Brands I'm Loving: Pied A Terre

So a big trend that's carried through well from A/W12 to S/S13 is lime!

 It's not everybody's cup of tea as it's a rather striking colour, a bit neon-esque and admittedly it's a trend I'm very fussy about, which in my eyes is quite a good thing, as it's not something I could wear head to toe! It would have to be a statement piece in my eyes, and therefore I actually only like the trend on a garment that looks expensive well made, because I expect to pay that bit more for a staple item.

A brand that is doing this really well for me at the moment is Pied A Terre. They're most recent collections (as seen below) are all quite minimalistic and I absolutely adore this at the moment. Possibly because over the winter 'layering' (although I love it) get's done to death, so come Spring/Summer I can't wait for some clean lines & strong tailoring.

They're clothes, shoes and accessories are equally really good quality (as far as I've seen?) and I've been perusing their range. I've come up with a few key pieces that are my favourites & I wanted to share them.

001 //  Textured Jacket -Neon Lined with Upturned Cuffs

002 // Fluid Drop Shoulder Tee

003 // Oversized Cocoon Coat (now 70% off in the sale)

004 // Resin Clutch Bag with 2 neon purse inserts

005 // Zip Around Purse (now 70% off in the sale)

006 // T Bar Block Heel Sandals

I got my House of Fraser staff discount card in the post the other day, so I might treat myself to the purse (walked past it twice today and decided I need it somehow). And the clutch bag I can no way afford but I still have to walk past it every day at work! Nightmare.

What trends/brands are you loving for S/S13?

Company Magazine's Bloggers Event

I'm soo late boarding the blog-train for this one! The event was on Tuesday, but I'm still playing catch-up at the moment. One of my aims at the moment though, is to become more productive with my day, so getting up earlier & actually getting things done efficiently as opposed to being as easily distractable as I am!

Anyway, (disctracted, oh boy). I apologise for the text/image heavy post, but its long overdue! So me and Lil spent the day in London on Tuesday, initially for the Bloggers Event, but after catching the early train (8am to be precise), we made a proper day of visiting London. We're very lucky that it only takes less than 40 mins on the train into London, but because the train ticket costs more than anything else it's still a rareity that we go! So we started early & headed straight for Oxford St. I bought a few bits at Forever21, Topshop & Primark (see my last post for those), as did Lil.

Then of course we had to pop into Selfridges, only for 5 minutes though because we obviously wern't quite ready to splash out on a Mulberry bag just yet! But on our way out we noticed an amazing little conceptual pop-op shop within Selfridges, that had taken the subject of branding & sort of, rebranded it?! They had jars of Marmite & bottles of Ketchup, minus the logos. And brown paper bags made from suede. Everything was very cool looking and minimalistic. Very nice.

        

Then we headed over to Covent Garden and started with a lovely lunch in a nice restaurant called Maxwells in Covent Garden! Such a good price & really nice food. Well chuffed. And then attempted to walk it off trying to find Somerset House, which we did!

Wasn't too impressed with the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibition that I'd been looking forward to (contained about 5 of his piccies). But the Tim Walker's Storyteller exhibition everyone's been raving about was amaaazing. And I maintain that me & Lil did infact stand in the same room as Quinn from Glee #claimtofame.

We also visited Chelsea and Kensington and popped into a few amazing/pricey charity shops crammed with Prada and Malano Blahnik shoes. And a fabulous vintage shop called East End Thrift Store, which we'll definitely be going back to next time! Took an age to find, and walking past a bunch of dodgy men in the dark & down an alley, but hey what's London at night without a bit of fear in you.

    

Hence why I'm so excited to find it in the photo above.

And our FINAL stop, the Company Bloggers Event. Basically a room filled with amazing bloggers and people I wouldn't mind doing a wardrobe swap with! Which btw, I'm well up for.

Panel consisted of:

Victoria White (Company Editor) 

Alexxsia Elizabeth of My Labyrinth (Blogger & Fashion Writer/Stylist at Company)

Gem Royston-Claire of Gem Fatale (Blogger & Web Assistant at Company)

Amber Venz of VENZedits (Blogger & President of rewardstyle.com)

Carrie of WishWishWish (Blogger & Community Co-ordinator at ASOS Marketplace)

Shini of Park & Cube (Blogger & Graphic Designer)

Sandra Hagelstam of 5 Inch And Up (Blogger)

WE WERE SPOILED! 

(And I haven't even got to the goodie bag yet).

All the girls were incredibly lovely, and just had some really inspiring things to say about how to get the most out of blogging, how to put everything we can into it and to enjoy it of course. The @Companymagazine twitter feed went wild on the night & you can see all the inspirational quotes from the panel here.

We had time to mingle afterwards & met some lovely girls, including Carrie and Shini from the panel it was lovely to see Gem again. Met some really wonderful bloggers aswell, including Megan from The Briar Rose who I literally accosted as she was leaving, and Charlotte from PlasticHorsess, and so many other lovely girls.

The little bag of goodies we got was incredible, and I can't wait to use everything in it.

There's also a video from the night here!

Recent Spends

I'm gonna breeeze right past the fact I've been a terrible blogger these past few weeks, and get right back into things. So hello, good to see you've been keeping okay. Got rid of that cold yet? Oh dear, it won't shift will it?!

Now I've been shopping, as you might've guessed, or investing because that sounds less like I'm actually spending all my money. I hit the sales on Boxing Day (Just so you know, I'm NOT 'one of those girls', and I'm categorically, definitely not a Next boxing day shopper). I was working in town in the afternoon, so popped in early to see what I could find. Also, me and Lil went to London very recently for the Company Magazine Blogging Forum (seperate post to follow soon), and so we spent the day prior gallivanting around London, hence another delicious opportunity to spend money I dont have (:

So here, my lovelies, is what I bought:

   001// Topshop Plain Sweat Dress from their New collection which I fell in love with a few weeks ago  but managed to pick up on my recent trip to Oxford St. SO happy with it (: can't wait to wear it with  tights, chunky heeled ankle boots & a big statement necklace. It's such a simple basic, you can't go wrong dressing it up or down!

   002// UO Grey & Burgandy Winter Floppy Hat. Wanted one for aaaages! Saw this in the Urban Outfitters sale with 50% off & I had to have it. Been wearing it with my fave lipstick (also featured below).

 003// 17's Supreme Shine Lipstick in 'Rich'  Okay so my favourite shade of lipstick this winter by far! I hate to say it, but it is most definitely rich in colour. It stays really well, will take you from morning til night with only 1 re-application. Couldn't recommend it more, would just suggest lip-balming your face up prior to using it as it can dry out your lips a little in the cold weather!

   004// Cream Sleeveless Lace Top with Beaded Collar. My bargain from River Island, only size 14-18 left on the rail. River Island sizing team must have made a booboo because I'm a petite 8 and this fits like a glove. So happy with it!

005// New Look Blazer in 'Oxblood'. Matches my new hat & my fave lippy. Possibly overworking the oxblood trend a bit now!

006// Forever21 Polka Dot Sleeveless Shirt or as I like to call it, my 1950's housewife top. The chap's gonna love the 'get back in the kitchen' vibe this one has!

So these are a few of my favourite recent purchases. Sadly not all of them still available, but the lipstick shade you can buy instore, and the other stuff possibly aswell. I also bought a black, pleated midi skirt from Republic in the sale & a galaxy print midi dress (that I forgot to photograph), which I wore to the #companybloggersevent. So you can see pictures of that in my next post.. Oooh cliffhanger?
 Not really.

Fashion Illustration

So this is something I haven't really talked about on this blog yet, but as it's a massive interest of mine, I thought I'd put it out there & share some love for fashion illustration.

I studied fashion illustration whilst at college, and really loved it. I was studying art & have always loved fine art, but mixing the two genres of art & fashion was wonderful. I drew particular inspiration from David Downton, and read his book cover to cover. I produced copies, and started doing my own work drawing on use of simplicity and bold colour. Okay this is all getting a bit arty now, but basically, he's a lad & I really really liked his work.

I've come across a few illustration blogs recently, ones I love particularly being Malia at Deep Fried Freckles. Her illustrations are beautiful! And perhaps not quite so fashion related, but some amazing work nevertheless is Phillippa over at phillippalola. I particularly love her little owl design, so cute!

In the future I'd love to be able to create custom illustrations for bloggers and such, once I've got back in the swing of things. What do you think? Something you'd like to see more of? And send me some links of some lovely illustration blogs if you know of any (:

#And GOOD NEWS, my wonderful friend Lil (who I'll refer to constantly on this blog cos she's a babe), gave me her old iPhone! So soon I'll be on Instagram, don't know how I've lasted this long without it!!

Beauty: Max Factor Freeebies

My make-up always seems to run out at once, resulting in a few days of surviving almost solely on testers, before I can get to Boots. Does this just happen to me, or is this something all girls find? So I got all excited in Boots and took advantage of Max Factor's promotion, of a free gift if you spend over £15. So my essentials were: 

Maybelline Great Lash mascara (I swear by it) 

Max Factor Facefinity 3in1 Foundation

 So it was my first time trying Max Factor's Facefinity Foundation, but I'd heard good things about it from Lil and some good reviews on Twitter. I previously went from Rimmel Foundation to Garnier BB Cream, both of which I hated (went from too thick a coverage, to far too thin). This thankfully, sits blissfully in the middle!

The foundation is amaaazing, I'm using 'no.45 Warm Almond'. This shade is perfect for me, slightly more of a yellow-y undertone than a pink one, which suits my skin way better than the 'Natural' tone I chose previously.

So I bought the mascara and foundation, but to get the promo I had to spend £15 on Max Factor, so I got a really nice nail polish, colour's called 'Graffiti' (but the photo wouldn't do it justice, so I'll post me wearing it another time). And woo I got this fab free gift, so worth it.

Included:

 Masterpiece Mascara (Black)

Mini Glossfinity Nail Polish (Angel Nails)

Colour Elixir Lipstick (Lilac Wine)

Earth Spirit's Eyeshadow (Terra Firma)

Yet to try these products, but I don't think I can go far wrong with them. And being free, they're already on a winner.

Have you tried any of these products?