Polaroid Scarves

I’m a huge fan of Polaroid photo’s so instantly fell in love with these scarves which are a collaboration between Philippe Roucou and M. Cherie. The collection consists of a number of rectangular silk scarves with a variation of different Polaroid images on them:

 

These can be purchased from www.reborn.ws/shop/PhilippeRoucou

However, I did discover the rather hefty price tag when I was hinting at the bf that I would like one for Valentines day…they cost around £250.

 

Aspirations…

Each day I wake up and get ready for work, aspiring for more from my life. I know for a fact that I’m not currently where I want to be in relation to my future plans and my dreams but I somewhat hope that my life will pan out the way I want it to be…sooner rather than later. I’m currently an Online Merchandising Assistant but dream of working in high-end fashion, attending fashion shows around the world and dressing from head to toe in Chanel. I know this is every girl’s dream but I want it more than anything!

High-end fashion just has a certain unexplainable magic to it and my love lies especially with the 1940’s and vintage glamour. High Street fashion today tends to lie with a uniform of leggings and ugg boots and just totally lacks the femininity of a structured dress, the elegance of a beautiful pair of heels and the overall etiquette of the past decades, but all of this still lives on with high-end designer pieces.

There is no better feeling than purchasing designer clothes, some may even says it is an addiction…the smile which appears upon your face when trying it on, the rush you get when it is being wrapped up in beautiful paper and put into a gorgeous carrier bag and the love you feel towards it during every single wear. Don’t get me wrong, I love high street clothes and 99.9% of my wardrobe is pretty much Topshop and Urban Outfitters, but the purchasing of a Topshop dress or an Urban Outfitters cardi will ever match up to the feeling of buying a designer item. So far my two big purchases are a pair of Chanel ballet flats and a Burberry Prorsum Trench Coat and I need moreee!

The aspirations of working at Vogue seem a very distant dream…but dreams sometimes do come true, right?

These are a selction of images which are the inspiration for my high aspirations…

 

Pretty much every photograph from Jak & Jil Blog and The Sartoralist is a huge inspiration for me to do well in my life to be honest!

Matthew Albanese – Strange New Worlds

I came across Matthew Albanese’s work today whilst on the Behance website and at first thought his photographs were pretty cool…only then to read further about his work and realise they aren’t actually photographs of nature and landscapes, but models which he has created and photographed. They really are amazing! Albanese constructs small-scale meticulously detailed models using a variety of objects such as paprika, wool, nylon and faux fur to create emotive and truly realistic landscapes Each aspect of his work is painstakingly pre-planned so that it looks realistic for the viewer when photographed. His work is truly inspiring and the time and effort he has taken in construsting these models has seriously paid off when you see the final photographs!

Images:

(Tornado made of steel wool, cotton, ground parsley and moss)

(Fields, After the Storm. This model is simply made out of faux fur(fields), cotton (clouds) and sifted tile grout(mountains). The perspective is forced as in all of my images, and the lighting effect was created by simply shifting the white balance.)

(Volcano, “Breaking Point”, made out of tile grout, cotton, phosphorous ink. this model volcano was illuminated from within by 6-60 watt light bulbs)

(Burning Room, Made of wood, nylon, plexiglass, purchased dollhouse furniture. The model was actually set on fire to achieve this effect.)

Process:

To see more work from Matthew Albanese visit:

www.behance.net/Gallery/Strange-Worlds/366923

Unpackaged

Unpackaged is a grocery store in London which began its life as a market stall in 2006. The stores unique selling point is not only that it just stocks organic food, it also has no packaging whatsoever and encourages other retailers to do the same. In our current environmental climate there are ridiculous amounts of packaging going into landfill sites all over the world and it is only consumers and retailers who can put a stop to this. The Unpackaged shop has a cool, clean design and sells a huge choice of organic products including whole foods, dried fruit, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, fruit, veg and what-not, as well as refillable oils, vinegar and wines. The store also encourages you to bring in your own containers which will save you 50p each time you shop!

 

This is definitely the route more grocery shops should go down! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of packaging (more in the sense of creativity and artwork than practicality), but who seriously needs a vacuum packed cabbage, or plastic packaging for a carrot…they come from the dirt so why not sell them that way. And you have to admit, how much nicer do vegetables look in the way which this store displays them!

Check out more images and info here: www.multistorey.net/pf_unpackaged.html

 

Grant Thomas

Grant Thomas is a 17 year old freelance photographer from London whose work I stumbled across via a friend on Facebook. He specializes in Beauty & Fashion photography and his work is pretty amazing, especially for someone of his age! Check him out at – www.grant-thomas.daportfolio.com

Bargain of the day!

As pretty much per usual I went into Manchester City Centre shopping yesterday, at the moment I’m totally skint…with still over a week to go until payday! So I tried not to go into too many shops as it was highly likely I would see loads of things I wanted, however, I ventured into Afflecks Palace and managed to purchase myself a bit of a bargain. On the third floor there is a vintage shop called Lost Property which currently has 50% off on all its items, so it really is worth a visit!!

I purchased this rather cool purple and black blazer for the bargain price of £7.50!

 

 

 

If fashion wasn’t calling…

If my heart wasn’t set on doing something…anything… fashion related with my life I think i would have definitely gone down the interior design route! I don’t know if I would have been great at it, but it is something I love. It started when I decorated my room at my parents house around the age of 16 (by decorated I mean decided upon the wallpaper, paint and what not) and since then it has been a little passion of mine. As I am currently living in a rented apartment the furthest I can go in relation to interior design is a the odd accessory here and there, and a few canvas’ on the walls which shouldn’t really be there. The fact that I am unable to actually do anything is making me want to buy my own place more and more…which seriously won’t be happening for a few years unless I miraculously win the lottery or start earning a hell of a lot more money, but I can always dream!

I already have the whole of my house/apartment planned out in my head in relation to decoration and furniture…a little sad I know! My dream theme is ‘Parisian/Shabby Chic’ consisting mainly of antique furnature, old fireplaces, a pastel colour palette with bold highlights and baroque detailing. All a lot easier to describe in the form imagery, so for my own pleasure I made myself a few mood boards…also a little sad, but it shall save me time in the future I suppose. So, this is my dream home interior…now all I need is some cash, some decorating skills and a house, not too much to ask for is it?!

 

 

Wallpaper Dumpsters

I am a huge fan of guerrilla gardening, or any form of art which makes communities and discarded or ‘ugly’ structures look beautiful, so this project immediately caught my attention. Wallpaper dumpsters are the brainchild of artist Christine Finley who believes the decorative dumpsters are ‘polite graffiti’, which I think is a great way of summing up her work. They are starting to appear in a number of places, such as New York, Los Angeles and Rome and Finley is aiming to wallpaper dumpsters and rubbish receptacles in various cities throughout Europe in 2010. You can’t deny that these made-over dumpsters look a heck of a lot nicer than the plain, rusty dumpsters and rubbish bins on our streets. Christine Finley talks about the aims of the project saying -  ’Wallpapered Dumpsters transform environmental activism into unexpected beauty. I like to think of these interventions as polite graffiti. This project is an inquiry into urban waste, free art, and notions of femininity, beauty and domesticity’.

L Filipe dos Santos

L Filipe dos Santos was born in Portugal in 1978 and began drawing at the age of 16 as an escape from living in a rural environment (this is all I have managed to find out about him so far). I discovered these sketches by him on Behance and thought they were pretty cool, he put paint in between two pages in a notebook and then closes the book to create an array of different paint shapes, which he then uses as inspiration for his sketches.

 

 

Dresses, Dresses and a Jumpsuit…

With the New Year here it’s always an excuse for new clothes, but then again…anything is an excuse for new clothes! As with many other girls my weakness is dresses, dresses and more dresses! So a new year brings a further need to add more dresses to the wardrobe…once payday arrives that is. I already have my eye on a few dresses and a super cool jumpsuit which neeeed to be purchased! Gawd I wish money grew on trees!

Here is my little collage of a few of my fave’s: