Scarier than Halloween

Blogs all around the fashion blogosphere have recently been inundated with Halloween posts; it really is the perfect formula if you think about it. Fashion bloggers love to dress up. Halloween is the festival for dressing up. What could be more perfect?

However I haven't dressed up for Halloween since I was a witch at the age of 10 (with some pretty awesome black lipstick and gothic necklaces) but anyway... it's just not my thing. In fact, as Halloween has come round this year, I've been frightened by far more scary thoughts than zombies, witches and even gory movies.

It was around the beginning of October that I fell in love with, and bought my very most favourite leather jacket. It was in a concession called Numph in Fenwicks and as soon as I tried it on, I knew that it would have to be mine despite it costing more than £100. This may not sound like much for a leather jacket, and indeed it really isn't. But for someone living on babysitting money it's pretty much as expensive as clothing gets. But I never regretted this purchase, as I have regretted many almost-as-expensive purchases. It has a beautiful lining (it's in the top picture) it's in my most favourite colour and wear it very frequently.

Doesn't looking at it just make you feel happy?

Me and my jacket on the Eiffel Tower

I, maybe foolishly, imagined that this would be the kind of item which would last me many years. So when it started showing some signs of wear and tear, I was very distressed. The zip is a little creaky, but more worryingly the leather is fading at the seams, and is quite flaky. I don't know if this is just what I should expect from a jacket. Or was its relatively low price to blame - so should I just resign myself to the fact that it is slowly dying? Or can I do something to revive it, like buying some protector spray or cream. Google, normally my saviour, isn't throwing up anything other than information on how to protect shoes, or bags. Doesn't google care about my jacket???

So, I leave you with this. I hope that you can spare a moment from your frightening Halloween celebrations and help me in my scarier situation. Thank you.

Getting Shirty

I don't often wear shirts out of choice, having to wear ill-fitting and cheap ones for the majority of my days. However I was inspired to break out my limited collection, when the other day at the snowboarding and skiing show I made this origami shirt:

I find that, when worn correctly, a shirt embodies all that I love in fashion: that ironic, prim look which can reveal as much, or as little as one chooses. It can hint at preppy, which I am often partial to, or at smart, which is always useful, geek chic or even at sexy in a naughty secretary sort of way...

Good shirts always have that little detail which makes them feel special to wear. One of mine, which is old and faded black still receives compliments for its pretty frills and subtley puffed sleeves. High-end designers love that whole intricate-detail thing; in fact, origami detailing can look far more couture than my origami shirt. Take this Marc Jacobs Origami blouse.

Contrastingly, a checked or lumberjack stylee shirt like this gorgeous Paul and Joe shirt can give off a fabulously nonchalant aura which is so ridiculously un-me and therefore doubly appealing.And equally importantly, a good full-length shirt is perfect in chilly weather. Today, I wore out my shabby purple H&M shirt under a black woollen vest. I like to think I was rocking an androgynous/preppy/nonchalant/smart vibe.

Snow

Tonight it's been snowing - a rare feat in permanently wet London. Moreover, the snow is actually settling. Everyone always seems to idealise snow; it conjures images of delicious porridge, cosy fires and wonderfully warm cashmere and knitted cardigans. Whenever winter comes round, I start craving things from Brora. More fairisle, please!

Reindeers suddenly become chic and cute, like this Topshop cardigan and a reindeer-invaded grey number I almost purchased from H&M yesterday (randomly I found a blogger posing in it for her daily wear picture here). I want to drown myself in seas of sheepskin rugs and beautiful slippers. When shopping, sexy little party dresses seem ridiculous and I get drawn to the socks and tights section. Today, I splurged on woolly tights.

All so picturesque.

Yet, in reality right now I'm bundled up in an ill-fitting t-shirt, a couple of hoodies and a pashmina stuffed down them which does nothing other than make me look inproportionately large. My slippers are several years old, and the once glorious purple fluff which adorned them is slowly shedding. And tomorrow morning, no doubt, I'll most definitely not feel like running and come afternoon, the shoe dilemma will start... which shoes do you wear when it snows?

Still quite so picturesque?

Detected!

Well, after this weekend's grizzly brush with detection, I was delighted to come across a wonderful thriller which not only satisfied my love for mystery but was absolutely beautiful too. Brick is subtitled 'a detective movie by Rian Johnson' but I've never seen a detective story filmed so stunningly. In one pivotal scene, a series of images help our hot protagonist to join the dots together and figure out one part of the mystery.

The gorgeous detective (it always helps, doesn't it?) is supported by a cast of brilliantly portrayed characters, who although all in high school, fit well into the archetypal film-noir moulds which it was inspired by.

The Femme Fatale

The Thug

The Heart-throb Avenger

The Brain

The Old Flame

The One Calling the Shots (how cool are his mis-matched shoes??!?)

As the film came to a close, I was left wishing that all detective stories could be so beautiful.

Loving and living in London

Sometimes, living in London, I start to get bored. It's the only city I've lived in, and whenever I go abroad or to the countryside I am always left wondering how it would be to permanently leave London. I don't like the idea of getting too patriotic or attached to places, but there are some things about London which make me love it so much.

Today was a wonderful example of why I couldn't imagine not living in a capital city which simply buzzes and overflows with energy. There is just always something to do. Yesterday, a quick google search revealed that London seems to have a skiing and snowboarding weekend in October similar to the Art Fairs which took over the city last weekend. Although I have never touched a pair of skis or a snowboard in my life, today saw me and a friend decide to visit 'The World's Largest Ski and Snowboard Show'.

When we first entered, stall upon stall of skiing and snowboarding 'fashion' confronted us, but I soon started feeling right at home. There was a gigloo (a gig in an igloo!) and plenty of freebies; sweets, cereal bars, pens and t-shirts galore. We were determined to milk every last penny of the entry fee. At one point, whilst queueing to get a photo taken with some huskies, and replenishing with some maple syrup flavoured taffy courtesy of a ski chalet in Quebec, the following dialogue took place:

'So, where do you normally go to ski?'
A moment's awkward silence.
'I don't ski'
'Right - what are you doing here, then?'
'Just having fun!'
'Cool'

And so we moved on, to a skiing and snowboarding demonstration, where several young men dressed in outrageous 'fashion' battled it out to win a £50 prize. The comentator was an over-excited man in lime green skinny jeans and a propensity to exclaim 'oh my days!'. Random balls, t-shirts and stickers were thrown at the crowd; I caught a ball, and almost wrestled a t-shirt from a genuine snowboarding fan before remembering my dignity.

Further seemingly irrelevent and free activities awaited. A rodeo competition, ice curling and ice skating and ice carving all seemed to be linked by the idea of 'snow' - but the highlight of the day may have just been the origami. A Japanese lady taught us how to make paper shirts at the 'snowboarding in Japan' stall.

I don't think skiing or snowboarding could ever be more fun, than at a freebie-filled convention in West London.

Detective Pretty Face Returns

I've just finished watching a scary movie with a friend and now I'm alone in an empty house. I don't want to go to sleep quite yet, and so I've turned to thinking about how long it's been since I last wrote an 'off-to-bed' post. I think this one must be some sort of late record; it's 13 minutes past midnight at the time of writing this sentence. I don't normally feel like blogging when I'm having a late night which may explain that.

But I'm not sure I'm ready to sleep just yet!

Anyway - so we watched Saw. I was quite proud of myself whenever I figured something out ahead of time, in a smug sort of way. Although it's probably just an indicator of spending too much time watching CSI.

Another thing which struck me was Cary Elwes' grand decline. When I saw that he starred, I got super-excited, expecting to see this:

I was instead greeted with this (he's on the left):

There's something odd about scary movies; they can have the power to scare you, render you incapable of turning out the lights and going to bed. But sometimes, they just make you laugh. I couldn't keep a straight face at the end of Psycho (and no, I wasn't screaming...)

Neat

According to my mother's standards, I will always be infinitely disorganised, untidy and chaotic, whilst compared to the majority of my friends, my bedroom is as neat as a pin. Perhaps, I am now beginning to think, my mother's 'minimalistic' approach has actually rubbed off on me, and whilst not quite permeated my soul in the same way (yet) means that I am actually relatively tidy.

However, whilst I have become programmed to preferring as little clutter as possible on show, my personality clashes when it comes to hoarding versus ruthlessness. For example: I can mercilessly throw away several t-shirts and last season's much loved dress, much to some people's horror. But when it comes to a birthday card, or a beaded necklace I seem to switch into forager mode. I've never in my life thrown away a safety pin, of which I have many despite also never having spent a penny on one. And thus I have accumulated a whole lot of crafty stuff over the years, despite spending very little time doing crafts. And so although on the surface, everything looks awfully dreamy, chaos bubbles all too near the surface.

It was all getting a bit much. Yesterday, when searching for some sequins in the many, many places they could be, my sister upturned several boxes. Today when in a bout of efficiency I organised all my work I couldn't find any labels. It was then that I decided to do tidy up - properly. No half-hearted sweeping all the surfaces clean, or even focusing on one chaotic section. I absolutely blitzed the room, starting with the 1000000000001 pens, pencils, graphite sticks, felt tips, gel pens, highlighters and crayons littering the room. I put all my sequins, ribbons and material in one place and my card somewhere else. A whole drawer became devoted to paper, and another to stationary. Then to the pile of bags, hats, gloves and six year old make-up lurking at the bottom of my drawer; here I stopped and polished the dust-ridden floor before moving on. I even sewed up all the holey gloves whilst my efficiency was still in full-blast.

The best part was all the things I found, which I'd forgotten I had. First came a free DVD I got last Halloween buried under stacks of cardboard, shopping bags, receipts and a big red net. Then I found a Statement of Results for an exam which I'd thought I'd promptly lost back in August fallen down the back of the drawers. Next it was an old purple cardigan in the forgotten in the DIY pile under several bags. Best of all was a pound coin lurking in the pocket of a messenger bag which I definitely haven't used in the last 12 months.

I love my newfound neatness. Despite my still littered desk, and clothes-covered bed, I feel tidy on the inside. In the same way as a food detox, I feel cleansed because I know that behind those gleaming drawers and wardrobe doors are my equally beautiful and organised things. I am proud of myself, and rightly so, because the very first day of my holiday has been so very productive. That is, until I realise that however extreme a method, I've yet again resorted to procrastination in the face of proper work.

Pretty as a Picture

Mindlessly chatting to my friend on the phone as we tried to think of something to do, I flicked through 5 or so years worth of photos on my computer. Amongst exclamations of 'god, denim sandals?!?', 'did I lose my tweezers?!?', 'wow I was skinny!!' and 'oooh that's a pretty landscape' I started to think about my favourite photos. I am by no means a talented photographer, but I love to capture moments of beauty when I see them. I typed up a whole post about how a bit of colour manipulation seems to work with magical powers on a non-descript, or awful photo.
Here is one I particularly loved and almost forgot I'd taken:

But what of the other moments I've snapped since 2003 (when my archive starts)?

This is the earliest photo, which I took on a trip to a Living Rainforest somewhere in England. I absolutely adore this plant, which has graced my computer screen many a time. Some people argue that colours which complement each other so beautifully in nature transition equally well into fashion, but I personally don't go near green and pink. What do you think?

This photo I took of myself in my posery stage circa 2006. I was messing about with my enormous tangle of hair pre-haircut. Somehow, I think this one ended up working with a gothicy mood...

I can't believe I posted a photo of myself on here... why don't I remember doing that?

This is possibly my favourite photograph. I took it in Turkey this time last year, at an art exhibition. Do you have your own personal favourites?

Ode to Theatre

Tomorrow begins my week's break from the constant activity and work that is school life. I have very few plans; I hope to spend the majority of my time sleeping, returning to blogging properly, possibly running and regrettably, writing countless essays. I only have one concrete plan in the whole duration and that is a trip to the theatre.

It may sound corny, but one of my favourite things to do is go see a play. When I was younger, I would go perhaps once every one or two months, because my parents would take me and each of these occasions were extra-special. Now with my independence comes the freedom to gorge myself on plays and thus in these past few months I have been going more and more; most of my allowance now goes on theatre trips as opposed to dresses - is it a crime to confess that?

One of my good friends always pronounces the word 'theatre' as thee-etter. Rhyming with better. I can never fail to laugh at this height of pretension, because to me, theatre (pronounced the normal way) is an entirely un-pretentious experience. The last time I went to see a film, it cost me more than the play I'd seen the weekend before that. I'm not rich by any means, and I appreciate that I'm very lucky because in London, there is such a wealth of theatres, all offering a million and one ways of procuring cheap, or even free tickets. I am very proud of the fact that I have recently seen two plays absolutely free.

Today I got the news that I am going to attend a press night for a play and write a short review for it - that is what inspired me to write this ode to plays. Why do I love them? They pull you in, make you laugh, make you sad and make you think. The atmosphere in a theatre beats a film any day. Plus something about a bargain ticket seems to thrill me.

But I have a problem. As I have said, I am going to this play not as a theatre-goer, but as a critic. And to me, criticising a play is as alien as, well, aliens. The one time I can remember not enjoying a play, it was the hottest day of the year and I was in an open air theatre, completely alone without any suncream or sunhat watching a word-for-word production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, a play I'd never seen or read before at the time. I think that's understandable, but the premier of a new play by an acclaimed author (co-incidentally I'm taking aforementioned good friend)? I'm not sure I'll be able to find anything not to like.

A picture I took of the stage in my pre-show excitement when seeing Rainman last month

No more procrastination...

I know that my past few posts have all been a little bit half-hearted, as in very little text (for me anyway) and a lot of 'filler posts'. I apoligise because this is likely to be one too. But I reason that a little bit of writing is better than none at all, plus blogging is always such a good form of procrastination because it's also productive; procrastination is actually the reason I started this blog back in April when I was deep in the pits of revision.

And today, I've procrastinated all day. I decided I was determined to make it to Zoo Art Fair but none of my friends wanted to go because they'd decided that they actually were going to work. So I went with my mother, and I had a fantastic time admiring all the beauty, and the art too (I joke, I joke, don't worry). There was one piece I particularly liked, which I was going to post but is taking too long so maybe I'll show it tomorrow. It really made me chuckle.

Then I got home and I decided to start working on my essay after I'd eaten. And here I am, over two hours later and I can still see about two hours in front of me of painstaking constructing and polishing paragraph after paragraph... I was so sure that I was almost done yesterday when I completed the essay's skeleton. So anyway, I was starting to feel a little bit dead so I thought I'd do my blog post and after that I promised myself that there'd be no more procrastination. But it's so difficult when there's such a wealth of stuff out there, and you're working on a computer. I'll end with a prime example of one webpage I happened on during my research, which I managed to use as a distraction tool for a good 10 minutes:

J.E. the musical! Whodathunkit?