France!
Me and my lovely friend Jessica spent the first two weeks of this month in France, training it from Paris, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Avignon. Quite frankly I wish I was still there, not only because of the better weather, food, and because back here my uni deadlines and the realities of being a grown up are slapping me in the face again, but also because, while we arrived back in Derby at 4am last Saturday (20th), by midday on Sunday, I found myself sitting in A&E with a broken foot…..
Of all the times to break my foot, now is not a good one! I have my two final uni deadlines, arrangements for our two uni exhibitions, the end of my TEFL course and figuring out my post-uni plans (as in, my move out date is 30th June… possessions need to be sold/stored… flight ticket needs to be bought for 1st July), all on crutches… fun.
Still, the cast is off on 30th May, just in time for the Derby exhibition! Timing!
As for France… what is there to say, besides that as ever, it was beautiful, and I miss it already. I have come back with a really dark tan, and therefore England seems more dull and grey than ever before. While I am glad to finally give my feet a rest (I couldn’t begin to guess how many miles me and Jess walked in terrible, blister-inducing shoes over those two weeks), I especially miss walking around Paris, bra-less and shoe-less, with tourists trying to be helpful by pointing out that we were not wearing our shoes but in fact, have you noticed… you’re carrying them…….? Oh really?!
For anyone visiting Paris, I strongly recommend Oops Hostel by Les Gobelins metro stop, and La Manufacture Restaurant, which is just a few doors away. Amazing food.. and amazing chocolat chaud!
Jess being a beautiful model, we of course had a few personal shoots while we were travelling, and I am currently editing those… I may post a preview soon.
For now.. a few travel snaps.
♥
A few edits from a recent shoot with the lovely Jessica. Hair and makeup were done by the amazing Emma Grant.
Confession: My new selfie isn’t one pure self portrait.. it’s four. My head is from test one, my scarf, body and legs test four, my left arm test three, bits of scarf from test two…. need I continue?
Twenty minutes in the snow, in just tights, a summer skirt and tank top, hoping I don’t lose toes to frost bite for the sake of a self portrait.. I get home, and my favourite snap is this one - one of my test shots taken while I was still wearing boots and a cardigan… bloody typical!
I have just realised that I have struck off everything on my teenage bucket list! And honestly, when I first put it together about five years ago, I thought it would take me years to complete, so I’m feeling pretty pleased that I’m 21 and starting a whole new list!
I’ve of course had to write myself out a whole new one, this one about twice as long, and more challenging.
I’ll be blogging as I work through each wish on my brand new adult-me bucket list, and I’m itching to begin!
I know this spread was published back in June 2012, but I’ve just re-discovered it and I have fallen in love with it all over again. Featured in British Vogue and photographed by Tim Gutt, this is their twist on the Olympic hype of last summer, and, quite frankly, I love it. I mean, how incredible are Shona Heath’s set design’s?! They remind me of this. And the clothes are just perfect too, I especially love the pink archery dress… and the lilac cycling dress… and.. well.. all of them! What I wouldn’t give to have been there when they shot this, there’s just so much attention to detail, so many different, complex sets and just.. wow. I especially love the ‘Vogue’ gym rings. My imagination is starting to swirl…
Chanel Couture SS13 Preview!!
Apparently the inspiration behind this collection was a ‘gothic Midsummer Night’s Dream’, and quite frankly, I would give anything to have been there and seen it for myself.
Vogue’s description: We stepped into an enchanted forest beneath the dome of the Grand Palais and into a world seemingly straight from the pages of Shakespeare, a wooden auditorium surrounding us, and edgy fairies about to come to life before us.
I am waiting impatiently for clearer photos of the rest of the collection to appear online, but I love what I am seeing so far! Black feather eye makeup has been teamed with more black feathers woven into their hair or placed in a bunch precariously above the eye see here. Again it sounds like they have stuck to the monochrome colour pallete that they are so damn good at, with splashes of colour such as this dark floral dress, which really ought to belong in my wardrobe.. as do those boots! Those boots are bloody incredible, and I need them!
Every blog I go on lately has been talking about MAC’s new cover girl: bodybuilder and fitness model, Jelena Abbou. It makes sense of course, who better than a beautiful bodybuilder to model a collection entitled ‘Strength’? But people still seem to be pretty shocked by it, though shocked in a good way, luckily. I think fashion is finally beginning to embrace the fact that not everyone is a skinny minnie, teeny tiny size zero, and MAC’s new collection is just one example of that, though there is still a lot of catching up to do, for example, Vogue’s summer spread didn’t exactly go about celebrating the bulging biceps of the female olympic athletes, did they? They were still instead, for the most part, stuffed, as much as their biceps would allow, into that ‘perfect model’ box.
It’s not the first time that MAC have shocked with their choice of cover girl, such as last year, when 90 year old interior designer and fashion icon Iris Apfel collaborated with MAC to create her own makeup range, and went on to act as cover girl for the range. Everyone was shocked that MAC, a top cosmetics brand, if not THE top cosmetics brand would ever use a model past her twenties, let alone a woman in her nineties! However, I can’t help but have noticed that people seem to be rebelling about the obsession with youth that our society has, and the fashion and beauty industries seem to have started listening. For example, this Vogue cover, published January this year, featuring 62 year old Meryl Streep, Vogue’s oldest ever cover girl, a few years back in 2009, Ellen DeGeneres first appeared as the face of CoverGirl, then aged 50, and all over the catwalks more mature celebrities are dressing their age, while still looking incredible, rather than leaving us to cringe at their ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ attitude that we used to see so often.
It’s about bloody time.
The Alexis Mabille Couture S/S 2013 Collection hit the catwalks yesterday at Paris’ Mode à Paris and, as ever, I want to buy every single piece of the collection for myself.. if only I had both the money to afford such a luxury and a big enough wardrobe to store it all.. but then again, if I did, I wouldn’t hide away such beautiful dressed in a wardrobe, I’d want to display them around the big house that I would of course have (I mean, obviously I’d buy myself a big house before I but myself an entire designer couture collection!). When I’m not waltzing around my big house in my lovely designer dresses, I’d hang the rest of them from the ceiling as light shades, and centre them in big gold empty frames, and use them as curtains between rooms.. but of course that would be ridiculous, and so I’m glad that I don’t actually have any money to fund my ridiculously over-active imagination.
Welcome to the contents of my head, people, this is the sort of silliness I have to deal with on a daily basis! And now it’s a blog.. oh dear :’)
You can see the entire collection here.
It’s a collection that is about as feminine as it is possible to get, all about delicate floating fabrics, pastel hues with pops of dramatic black details and the occasional splash of eye-catching colour, and Mabille, has managed to weave perfectly between remaining exactly on trend, meeting the exact desires of beloved fashionistas worldwide, while adding his own bold streak to the styles that have been floating down the catwalk again and again for quite some time now. The lace details and net skirts are very Black Swan, while the bigger ball gown dresses would not be out of place in the next big budget fairy tale adaption that Hollywood throws our way. The models sported slicked back, white-streaked updo’s that complimented the pale colour palette, their makeup always a few shades paler than their necks and shoulders, a slight rosy blush to their cheeks and natural, glossy lips. Nails are painted a mushroom colour, completed with white french tips. I love the shoes! So simple, though I can’t help but wish that they had gone as far as quick swipe of mushroom varnish on their toenails too!
I think I have fallen a little bit in love with Michelle Obama’s beautiful Thorn Browne coat dress, especially teamed with the J. Crew shoes! Worn today for the Presidential Inauguration church service and swearing-in ceremony. She always looks so incredible! I love her new hair too! Amazing, amazing, amazing!
