I’m not going to lie – I’ve been a bad blogger lately. Inspiration has been low and I’ve come to the end of the broadband contract, so the flat is internetless. And cold. But that’s beside the point. Most of the blog writing has been done in a very dodgy internet cafe near my flat, populated with sleeping winos and people conducting very loud arguments via Skype.
But, and this is a big but, I do have some cool and interesting stuff in the pipeline, which shall be revealed in due time. Here are a few interesting links to show you that I’m still connected to the world in some way and tide the regular readers (thanks guys…) over ’til I get my blogging mojo back.
- Disneyrollergirl revealed! There goes my claim to fame of seeing the back of her head at London Fashion Week in September…
- Free samples of Elizabeth Arden 8 Hour Cream. This stuff is amazing – the offer is only open to people in the UK and Ireland. Go forth and be moisturised (or accelerate the rate of burn recovery if that’s what floats your boat).
I’m really looking forward to watching this at The Pavilion, Cork tonight. The Way of the Crowd is about the Wigan Casino, which was the epicentre of the Northern Soul scene. When Paul Smith is one of the talking heads, you know it’s going to be interesting. I’m also looking forward to seeing some flash dance moves afterwards. It’s what I imagine I look like when I’m drunk – the reality is much crueler.
- Friend of The Licentiate, Jo Linehan of S-oh S-ew! is competing to be one of Elle Magazine’s next fashion interns – go throw her a vote if you have a spare moment (maybe this way she’ll hire me when she becomes a Big Shot Editor Type).
- I noticed that my column from last week didn’t recieve the same amount of feedback as the others normally do. The views are the same, so I’m wondering if it’s the subject. Do fashion and politics mix? Or is Margeret Thatcher too evil/sacred to comment on? Let me know what you think. Click here to read the column if you haven’t got the foggiest notion what I’m on about.
>It’s that time again. Sluggish bloggers, slowed down into a cosy Christmas chrysalis are sloughing off the excess of too many mince pies and slices of blue cheese and evaluating the year in order to burst into 2011 a beautiful blog butterfly. Like the alliteration? I wrote it just for you. Here’s my 2010 ‘best of’ blog mixtape.
Blog Highlights: I started this blog in March with the aim of sharing what I liked and meeting a few like-minded people. In the space of a few short months, I’ve racked up readers from around the world, landed a fashion column, learned a hell of a lot about the fashion industry, joined the Vice Blogging Network, went to London Fashion Week, networked like a mad thing, was mentioned as one of Ireland’s most influential bloggers and made some truly exceptional, hilarous and supportive friends. All of this due to blogging aspersions. So, to my readers, I’d like to say a massive THANK YOU! You guys are the best. Seeing all your comments really brightens up my day.
Click ‘Read More’ to, ehm, read more, look at nice pictures and watch some fashion films…
Personal Highlights: Moving in with my boyfriend. Getting to write a published fashion column every week. My father chose 2010 as the year to stop bursting into my childhood bedroom at 7am to ask me why I wasn’t sending speeches to Obama and CVs to Anna Wintour and started to buy me copies of Granta instead. And I finally decided which Masters degrees to apply for.
Personal Lowlights: Moving in with my boyfriend. Getting food poisoning four times this year; while on holidays in both Italy and Egypt, on my birthday and on Christmas Eve. And my little brother moved into my childhood bedroom, which leaves me to sleep in a box room filled (appropriately) with a million boxes every time I come home.
I’m in no way qualified to say what the ‘best’ of 2010 has been, but I will share some favourites…
Favourite Magazine Editorial
I’m a huge sucker for cartoons. If it’s animated, I’ll watch it. Then I’ll watch it again. I loved the 2007 Simpsons editorial in Harper’s Bazaar, but I think that the Disney spread, illustrated by Ulrich Schroeder, in this year’s April issue of Elle Spain just about trumps it in terms of technicolor delight. (scans via Miss At La Playa)
Leopard print. Leopard print accessories, leopard print Gaga-esque dresses, vintage leopard print swing coats, I love them all. Not surprising for a girl who has dressed up as both Bet Lynch and Peg Bundy for Hallowe’en (and maybe the odd Saturday night). Honourable mention goes to the return of the boob as seen at Louis Vuitton. Mad Men be blessed, I can stop hiding my 34DDs in buttoned up shirts and let them roam free, or at the very least peeping cautiously over corset tops. Combine the cleavage with the animal print and 2011 is sure to become a year to remember, in social terms at least if not in sartorial ones.
Favourite runway show
Photos from style.com
I was totally blown away by Erdem’s S/S ’11 offerings. This was a twisted take on floralia that I could really get on board with. Do you have a designer that you don’t really like because it’s just not your style? Then one day you look at what they’ve designed and BAM! Everything they’ve ever done is instantly genius. You click your fingers and think ‘Ah, I get it now’. That was me and Erdem.
Photos from style.com
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also loved the A/W ’10 looks designed by Christopher Kane, by then in his sophomore season for Versus. Sharp pleated cupcake skirts, tees imprinted with iconic Bruce Weber photographs, deep jewel tones and colour absorbing black – an easy marriage between Kane’s bandage dress graduate collection and Gianni Versace’s original knowingly wink-and-smile flirty Versus vision.
Favourite fashion films
2010 was the year that fashion film exploded. If I could, I would pick twenty films, but these are my five whittled-down favorites.
Favourite Blogs
- The Selvedge Yard. This is a menswear blog, but really you should look at it because the pictures are so well-sourced. It’s so comprehensively researched that each and every post is like reading a fascinating encyclopedia entry. Devote at least twenty minutes per entry and left all the images sink in. - Fashematics. This one is hard to explain. Imagine ’300′ – knives = Marc Jacobs on the beach. Think that doesn’t make much sense? Click here. - Beckerman Bite Plate. The three Beckerman sisters (and sometimes their parents) put together the craziest, candy coloured, multi-influenced, bonkers outfits and pose (or hop) in front of the camera. It’s a blog world filled entirely with happy faces and derring-do ‘tude. It is genius. - Threadbared. The product of two academics, Threadbared is relevatory, insightful and often thought provoking. This blog proves that fashion is not all vacant stares and mindless consumerism. Both authors examine the machinations and implications of fashion with a balanced mindset, but never lose their heartfelt love for clothes.
Hopes for 2011
- To move away to another country and start a masters degree.
- To keep adding and improving this blog.
- To start clashing my patterns (very important, I know).
- To always be writing something.
- To make my mommy proud.
That’s my 2010 round up of the great and the good (the bad and the ugly got lost on their way to the blog post). What was your fashion highlight? And what are your goals for 2011?
P.S I’m going on holidays on January 1st (Egypt by way of London) and this blog will be taken over by some of my favourite Irish Bloggers, who will be entertaining you with their personal style New Years Resolutions. I hope that you like their posts – I was editing some today and was blown away by the breadth and variety of the responses.
Next week’s Licentiate column will be published on Thursday as usual and I might manage to fit in a post or two while I’m away. Normal service will resume after the 12th of January, when I’ll talk about my own personal style resolution. If I manage to pull this out of the bag, it’ll mean a nice change of pace for The Licentiate. Change is afoot, and revolution is in the air…
>I’m trying to reorganise my blog reader and do an overhaul on my reading material.
Here’s where you kind readers come in.
What blogs do you enjoy reading? What eye candy lights up your day? Which bloggers inspire you? Whose photo blogs make you think? Who’s the funniest or smartest fashion blogger out there? Do you have any guilty pleasures tucked away in your reader?
Let me know in the comments box below. No blog is too obscure or too obvious. Give me one link or a directory, a broad street style blog or a Tumblr of Turgistani interiors; it’s all good. The submissions I like the best will get a wee prize of, well, I haven’t thought of what I’m giving away yet. But in case you’re worried, click here to see how good I usually am at giving away stuff.
And because no post is complete without a picture, here’s an unrelated fluffy bunny.
The internet in my flat is still broken and Photobucket is still pouting at me and refusing to play nice, so here’s a short and sweet links post on reading, watching, eating and inspiration material that I’d like to share.
I never, ever use the word ‘amazeballs’, but here’s a recipe for some pretty amazeballs, rainbow-y doughnuts (The Dainty Squid)
Ever though it’s, errrr, late July at this point, people are still getting very excited about A/W and all the expensive camel capes that we’ll be buying. Since I’m a cheap young wan, I’ll be following bloggers tips on how to get next season’s look without spending any money. At all. (Fug Girls at The Cut Blog and Disneyrollergirl).
Absolutely endless inspiration in the TFS forum thread for Fashion in Film Movie Stills (TFS)
Anna Dello Russo is apparently going to release a perfume. But this mini manga novel about her life has nothing to do with that. (annadellorusso)
Blatant plug alert. Hem… You can read this weeks Licentiate column for the Cork Independent here!
My new source of fascination – North Korean synchronised gymnastics a la that new Faithless video. Pardon the bad quality, but the things these kids do is, frankly, amazeballs (Did it again…).
>Like a lot of people, I’m stuck somewhere between online content and magazines. Both have their advantages; my favourite elements are the tactility of the paper, the layouts and the flip factor, where you can flip from page to page without waiting for it to load or come up all funny because your connection is bad.
In between online content and paper is the online magazine, where you can flip from page to page and not have to throw anything in the recycling bin when you’re done, or if you’re like me, let it gather dust on your tv. Here are some of my favourites.
Antler Magazine I don’t know how long antler has been out or even how old the most recent issue is, but that is a good indicator of what kind of magazine it is. Fresh, slightly Lula-ish layouts and themes run amok all over the pages and there’s an emphasis on Etsy sellers that are otherwise ignored by more established mags.
I Want You I’m wandering slightly off the mark here as I Want You isn’t a fashion magazine but a quarterly that focuses more on up-and-coming artists like Christina Christoforou and Arnaud Loumeau, whose graphic prints wouldn’t look out of place on the catwalk. They also run a limited edition print version that is FREE (!!!). Sorry, I got a bit excited there.
I♥FAKE Because this issue the theme is ‘grunge’ and I have a sick, sad love for anything grungy. The spreads make me want to dye my hair green, which is no mean feat in itself.
NOMAG A great thing about the advent of online magazines is that old mags can be scanned in that would otherwise only be seen by a handful of people. To mark an exhibition at Reserve LA, three copies of cult early 80′s LA punk zine NOMAG were put online. Plenty of inspirational images to be found.
And as an addendum, you can find a full version of the Size Issue of V here.
Proenza Schouler learning how to faux tie-dye from Martha Stewart herself, courtesy of The Love Magazine Blog .
My birthday is coming up… I’d like a nice satchel please…
I’m really, really terrible at beauty routines and my nails look awful, but this ombre nail tutorial looks really do-able. Mmm dip-dye nails…
And I’m not one of those weirdos who has a wardrobe for their dogs or gets the hots for anthropomorphism, but this is too cute. Flying rats? I think not! What would Beatrix Potter think?
Sixties and Seventies hair pics, iconic women and pin-ups that are apparently never ending. Note to self – buy hot rollers and gallons of hairspray.
I usually go to London for Arsenal matches and stopovers. Emirates no longer – I’m going to Kensington Palace! Must have a look at the fares on Ryanair very, very soon.
Some samples of my work (cuz I’m like a real journalist and like, write about fashion and stuff)
The launch of Cork Fashion Week (getting very excited about this, really looking forward to covering some events for the Cork Indo – fingers crossed!)
The boyfriend is a stand up. A stand up guy that is! That’s a terrible joke and he won’t be impressed when he sees this. Er, anyway, the boyfriend is a stand up… comic and he and my pseudo step-cousin Brendan and a host of others have made a sitcom pilot to be screened in The Pavilion. 10 euro entrance fee – all of it is going to charidee!
