barcelona + benicassim

I have been waiting months for today to arrive and now it is finally here I am beyond excited. Today I am off to Barcelona with the girls and on tuesday we travel down to Benicassim for the festival. With the likes of Florence and the Machine, Ed Sheeran and Dizzee Rascal playing it is guaranteed to be a spectacular couple of weeks. 

Yesterday therefore consisted of packing, which is not one of my best skills, and as per I have packed absolutely everything - just in case!

I though laying out everything I wanted to take would help with the packing; it didn't I just kept adding to the pile!

This is what I am planning to wear for the four days of the festival but no doubt it is likely to change between now and then!

Ed Sheeran - Small Bump

Imagine this song playing, it is the end of the festival, the sun has set and the whole crowd is singing along. Literally can't wait!!

So with my copy of 'Fifty Shades of Grey' in hand today I leave the lovely rain that has been non stop to 30 degree sunshine! Jealous!? See you in a couple of weeks!

Enjoy xx

ben howard - call me maybe

Ben Howard covering Call Me Maybe in the Radio1 live lounge.

Apologies for not blogging recently. I have been living the high life in London doing an internship, see blog post soon to come, but to mark my return I shall leave you with this gem of a song.

Enjoy xx

lara stone + hot chip

So the song is still growing on me; I can never make up my mind about Hot Chip, but after discovering this video earlier I couldn't help but share it with you. 

Like everything Hot Chip do, the song is a bit witty and the video is slightly surreal but I love the casual cameo from Lara Stone.

Enjoy xx

wish you were here

So my latest project at uni has involved creating our own zine (an independent magazine) and we have decide to theme our zine on travel, specifically travel in the UK. We have all been there, dragged by our parents to some coast or countryside or another city and at the time we probably moaned and complained that we wanted to be anywhere but there, but now we look backs at it, it wasn't really as bad as it seemed. We wanted our zine, titled Wish You Were Here, to commemorate these memories starting with our first issue based on the British seaside; cos lets face it, who hasn't been to the seaside on holiday!?

The zine is made up of photography, illustrations and people's memories of their time spent at the seaside. There are even photos of me when I was a baby at the seaside, but you'll have to buy the zine to see them. The zine will be sold for £2 at Nottingham Zine Fair on Saturday 26th May at Spankys. Come and check it out.

To check more about the zine take a look at the Wish You Were Here blog:

Wish You Were Here

Here are a few photos of the zine so you get an idea, but to see it all your just going to have to attend the zine fair next Saturday!

Enjoy xx

identity crisis

So I have been meaning to blog about this post since I visited Berlin in January, but every time I remember I seem to forget again, until today. The topic is to do with visual merchandising, in particular the mannequins. And seeing as I was reminded by something my friend showed me today, I felt it was still very topical and still worth blogging about. 

Whilst I was in Berlin I saw a recurring theme within visual merchandising with the use of alternative objects as heads for the mannequins. This not only featured in displays themselves but also in various magazines that I collected from the various trade shows I visited. Since then I have seen the trend appear in Victoria Beckham's latest collection at Harvey Nichols and even in the windows of Jack Wills at the little seaside resort Rock, in Cornwall. 

Here are a few photos to help explain what I am talking about: 

Here the model had flowers as an alternative to a head. This image was taken at one of the stands at the Bread and Butter trade show in Berlin.

Victoria Beckham launched her latest collection at Harvey Nichols on kitten headed mannequins.

This was the image on the website for the spring/summer collection at French Connection. As you can see they have balloons covering their faces. This advert is very fun and playful like the rest of the FC adverts this season.

This was an image of the Christmas window at Jigsaw last year. They were ahead of the game with this trend, however animal heads, in this setting, have been around for a while. To create a display that is innovative, you need to go beyond this and think of a complete alternative to a humans face. 

These images were taken from photoshoots from magazines I collected in Berlin. The first image was taken from JN'C magazine whilst the second and third from a photoshoot called 'Hairy Fashion' from a magazine titled Bitchslap.

Even Jack Wills have jumped on the trend where they have used rose bushes instead of the mannequins head.

These visual displays are all very postmoden. They also all pose the question of identity and do the clothes we wear really give us an identity any more; or do we actually just blend into the person next to us, wearing exactly the same thing. How do we create our own identity these days?

There's a question for you all the think about.

Enjoy xx

bjorn borg

So last week I got an unexpected tweet from Bjorn Borg saying I was the random lucky winner of some Bjorn Borg underwear, which was definitely a nice surprise. And then today on my arrival home from uni I had a lovely, and very colourful package waiting for me. An even better surprise. Inside contained 2 pairs of ladies knickers and 3 pairs of men's boxers, which will make for a perfect accessory to sleep in! There was even a handwritten note which gave the whole package even more of a personal touch.

This is a great form of promotion for a company like Bjorn Borg. It builds up and a good reputation and creates a loyal fan base which all in all will mean good results. 

Follow Bjorn Borg on Twitter.

@BjornBorgUK

You never know, you might be the next lucky winner!

Thanks xx

TellusFashion - celebrity diets

My latest article for TellusFashion was all about top celebrity diets. However hard we try, we can't escape the world of celebrities and their diets, so I thought what better than to explore the weird to the wonderful world of these diets. 

My research ranges from the healthy lifestyle plan, GOOP, by Gwyneth Paltrow to the crazy fad of baby food diets.

Read the full article here.

Enjoy xx

une fille comme les autres

Jalouse Magazine - Une Fille Comme Les Autres

Having recently been asked to make a viral video for our last university project, it was so refreshing to see a viral video as fun as this. It is ironic how a video mocking the way fashion viral videos are made has gone viral itself.

Filmed for French fashion magazine Jalouse by Matthew Frost, the video is complied of beautiful imagery, as we would expect to see in a fashion viral, and a beautiful model in the form of Ashley Smith, yet the witty voice over makes the video it's own as he narrates in such a mocking tone on what we would expect to happening at each point in the film.

This video was shown to us in a lecture and personally I think it is brilliant. Let me know what you think.

Enjoy xx

addicted?

For those of you that know me, you will know that I have a slight addiction to Diet Coke. So when we got give the project to make a zine (an independent publication) in the space of 48 hours on the topic of our obsession, what better to focus mine on than Diet Coke itself. 

There are plenty of areas of Diet Coke that I could of focused my zine on, from the advertising and promotion to the design of the packing itself, which is what I chose, looking in particular at the development of the Diet Coke can. 

And quite rightly I named my zine 'Addicted?'. Pretty self explanatory. 

These are the layplans made up of all the images that were put in my zine. This sheets were then cut and folded to make the final piece.

Here are a selection of images which show my zine at different angles. As you can see, it is not set out like a normal booklet but instead is made to be free standing so you can see see the images from all angles. 

Enjoy xx 

style your weekend @weekendmens

As I have previously mentioned, one of my most recent university project has been to promote the Weekend Men's area at London Fashion Weekend. We had to create a viral video to help promote the area, and this is it. Please watch.

WATCH

Enjoy xx

sbtrkt

Sbtrkt - Right Thing To Do (Feat. Jessie Ware)

This is the perfect summer tune. Having recently discovered how much I love Sbtrkt, I couldn't help but share them with you. Instant good mood after listening to their album.

Enjoy xx

london fashion weekend

At uni we are currently working with the British Fashion Council on a project based around increasing the footfall to London Fashion Weekend. We are focusing on the section Weekend Mens, which is currently very limited and has a lot of potential for improvement. As a way of promoting Weekend Mens to the public, we carried out a photoshoot with the intention to use some of the photos in the advertising campaign. Here are a sample of some of the photos and potential adverts to promote London Fashion Weekend and Weekend Mens:

We loved the idea of projections so here a few examples that we tried out. As it is London Fashion Weekend we thought the tube map was most appropriate. The second projection is of Somerset House where London Fashion Weekend takes place, and the final is of our logo projected over our model Will.

Here are an example of a couple of the photos transformed into adverts. The one promoting Weekend Boutique is to show how our idea is transferable to all areas of London Fashion Weekend. 

Enjoy xx

fumble

I present to you: FUMBLE.

Fumble is an event that myself and a few girls on my course are putting together, and it will bring you an afternoon of shopping, music and food. What more could you ask for! With our pop-up second hand store and music from Faded, all accompanied by a BBQ and cake stall, with a raffle (with some pretty decent prizes) to top it all off. Held at Stealth, one of Nottingham's top music venues, and with the Vice launch party as our official after party, it is an event not to be missed.

Check out these links for more information and to keep up to date with all the latest happenings:

Twitter

Facebook

Event

Enjoy xx

wish list

As my birthday is soon approaching, I can't help but spend endless time looking through the Topshop website at what I'm going to ask for this year. With the current glorious sunshine that we are having, I want everything in bright or pastel shades, tie-dye or crazy prints, all of which I can take on holiday to Bennicasim with me in the summer. 

Here is a few things which I have picked out:

All from Topshop.

Enjoy xx

#LFW - jameela jamil

Jameela Jamil

I can never make up my mind about Jameela, but you can't argue that she doesn't have a good dress sense. I managed to snap a photo of her at LFW and I love the outfit she was wearing. A simple black pleated leather skirt and white chiffon shirt can go a long way. 

As summer is approaching I would pick a lighter fabric than leather and instead team a black pleated jersey skirt, like this one above from Topshop, with a simple chiffon shirt. Wear with killer ankle boots and finish with cute, little, white, frilly socks, like the ones you used to wear when you were at school.

Enjoy xx