Career aspirations… October 27, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Fashion, Links á la Mode, Uncategorized.Tags: careers, eBay, Fashion, personal shopping, style consultation
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I am very happy with my life and my career at the moment. It is strange to think that just a few short weeks ago I was struggling to keep my head above the water, what with work, moving jobs, freelance and more. Now the world, as it always does, seems to have come full circle, and I am happy and satisfied. I have freelance to be getting on with, blog aspirations, and even won a cool pair of river island shoes in a Twitter based competition yesterday.
As happy as I am, I am always a bit overly ambitious, and what I have is never enough.
Multiple blogs, future websites, new jobs – I want something more!
(Image from here)
I am thinking about going ahead and launching an idea that I cam up with a while ago. I have always wanted to be a personal shopper – and I am aware that my speciality lies in eBay, vintage and online sites. I know fashion, heels, what fits and what doesn’t. I am consequently planning to venture bravely into the world of internet personal shopping, helping happy shoppers from around the world to find their perfect clothes without the hassle of having to search for themselves.
Do you think it is a good idea? Should I do it?
Make me a… 1920’s Flapper Girl September 16, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Advice, Fashion, Makeup/Cosmetics, Vintage.Tags: 1920s fashion, cosmetics, Fashion, how-to guides, vintage fashion
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Off the back of my vintage fashion exploration a few weeks ago, I have decided to produce a “How-To” guide for each of the eras I covered. These will contain clothes (both vintage, vintage inspired and direct repro), makeup and more, to help your achieve that distinctly vintage fashion style!
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This week I tackle the gorgeous and brilliantly tenacious 1920’s flapper girl.
The dress is the main thing for a vintage 1920’s fashion look. straight and generally relatively curveless, this era really knew how to party. With long spindle like legs, little in the way of the chest department and hair cropped into a bob, they used to dance across many a dance floor in detailed sequined and beaded numbers. There were plenty of other dress styles, but this is the look that stuck in our minds and that truly represents that 1920’s vibe. You can go vintage, but bead in mind that the delicate beaded, lace and see-through dresses are approaching 90 years old and will be pretty darn pricey.
1920's fashion black lace flapper dress
Try this stunning lace dress from Posh Girl Vintage if you do have the financial resources! If you are pinching the pennies (and the pounds), then try for repro. The 80’s in particular were fascinated with the fashion of the 20’s and 30’s, and tried to reproduce both faithfully and… well… not so. Nowadays Monsoon in particular have a good line of 1920s fashion inspired clothing; dresses like this beaded halterneck mean that busty girls can now enjoy that 1920’s flapper girl luxury!
Monsoon 1920's flapper dress
I may get in trouble for saying so, but I don’t believe wearing vintage or being inspired by moments in fashion history mean you have to be loyal. Every body shape should be able to find something to wear, even if they are “too curvy” for the 20’s or “too straight” for the 50’s. These interpretations allow a happy middle ground.
Ok, on from the dresses to the accessories. Cloche hats were one of the most popular styles out there, suiting those cute bobs and cheekbone-y faces. Luckily, these hats are really back in fashion again, meaning that you can happily either wear vintage of the surprisingly faithful versions popping up on the high street. Cute curls popping out from under this head hugging hat will look cute in any era!
For the perfect winter look, M&S are producing this cute grey 1920’s cloche hat that will go with any thick winter coat, whilst for a fancy evening this actual vintage 1920’s hat from Samaya Ling is just stunning in such a vibrant shade of green, with those gorgeous satin ribbon.
M&S pure wool 1920's cloche hat
Vintage 1920's cloche hat
Finally, finish your flapper girl look with some beautiful makeup. With pale philosophical faces, the 20’s were about looking pale and interesting rather than rosy and glowing. Very light cream or pale natural shades were the best, leaving your face as a blank canvas for the lovely makeup touches. The lips had strong cupids bows painted on (the line of your real lips didn’t matter at all!) with a lipstick brush to give you a real “lip” shape and to shorten your lip width. The colours were generally dark, and reflected the equally dark eye makeup. With an excess of smudged-in eye liner, grey shadow and the occasional green/blue shade, this was an era of exaggeration and emphasis of the faces features.
Over-the-top 1920's makeup for the 21st century
(image from here)
Vintage Shoes January 14, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: eBay, Fashion, irregular choice, Shoes, Shopping, vintage, vintage shoes
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I have spent the past few weeks selling items on eBay, and have been relatively successful. I am gettgin rid of the clothes that have been holding up my wardrobe for years in some cases – but one of my favourite items (shoes soo small for me they don’t fit on my feet) isn’t selling.
They are a gorgeous pair of vintage pearl shoes with gold threaded perspex heels – yet for a fiver they simply aren’t selling! Very disappointing!
I sense a relisting coming up!
More pretty things! January 12, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: Bracelet, jewellery, pretty things
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Pretty things are gracing my life a lot at the moment – including this rather gorgeous bracelet I have just been given by my boss – straight from the beaches of Guatemala! Its a crocheted beaded beauty, in all colours!
I love it!
New thing for the week! January 12, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: creative writing, diets, fitness, food writing, personal development, web desing, Writing
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Remember my “challenging myself” new years resolution? Well, so far I have stuck to it – doing something new each week. Last week I watched Australia (beautiful, sad, and with clothes to die for) with my Uni friend Laura, and Cie, and also stayed up til 12 playing pictionary for the first time in my life.
This week I seem to be attempting two new things! Or maybe even three! I have just decided that to further my career and add to my ability set I am going to sign up to the local web design course, which starts this Thursday. As well as serving obvious personal development purposes (Woo, go me! And this is OUTSIDE of work!), this will get me more involved in my local community, which is never a bad thing.
Secondly, I have taken my aspirations towards food writing into new areas. My recipe page on this blog is testament to the fact I like to cook – but I found the process of adding page after page (why has noone developed the idea of having two blogs combined into one site?!) tiring to say the very least, and my posting gradually tailed off. In remedy to this, I have decided to launch a new blog, called “Digging for Truffles“. On this blog I hope to catalogue cool bits and pieces I find during my everyday Internet trawling, chart my recipes, and generally gain myself some food writing experience.
In line with this, I am probably going to close down my “I want to write a book” site – it is simply too difficult for me to attempt to put my life on paper, whilst documenting all the ups and downs. I want to be able to take this emotional roller coaster ride at whatever pace I wish – even if that means suspending myself at the top of the loop-the-loop before I decide to swoop down it. Of course, good mate Jasmine will still be my immediate go to editor/friend – writing blog or no writing blog.
My final new thing will be an exercise DVD – cue uncoordinated thrashing, jumping and no doubt muscle strain!
Pretty things January 8, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: Books, charity shops, classics, eBay, Fashion, secondhand, Shopping, style
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My life seems to be full of pretty things at the moment – so, in honour of their lovelyness, I have decided that they deserve a bit of a photo blog. Forgive Bens decidedly shakey photography work – hence the blurry edge to most images!
Firslt, my pretty books. Following Cie’s lovely gift of “The Magic Toyshop”, and have been inspired to buy the rest of the series from Waterstones – resulting in this fantastic collection:
I have also been prancing around in some of my favourite vintage finds:
My lovely dress – I still haven’t sewed up the back, so I have to wear it with a jacket… for some reason, I spent over my £10 limit on this one – but it is lovely! You can see my rat in the background, she sneaked in!
My lovely vintage slip – which yup, I wear as a dress! It goes fantastically with my yellow bertie shoes!
And this, actually one of Cie’s charity shop finds – which I promptly adopted. I haven’t had an occasion to wear it yet – but I’m sure I will find one!
Finally, my Laura Ashley dress from ebay – I am still trying to decide how to alter it – shortening it will be a lot of effort! Any suggestions?
Post Christmas Blues January 7, 2009
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: Christmas, cold, Depression, freeze, New year, resolutions, singing, theatre, winter
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This week is cold. The kind of toe-numbing, teeth-chattering, soul-shivering cold that only ever happens post Christmas, and whichwill always manage to stun the nation to it’s metaphorical knees. This years freeze is somewhat colder than normal, and I have found myself waking in the middle of the night purely to shiver, and developing a slight phobia of walking to work on the ice, in case I fall and die. With temperatures hitting minus 8 or colder, I have enjoyed looking at the crystal patterns in the snow and ice, and experimenting with the frozen canal (note to self – NOT strong enough to hold a rock… thus it will not not hold you). However, with the nights seeming ever darker and days never making it to “bright”, I can’t avoid that certain breed of post-Christmas blues.
I’m feeling lonely. Well, not lonely exactly, but worried about being lonely. I worry that I am not doing enough with the day to day of my life – I am not learning enough, I am not experiencing enough. I worry that I am falling out of touch with friends I really don’t want to lose, and that living in the real world makes keeping these connections even harder. I know that this is not fully the case. After all, my Friend Laura is coming to visit this weekend, my sister is dropping in the weekend after, and the weekend after that I am seeing Jenny, my uni workmate. I am busy, being social and keeping friends.
Of course, it is THAT time of year. And consequently, I am going to take the opportunity to make a few little resolutions:
1. I will visit Devon once every 5 weeks or so, so that my friends at home know that I still love them. If I can’t visit, I will try and arrange something where we can all meet.
2. I will really really try to get to see uni friends – I will visit you, force to to visit me, and try to attend any meet-ups that we may have.
3. I will endeavour to DO more – I will try and do something enriching every week – whether it be going to a singing session, seeing something at the theatre, going out for dinner, challenging myself, or taking up a course.
What were your new year resolutions?
Christmas Past December 29, 2008
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: alcohol, Christmas, cooking, Holidays, winter
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Well, Christmas has been and gone, and I am glad to report that a rather replacing and particularly un-stressful time was had by all! It is a rare thing to be able to report a family celebration where no one died, no one got drunk and no one got a little… mouthy. At least, it is rare in a country where drink is the staple diet, where estranged families never practise for extended periods of enforced “togetherness”, and where it is guaranteed that you will eat too much, be given a disappointing present, or be accidentally insulted by your nearest and dearest.
Christmas day was spent, comfortingly, in much the same way that nearly every Christmas is spent – the only difference being that this time I woke my sister up, and that I was more involved in helping with the complex task-juggling that constitutes the fantastic Christmas dinner. I was in charge of gravy (very decadent and successful, I might add) and of creating sinfully juicy yet crispy skin on our behemoth of a free-range chicken.
I was delighted with my presents, most interestingly a terracotta casserole dish designed for one pot wonders, and which is soaked to steam the contents – I look forward to trying out some of the recipes in the accompanying book, and just hope to god that it doesn’t explode in the oven, as the book warns it can if handled incorrectly. Luckily I am practised at dealing with my slightly endearing but more likely infuriating catastrophes, and must cling onto the hope that if it does explode with the force of a nuclear bomb, I will be able to fix the consequences!
Now however, with Christmas past, it is quite happily that I skip back to work to get on with things. The only reason I begrudge being here, if I am honest, is because I am getting nesting urges – and hate not having the time to use these useful feelings to thoroughly tidy the flat!
Sad times December 23, 2008
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: bereavement, illness, pets, rat, survival, vets
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Well, Christmas is nearly upon us, and unfortunately it is tainted a little bit with fear over our poor rat.
Tilly, the amusing little munchkin who has kept us company for 1 and a half years, seems to be on her way out. We have no idea why, but I suspect a stroke could be the root cause. I always worried something like this would happen, as she has had a small black patch in her eye since 6 months which I have always worried about. Now, although being dosed up on antibiotics and antiinflammitaries, she doesn’t seem to be any better, just flopping around her cage, eating whipped cream (the best stuff to feed ill and thin rats, as it tastes good AND builds up their fat reserves) and generally looking (justifiably) sorry for herself. We desperately want to her to survive, as we love her very very much, but somehow we think it is unlikely.
Spare a moment to cross your fingers for our little baby.
Sexy Fivesome December 19, 2008
Posted by Lauren Cooke in Uncategorized.Tags: 20's, chirristmas, Fashion, fivesome, flapper girl, party, threesome
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Ah, don’t you just love misleading post titles? Great fun!
I’m in the office alone today, following the Marketing Christmas do and End of year Sales meeting. It was a heavy night with drinks coming out of our ears (not literally, although I’m sure that would have been a possibility after a few more drinks) – all set in the lovely setting that is The Hilton. There was a marble floor in the bathroom, people – this is the sort of Class I NEVER see in my life!
Anyway, the night of dancing, socialising and singing wildly to the (rather good) ABBA tribute band -
Thank yoooooo for the music, the songs we’re singingggggg…
- ended with all of us crammed into a birthday boys bedroom, with not a threesome but a five-some occurring in the lovely comfy bed. Of course, by this I mean that we were all sat in a neat little line, chatting, drinking pink fizz and generally discussing anything and everything!
A good night was had by all, I believe.
I wore a short 20’s style beaded dress discovered for £50 (above my normal budget!) in a secondhand shop down the road! It still had the £160 tag on! I was taken aback by the numbers of honest and unsolicited compliments it got – including one woman taking me aside to tell me it was “by far the best dress in the room”. Not a bad attempt!
What do you think?
