Shoe Fiend!

First things first, Merry Christmas to you all! I hope you had a fantastic day yesterday and got everything you wanted!

Im smitten with my lovely gifts and loved hearing that everyone loved the things i'd bought for them, always makes it all the more worthwhile when you see their smiling faces :)

Anyway, i promised you a fashion post so here it is! I obviously didn't have my brain switched on when it came to pack my suitcase to come home, as the shoes i picked out were definitely not suitable and have resulted in extremely cold numb toes for several days!

However, i've found the perfect solution! A pair of Camilla Skovgaard boots, complete with super-grip soles! What beauties and perfect for staying up-right in the snow (although the 4.5 inch heels may mean you fall over anyway!) But still, you might as well fall over in style right?

Im having a bit of an obsession over buckles at the moment too which had lead me to fall in love with the Chloe Sevigny boots for Opening Ceremony! They're gorgeous and sexy with the perfect amount of attitude and would look amazing with my new Christopher Kane for Topshop dress!! Definitely on my wish list!

My final find are these tough looking lace up heels by Toga, designed for Opening Ceremony. They look so angry and aggressive and the metal detailing on the buckles is fantastic. You definitely have to have attitude to pull off these baby's!

X

Sheffield!

Well yesterday was full of fun watching the snow fall and cover everything in its magical white blanket, while my dad moaned about not being able to drive anywhere due to rear wheel drive and blah blah...i switched off!

So today i ventured out in the snow in my very unsuitable-for-snow brogues and made my way to town to meet the boy. We enjoyed a hot toasty Starbucks and i got the official run down of hisnew iPhone :p it was all quite fun, definitely more interesting apps available than the blackberry! Theres only so excited you can get about apps that organise your calendar!

Got the Christmas shopping done too - bonus!

Sheffield looked surprisingly pretty this year with the Christmas lights! The boy snapped a quick pic on the iphone and app-ed it up as you can see below. Doesnt it looks pretty :)

(http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=10300402&id=727835051&fbid=367689465051)

Also including an updated snow collage!

Anyway, i feel i am rambling just for ramblings sake so i will leave it at that for now! I really need to start making this thing more fashiony again! I feel its beginning to loose it and become full of my blabbings!

Note to Self: Next post will be fashion!

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Home Time

Ok so i haven't blogged in a while what with having to pack up my life so i can come home for Christmas and getting my new BLACKBERRY STORM set up!! Im in love, its true. Its shiny and new and i've fallen for it comlpetely :)

Anyway, as i said i'm now home, back up north in snowy Sheffield! I love coming back home to my family, my amazing bed, a beautiful Christmas tree and a fully stocked fridge full of yummy food! Oh and a bunch of beautiful flowers courtesy of my wonderful father! Thank you daddy!

Still have all my christmas shopping to do on my very limited budget too which should be... interesting to say the least!

Its still snowing here so my garden looks beautiful, especially with all the squirrels and little birds playing in the trees and pecking for food :)

Well that's all for now. Just chilling and playing with the blackberry for now! Im off to meet the boy tomorrow for a nice warm Starbucks and a bit of a phone swapping session! He's just acquired an iPhone so we're now considered phone enemies :p mwahaha Should be fun!

Snowy countryside on the train home

Pretty flowers from my dad :) came wrapped in like a pink birds nest thing!

Le garden with a sprinkling of snow

Cute little bird footprints outside my bedroom window!

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Samantha Cole

Just stumbled upon this designer... well the images to be more precise!

The London College of Fashion graduate aims to create a statement and go against the norm. The philosophy behind her designs is to interpret a mood, deconstruct the obvious and redefine the concept.

The result: surreal, silhouettes, striking, sculpture and surprisingly wearable!

This collection entitled 'Warrior' took influences from Kate Beckinsale in Underworld, Tina Turner in Mad Max and Jane Fonda in Barbarella.

I love the silhouettes the pieces create and this strong powerful almost alien feel about it. Very cool.

http://www.samanthacolelondon.co.uk

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Tip Tap Type

My life for the next two weeks: Dissertation

I'm beginning to see why people dread this thing so much.

I currently have 9 more books sat on my table screaming 'dull, dull, dull'.

Page after page with zero pictures too! Geez, these oldie theorists could have at least doodled in the margins.

What a bore...

Bottom Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/soldemitjanit/

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Friday Fun (Part Trois)

The day's finale was ice skating at somerset house with DJ set by the one and only Mr Matthew Stone! It was so much fun! I've only ever been ice skating once before but Liam had been quite a bit so he was mouch more confident than i was! I was so nervous about falling splat on my bum infront of the whole ice rink! But all was good, and not splattage was made!

We were let into the boot-collecting-pen and when the clock struck 21:15, we were unleashed onto the ice and the sound of Under Ice Baby (David Bowie VS Vanilla Ice) began to fill the square! So amazing! We were off! Everyone started off really slow, clinging onto the edge but as we gradually gained confidence we got quicker and ventured to the middle! The atmosphere was amazing, everyone was so happy, the lighting was perfect and the music really set the mood! A mix of Lady Gaga, La Roux, Mariah Carey, The Pogues and Vanilla Ice Vs David Bowie were all thrown in. Liam even grabbed a photo of Matthew Stone and got him to take on of us too :)

It was a perfect day :) Put me in a very Christmasy mood! Cant wait to go home and get into the Christmas spirit now :D

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Friday Fun (-interjection-)

What the hell is going on with the Carnaby lights this year?!? They're awful! They look like the left overs from chinese new year or something. Certainly not in the least bit Christmasy! (Excuse the crappy picture!)

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Friday Fun (Part Deux)

The most interesting part for me was the LIVEstudio. Throughout the exhibition there has been a live studio running where the audience can go and watch live fashion shoots with big name photographers, actors, models, artists and designers. For the last few weeks of the exhibition Nick Knight has been doing his 100 Portraits project which will be shown in I-D Magazine next year to coincide with their 30th Anniversary.

This is the part where it gets good!! It turned out that one of the people Nick was shooting on Friday was my all time favourite designer and probably one who inspired me to get into fashion in the first place! DAME VIVIENNE WESTWOOD!

I was so excited! We were actually going to see her :D along with hubby Andreas Kronthale of course!

We watched the Jodie Harsh shoot first, then ballet dancer Eric Underwood, London Gallery owner Maureen Paley and designer Bernhard Willhelm. It was so interesting to see how the professionals do it all, seeing the interactions between the photographer and model, seeing all the shots pop up on the computer screen seconds later being perfectly in focus and beautiful looking. I could have stayed there for hours, and with the boy being the photographer he is, he very much agreed!

It was finally time for Viv to come in and i was so excited! She looked beautiful in her dress with her orange lock neatly tied up and her glass of champagne. Before the shoot began though, she donned a fur poncho with hood and ended up looking like a bear! Still way cute though! Her and Andreas looked so perfect together on set and it really showed through in the images Nick captured. They were happy and playful and showed real character, which is something i find so inspiring about her! Soon enough the shoot was over and it was time to say goodbye though :(

By this time we were absolutely starving, so we tootled off to Leicester Square for some food, before heading to Carnaby Street to check out their Christmas lights this year and have my first Starbucks of the year!

Here's a quick video i took of Vivienne. Check out http://www.youtube.com/user/diamondshotgun for more :)

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Friday Fun (Part Un)

So yesterday me and the boy took a well deserved break and ran to London for the day!

We headed for the SHOWstudio exhibition which is on at Somerset House at the moment. We walked in and went up to the desk to buy our tickets, which at £4 was an absolute bargin! Then who should walk in the door behind us, but Jodie Harsh! She'd just got there for her sitting with Nick Knight, and was sporting an amazing black sequinned jacket with gold studded shoulders and elbows, along with a pair of tie-dye joggers and a huge fluffy candyfloss pink hairdo! It was so surreal, literally just walked in and stood right next to us!

Anywho, we went in and faced the mirror room which was really cool, kinda reminded me of the house of mirrors at a circus. Next was the giant statues of Naomi. This interactive piece involved projectors projecting peoples thoughts/doodles/words onto the huge statues. There were two drawing screens (one in front and one behind) where people can draw on the statues in various colours and brush sizes. We had quite a bit of fun with this and mine was clearly the best :p (the left one on the picture below!)

Then we moved on to the actual exhibition which was split into 3 sections - Process, Performance and Participation. All three were designed to get you thinking about how the power of the internet has turned fashion into this ever changing, accessible, interactive being and to really bring you into the world of SHOWstudio....

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Soon...

Only three weeks till i can escape this wretched hole that is chatham.

It really is depressing to think that i havn't even escaped to london once this term!

My goal to remmain out of my overdraft has also epicly failed and i now face a balance of practically zero.

But i have friday to look forward to. Me and the boy are off to London for the day.

Somerset House to be exact, for some ice skating and exploring. I can't wait!

Cue the cliched romantic pictures on the ice rink snuggled up in warm coats!

I wish this damn rain would give it a rest too! Frizzy hair is really not a good look!

Song of the day: Breathe Me - Sia

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sionfullana/

Book 77

As promised, here are a selection of layouts i designed for Book 77.

The magazine was targeted at the British upper-class eccentric. The idea for the art direction was to remain quite regimented with a similar style to a newspaper, while at the same time bringing out Aleister Crowey's wickedness through the typography. The story for the typography was designed to reflect Crowley's progression through life, from his Cambridge education to his involvement in the occult and his alleged satanic worship. As each of the 5 chapters progress, the typography becomes crazier and crazier and more difficult to read.

The shoots, fonts and layouts all follow this idea of dark, mysterious wickedness that we found so inspiring from Aleister Crowley.

Im really happy with the way things turned out. It was a long process and despite having a couple of minor hiccups, it was definitely worth it! Im so proud of Book 77!

And maybe, just maybe we'll be seeing issue two making an appearance in the near future (a.k.a my Final Major Project!)

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Book 77 Unveiling

This is what i've been slaving over for the past 10 weeks! Our magazine project has finally come to an end and this is the result.

Book 77.

Inspired by the intriguing Mr Aleister Crowley, Book 77 brings fashion, arts, and culture together in a truly wicked way!

More images from the inside of Book 77 will be making their debut shortly!

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Stressing

Oh how i wish i was back in my first year of university where work didnt matter and times were fun. Don't get me wrong, i'm loving this project! Art Direction, Typography, Photos :) But if only it didn't run alongside the dreaded Dissertation or miserable Marketing.

I really cannot make myself sit down and read a book relating to my dissertation, thus resulting in exactly zero words written & zero questions i want to answer. What began as a nice idea looking into deathliness on the catwalk as a result of Capitalism has now grown out of control and entered areas such as pseudo-events, theatricality, the spectacle, celebrity, models and Corrine Day... Im stupidly confused and unfocused. And to top it off, i have to have an introduction (3-4 pages i might add) complete by in 3 days! EEK!

Back to the subject of this magazine project, im really enjoying having almost complete freedom, but im finding it really strange that despite the freedom, im designing things which are far more restricted than i would usually. Im trying to inject some excitment into it by having a go at creating/modifying my own font. Although, i cannot seem to get my head around it. I've followed countless tutorials but it just doesnt want to happen. Seems i'll have to do what i want the complicated way!

Anyway my self-designated lunch break is over, so back to In-Design i go!

x

P.S Note to Self - Read a Bloody Book!

Lacy Lacy

So apparently these beauties have been around a while.

They're by Coppelia Pique and there gorgeous!

I so want a pair!

x

LEON

So as a little weekend 'get the hell out of Chatham' trip, me and the boy popped off to Bluewater to dabble in a bit of retail therapy and whatnot. Spent far to much money on a bag which consequently i'm now in love with and got a lovely new purse to go with it courtesy of my wonderful boy <3

We then decided to have a spot of lunch at the lovely Leon's. Their aim is to change the face of fast food buy providing an all natural, organic and freshly made menu. You can either sit and eat in the restaurant or you can get a take out meal in a recycled card box.

Anyway, we decided to take a seat and check out the menu. Took aages to decide what to have because everything sounded so good! Finally decided on the chilli chicken wrap and the chicken & chorizo wrap with meatballs to start. Ordering the food is interesting too; you simply tick off on the menu what you want and take it to the deli counter to pay. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the food was A-MAY-ZING! And their brownies are to die for! mmm!

Sweet Dreams

Get Away

I really wish i could drive...

Fabric Font

Recently found this amazing font designed by Tania Alvarez. She is a graphic designer and illustrator from Montreal, Canada. Her inspiration here was fabric and the result is elegant, stylish lettering mimicking the movement of fabric gently billowing around the body.

Ólafur Arnalds

Beautiful Song

Beautiful Video

Song: Ljósið

Music written by: Ólafur Arnalds

Director: Esteban Diácono

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb4sg2kRKFk

Back Soon!

I'm leaving today for a lovely 3 week holiday at our villa in Florida with the parents, brother and wonderful boyfriend!

Ahh, sun sun sun!

Ciao for now lovelies xx

Medieval

One of the few menswear designers from LCF's class of 2009.

Asger Juel Larsen takes on modern adaptations for armoury.

Lookbook shot by Ellis Scott

Wow Oh Wow!

Loving these photos. There a bit amazing. Also loving the layout and the use of landscape images alongside fashion. Fits perfectly!

Photographer: Samuli Karala

Styling: Minttu Vesala

(both definitely worth checking out!)