Sunday 21 June 2015

Exploring Shoreditch With Hannah

Hello everyone! I hope you're all enjoying Fathers Day.

I'm sorry I've been a little quiet this week, Katie and I have joined the gym again for the summer and as I hadn't been for over a month I was itching to get back to it! I've also started working again this week, I'm back at Clarks over the summer so if I'm a little quiet on here in August you know why as its back to school season!

Today I wanted to share some pictures I took whilst I was down in London on placement a few weeks ago...

I arrived in London on the Saturday 30th of May, two days prior to the start of my placement, so as you'd expect I got straight out onto the streets with my camera and my purse at the ready! Today I'm going to share with you all some pictures I took on Sunday 31st whilst myself and my good friend Hannah of Trust In Vogue were exploring Shoreditch...



I got off the tube at Old Street but Hannah got the overground to Shoreditch High Street so I met her there, just next to the pop-up haven: Box Park.





We were given a sample of the Mast Brothers chocolate in the store, I can't remember what flavour it was as they had a billion and one different variations but it was really good!

It did make us rather hungry though, so we went to Pizza East for a yummy lunch...







I loved the interiors of Pizza East, it looked so cool and funky. The pizzas we could see on other tables looked incredible but when I saw the oven-baked macaroni and cheese on the menu I couldn't resist. Hannah had the full english breakfast.








My OOTD:










That day I was wearing my favourite Zara jeans, black low Converses (in Shoreditch, I know how sacrilegious of me!),  a new tee from Zara which I think is just adorable and my new summer staple; my green a-line jacket which is from Topshop.

I am simply in love with this jacket, if I can even call it that, its quite thin you see. I thought it would be perfect for throwing over my band tees in the summer and yet would keep me cool if I wore it throughout the day. I love the cut and especially the colour, although my family have started referring to it as 'Holly's gardening jacket'!



And that concludes the pictures of our day in Shoreditch. I do really like it round there, I've stayed in The Dictionary Hostel a few times on Shoreditch High Street and its really good for a cheap alternative to a hotel. I feel Shoreditch has such a 'like it or lump it' kind of feel, some parts are a little rough round the edges and others are just so colourful its unreal. I like that everything round there is independently owned and that there's quite a lot of pop-up venues as it means each time I'm in the area there's always something new. Its definitely worth a look as there's some gorgeous buildings and designs round there as well, everything is so funky or unusual.

So thats all for today, they'll be more soon as always. I hope you enjoyed these pictures and I'll speak with you shortly.

Holly.

Sunday 14 June 2015

No Matter What | OOTD

Hello everyone! How are we all keeping? I hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

After a rather serious and incredibly wordy post last time, I thought a picture-heavy OOTD would be a good idea for today's post...

These pictures were taken what seems like forever ago while I was still in Newcastle. This may seem a random time to post them but to be honest I completely forgot I had them and didn't want to waste such lovely pictures! Hope you like the outfit!








In these pictures I'm wearing my gorgeous Dr. Martens, an adorable black and white checkered skirt I bought earlier this year from Urban Outfitters, my trusty handbag from Accessorize and a black twirl tee that I bought in the Cheap Monday sale for £7.

I know this isn't a particularly summery outfit but it was slightly more seasonal when these pictures were taken! Although I do live in England and its currently raining so maybe its not such an ill choice for this time of year anyway!

The song this post is titled with is by a band called Valora and the song is No Matter What. I heard it first on the soundtrack to the film The Last Song (one of my favourite films ever) and then got a little obsessed with it...as I always do with brilliant songs! Its really good though I would definitely recommend you give it a listen.

I got back from London a few days ago from my final internship of the summer and as you'd expect, I took a hell of a lot of pictures while I was there! I've got a few adventures that I'd like to share with you, I'm currently in the process of editing them all but you can expect to see them on here very soon.

As always I hope you're all doing well and good luck to those of you in the final weeks of your exams.

Speak soon.

Holly

Monday 8 June 2015

Mindful Musings | I Do This For Me

Hello everyone, a slightly different tone for today’s post. This one’s a little serious, and a little long but please read it all or you won’t fully understand.

I feel I need to explain myself. In fact, I don’t think I should have to explain myself for anything I do, but I feel I need to do so today. This is a peculiar situation and I’ll try explain myself as explicitly as possible.

You should also know that I’m not naming, shaming or relating to anyone in particular, this is just how I’ve felt over the past month or two. Recently, I feel I’ve had to justify myself and my blog to new people that I’ve spoken to about it. I feel there are so many different attitudes towards fashion blogs these days that I never know how people are going to react when I tell them that I write one. 

Some people (and I am speaking very generally) think that because of the huge success of some high-profile bloggers, everyone just wants to become famous and not have to get a “real job”, or that the people who produce these blogs just want to shout about how great they are and for everyone to look at them for five minutes. These perceptions may not be entirely true but from my experience, this is how I feel people now perceive fashion blogs. 

Because of these negative prejudices of online authors, I can at times be quite reluctant to admit that I actually have a blog, when really I should be incredibly proud of it. 

I’m writing this today because I want to make a one thing very clear; I do this for me. No one else, me. 

I do not at all want to sound selfish when I say this, but I do not write this blog for you, the reader, I write it for myself. This is my platform to experiment with, with which to document my life, to push myself to be inventive, to practise my writing and to share my photography. This is for me, I do it for my own sake.

I am truly ever so grateful to all of you who read this blog, I want that to be understood. To know that there are people across the world who like what I write and create is extremely rewarding. I want thank you all for taking time out of your day to read my musings, I’m extremely happy to have produced something that others have found interesting. 

But I do not share my content online for the sake of approval from strangers, thats not why I’m here. I created this blog because I want to feel good for something original that I have produced; I feel good because I’ve made something I’m proud of and that I have achieved, not because other people have said its good.

In the nicest possible way, I don’t care whether you guys like my blog or not. If you do like it then thank you, thats wonderful and I really appreciate it. But if you don’t like it, then I am sorry but its not going to change anything I do. 

I have always lived by the saying “each to their own”. One of the most important values I try to live by is to be fully accepting of people’s opinions and dreams or wishes or preferences no matter what my is opinion of them. I strive not to judge people for who they are because there could be a billion reasons they are that way and I am probably ignorant to the majority of them. I think everyone deserves the right to be who they are without having to explain themselves to anyone or apologise for being so. It would not be fair. I stand for self expression, and everyone’s  right to exercise it. 

Therefore I don’t really care if you don’t like my blog. If you don’t like it then don’t read it, simple as. I am confident enough in myself to not feel I need to apologise for everything that I am. If you can’t accept that then I haven’t lost anything, I still have myself who I am pretty happy to be.

I’ve only really come to this realisation in the last few years, that I can be whatever I want and if people want to judge me then more the fool them. I feel like I’m going to put off a fair few people with this post as you might get the impression I’m all ‘high and mighty’ or extremely arrogant but I’m honestly not. Although I am confident in myself, I still have moments of doubt, so does nearly everyone. We’re always going to be slightly anxious about what people think of us from time to time. 

Now for my motives; I write this blog because I want to push myself. There are elements of my character or skills I possess that I want to develop. I have always loved photography and writing, I think I’m quite good at them. I definitely do not want to let these skills slip through a lack of practise. This blog allows me to regularly exercise my abilities in both of these beloved hobbies of mine. Then there are areas in which I am not so satisfied with, for example how creative I am with my style and how I dress. 

I have a style that is completely my own; a look that my friends recognise as me and that I feel expresses who I am, so does everyone. It all depends on our individual tastes, for which I do not judge anyone. I exercise my right to express myself through what I wear every single day. I do not wear things that I do not feel say anything about who I am. If I did I would not feel as if I was being honest with myself or anyone else, and that is not something I condone.

I am an imaginative being. I admire art and integrity and I strive to achieve both of them within my work and life. Despite this, my daily wardrobe choices can be extremely dull and unadventurous at times. I don’t really see this as a problem because if thats how I choose to dress then why on earth shouldn't I do so? However, being a creative individual who wants to go into a creative industry, I feel I should push myself harder than I currently do with my wardrobe choices. 

And that is my personal choice, it is a goal I have set for myself. Thats why I share ‘Outfit Of The Days’ on my blog. Granted they might not always be particularly stylish, on trend or unique, but I want to be honest in everything I produce. I do not want to lie about who I am on a project that is essentially for me. Even if I post an OOTD which isn’t particularly inventive, as long as it is a genuine expression of who I am then I am still achieving everything I’ve set out to do.

I feel people perceive OOTD posts negatively with the assumption that the author thinks they look amazing or have something ground breaking to say about whatever style they are sporting. That is not my goal. I post OOTD pictures because I want to push myself to be more original and a better version of me, to practise creativity through every way that I express myself. That is what I believe in after all.

I hope you all understand my motives for this blog a little better now. I honestly don’t mean to offend anyone with anything I’ve said in this post and I want you all to know how grateful I am to those of you who read my blog. It honestly means so much to me that people can relate to what I produce and stand for. The internet is for sharing and there are so many people that I look up to online because I admire them for being themselves and producing something they are proud of, I think its a wonderful quality. 

I can understand if you don’t want to look at my blog anymore after everything I’ve just said but as I said earlier, its not going to stop me from going after what I want or being myself. I used to spend way too much time worrying about what others think of me rather than looking after myself and I don’t see the point in it anymore. Because in truth, I’m the one that has to deal with myself for the rest of my life, so I might as well be happy with everything I am.

I hope you all understand and that I’ve articulated this well enough. If there’s anything you don’t quite understand or have any questions about my motives ask away in the comments and I’ll answer them as honestly and clearly as I can. As I’ve said previously, I don’t feel I should have to explain myself to anyone however I am more than happy to do so on this occasion.

If you’re still reading thank you, and if you still want to read this blog after this post then even better. Honestly, thank you. 

Don’t let anyone ever make you feel bad about yourself or being honest and standing up for what you believe in. You have every right to express yourself in whatever way you choose (as long as you’re not breaking the law obviously) and you should never have to apologise to anyone for doing so.

My best wishes to you all.

Holly