College Fashion?*

*This article actually refers to those who are clearly interested in fashion at college!

The current fashion hierarchy at college is far from the magazines and the catwalk shows, it resembles more the street-style websites such as FaceHunter (though obviously paired down, this is Grimsby after all) or '(s)he who wears the most vintage wins' and anything outside of this is nicht gute. It's sort of like this:
Charity Shop "Chic" (err horrible word)
The Entire Contents Of Topshop
The Entire Contents Of Primark (y'know the semi-okay stuff if you forget the ethics behind it of course)
BELOW THIS LINE YOU ARE NOTHING, I REPEAT, NOTTTHIIIIING.
What I like about it is just several years ago, going to Oxfam and trailing through the clothes there would make you a sure target for bullies for years to come, you cheapskate git. But now the iconic dressers in college have carefully put together 'thrown together' looks about them. Maybe it makes sense in this economic climate, that buying 5 tops from a charity shop could equate 1 poorly made top from Topshop that will no doubt fall apart at the seams after a few washes.
This sort of dress isn't reserved solely for the girls either, many stylish boys are 'at it' - denim shirts, tacky-tastic jumpers that look like Christmas presents from cruel family members are the common items of status but I've spotted a few others.
It's what I love about Grimsby, we're about 2 years behind London or any fashion capital though make that 20 years behind Paris - have you seen the work of Saint Laurent and Chanel? Personally, I'm all for monochrome and everyone having matching black bobs and peg trews but that's yet to come.
In the mean time, I'm going to dress like your gran, meet you in Oxfam in 10.

There's something about Luella

My taste in fashion fluctuates all the time but there's one designer who's always been a constant source of lovely.
Luella Bartley is a woman who knows a thing or two about horses, British-ness and fashion and after naming her first collection 'Daddy, I Want A Pony', she became a firm favourite with the fashion quirks like Daisy Lowe, Lily Allen and even cooler Thandie Newton. The current SS09 collection is a real mix up of colours, patterns and net veils - like Anna Piaggi exploding into 20-odd looks - lilac, the brightest orange and pink, purple (as well as some beautiful equestrian nods with the riding hat and jacket) and more than a few more! I also like the way it slowly becomes muted towards the end of the collection, with granny-purple brocade trousers.. Not to mention the florals (some of which make me feel I've seen them before..) which brings me to what I like about it - I like that it seems to obviously resemble 'recycled fashion' (something we're easing into now we're firmly in recession) with all these fabrics sewn together to make one garment ('Frankenstein's Monster Styling' anyone? I can certainly imagine her shrieking "it's alive!" after creating the collection) as well as the way it resembles 'inhibitionless' (?!) old ladies who seem to wear anything and everything they own all at once (fig 1. your grandmother) - a hideous generalisation in 'Ask Hadley' supported this when someone suggested all Italian women of a certain age start to wear fur coats and ooze glamour (I added the last bit, I love fur coats.. ...faux fur, I'm no murderer)
But back to Bartley, I giggled like mad looking through the collection, baffling in colour/fabric clashes as it was, it was still genius.

'Tis The Season To Let Go Of Grudges (Falalalala...)

Yes indeed it is the holiday season once again and what a year has past.
I can't believe that 2008 has ended.. I remember back at the end of 2007 I knew this would be a good year, I was to turn 18 and I'd be in my last year of college. I've met Andy and grown fond of more people and met some sweet people too. Leeds Festival was a dive and I've gained control of my life.

So, Christmas. I'm supposed to feel festive and red cheeked and well dressed like a fabulous Santa but I don't feel it.. But I thought to myself 'what is feeling festive?' Singing carols, being jolly, eating chocolate.. But right now I feel contented to say the least, I'm surrounded by family, my sister being as annoying as usual but I'm enjoying it (and I'm just ignoring her of course!) watching Christmas TV (who doesn't love The Snowman?) and drinking fizzy wine - mince pies baking in the kitchen.
But to tie in with the title, I'm trying to:

• Ignore my sister more often
• Let go of any hate or bad feeling I have towards anyone in college or work etc. for my New Years resolution.

I think that will help me be more... tame and with one less stress on my shoulder I can concentrate on everything else that matters like The Sims 3 out in February ;)
Aah, stop reading my blog and go join your families, it's Christmas, it's Hanukkah, it's everything else.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

K
x

I almost forgot it was Twilight

Oh my goodness, I apologise to anyone (no persons so mostly to myself) who read that last post. I watched Priceless recently, and on it Audrey Tautou said she loved being drunk in the afternoon because it felt like she had a secret. And it truly was that liberating. Now, I clearly don't condone it, it was a one-off moment but in a world where expectations are high, it's just nice to deviate and retreat every once in a while..

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Anyway, onto the real reason behind this post. The Stephenie Meyer book-to-film adaptation Twilight arrived in the UK this Friday and I (along with lovely Laura) went to go see it! Unfortunately, like most philistines, I've not read the book but I have read the opening passage on Amazon's genius device 'Search Inside' and I thought it was a glorified vampire fan fiction and kind of... awful (which is sad, because often this is the kind of thing I love to read, bad fan fictions are the fuel to my fire) so I went to see film to see if it was any better.
In a nutshell: it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't spectacular. A lot, perhaps too much, emphasis was placed on how sexy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) happened to be (personally, he doesn't hit the spot, but indeed he does have something about him) with plenty of shots involving him looking up into Bella's (Kristen Stewart) eyes with a smoulder that'd soften the hardest bitch in the room haha.
Some of the film was nicely put together like this scene in the image, where Bella puts all the evidence together and realises but some I felt were a bit.. over-sentimental eg. when they're sitting in the tree, laying in the grass..
It's the sort of love-y crap that makes your relationship seem a bag of crap. I could feel every heart belonging to a female in the room being filled with immense love and craving for their very own vampire.

I don't know, it's the first film in a while that's really struck a chord in me, like.. I can see it's going to be huge and so it should be, the acting is brilliant (Robert Pattinson is a bit wooden at times, but not bad overall), the readers get to see the story in 3D and they have something to complain about when it doesn't tick all their boxes ;) and finally, Meyer (like JK Rowling before her) can live off the latest cash cow to hit our screens.

Conclusion:
If the movie were an exam and I was to give it a grade, it would be B - not great, but not awful. Keep up the good work.

K

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My First Lula

I figured this would be an appropriate marker of blog change.

Yes, the magazine everyone has heard of and the girl everyone wants to be is finally in my mitts. I've been fascinated by this magazine for a long time - all the girly Coppola-esque connotations it has (lemme simplify, I'm falling asleep as I write this: blurred 70s-style images, generally very beautiful) etc. and from skimming through it, it does appear to be very childlike but has some perverse undertones - for example, the beautiful naivety of the Zac Posen photo shoot featured with leather (Luella-reminiscent) masks, revealed stockings etc. Saucy stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

I don't know if it's just in this specific issue or whatnot (not like I can really draw any comparison), but in some of the interviews, I almost felt uncomfortable from all the excessive whimsy-ness and distant replies:
"When did you first know you wanted to be a designer?
I guess a year ago."
...Expand maybe? No? Fair enough.
I did like that the interview was like a conversation, with the interviewer sharing their favourite flowers rather than just the mechanical 'Q-A-Q-A' we're so used to.

Right, articles.
A fabulous article was on 'outsider girls' and then sweet illustrations of cult 'outsider girl' icons, two featured below:

Now I'm a huge fan of Margot Tenenbaum (that montage of her secret life with 'Judy Is A Punk' playing, ugh, kills me) and I don't remember The Incredibles that well so I lack an opinion on Violet Parr..
Anyway, the article, it's the author's reminiscence of a girl (Mallory Bates) who was the school's outsider then comments on how the outsider character always seems to stick in our minds (clearly not Violet for me though..).
It's one of my favourite articles that I've read thus far and made me consider my own "outsiders". The only ones I can think of were ostracised for their disabilities or shabby uniform but the girl described in the article was dark-haired with a long fringe and pencilling "intricate drawings that suggested a rich inner life". Unfortunately (to my knowledge) this girl didn't exist in my year of school (I wish she did, she sounds amazing) but it did get me thinking - perhaps we were the 'outsider girls'.
I know I certainly am now.

I'm struggling to comment on the photography and layout of the magazine. The photography is (like I vaguely described above) quite dreamy and natural in appearance for most of it - I did love the images of Floria Sigismondi and her daughter.
I love the introduction to each article/photo shoot as well, the font wouldn't look lost on a poster advertising a circus. My one small annoyance with the magazine is the font, where it is very sweet and does capture the ideals of the magazine, the 'w' looks way too much like an obscure 'r' and disrupted my reading on more than 100 occasions. Just kidding, I got used to it soon enough.

Hm, this is short but, like I said, I'm tired and lazy.
K
x

Warning, Potentially Pretentious.

Living in dreams of sanctuaries and romance is what I do best.
Seeing trees as virginal and untouched as a baby give a secure feeling to an insecure being.
I was certainly alone at that point.
Wondering which forest I was discovering this time, I looked up to see variants of cloud colours filling the sky - some looking seconds away from raining but I didn't mind.
Walking on and mindlessly playing with my hands for what could've been ten minutes, I found what could be called a path but was more of a scar from ramblers who'd also discovered the forest. Feeling disheartened as my discoverer persona disintegrated into just a tourist of my own thoughts, I decided to follow the path for what could've been just a quarter of a mile of meandering walkway until I stopped suddenly.
You were stood smiling there, drenched completely in your wonder and possibly expecting me.
I smiled and slowly made my way to you like 11 year old playground lovers would.
Your hair was looking so much nicer since you'd allowed it to grow, you flicked it out of your stunning eyes as I finally stopped in front of you. The smile turned into a smirk that all too often made me a little weak as you stared straight into my humble face. Getting almost too close for comfort and placing a hand on both of my shoulders, my eyes scanned your serene face as you started to push me backwards to guide me somewhere. You thankfully stopped after a few paces where I found myself against a tree and you hadn't moved away from me in the slightest. You reached up to stroke my face, the nerves I'd felt before weren't a patch on how I was feeling at that moment.
"I like you a lot," I found myself spluttering then clamped my hands over my mouth. The one secret I'd kept from everyone was now hanging in the air in front of the very person it was about.
A stereo playing in the distance caught my attention but you didn't appear to have heard it, only smiling wider at me as you drew closer to my face and I knew what was about to happen. Finally.
But it didn't.
You stopped only centimetres away from my face, those splendid eyes converging into one as you were that close. A satisfied sigh escaped your mouth, like you too had been thinking about this one moment far too long and often. Finally, you opened your mouth to whisper something,
"SHOOT THE RUNNER, SHOOT SHOOT THE RUNNER."

The trees shifted into the ground as sky and surroundings became a casual lilac that was certainly familiar. I clung to you, to this moment but you were slipping away from me. I sank to the ground in defeat but it was far too soft to be the tree root under me. I saw a Miffy calendar swinging in the breeze as it dangled from a tree branch and several bats fluttering as the wind toyed with them too. Curtains fluttered from another tree and a bedside table cluttered with make up and books stood proudly were you had once been.
I knew what was happening.
I wished it wouldn't, but it always did.

My eyes unwillingly opened as my sister came bounding into the room.
"Mum wants to know what you've done to the computer," she recited, grinning with pleasure as we both knew I was always blamed for such things and a yelling match was likely to happen.

So much for sanctuary and romance.
And you'll never know who you are.

'Ceremony'

New Order - Ceremony

This is why events unnerve me
They find it all, a different story
Notice whom for wheels are turning
Turn again and turn towards this time
All she ask's the strength to hold me
Then again the same old story
World will travel, oh so quickly
Travel first and lean towards this time.
Oh, I'll break them down, no mercy shown
Heaven knows, it's got to be this time
Watching her, these things she said
The times she cried, too frail to wake this time.

Oh I'll break them down, no mercy shown
Heaven knows, it's got to be this time
Avenues all lined with trees
Picture me and then you start watching
Watching forever, forever
Watching love grow, forever

This is the song that changed my life.
For some reason, it opened my eyes to the world and, in a sense, unlocked my mature side.
Every time I hear it, I get a sense of change or that every thing's going to be okay, and it's quite fascinating.
The first time I heard it was on this random girl's profile on the infamous MySpace and I loved it, I believe I played it at least four times then downloaded it for myself. She was a pretty cool girl, I wish I'd added her ..

The last three lines remind me so much of my boyfriend, and how much I surprised him that night I asked him out, which makes me smile as I remember.

The reason I chose these lyrics to start off my blogging 'revolution'?
Why, because they've shaped the person I've become.