Pink's the colour

Pink has long been my favourite colour. At primary school my house colour was red so I kind of liked that for a while but they're still within the same colour range.
My dress for the deutant drinks party on Monday is great because it has such a mixture of colours in it and so accessories can bring the various tones out, but pink is one of the predominant ones and I took my Vivienne Westwood clutch.
Emma here had trouble deciding between a pink dress and a black dress and you can see my favourite here! It's just so pretty.
Talking with the opera singer Zoe Turner (http://www.zoeturner.net/) after her performance we agreed that pink was definitely the best colour of the evening and indeed her dress looked beautiful in the setting provided.

She has such a beautiful voice too. There's a part of my that wishes I could sing opera. Well I can sing the notes but not with that amazing projection and technique that singing lessons develop.

As you can see there were a couple of turquoise-blue dresses which also stood out, and I'll allow this as I did have a phase last year of buying things in a similar tone. It was completely subconscious but I realised everything I liked was the same colour! OK there were some other really lovely dresses too, but this post is about the pink.

Right now I'm tired and feeling poorly, but hey, I like pink and I wanted to do more coverage of Monday evening. So I'm crossing my fingers that this makes sense and I'll be back tomorrow with my purchases from today.

Debutante by day and night

I had the most amazing day in London yesterday. I took a rather civilised train at 10.36 (how lovely it was to actually get up at a normal time). I had a slight disaster when I got off the train with a horrible black mark on my tights, requiring an emergency trip to Topshop Oxford Street.
I wore a Topshop dress with a pair of my new floral earrings, Clarks shoes, a D&G watch and a vintage jacket.
Then it was time for my fitting at Pronovias where I got try on my wedding dress for the Queen Charlotte's Ball!!

I then met up with some of the other debs for a tour of Coutts bank followed by tea. The history of Coutts is incredbily interesting and the building was just stunning. And we had the most darling mini-scones which were plain with jam and cream in the middle, yummy.

Then we had to set up for the drinks party at The Kings Fund at Cavendish Square. This is what I wore for the event: a Wallis dress with an M&S belt, Office shoes, vintage Christian Dior earrings, a Miu Miu headband and a Vivienne Westwood clutch. It was a lovely evening with canapes, mingling and beautiful music from a sax quarter, pianist and opera singer. And we managed to raise lots of money for Veterans Aid which is a truly wonderful cause.

Now I need to say 'Happy Birthday' to my best friend Emma!! Technically I've already seen her today as we were still travelling at midnight (haha), but I hope you have a really lovely day hon! :)

Links à la Mode

Every week members of Indpendent Fashion Bloggers are invited to submit their best post of the week for the Links à la Mode which then gets posted around the blogs of all those involved. I am delighted to say that not only have I made this weeks (yay!) but next month I'll be put on rotation for editing the links myself. I feel honoured to have been chosen, and though I am slightly worried about choosing out of such strong blog posts I am incredibly excited!
http://heartifb.com/ is having a little maintenance to keep it shiny at the moment but should be back tomorrow. I really recommend joining as it's such a lovely and interesting community I've learnt so much from.


Fashion History, Doing it Yourself, and Breaking Stereotypes
Edited by: Marie Denee of The Curvy Fashionista


My first week editing the Links a`la Mode and it was such a pleasure to peruse the latest jewels from the blogosphere! Imagine viewing the history of fashion through the lens of a exhibition or a syllabus of what you wish was taught. How about taking inspiration from the latest Jeffery Campbell shoe and tricking out your own for less? Better yet, let’s talk about the “nude” trend and its color classification, and while we are at it, let’s question the newest movement in advertising campaigns: Unretouched and real beauty- a breakthrough or a publicity stunt? From fashion tips, finds, and favorite things, this week’s links a`la mode will satiate your hunger for full frontal fashion!


Links à la Mode: June 24th
Bay Area Style File Shoptalk: Stript Wax Bar
Bonne Vie Is “nude” a problem? Or just a color palette?
Fashion Butter How to deal with the girls (dressing a larger chest)
Fasshonaburu looks back at the fashion rules she set for herself at the beginning of the year to see how’s she’s done following them
Fish Tank Fashion Are “unretouched” and “real beauty” advertising campaigns just a publicity stunt?
Grit and Glamour Photography for the Amateur, Stagefright-Afflicted Blogger
Hello Beauty have a new makeup lesson video with the Bobbi Brown Beach Collection and Treatment Lip Shines on hello beauty! The lesson is by Bobbi Brown education executive Katrina Rau.
Intrinsically Florrie From 50s swimwear to an 18th century duchess’s wardrobe; a look at her college’s fashion exhibition
Living Embellished Take a course in Fashion History…you know, what you always wished your college offered!
Lovely & Lavish With the help of a stylish scarf you can transform an everyday getup into a chic outfit, Lovely & Lavish explores this season’s best accessory!
Meowsk Dressing for the playground, reminiscent of recess.
Miss Jones and Me Shares a Few of her Favorite Things
Miss Vinyl Ahoy DIY Jeffrey Campbell Tick shoes for under $20!
Profresh Style Combining prints & textures
Retro Chick Frock love: Hot picks from the world of reproduction vintage
Simply Luxurious Summer items to add to your wardrobe
Stylish Thought Everyone Loves a Quirky Girl: Examining quirky style and women who dress the part
The Coveted Under the Sea, Closeup view of Cynthia Rowley’s Resort 2011 Collection
The Curvy Fashionista The opening of Full Figured Fashion Week NYC 2010
Wicked Whimsy How to build up a versatile & comfortable array of shoes
Tog and Trappings Les flâneurie: How observation of life can inspire creativity

Fashion show: Theatricality

This was my favourite part of my college fashion show- a fashion theatre performance which showed of the garments perfectly and I do love ballet.
I must confess to having wondered why the students/staff chose the circular shape for the final work when I saw it in the exhibition but now it all makes sense!
The work is by Foundation Degree Fashion Studies Year 1 students at Stafford College who chose to specialise in textiles and put together a 'Textiles for Fashion' collection.
The work is by David Piddock, Kim Woolliscroft, Emily Taylor, Millie Jackson, Naomi Roper, Lydia Burton and Rebecca Laing. Actually, looking at my programme/poster-thingy-ma-bob it seems the same people also created the Alice in Wonderland fashion collection.
And credit to; 'Jenny MacNamara and her team of wonderful dancers'.

Flower power

I must confess to a lot of pondering over these earrings and trips back and forth to my local Topshop, which is much more like the behaviour of some of my friends than me! They're so pretty but I wasn't sure about the colours on my skin tone. However the Topshop sale had finally started when I visited yesterday and how could I possibly resist at half price?
I wore the cream ones today and they are ever so prettyful.

Intrinsically Florrie on the catwalk

Today I went to the first of my colleges end of year fashion shows and both my coursework dress and exam dress were in it!
I'd never seen the later on an actual person before so that was lovely but I totally wish the first one would have been styled differently! However the models had to wear several different outfits from various collections and so a uniform look was required and it worked well with most of the dresses. It's not really a clumpy shoes dress though. OK this is me going into perfectionist mode but it's funny to think that before these I'd only ever made one garment- a pair of shorts when I was 13, and that was from a ready made pattern.
Anyway it was a little exciting and here are the pictures!

Now here the hair and make up worked a lot better:

And here's what I wore to see the show:

Would you believe my hair was all lovely and wavy yesterday? I wore a vintage tea dress from Manchester, Topshop tights, New Look shoes, H&M gloves, (not that you can see them) little blue gingham Miss Selfridge earrings and a Luella bag.

My little digital camera did me proud so expect to see every single catwalk look over the next few days.

College exhibition

So you've already seen my work and my fashion picks, but here's a mixture of everything else; fine art, photography, a graphics piece and I suspect a set design. The work ranges across many education levels and there's even GCSE photography (wouldn't mind taking that class myself actually).

It's the fashion show tomorrow and Friday at both 2pm and 7pm each day at Stafford College and my dresses will be in it- exciting! I'll be there snapping away for the blog and tickets are available if anyone's interested. :) The work ranges from AS Level students like myself to third year HND ones who are going on to work in fashion.

When it get's too sunny what's a girl to do?

I know that there are many people out there loving the current burst of bright sunlight, but I just don't like it! Maybe it's the fact that my eyes are extremely sensitive to light, the fact that at this time of year everyone's trying to get a tan one way or another whilst I am stubbornly pale (I'm content with my skin tone normally, or at least now I've found a foundation that matches me, but it feels like the world is telling me to be bronzed right now), the fact that my new hair colour is fading fast enough just from washing it and maybe that my beloved Mummy had skin cancer too recently to have passed the 5 year safety mark.
And so I reach for the factor 50+ and cover up. A little sun is all well and good but today it was just too hot to be pleasant.
Here's what I wore to day to take my best friend Emma to see Shugborough which is a regular haunt of my family but she was yet to be acquainted with. Highlight of the day was the gorgeous baby guinea pigs and we went round pretty much everything. The Doric Temple where these photographs were taken partially inspired my coursework dress.
I bought these polka dot leggings from Zara in Telford early this month but I'm afraid I temporaily forgot about them till I came across the carrier bag this morning. But they are rather fun. And I also took my recently resurfaced DKNY bag. Worn with a Wallis dress, Warehouse belt which is wayyy too big but as there are holes all around I'll carry on wearing it, a Monsoon wrap top which is lovely and cool in this weather, Fendi sunglasses and New Look shoes.

Emma and I:

You know how you can end up thinking and saying the same things as someone? Well there's also dressing the same- just look at our shoes!

Emmy has super-long hair and is also very clever doing all kinds of fancy things with it having had a lot of practice so I'm going to get her to teach me sometime, hmmm, I spy a tutorial!