Christmas Gift Ideas.

So Christmas is almost upon us. The cold, frosty weather has set in, and the mad rush for Christmas shopping has arrived. I can't wait to go home and spend the run up to Christmas with my family. Here's a few ideas to help you along with the shopping. You could buy me any of these things for Christmas. I seriously love them all.

1. Ted Baker Makeup Brushes- £20.00 Boots
These are adorable. They come in their own little wrap, which is especially handy for me as I fly home when not at uni, and my makeup brushes tend to suffer. the set includes, Powder Brush, Eyebrow brush, Eye shadow brush, sponge applicator and lip brush. Such good value, and its on boots 3 for 2 offer.

2. Leather panel leggings - £25.99 Zara
These are a lot thicker than leggings and they're acceptable as trousers I think! My sister has a pair from Mango that I love, but we can't get the same ones, so I'll go with these instead.

3. Book Clutch - $325 Kate Spade
This is so nice! Pity about the excessive price tag though. I love a bit of Shakespeare and turning the books into colourful clutches is a genius idea. There are some cheaper alternative ones on the internet though.

4. Stone Ring - £14 Love Hearts and Crosses
I love chunky rings, in fact I have a whole bowl of them on my windowsill. They just transform outfits and make them a bit classier I think. This one is such an unusual style, and the mint green colour is lovely.

5.Miss Dior Perfume - £42 Debenhams
I love this perfume. It smells nice and the bottle is so cute!

6. The Sartorialist book -£13 Amazon
My favourite blog is now in book form! I love books that just look pretty when they aren't being read. Coffee table books and Fashion related books usually.

Vintage spots

Top-River Island//Skirt-Vintage//Shoes-Dune at Debenhams//Necklace-Argento

This is me in what my flatmate Chloe called "Typical Niamh Pose!" I wore this to uni yesterday, and it was not a good decision, it is very windy, and I spent most of the walk home holding my skirt down and my hair out of my eyes. Damn North-East Weather.

I've had this top for ages now, and I think this is the second time I've worn it. Slightly ashamed of that, but I rediscovered it a few days ago, and I decided I would either wear it or eBay it! The skirt is from Rokit on Brick Lane, and the necklace was a gift from my friend. 

My dip dye is really starting to wear out now, and I'm still in two minds of wheter I should redo it or not? I love it, but it has really dried out the ends of my hair, I'll more than likely end up caving in and getting it done again though.

OOTD: Nude Stripes

Top-Internacionale//Skirt-H&M//Bag-Primark//Shoes-Topshop

I wore this out on Monday night for a friends Birthday. I saw the skirt in H&M and I had to have it, and it was a bargain so I could just about afford to! The top is last season, and I got it for my birthday, but they just matched so well, that I didn't know what else to match the skirt with.

At the moment, life is just one long assignment. its the only thing I seem to do these days. I am counting down the days until Christmas as well, by the time it comes round I won't have been home in four months, and I've never been away from home that length yet. I'm very excited!

Style inspiration: Angela Scanlon

I'm one of those people who could quite happily spend their life sitting on Google  with a cup of tea looking at pictures of people who inspire me. Angela Scanlon is a big inspiration to me style-wise, and i'll admit I had never heard of her until very recently, but now I'm a little (Not creepily) obsessed with her. I just love how laid back her style is, and how she manages to look so effortlessly put together all the time. I hate wearing jeans, because I always feel I look scruffy, but she manages to look so dressed up while wearing them, I am jealous!

I also love how much her personality seems to shine through in pictures and in her blog posts, she seems exactly like the kind of girl I'd love to be friends with, (and shes Irish so that makes her amazing obviously!)

I've spent the last three hours watching her on old Xposé videos. (I need to get back to Ireland to watch that  again soon!) and now I'm massively coveting her hair colour! Can I just be her?

All images sourced from google.

Galaxy Print

Dress- Missguided

Necklace- New Look

So this week was Reading week, and instead of going home I decided to head to Glasgow for a few days to visit my friend as she has just started uni there. This is what I wore when we went out last night. I wasn't going to post an outfit pic, but quite a few people were asking me where the dress was from so  I thought I'd put it on here with a link.

I got this at freshers week this year, so I didn't think it would still be there but it is, also, I borrowed the necklace from my friend, but now I really want one! 

My interview with Katrina Doran

Katrina Doran says herself that she has Fashion in her blood: “I’ve always wanted a career in it, and my uncle owned a factory in the 60’s and 70’s that made Burberry’s iconic trench coats,” she tells, “My mum and aunts all worked there on the elite sewing team.” This set her up nicely towards her future successful career as a stylist, and creative director of sugahfix.com. 

Sugahfix is a Northern Ireland based fashion and beauty website, single-handedly set up by Katrina. It was set up in order to address the gap in the market that she thought was so glaringly obvious: “I love fashion magazines, but up until a few years ago, many brands featured in the major magazines were very London-centric and not available in Northern Ireland. Some of the local magazines buying in their fashion shoots from London so they were still featuring designers and brands that were only available in the mainland.”  

For someone that loves fashion it was understandably frustrating that there were no fashion magazines exclusive to Northern Ireland, but there were other reasons for this: “I always worked in fashion and beauty marketing, and trying to target women here is very difficult unless you have a budget for TV advertising.” 

Katrina’s career path to fashion didn’t start out by her studying fashion, so she had quite a roundabout way into the industry. She chose to study Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast: “I absolutely loved it. But I never stopped ‘studying’ fashion as I lived on toast for a week as I’d spent my weeks budget on Vogue and Elle, But it was money well spent!” 

Although she never officially studied fashion, the ambition has always been there, she grew up surrounded by those strong family influences, and her mother passed her sewing skills on to her from a young age: “I used to draw a sketch of what I wanted and then we’d go and pick the fabric and make the clothes together. I was sewing since I was allowed a needle and thread.” But the designing of clothes wasn’t the career that spoke to her the most: “I was given my first copy of vogue when I was 10 and although I had no idea then what a stylist was or that I could be a fashion writer, I knew I wanted to be that person that came up with the ideas for the photoshoots.” and so Sugahfix was born. 

While Katrina is confident, she is definitely not a typical representation of a woman working in fashion. She set up FABB, a network for Northern Ireland based fashion bloggers, so that they could help each other out and attend events together, but mainly so that she could make friends with people who were doing the same thing as she was: “I was thrilled to find other fashion and beauty bloggers in Northern Ireland as it can be quite a lonely business, especially working from home. I think it started out with 10 or 12 at the time and thought there might be 20 altogether, but now there are 32 members, it’s amazing!”  

This desire to make connections and friends within the industry makes her stand out from the usual industry professionals. She has become a well-respected figure in the local fashion industry and gets invited to all the major events. But she constantly tries to help new faces in fashion.  

So although she has already worked up to big things, Katrina has recently started to expand her website, and she recently started hiring new members of staff, so it seems the future can only get better for her.

Katrina’s Top tips for aspiring fashionistas. 

• I get contacted by girls who say they love fashion and would like to shadow me to see if they’d like to be a stylist, but No-one can teach you to be a stylist – it is everything you’ve absorbed over the years that informs how you put an outfit together or how you come up with a theme or concept for a photo shoot.  
• Everyone loves fashion – but enjoying going shopping or wearing fabulous clothes is not the same as really knowing fashion. 
• For fashion writers, the history of fashion is so important, as you need to be able to spot historical references in the current designer collections so you can write about them in an informed way.  
• To be able to describe a garment you need to understand the technical elements from the cut to the fabric. So make things – the reason I know what a raglan sleeve is or the difference between a gored skirt and a flared skirt is because I’ve made them! 
• You never stop learning in Fashion, every season there are new collections and new designers and you need to study the international catwalks so you can understand how things filter down to the high street.

Weekly Wishlist #5

This weeks wishlist is Christmas themed! Everyone loves a good Christmas jumper, so there's one out there for you no matter what your style is.

1. Fair Isle Jumper £30 ASOS
I like the colour palette in this jumper, and I love the fit of it as well.

2. Cable Knit Jumper £12.99 H&M
I already own this in the Coral shade, but it is so comfortable that I'm considering it in a different colour. My favourite is the Mint one.

3. Reindeer Jumper £20 Boohoo
This is the start of the novelty jumpers coming through, and I like the simplicity of this one. There's nothing worse than a red and green colour scheme on a Christmas Jumper!

4.Holly Jumper £50 Topshop
This is my absolute favourite on the list, but I really hate the price! Damn Topshop and their overly expensive pricing!

5. Fair Isle £36 H! by Henry Holland
Another Fair Isle one, but I really love that pattern, and this one is in a warmer colour scheme!

London Calling!

So as I mentioned previously, I spent the weekend in London, first attending a fashion Journalism workshop, but then meeting up with my sister who lives there and spending a few days with her.

Friday night consisted mainly of eating junk food, while watching the Help, which is SUCH a cute film, and getting an early night before our busy day on Saturday!

On Saturday we headed for the V&A museum, to see the costume exhibition that they have on at the moment. It is such an interesting exhibition, with many timeless and classic pieces as well as pieces from recent films, (Including Twilight which we found a bit strange) and each piece has quotes from the director, the designer or the actor who wore it. There are also video interviews with many of the designers and really good bits of information that I never realised. I unfortunately have no photos as the V&A don't allow photos, not good for bloggers! But I fully recommend the exhibit, and you still have plenty of time to go, it runs until the 27th January. Also Student tickets are only £9 and I think they are totally worth the money just to see Audrey Hepburn's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' dress up close.

Before heading to the exhibition we went for a little wander down the street, took a look at all the gorgeous houses in Kensington, and discovered the cutest bakery ever. It was decorated like a french Patisserie, and it had the most amazing hot chocolate I've ever had. It was better than Starbucks and if I lived in London I would need to have it everyday!

Enjoying the best hot chocolates ever!

After the exhibit we headed towards Harrods! and on the way passed my favourite shop ever which I had to resist even going into!

 

After a spot of shopping we went for dinner in Sloane square (We really really want to be posh London socialites!) and then we headed back towards Victoria to go and see a musical.

My sister works at St. James' theatre and at the moment there is a new musical playing called 'Daddy Long Legs,' which she hadn't seen yet, so we decided that we would go together. I loved it. It only has two cast members and it really is such a romantic story, I cannot recommend it enough. Afterwards we had a glass of wine, and headed home, and then just spent Sunday in bed watching films, before I had to be put back on the train to Sunderland Kicking and Screaming. 

I cannot wait to live in London!

London Fashion Journalism Masterclass

I have just returned from an amazing weekend in London, as I went down with uni to attend a fashion journalism masterclass. The talk took place in the University of Sunderland's London Campus at Canary Wharf, and we all set off from Sunderland VERY early on the train on Friday morning.

The masterclass featured talks from four top journalists:
Rachel Richardson, editor of fabulous magazine,
Hattie Crisell, a freelance Journalist,
Hannah Almassi, Deputy Fashion News and Features Editor at Grazia,
Louise Gannon, a showbiz Journalist.

These four Journalists are all very hard, working, ambitious women, and they gave us a fantastic view into what our futures as fashion Journalists will hopefully look like! They shared with us their tips on getting a foot in the door, and on working in the industry in general, and so I thought I'd share the best bits of advice I gained from the day.

Get Experience.
At this, and indeed other talks I've attended, the emphasis was on getting as much experience as possible, but we were also told to get as much out of the experience as possible while there, so basically be polite to everyone, and go above and beyond what you are supposed to do, because if an opportunity comes up they might remember you and working really hard for free will be worth it in the end!

Prepare yourself for rejection.
We all know that its the sad case at the moment that we will face rejection no matter what line of work we choose to follow, but in journalism, rejection will come even after you've got a job. You may not be chosen to do a really good interview, or a piece you have written may be cut, but the advice we were given on Friday was not to "be precious about it." This will be no indication of your ability or your work, and there may be several different reasons behind the decisions.

Look the part.
Do not turn up looking scruffy. As Rachel told us, "you are a representation of the brand" and if the brand is Fashion then you will have to look like you have made an effort. 

Learn your trade.
All four of the girls agreed that it is important to know which writers you admire and know their work well. Read around your subject, but also don't focus solely on it, but be aware of current affairs, finance and other areas, that could be the angle or idea for a feature or story.

Inspiration comes from everywhere.
As previously mentioned, reading around the subject can inspire you, but this can come from anywhere, Magazines, Blogs, books or Newspapers, and inspiration can also be something as simple as things you and your friends are discussing amongst yourselves, or that you all feel is a pressing issue. I f you do come up with a good feature or story pitch it now, even if you are still a student, if it is a good idea and it is well written it may just get published.

And a few final tips:
Everyone you know is a contact, use them well.
Be yourself.
Don't feel you need to know everything all the time.
Keep your social footprint clean. Be careful what you post on Facebook and Twitter.


Thanks to the four speakers and to the University for arranging the masterclass it was inspiring and so helpful, and it meant I got to spend an amazing weekend in London with my sister, (more on that later) so now I just need to get my degree and get a job. All these essays will be worth it in the end

Instagram Pictures #4

Last night of Summer with my bestie/ Leaving Home again/ My view from the boat/ First night of freshers/ Decorating the walls of my new room/ Finally getting a full GFC box/ Diet coke and Lime so good!/ Cutest earphones ever/ Cute collage my sister made me/ extreme multitasking/ Wise words/ My flatmates awesome pumpkin/ My halloween costume/ A cat and a dead doll/ Fashion Shoot for uni.

Wow, its been a while since I last did one of these, mainly due to the fact that I killed my iPhone over summer and therefore had no Instagram use. Sad times. Hope you all had a fun Halloween. I have to admit, it isn't my favourite holiday, in fact I pretty much hate it, but its an excuse to go out! Going to London tomorrow for uni and then spending the weekend with my sister. Its been a while since I've seen her, so it should be fun.