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YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED…

May 26, 2014

So last week I received a cheeky little email inviting me to attend the Chrissie Pegg costume design work shop organised by St.Davids, and boy oh boy was I excited. After a long day at work both myself and Josie rushed into town in the pouring rain quite unsure of what to expect! 

It might help if I tell you a bit more about Chrissie Pegg herself before I go into details about the evening. Pegg is a lovely lady who had studied Fashion and Theatre design and has worked with some of the most respected people within the industry - Twiggy and Tom Jones just to name a few. After much experience in the industry and the opening of her own company Script to Screen, Pegg went on to win the BAFTA CYMRU award for her costume design in Sci-fi movie The Machine. This itself was the movie that the costume design workshop was focused on.



As soon as we reached the destination, we were greeted with a lovely gift bag and copious amounts of wine and nibbles. First impression - I could get used to this! As soon as we took a seat we were sipping on our wine and fiddling with our gift bags full of excitement trying to figure out what was inside of them when we got approached by Pegg herself. She was such a lovely down to earth woman and had a general chit chat with us to get us in the mood for the evening so we knew what to expect!



Promptly after, Pegg took to the centre of the room and talked us through a fabulous presentation that described the process of costume design. Let me just tell you, some of the stuff she was saying had me absolutely gob smacked. She had two weeks to create 100 costumes for this film and had a £40 budget per outfit. With just one assistant on hand, I cannot even begin the amount of stress that this would have caused Pegg. But she herself proclaimed that this was part of the fun, small budget films such as The Machine she argued gives her a challenge which she finds extremely entertaining! This rang many alarm bells in my head, I find it quite shocking how the costume/fashion budget of films seems to be so minimalistic, especially when it does deserve a lot of effort. Lets just hope and pray this will change in the future, and hopefully it will gain more recognition for how much effort is put into it!


This effort is recognisable in the outfit you can see above. It's quite weird looking, right? This was the costume for the main character Ava. This is a costume that represents a fleshy feeling and texture to it, and it was an extremely weird feeling to hold it as it got passed around the room. This itself was a challenge for Pegg to get hold of which I can fully understand. I mean come on, getting hold of a fleshy suit is never that easy! But after a lot of consideration she decided the best place to go was fetish websites. This had us all giggling, especially when she mentioned that it was her son who helped her find it! Poor boy ey! These are extremely expensive costumes though as you can imagine and an enormous struggle when theres only a £40 budget, but with Pegg's persuasion she managed to get this for free and it was made by the same people who worked with the likes of Lady Gaga! The character Ava was definitely my favourite character that Pegg had taken us through. My highlight would be Pegg mentioning how actress Caity Lotz was not keen on the padding up of her body when she was playing a human who to fit the brief needed to be curvy. She herself called the padding "tranny pants" which had grown on Lotz in the end and she had taken them back to LA when she fancied having curves on a night out! Maybe "tranny pants" might take over LA!


As the presentation went on, we began to find out more about Pegg as a person. She admitted that her house was taken over by the costume design, and how much it does take over your life when you start getting into it. All of this however just seems to be part of the fun, and she seems extremely committed to her job so I can understand the importance of dedicating so much of her time to it. She has always had a creative imagination, and believes that this has stemmed from her father reading her stories from a young age. The advice she gave was extremely helpful, don't give up and be passionate by grabbing onto every single opportunity that is given to you. I guess she is more than right here, whatever you want to do with your life, you never know who that person is in front of you so have a chat with them because they might just help you out! The one thing that stood out to me whilst I was listening was that she was very bold when she stated that you will always be learning. Wise words Pegg, wise words!


Once the presentation had finished, we decided it was time to network a tiny little bit. We had a lovely little chat with some fellow bloggers and then went on to chat a bit more to Pegg. She took us through some of the costumes as you can see from the movie and explained how crazy the process sometimes can be. For example, standing there with a cheese grater and burning some clothes sounds pretty wild!




Overall, Pegg is a very inspiring lady and I look forward to seeing more work that she has on the cards. The main lesson that I had learnt from this workshop is to begin to take more notice of the textiles and fashions on the big screen, and appreciate how much work on such a low budget is put into it!



ILLUSTRATED PEOPLE X PHOEBE LETTICE

Phoebe Lettice is a style queen in my eyes and her Instagram gives me style envy daily! So as soon as I found out she was collaborating with Illustrated People I was over the moon! For the past few days she's been Tweeting away with how many days, hours, minutes and seconds until we could feast our eyes on the collection. We were teased with sample seconds of the campaign film and constantly left wanting to see more. It was torture. But today is the day, Monday the 26th May 2014 at 00:00 the collection was released and so many people were excited that the website had even crashed!

If like myself you are a huge lover of the Japanese culture, then this collection is the one for you. She has been influenced heavily by the Harajuku style and this is more than evident through how kawaii the whole collection is. If I had to sum the collection up in two words only then I would have to say it is super cute. Here are my top picks!

                     

Head on over to the Illustrated People website to check out the collection and gorge out on some kawaii clothing!



L A Z Y G A L



Bank holidays are always fun, especially when it means getting a 3 day weekend off from work! I've been doing work experience in a PR&Marketing company, and it has been cool as fuck but being a student getting used to the office hours has been tough! So this weekend has been a saviour as I've been able to catch up on sleep, alcohol, socialising and plenty of food! Today I'm currently sat in the sunny garden of Chaiholics with Josie and a cardamom iced chai latte- it's not on the menu but I defo recommend you try it gaaahhh it is heaven!

Enough of my rambling now, this is meant to be an OOTD post so I'll ramble on about that instead! I'm wearing my Levi's which have become a staple component of my wardrobe ever since I found them for a lovely price tag of £7 from Oasis market in Birmingham. Everyone needs a pair of Levi's in their wardrobe, but I cannot justify the £25 that many people retail them at - I'm a bargain hunter so no way am I splashing that much cash when I know many of these places are exploiting my consumerist needs! I opted for a crop top today to make my look more suited to the sunshine, even though its black ffs but if you know me then you will know that I cannot resist the colour black! I was hoping my shirt would pop some colour into this OOTD, this was a cheeky little bargain from a charity shop on Albany road in Cardiff, it's so oversized and heavenly and the so is the price tag to this (£4 - I know so crazy!). Ever since I got my Dr.Martens I have lived in them, they are so comfy and just seem to go with everything. If you haven't got a pair in your life then you need them, I got mine from Motel Rocks with 20 percent NUS discount which all of us students love. Make up wise I opted for a very bold black lipstick from MAC, which I have been nervous about wearing ever since I got it. However, Friday night was the first time I plucked up the courage to try it out and surprisingly it grew on me and I have lived in it all weekend.

Hope you're all enjoying your bank holiday weekend, what are you all up to?! 


//Top: Topshop £8 // Shorts: Vintage Stall £7 // Dr Martens: Motel Rocks £50  //  MAC Lipstick: £15  // Shirt: £4 Charity Shop // 





B O H E M I A N M A D N E S S

May 16, 2014
sunshine


So today is the day that I have handed in my final assignment, and with no exams this time round I am more than pleased to say that I have finished my second year of uni! Luckily, the sun is shining which means playing around with clothes can get a bit more interesting over the next few days! Today however, I'm slumped in bed because everyone else is busy with exams/deadlines and I'm trying to catch up on sleep before I celebrate the end of second year tonight. Instead of sleeping though, I'm coming up with looks and todays is Bohemian Madness.

At 5'4 (ish) I've always feared the long skirt. It's something that I thought only the taller ladies could get away with, and it was only last week that I purchased my first one! I'm so glad that I did, I might be their number one fan now, especially when they come in loud vibrant prints. The one above fits this criteria, this one has a very Vanessa Hudgens bohemian vibe to it which I absolutely love. The colours are amazing to play around with, especially when it comes to clashing! 

This is where the clashing comes in, mixing with a purple shade of lipstick and peach nail varnish it all just sounds like a crazy horrific mix, right? But I think it really works with this look as it all works together to create an incredibly bold statement look, the crazier the better! When it comes to makeup on days where it is this hot, I tent to stay away from applying much of it and just have my sunglasses glued to my face instead. Well not literally glued, because that would be weird I guess, but sunglasses do have a lot of potential to make or break your outfit and the circular shape ones work so well here! The arm cuff is my favourite part of this outfit, I absolutely love them and feel they can add some very amazing final touches to a look.




What do you reckon, is there a space in your wardrobe for the long skirt this summer? 


HAIM APPRECIATION

May 13, 2014







This post is literally just style inspiration from the lovely Haim girls. I cannot fault anything about their style, they are superb and defo up there when it comes to my style icons. Loud prints, effortless cool and loads of black - these girls are living the dream! What dya reckon, are Haim up there? 





S T R I P E S & S U N S H I N E

May 11, 2014

So for the whole of last week I was trapped in the library cramming in two deadlines that were due last Friday. There was so much work to do that I was in the library for 24 hours straight, which was the biggest fucking nightmare ever. Never again! So this weekend I've treated myself to a lazy weekend to catch up on very much needed sleep, a few drinks, retail therapy and loads of grub! I don't even feel guilty, I think I have deserved it after the week from hell! 

Todays OOTD has been quite casual because plans were extremely last minute. The weather has been pretty hit and miss lately which I guess we can all agree on is annoying! All I want is silly amounts of sun please! But today I thought it would be a great chance to whack out my mom jeans and a striped cami top. These jeans are ridiculously comfortable and as soon as I spotted them for £4 in a charity shop yesterday I could not resist. This is quite a big step for a girl like me, I live in skinny jeans and feel so frumpy when I wear anything else! But these fit so well, it is safe to say that I'm in love! I thought popping on my chunky boots would dress up this outfit a little bit for lunch, and teamed them up with some white frilly socks so the frill could sneakily peak through the top. I'm a huge fan of frilly socks! The mini backpack is something that I had been trying to get my claws into for ages, they look super cute and perfect for day trips!

Jewellery wise I opted for a gold chunky chain, I fucking love this chain its brill and dresses up literally anything! I'm also wearing a golden cuff bracelet on the top of my arm with a few spikes on it to toughen the look up a bit and silly amounts of rings which is the norm for me! Red lipstick is something that I cannot and never will get enough of, and when MAC were offering 2 lipsticks for £20 the other day I knew it would be the biggest mistake if I didn't invest. MAC lipstick will always have a place in my heart, forever and ever I promise (I love you MAC)! To top it off and add a bit more colour (something I'm not great at usually doing) I popped a scarf on my head which was a bit of material that I got from a charity shop for £1. It is so beautiful and has so many colours to die for and perfect when my hair is being a pain in the arse! 

Hope deadlines aren't dragging you all down at the moment! Good luck guys!




//Top: H&M £3.99 // Jeans: Charity Shop £4 // Necklace: Topshop £8 //
Backpack: New Look £15// Headband: Charity Shop £1 // Watch: Urban Outfitters £25
//Lipstick: MAC £15 Sunglasses: Topshop £18// Boots: Topshop £45//



Sorry!

May 05, 2014
Sorry for the lack of posts the past few days, it has been very very hectic! With second year nearly over at Uni, I have 3 more deadlines and a proposal to write to be the fashion editor for the Uni magazine! Exciting, but so so scary! I feel bad for not updating because for the past few months this blog has been crazy and I've come across some lovely people. Don't be afraid to say hello though, I'm still checking emails but trying hard not to get sucked into the bloggersphere until May 16th (I'm a free lady then). I promise as soon as these deadlines are over I will be posting so much more. But anyway, here are a few mood boards I've come up with for a proposed photo shoot called Wanderlust. Opinions and feedback would be fabulous!




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