RIVER ISLAND SALE

The River Island sale started exclusively online today; River Island isn't usually my first port of call when it comes to a shopping spree, but recently it's really impressed me and had some gorgeous things in! Here are a few of my favourite sale items, I'm hoping the sale comes in store next week!

1. I seem to have become slightly obbsessed with beachy kaftans, and this Chelsea Girl fringe top would be perfect to put on over a bikini or with shorts on holiday! £12.

2. Although with a hint of sun I seem to have forgotten what a jumper looks like and moved on to bikinis, sandals and dresses, I can't help but adore this jumper! I love the pattern, plus it's not too thick so it wouldn't be too warm to wear throughout spring! £15.

3. I have loved this cheetah print top for months, and now it's a bargain! £7.

4. This geometric print top has 'holiday' written all over it! With plain denim shorts and sandals, the pattern is enough in itself. A bargain for £10.

5. This polda dot crop top is so cute! What's better is it has a bow detail back to make it even more adorable. £10.

6. I'm not keen on the dollar sign earrings but I love the cassette tape and trainer earrings. So cool! £3.

7. This dress is gorgeous, and a total bargain for £15.

8. Again, I like this as a beach kaftan, I love the contrasting zebra/floral patterns and how they make the dress really unique and edgy. £15.

9. I think this dress is my faourite sale item! It will look amazing in the summer with brown sandals and flower headbands for the ultimate boho-chic look. This also has criss-cross back detail. £20.

WARDROBE ESSENTIALS:

It's seeming Spring is upon us, and all the hype about the sunshine recently has left me craving a new summer wardrobe! Here are a few of the summery pieces I have my eye on at the moment...

1. I'm going on holiday in July, so of course in March my outfits are already being planned. I really want this dress to travel in, it looks glam and on trend while at the same time being comfortable enough to wear to sit on a plane for 4 hours! Miss Selfridge - £39

2. Although these sandals are really simple, I just love them! I adore tan and brown, usually more so than black and silver accesories, so I think they would go with everything in my wardrobe, from cute summers dresses, to shorts or even jeans. Topshop - £45

3. How nice is this scarf print bomber jacket?! I've been in store and tried it on multiple times, hoping that one of the shop assistants will pity me and just let me take it home. A must have teamed with leather leggings and cats eyes sunglasses. River Island - £35.

4. I really like the tie-dye print on this River Island kaftan, I first intended to buy it to wear as a daytime dress to throw on over a bikini on holiday, but I thought £60 was maybe a little too expensive for a dress which would only get ruined with sun tan lotion and chlorine! It would also look nice worn as an evening dress either with bare legs (depending how long it is) or with leggings.

5. I love the colours on these shorts and I think they could be really dressed up with a pastel top and heels, and for only £14.99 at H&M, they're a bargain!

AMY WINEHOUSE FOR FRED PERRY

Fred Perry have launched Amy's final collection, described as '50's Americana' in support of The Amy Winehouse Foundation for SS12. There is a continuous pattern throughout many of the items featuring juke boxes, music notes and cats eyes sunglasses against a pallette of baby pink, baby blue and black. Adorable!

 My favourite two pieces are:

High Waisted Turn-Up Shorts in Pink Mist - £90

Tie-Up Printed Shirt - £95

FASHION AND BRAND PROMOTION

For a recent fashion brief, we were asked to 'appropriate' four iconic images of our choice. These were two of my favourites from our final images, both of which were originally images of men but we changed them both to a female model to put our own spin on the shot.

Appropriated from the famous 'David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust' image.

This is my favourite image, appropriated from the iconic 'Charlie Chaplin' shot. We had loads of fun on this shoot using a female model to put an androgynous twist on the original image.

Bridget Bardot

My absolute idol.

WARDROBE ESSENTIALS:

I have been wanting needing some creepers for months and months now, but haven't bought any because sadly I've had no money! I adore their versatility as they can be worn with jeans and leggings for a chilled out, casual look, or alternatively they can be teamed with dresses, tights and blazers for a more dressy look and the platform gives that extra bit of height which instantly glams up an outfit. These ones are my absolute favourites; for anyone that knows me, they will know I still adore leopard print, I don't think I'll ever move on from the leopard trend and I love that these use hair to add texture to the shoe and make them different from the bog standard plain coloured ones.

I have been lusting over them for ages!

They are £107 from here.

Treat yourself! Otherwise, feel free to treat me!

BERLIN

I recently went to Berlin for five nights on a trip with my uni course. The trip was originally for third years but due to not many of them being interested, it was opened up to everyone and I snapped up the opportunity to go.

As the trip wasn't originally planned to be for us, there was no set 'work' to do and we could more or less do what we wanted while we were over there so we only ended up meeting with the lecturers a couple of time in between sticking to our own itinerary. We explored the city using the train service which I was really proud of us for, bearing in mind I would usually struggle to navigate myself around some cities in England, not to mention the added struggle of the language barrier, but we managed fine. We visited loads of cool districts and did a bit of sightseeing including visiting The Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag (German Parliament buildings,) the Berlin Wall memorial site, aswell as a lot of shopping, overindulging in lovely restaurants and a few very drunken nights too!

The Berlin Wall (East Side Gallery)

Berlin is a really cool city, it has a very urban vibe which is predominantly down to the huge amount of graffiti which is absolutely everywhere! It's hard not to notice it as soon as you get there; walls, buildings, windows and even some cars were covered in graffiti, which has the potential to look scruffy, but is pulled off in Berlin to look really artistic and chic.

 I thought the city was realy inspiring, especially for people intrested in fashion like myself, artists, designers etc.

We went to the Alexa shopping centre which is home to some well known shops such as H&M and Zara. These stores had pretty much the same stock as what is in the English stores but on a larger basis, we saw at least eight different H&M's while we were over there! Also, due to the exchange rate at the moment, things are slightly cheaper in these stores than in England which is a bonus! We also visited Galaries Lafayette which is a very high end department store (much too expensive for us students) but nevertheless we moped around Mulberry, Dior and Vivienne Westwood hoping that someone would take pity on us. Although it's just a standard department store in terms of what it sells, the store has been designed in a really cool sort of cone shape with glass windows so customers can see other customers on other floors. It's definitely worth a visit.

We also found some really amazing vintage shops whilst over there. One was called Made in Berlin, and was in Hackescher Markt; it sold everything from cute handmade canvas bags to leather jackets and vintage sequin dresses. It had two floors and sold both male and female clothes. We stumbled upon this while in a rush trying to find the Reichstag one evening and so had to go back the next day for a better look around!

Another great vintage shop we found was called Colours. Someone else on the trip told us about it and we spent about an hour trecking around the streets looking for it until we finally came across it! Colours is huge and has a large section at the back where you can fill a basket and pay by kilo, so you can really grab some bargains! However, after our long walk to find the shop, we were far from in the mood to rummage through the rails and gave up after about 20 minutes! It's a really good vintage shop, but at least two hours and a large amount of patience is needed to trawl through all the rails!

All in all, although Berlin and the people there weren't as 'fashion forward' as we were promised before the trip, it's still a really inspiring place to visit and I would definitely go back.

 Here are some more of my favourite snaps from the trip:

Dancing with the locals!

On top of the Reichstag!

GET TO KNOW ME

Name: Francesca Lascelles

Age: 18

Occupation: Student

Hometown: Stoke on Trent

Living: Preston

University: University of Central Lancashire

Course: (Comb Hons) Fashion and Brand Promotion and Journalism

1. What is your idea of happiness?

Love, health, feeling safe, new clothes and eating chocolate.

2. What is your idea of misery?

Loneliness and Topshop telling me an item is 'out of stock'

3.What are your favourite qualities in a man?

Honesty, a good sense of humour, thoughtfulness and gentlemanliness (if that's a word)

4. What are your favourite qualities in a woman?

Independence, class, genuinity

5. What is your favourite motto?

Dream Big. And although simple, I really believe in 'everything happens for a reason'

6. Are you named after anyone?

I'm not named after a person, but I believe my cousin had a doll named 'Francesca Jay' around the time I was born, so my parents changed the idea to Francesca Kay!

7. When was the last time you cried?

Last night watching 'The Vow,' so cute but sooo sad! (I'm such a girl)

8. If you were another person, would you be a friend of yourself?

I'd like to think so!

9. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Definitely not.

10. Will you ever bungee jump?

I hope so, it would be amazing!

11.What's the first thing you notice about people?

Admittedly, probably their clothes, then teeth! I always notice teeth!

12. Summer or winter?

Definitely summer! I love the whole holidays, ice lollies, going for walks, sunglasses and sandals thing. I don't mind cosy winter nights and I love Christmas but other than that, summer all the way!

13. What's the furthest you've been away from home?

New York City!

14. Where were you born?

Stoke on Trent in England

15. Would you rather have messy hair or no make up?

Messy hair! My hair's always messy anyway. Flat, straight, perfectly groomed hair just doesn't seem to suit me, I like the big, volumous "messy" look.

16. Movies and dinner or a night on the town?

It depends who with, obviously a movie and dinner is lovely with a boyfriend but I do love a girls' night out!

17. What's the most you've spent on a piece of make up?

Not that much, probably around £25 on Mac foundation. I adore Mac, but I couldn't justify spending any more than that on a piece of make up. After all, I am a student!

18. Are you a flats or heels girl?

As much as I'd love to say heels, it would be a lie. I do love getting glammed up but heels are 'just painful and slow us girls down on a night out. I wear them only for 'looking good' reasons. Wedges and flats all the way!

19. What's the one thing you would change about yourself?

To stop being so critical of myself and to believe in myself more.

20. Describe your dress sense.

My dress sense literally changes every day, some days I might feel the vintage look and wear buttoned up blouses teamed with maxi skirts and cute vintage accessories. Some days I sport the rock chick look and I love leather jackets, ripped jeans and studs and then of course when I'm going out I love to glam up in dresses, pencil skirts etc. It totally depends on my mood, the weather, what I'm going to be doing that day etc. I generally tend to steer clear of plain black/grey/dull coloured items though.

FIRST POST

I first set up this blog quite a while ago as since starting university I realised that a blog would be very beneficial for me. I figured that a blog would be the perfect place to collect all of my inspiration and ideas about fashion, beauty, celebrities and photography so that future employers can see my strong interest within these areas, which will hopefully give me an advantage, aswell as the fact that I enjoy writing and want to share my enthusiasm!

I love looking through other people's fashion blogs but for a few months I've struggled to find the time to make a start on my own, partly because I didn't quite know where to begin, but also because I've been busy with uni work. However, since attending a Manchester Fashion Network event with Fiona McIntosh, the founding editor of Grazia magazine and ex editor of Company and Elle UK, I've been left feeling hugely inspired and have decided to get a move on with my own blog! 

The event was really interesting, there was a nice mix of people from industry professionals to students (like me) and Fiona gave a small talk about her background, her career highlights (which founding Grazia was obviously the top of) and her current work. The audience was then able to ask Fiona any questions they had, and she was really friendly and happy to give out advice to those that wanted to follow in her footsteps (which was probably the majority of us.) She explained that she had a background in journalism before her big break which was her first editorship at Company magazine, and with the fashion/media industry being as competitive as it is, I thought that a blog was the next best thing to industry work experience, which at the moment I have none of!