A Bikini Kinda Life

I spend a lot of time browsing through Billabong's various channels. Their website, Instagram and Blog keeps me amused for hours, just staring at the lush blue sea and gorgeous surfers. Pretty much every lookbook they post on their blog makes my heart burst and break in equal parts. Bursting because of how much I love everything about it, but breaking because it just makes me miss the sea so damn much. I guess surrounding myself with pictures of it has to be the only way of getting my fix while I'm away from home, right?

Today I wanted to share with you one of my favourite lookbooks available on the blog at the moment. If the title wasn't enough to snatch my attention, the images inside definitely are. Everything about this lookbook makes me happy. From the gorgeous swimwear on display, to the lifestyle shots, the layouts, to the photography styling, it's everything a lookbook should be... Aspirational.

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Coco's Tea Party x Next: Behind the Scenes

Last month, I had the opportunity to spend the day working on the recent Coco's Tea Party x Next summer styling videos. Next are great at creating interesting and popular YouTube videos to promote certain products throughout the year and this time round they enlisted the help of Ella Gregory, from the fashion blog Coco's Tea Party, to help style up three different trends for the summer.

As an intern, my job was mainly to make sure that everything was ready to go (steaming clothes and putting everything in outfit order), so no time was wasted getting the model dressed and finding accessories. As always with Next, everything is organised down to a T before hand, so the shoot day always runs smoothly.

It was my first time working with Ella, and I have to say she was lovely and so professional. She knew exactly what she was doing and when she had to do it. On top of that, she understands the Next customer really well, making her the perfect choice for both styling and presenting the looks. Below are a few pictures I took from behind the scenes on the day, as well as links to my favourite video of the Catwalk to Closet collection!

Check the rest of the videos at Next's YouTube channel and tell me which look is your favourite!

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Editorial Focus: Vogue Paris March 2012

Maybe it's the full page image of the girl prancing around on white sands with turquoise seas but I love this editorial. Granted, my French isn't quite at the level it was when I left school so I can't read the article fluently, but I do know it's all about how to get your body in shape for the beach.

The copy on the left hand page doesn't follow any set columns but I love that. There's a great mix of capitals, fonts and sizes which make the whole thing interesting to read but also cohesive. I always think that serif fonts remind me of high fashion magazines like Vogue and Elle because they're so classic and clean-cut. I also think the contrast of a completely full page of text and the lovely full page picture with that white border just brings the whole editorial together nicely.

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Summer Wedding Guest

This summer one of my cousins is getting married. I'm looking forward to it for many reasons and one of those reasons is definitely because it means I get to buy a new outfit. I've been thinking about it a lot recently, keeping my eye out in shops, so I thought I'd pull together a few outfits for you all to give me your opinions on your favourites.

1 - Next

2 - Zara

3 - Next

1 - Asos

2 - Asos

3 - Ted Baker

1 - Next

2 - Asos

3 - Mango

I think the pale blue suit is a super cute and different way to dress for a wedding and I could definitely see myself picking that outfit for the summer!

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Editorial Focus: Stella McCartney SS11

I'm a massive fashion magazine hoarder. I don't think I've ever thrown one away. I always thought one day I'd find a use for them and today I have. I've decided to add a feature to the blog, where I focus on a particular campaign or editorial that I love. It means I'll be able to finally have an excuse to read through all my old issues, but it also means I'll have a nice collection of my favourites all in one handy place to look back for inspiration when I need it. YAY.

Today's Editorial Focus comes in the form of a Stella McCartney SS11 campaign shot, as featured in the March 2011 British Vogue. The first thing to note is my bias towards this campaign purely for the dress being worn in it. Since this botanical citrus pattern landed a few years ago, I have never gotten my fill. I just think it's so bright, fresh and summary. Combine this with the simplicity of the plain blue background and I think it just works brilliantly. However, what gives this campaign its edge is what they've done with the left hand image. The same model, the same pose, the same shoes, but this time the dress is replaced by close up cut-outs of the fruit featured in the dress. This highlights the most important thing of the dress; the pattern. I've never seen anything like this used in a campaign before but I just love it!

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Style Icon: Emma Watson

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have opinions on people we don't know. More specifically; celebrities. Some people may be quick to judge tabloid newspapers and magazines about how judgemental they can be, especially towards the appearance of female celebrities, but we have to admit that one way or another we will have an opinion about a celebrity - even if it's just that you like their work or you don't. For the record; I think the way the tabloids nitpick at every detail of a celebrities life is just ridiculous. They criticize a woman for loosing weight, gaining weight and even sometimes staying the same weight. Sometimes I wonder what the people writing those articles are like. I wonder if they have self-esteem issues themselves? ANYWAY, back to the point at hand...

Emma Watson is one of those celebrities who could do no wrong in my eyes. Since becoming my first heroin as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, I've always had a lot of respect from her. Seeing her blossom from a child star into a down-to-earth and (it seems) humble young woman, I think she's a fantastic role model for any young girl wanting to get into acting. She turns up, does her job (very well), smiles for the cameras, and that's all we really see of her. The perfect way to live a life in the public eye, in my opinion.

This past week Emma has been on a style winning streak, knocking her outfits out of the park day after day. She's been on a tight PR schedule for her new film Noah, but her wardrobe hasn't dropped the ball once. Below are my favourite recent outfits, all courtesy of vogue.com.

 

 At The Late Show wearing a Saint Laurent suit

At the Noah première after party in New York, wearing Erdem

At the Noah première in Madrid, wearing J. Mendel

At the Noah premiere in New York, wearing Oscar de la Renta

At a Noah press conference, wearing Peter Pilotto

Leave a comment below and let me know which is your favourite look! Mine has to be a toss up between the Saint Laurent suit and the Erdem dress. It's so hard to choose though, I love them all!

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Sunsets & Night Skies

Sometimes, I get the urge to write a blog post even if I'm not sure why. This is definitely one of those occasions. A couple of weeks ago, I got a new phone (the Sony Z1 Compact). When I got it everyone was so shocked that I'd decided not to just upgrade straight to the next iPhone, but I was convinced I'd made the right choice because of the reviews the camera had gotten (It's 20 megapixels compared to the iPhone 5's measly 8 megapixels). Seeing as I do all my blog pictures from my phone, I thought it would be a great idea to have a better camera.

When I bought the phone home that night however, I soon had a nagging feeling I'd done something very stupid. "I can't get emojis on this phone", I whispered to my flatmate Alice, tears in my eyes. "Grow up", she replied. I needed to hear that. I've finally gotten over the fact I can't see them *displeased emoji* and I'm hoping the brainboxes at Android are going to make some supercool alternative to them soon so I won't feel like the only person unable to communicate just by a quick heart eyed smiley face.

Once I put the camera in use however, all my earlier worries disappeared and I'm glad I made the decision now. If you've read my last two blog posts, they were all done with my new camera and I think I'm taking some much better pictures. So this post really is to share two of my favourite pictures that I've taken so far.

There's not much natural beauty in the city I live in, so my favourite time of the day is sunset. I've always been obsessed with sunsets, especially coming from my beautiful hometown by the sea where the sunsets can be utterly breathtaking. With the gorgeous spring weather we've been having recently, I managed to take this snap of the sunset on Saturday night. I don't know whether it was because I was having a lovely and long-awaited weekend with my boyfriend, or because the timing of those perfectly positioned clouds was just right, but this is one of the best sunset pictures I've ever taken. The clouds look like an oil painting.

I took this picture when we were on the roof of our building last weekend. I don't think I had meant to take it, but when I looked back I loved the bokeh effect the lights of the city and the glow of the moon had turned into. At home, I just love the clear nights. Coming from such a rural place, where the streetlights go off after midnight, we're so lucky in the fact that we've not got much light pollution, so the views of the stars at night are just unreal. Sometimes I look up the entire way on my walk back from work (I work in a restaurant so always finish late) and it just feels like I'm looking at a picture. The beauty of a clear night sky is that the longer you look at it, the more you see. That sight is something I know I will never take for granted.

I'll stop lusting over how much I love nature now. But if you do too and have taken some sweet shots yourself I'd love to see them. Link me below or come find me on Instagram and I'll look at your page!

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