Zoella wore this insect bugs print shirt in one of her fashion haul videos. I was thinking, Where did you get your shirt?! When Zara launched their Summer sale, I jumped into the chance. It's probably my favourite shirt. I made a Polyvore set featuring this striped shirt (below), knew it would be expensive but on a whim I clicked on the link anyway just to see and realised it was actually on sale! I love me a good bargain. 

Insect shirt by Zara, on sale for £19.99 (RRP £29.99)

Striped Boston shirt by Tommy Hilfiger at House of Fraser, on sale for £29.75 (RRP £85)

I really like this blouse; the delicate crochet embroidery is just so darling. Basically its my dream shirt! I think it was in June where the UK was getting a heatwave and I was in Mango searching around in the sale section looking specifically for t-shirts. I actually don't have many t-shirts to go out in for the summer weather. I saw this grey t-shirt and the slogan is in French and google translated it says, 'yes it's me.' It's really soft and wearable, I love it. 

Cream embroidered blouse by Miss Selfridge, 30% off for £24.50 (RPP £35)

Slogan t-shirt by Mango, on sale for £4.99 (RPP £9.99)

The Victoria and Albert Museum presents: Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty

The Alexander McQueen Exhibition ended on 2nd August 2015, so it feels like I'm a bit late to the party talking about this! But it was probably the best exhibition I've ever been to. 

My friend booked us tickets in advance for the 26th July 2015 to go, as we realised that tickets were seriously selling like hot cakes! We wanted to go on a saturday but worried that we won't be guaranteed a ticket to see it. This exhibition celebrates the best of Alexander McQueen's work.

I was so surprised on how much more there was to see. When we entered the A Gothic Mind and the Romanticism Primitivism rooms, I assumed 'oh well this is all we're getting at this exhibition.' How wrong was I? There were so many rooms and I kept saying 'oh there's more!' I was getting excited. I don't have any words to describe how MAGNIFICENT this exhibition really was. I wanted to take photos of everything but usually V&A exhibitions are prohibited and get this, you're not allowed to even sketch. In the large dark room, it was the only opportunity where I could take some photos on my phone (quality wasn't good).

MY HIGHLIGHTS

This is the Romanticism Primitivism room, I call this the skull and bones room because the walls were entirely made of skull and bones! It was pretty cool and it kind of felt like I was entering a scene from Game of Thrones. As we entered, I could get a sense of the dark atmosphere of being under water and especially the music - it set the mood and tone of this collection perfectly well, but a little scary more so. 

How To: Overcome A Drawing Hiatus

I’ve had drawing hiatus for an extremely long time. Since I graduated, I lost my enthusiasm for drawing. My fashion degree had caused me hate everything (mostly to do with fashion design). I just didn’t find it in me to be creative anymore, which was quite sad. I burned out excessively.

I grew up with drawing and now feared that if I don’t become creative anymore, I’d lose it altogether. So at the start of 2015, I said to myself that I’m going to start drawing again. I even brought a moleskine. Heard of Cass Art London? Its the best art shop and I just love going in there for buying art materials. 

These are my personal ways of overcoming drawing hiatus:

Step 1: Pinterest is a great inspiration. I could procrastinate on that website for ages and ages because there just so much inspirational pictures to get inspired.

Step 2: You can never go wrong with drawing things you like, whether its buildings, portraits, objects or flowers. Record it in a sketchbook and make it your drawing diary. Currently in my moleskine, I began drawing typography, fine liner hair studies and most recently designing my own book covers, which are quite mediocre because let’s be honest, I don’t know much about layout design. 

I am actually not that great at drawing faces and I don’t look forward to drawing them but I try my best to draw them. When a see a really beautiful editorial, I have this need to draw it. Sometimes I think its not about how realistically you draw them, (unless you are really brilliant at drawing realistic things), but its also about how you interpreted it in your own way.

Step 3: Consider getting a Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith. They’re great for getting back into creativity and to basically get out of your comfort zone. If you’re a perfectionist, then this is the book for you. There are a lot of fun pages to do. I brought one last year and have not finished it yet (too busy) but I plan to finish it this year, hopefully. It is literally taking me forever. 

Step 4: If you’re like me and hate your current portfolio because its bad memories and you know that you can do so much better than what you did at college or university, consider creating a new portfolio of new projects.

I want my portfolio to look more illustrative and print/pattern designs, rather than Fashion Design based. At the moment, I am attempting to do a new project. The theme is Where The Wild Things Are, so I started looking into drawing things such as deers, antlers, wildflowers and pine trees etc. but its quite hard to get back into that mood because projects take longer than anticipated. I'm eager to get it done.

I upload on my Instagram. My artwork thus far: 

Zoella sketch. This was my first portrait in a long time. 

I Have A Shirt Obsession

Everyone's got a fashion item obsession.
I wanted to include this in my last post, but it seemed to make that post very long, so I've decided to separate it. My obsession with shirts began when I was using Polyvore and from that point on, plus using Tumblr and Pinterest, I was (still am) inspired by minimalism, clean cut, less is more understated style. My current favourite is the fox. When I saw it online, I didn't like it as much because it seemed oversize but saw it in store and tried it on, and I quite liked it. To be honest, I looked a bit like a cowgirl (lol). Shirts! Can't get enough of them.

 Star printed shirt by Bershka, on sale for £12.99 (RRP £15.99)

Latest Haul: Books, Topshop, Urban Outfitters and Sass & Bass etc.

You know when you've brought too many things when you feel the sense that your money has been flying out the window because you've spent on things that you perhaps didn't actually need... yup that's what happen to me. Uh Oh... and I thought I was stingy.

Harry Potter Box Set: The Complete Collection from Amazon, £74.75

I finally understood the hype of Harry Potter after I finished reading the series in 2013. I read the series as ebooks and enjoyed it so much that I needed to purchase hardcover copies. When you buy new books, you never know if they will be a good read or a bad read, so there's always that risk but I know I will want to read the Harry Potter series again at some point. Initially I only wanted the third book because its my favourite, but the new covers for Bloomsbury are stunning overall. I feel that the illustrations reveals spoilers but they are a beau! Time to pass on the magic.