Weekend Away

I haven't had a lot of time to relax this summer. I seem to have unintentionally taken up most of my days with work so this weekend is a much welcomed break. My Mum is coming to visit from Spain so in a whirlwind of a weekend we have lots of family visits to squeeze in and a very special 50th wedding anniversary celebration to go to on Saturday. I can't wait. A weekend full of food, cuddles and catch up - what could be more perfect?

It took me a little while to decide what to pack (Jeans or skirt? Cardigan or jacket? Both?), especially since the weather has been so unpredictable. Essentially it's only three days worth of outfits which I need and I've tried to stick to that. I don't want to have to deal with the last minute panic of what to wear each morning - one option = no fuss. So below is an image of the six pieces which I'll be taking with me to form three outfits. That's right, six.

Clockwise from top: Monochrome geometric print dress, blue and cream striped satin top, both from Blanco. Black blazer from Stradivarius, Coach grey Merino wool cardigan, white slim cut jeans from Pimkie, light pink cotton t-shirt from Pepe Jeans.

Not forgetting footwear, I'm taking three pairs. Cream pom pom wedges, black patent heels (as another option to the dress as well as the wedges) and black patent flats.

Heels - Aldo, wedges - Zara, flats - New Look

Jewellery wise I'm taking my Burberry leather wrap bracelet and Tiffany key necklace for casual and Swarovski earrings for the anniversary.

Have a great weekend!

Chunky Heels

Jumper - TK Maxx, shorts - a piece from my final collection, heels - New Look, bracelets - Swarovski

I bought a new pair of heels yesterday. Apart from being more comfortable than my usual choice, I'd like to think they are on trend and will pretty much go with anything.







Maria

Salt Magazine

For one of our assignments this year, we have to write an analysis on a magazine that we don't usually read or know much about.

We met our Media Analysis tutor at RD Franks just off Oxford St. It's a specialist magazine shop with lots of fashion magazines that I'd never heard of or seen before. (They also had Spanish Hola! which I got super excited about!)

I chose Salt magazine. It's a new publication by Swarovski and is, in the most part, one big advertising campaign. It's mainly made up of the different Swarovski collections, celebrities wearing Swarovski, events sponsored by Swarovski, Swarovski ad pages...well you get the idea but there is a good photography spread by renowned photographer Guy Aroch and a geological article about the largest crystal mine in the world. It also has some interesting collaborations with designers like Phillip Lim, Georgio Armani and Valentino redesigning the LBD and incorporating, you guessed it, Swarovski crystals. I think it's safe to say that Swarovski really have exhausted their contacts with this launch.





















I am yet to read it all but I'll keep you posted with the analysis.

We have another assignment for next Friday and we decided to (try to) kill two birds with one stone (we failed miserably) while we were in the area. In our groups we were assigned a particular area of the world (we had northern Europe) and we had to find 5 magazines from that area. The idea is to make a reader profile from each of them and present it next Friday. Sadly, we weren't able to find any magazines from those countries. Despite looking all over London, RD Franks, WH Smith in Selfridges, numerous newsagents around Marylebone high street and Covent garden, we found nothing. Aparently they don't sell northern European publications in London. We were exhausted after 4 hours of searching and down-hearted that we hadn't found anything so decided to call it a day. Needless to say our search goes on.

The day wasn't a total loss though, we did see some interesting things along the way. We stopped a guy in the street who was extremely well dressed to take his photo but by far the funniest was when we approached a man to ask directions and he stopped us mid-sentence and announced that he was crying because he'd just lost his job. Poor guy.

For more coverage on the day (and photos of the well-dressed man) click here and here for the other girls' blogs in my group.


Maria