coloured clothing for the duration. We'd been looking forward to eating Spanish food but were out of luck as the restaurants in the medium sized complex all served varying combinations of pizza, steak, pasta, kebab and prawn cocktail which made for an interesting and varied diet at vastly over inflated prices.

Of course, the other thing that we Brits go abroad for is the chance to drink oversized novelty cocktails and locally produced beers at low prices. We spent our first night binging on San Miguel and dodgy blue drinks and managed to spend most of our money on that and the ever intensifying games of pool. Unfortunately, this meant that not only did we have killer hangovers the next day, we were also distinctly poorer. But the fact that it was 30C every day made up for whatever the holiday lacked and I only burnt myself a few times. Hurrah!

Now, on a completely different topic, as some of you may know, I'm slightly obsessed with handbags. My limitations in the world of shoes mean that handbags are my accessory of choice. My latest obsession is the Chanel 2.55 bag. When I first started working in fashion, I didn't really understand why so many people were obsessed with Chanel but slowly, I too have been brainwashed to love those interlocking Cs on padded quilting. I've spent the evening drooling over ebay and am now on a mission to hit up every charity shop in the richer suburbs until I find one. I know it's laughable but a friend of mine found one for £20 in an Oxfam and now I am determined to repeat her success. Wish me luck.

Panic Packing

2008-03-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

Why is it that the one thing you need, you can never find? I can't find my silver sandals, which has put me into a strop, as I had planned my entire wardrobe around these shoes. We're off on holiday today to go and soak up some sun and get out of the rat race for a week. Back next Sunday, hopefully with a tan.

A lesson in shoes

2008-03-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

Part one: How not to wear Gladiator Sandals, as demonstrated by Lindsay Lohan

I like gladiator sandals, I really do. But not like this. There are far too many pairs out there that have ankle straps, for which only the skinniest of ankles need apply. For girls not blessed with delicate bones, might I suggest lower straps or going all out with gladiator boots, a la D&G, Balenciaga and Givenchy, as seen below.

For the high street, Topshop's tan leather offerings, with their delicate intertwining straps, which won't be hitting the shelves for another few weeks but are a-mazing! Unfortunately, there are no images yet but take my word for it. As soon as they're out, I'm gonna have me a 300 moment.