PARTY ON

Wishing you a beautiful Christmas, lots of love and joy and all things that warm your heart♥

MASKED MEMORIES

A bit of a trip down memory lane - I was just flicking through posts on my old blog and thought I'd repost these... Just because I'm in a Phantom of the Opera mood today. Hope your holiday preparations are going well!

(Self portraits)

DEAR SANTA...

...I've been terribly good this year (make what you will of the oxymoron), and I have a little shopping list for you... which should come just under £1000, very reasonable if you ask me...

1. A deliciously impractical winter jacket (you can't close it), but oh it makes me purrrr. Find it here (Zara).
2. Pants for apprentice hypnotists. I wouldn't mind her legs either. Find them here (Zara)
3. The finest of the fine Gabriela Artigas ring. Find it here.
4. Beautifully unrefined Jacqui Aiche ring. Find it here.
5. Mmmm metallic gem. Dara Ettinger ring, find it here.
6. Zara clutch. Looks a lot more swish in real life, trust me. Find it here.
7. Baroque romance + not-so-hardcore faux leather = love at first sight. Find it here (Zara)
8. Perfect for when you feel like blending in with 16th century Italian architecture. Find the dress here.
9. You know what, I'm still not over the Jeffrey Campbell Lita. And now you can look like you're floating in mid-air with them - what more could one want? Find them here.
10. For muting the snow-glow. And looking more important than you really are. Find the Nasty Gal shades here.
11. Meow. Find it here (Topshop).
12. Because I'm just that hardcore. But mostly because my standard mid-sized handbag is coming apart. Find it here (Topshop)

What's on your Christmas wishlist?

BABY IT'S COLD OUT THERE

Photos by Jack

I confess, Christmas sentiments have hit me hard, and the gold jumper and festive nails are out. I think it's because of the hyper-chill that's attacked my little FrenchVille - it gets so cold these days it's basically unnatural. All the more so when the thickest over-garment I seem to have brought to France with me is this vintage blazer-esque thing whose buttons are purely decorative. It's also about 4 sizes too big, so I have to roll up the sleeves to avoid being mistaken for a scarecrow. All in all not a great combination for when the thermometer starts hitting the zeroes.

Actually Jack is the true culprit in all this Christmasiness - he came to see me and remind me of every great (and/or notsogreat) Christmas song there ever was. On that note, I hope all your Christmas shopping is going well and you've sent your Christmas wishes to all your respective Santas - I'll probably be posting my list of desires on here and hoping that someone who loves me reads this blog=)

(vintage jacket; H&M shirt; Zara jumper, jeans and shoes; Topshop jewelry)

A LIFE ON THE ROAD

I know I promised a post on Bordeaux, but I've been travelling so much in the past few weeks that it just seems too specific at this point. The thing is, I love being on the move, meeting new people, seeing new places, but also revisiting the old. My parents sat me on my first flight alone when I was 5 years old. Not long after I decided I must become an air hostess - for how could I ever find happiness on the ground once I'd been amongst the clouds? All melodrama aside, the point is that I like travelling. To that end, the past two months have taken me from Poitiers to Bordeaux to Tours to Brussels to London to Cambridge to Manchester to Cromer and back again - not in that order and some of them repeatedly. The life of an Erasmus student, eh?

But this post was triggered by a conversation I had with someone about the possibility of the UK leaving the EU. "Why would I ever want to leave the UK anyway?" they asked. You have no idea how that makes my blood boil. By all means, be as Euro-sceptic as you like, but an argument that's based on a stubborn unwillingness to learn and discover is, to me, the absolute height of ignorance. And what's worse - it's an ignorance that's self-perpetuating because some minimal open-mindedness is needed for a person to change their mind.

Anyway, rant over. Let's avoid getting too political for a fashion//photography blog... Maybe it's best to ignore my complaints and just enjoy the photos=)

[photos: cathedral in Bordeaux, view from the Tour Pey-Berland in Bordeaux, flea market in Bordeaux, landing in London at sundown, Futuroscope in Poitiers, the new London King's Cross, Cromer pier]

Where have your travels taken you recently?

MEET NINA GOSSE

Parisian and fashion-obsessed, Nina Gosse is quite literally my French counterpart. She is also a law student and she has taken my place at Cambridge this year whilst I have taken hers in Poitiers. It's strange being replaced by someone who is actually similar to you - she's even ended up living on the same staircase of College halls as the people I'm closest to! Nina runs a website called Empreintes-Digitales (read more in the interview below) and participates in various fashion collaborations. She also happens to be gorgeous and agreed to model for me for the shoot below, more of which you can see HERE. I hope you enjoy the photos and the interview and be sure to check out Nina's website (especially if you speak French=P)!

Hi Nina, so to kick off, can you tell us a little about your website? What's the basic idea and how did it start?

I am Editor in Chief of a website called "Empreintes-Digitales", it is a French website but read by people from everywhere. The guys whom I now work with founded it a few years ago, initially to talk about music but it now extends to art, culture, fashion and so on. The basic idea is to share my discoveries and infatuations with a personal touch.

A lot of your entries are fashion based. Would you like to end up in the fashion industry? Why?

I'd love to because it is one of the areas I am most interested in. I don't see fashion as something totally superficial, on the contrary I think it is deeply anchored in our daily lives, it reveals both our personality and the spirit of a certain point in time. But I'm not sure about my future yet of course, there are so many paths one can take...

What's your biggest dream?

My biggest dream is to realise all my other dreams.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

Broadly speaking, I'm very inspired by people who are passionate and dedicate themselves to something they believe in, people who make things happen, those who never have enough. As far as fashion is concerned, I think it is difficult nowadays to name just one person because they are not unique enough... But I'm a fan of women with elegance like Romy Schneider, Catherine Deneuve, Audrey Hepburn, Julianne Moore, Eva Green and so on. I think that's the most important thing to looking beautiful, even in an old jumper.

Who is your favourite designer?

My favourite designer is Chloé, I recognise myself in everything they do. But I also admire Balmain, Chanel, etc. I also love small brands like Eple & Melk whom I modeled for, I love clothes with the Nordic spirit.

What is your most prized possession?

I guess it's my YSL Downtown bag (grey croc), and my Cartier Trinity ring that I got for my 18th birthday.

If you were an animal, what would it be?

I'm not very keen on animals... Maybe a bird so I could fly. I find French bulldogs very cute, but they're too much work.

And finally, what's your favourite quote / saying / moto?

"Be true to yourself"

Thank you, Nina, for being an incredible model and for this interview!

Check out the rest of the shoot

Check out Nina's website

'TEA' IS FOR THE TELEGRAPH

In my continuing search for what on Earth I want to do with the rest of my life, I spent this past week interning at the Sunday Telegraph (UK newspaper). I worked and sat in on an eclectic array of tasks - highlights included interviewing a high-flyer in the arts world, editing the Queen's obituary (no, she's not dead) and even getting to write a short article that has been published in last Sunday's paper. I quickly found out that tea is the primary fuel of every Telegraph journalist and I am now certain that as long as the newspaper lives, Twinings will never go out of business.

I whizzed up the 111 Buckingham Road escalators on Monday morning not really knowing what to expect. I've done a million and one law internships / work experience weeks, but now, for the first time, I am seriously considering abandoning the securely paved path of a future solicitor for something closer to my heart. The truth is, I'd be perfectly happy working at some City firm negotiating contracts and making a ton of cash, buying a new pair of Jimmy Choos every week... But there's this annoying twitchy creative part of me that just won't give me a break.

And so I found myself at the Telegraph. I started off in the Life section, through to the design section, through to the fashion section of Stella magazine, through to news... So I basically stalked / annoyed / questioned every possible person working at the paper. It's so much easier with open-plan offices. Sometimes it even means you can stalk / annoy / question multiple people at the same time. Perfection.