PERSONAL / What I Want To Read In A Blog

Here’s a thought: individual Internet browsing history is today’s unintentional diary of selfhood. It’s intimate, it’s true, and it’s often embarrassing. More importantly, if digested as a whole, it creates a detailed and accurate picture of who you are — your interests, your questions, your wants and needs. It’s pretty much all there. I think this is particularly true for members of my generation who have grown up spending copious amounts of one-on-one time with our laptops. (Did you name your first laptop? Oh man, I did.)

If you spent some time sifting through this information on my laptop, you would discover that I recently looked up "how to contour like Kim Kardashian", "how to get a slicked back ponytail like Kim Kardashian" and lastly, a google image search which every teenage girl has done at least once to make herself feel better: "Kim Kardashian's crying face". (Note: Kimmy K may have perfected contouring and the slicked back ponytail but at least I don't look like a trout when I cry). You'd also find out how many times I've compared cutlery sets on the Ikea website, in preparation for my upcoming move from the 5* comfort of my parents' house to shoddy, student accommodation (#PrayForBekki).


But you would also see just how many blogs and blog-like websites I read on a daily basis. A few of my favourite personal style blogs include Too Much Is Not Enough, Pages By Megan and I Dress Myself as well as Gladys Doris Dave. However as someone whose recently traded in the dreaded make up wipe for a 'Proper Skin Care Routine' (a.k.a. the #1 step of becoming a sophisticated woman), I regularly check out the beauty guru Bonjour Luce as well as the relatively new blog Tide and Thyme. Overall a very special but minuscule number of the blogs I read feature some flipping amazing writers. When it's done well, I think the most interesting kind of writing is the personal essay - there's nothing like digesting the human experience from an "I" perspective. The Man Repeller (who I believe is my kindred spirit), Rookie Mag and Hello Giggles are amongst of my favourites with truth, vulnerability, originality and humour being the magic combination for producing personal writing that people want to read and keep reading. These sites nail all four qualities. (Incidentally, Lena Dunham's show 'Girls' is a TV manifestation of what I'm talking about).


But most of all, I like to read personal essays related to fashion and style. Whilst I obviously enjoy the typical online fashion-centric offerings discussing the latest trends or a write-up of who wore what to the Met Gala - there's something about reading an experimental fashion piece in first person that gets my attention. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say it has something to do with the fact that the vulnerable human experience and fashion are, in many ways, inseparable. Fashion is full of mistakes and aspirations, choices and expressions of identity, doubt, weirdness, and surprise. Just like y'know, LIFE. They go hand in hand in my book.

I want to read about the time you saved up for months to buy a 3.1 Philip Lim Pashli bag that subsequently changed your life. Or that time you conducted an experiment by wearing a fur coat and heels to a sporting event. Or that time you wore your mom's skirt from the 80's (even if the ugliest f-ing skirt anyone's ever seen). You feel me?


It goes without saying that this voice is exactly what I want to be writing on my blog. As someone who'll be studying International Fashion Promotion at MMU come this fall, I want to spend the next couple of months finding my voice while writing about fashion from my own personal experiences.

I'd love to know YOUR thoughts (if you got to the end of this post, congrats, I'm naming my firstborn after you). What do you want to read online? Are your daily Internet browsings indicative of who you are? What you want to do? Be? Tell me, tell me.

PERSONAL / To Blog or Not To Blog?

There are many factors that have stopped me from jumping on the blogosphere: a scarce wardrobe due to my addiction of solely buying shoes, no DSLR camera, as well as living in a Newcastle, a city where TOWIE star Lauren Pope, was our main guest at NCL FW. I must be incredibly foolish to create a blog under these circumstances, but if I waited for the "right time", I will probably never get around to starting a blog.



I’ve always been interested in fashion, right from the innocent age of three where I threw my first Bitch Fit over my mum trying to emblazon me in a overly glittery, rabbit motif t-shirt. My mum always tells me how I stubbornly decided to choose my own clothes from thereon out, animal-esuqe motif t-shirts included. Evidently I’ve made many fashion faux pas in my life-time, especially during my early adolescent years where I idolised such rappers as 50 Cent. I’ll never forget receiving my first designer garment (as a hand-me-down off a friend) at the tender age of twelve. Having braced my back on every paper round, I wore this luxurious garment to death. Sounds “hip” until you realise it was this exact Billionaire Boys Club hoodie, but in XXL. It’s safe to say I absolutely terrified my elderly customers upon first impressions but the truth was, I was the happy-go-lucky teenager who’d love a nitter-natter with the nans and deliver shopping necessities to those who weren’t mobile enough to leave the house. My clothes were just part of my fantasy persona.

For me, fashion has always been a form of expression. One of my all-time pet hates is when people say they’re “not interested in fashion” or other naive statements. All in all, fashion is too prevalent to be considered trivial. When you choose to wear or not wear something, it becomes that of a political statement. When shopping, you don't buy clothes - you buy your desired identity. Even during to the adolescent ages of 14 – 16, where I received chemotherapy four-five times a week and underwent 27 operations, I made sure I attended every hospital appointment dressed up to the nines. I even purchased multiple wigs and alternated them to cater my desired look. Sure, it seems a little impractical showing up to an operation in PVC leggings and enough jewellery to put Mr T to shame, but I don't believe people should take life so seriously 24/7. The way I saw it was that cancer was already controlling my body, but I’d never let it control my mind-set. I’d always stay true to my passion.
Days/nights spent in hospital were often spent flicking through glitzy magazines, such as Nylon and Vogue Girl, which I had imported from South Korea/Japan every month. Fast-forward almost two years and I’ve switched my magazine obsession with fashion bloggers. It's safe to say I spend a good 80% of my life resembling that of a Ryvita advert – lying in a luxurious bubble bath, scrolling through "The Man Repeller" on my (step-dads) iPad and eating black pepper crackers with salmon slices and low-fat Philadelphia. After several attempts of trying to create my own personal style blog, I’ve realised that my overly anal personality won’t allow this. I've never been able to come to terms with snapping “OOTD” posts in my own bedroom. As controversial as it sounds, I personally find the whole process extremely bland and tasteless. Choosing an outfit, setting up a tri-pod or balancing your camera on a tall object, before capturing a series of photographs that show the same outfit in twenty different angles, isn't what fashion's about. Fashion's supposed to be a form of artistic expression. I want to see real life situations showing personal style, images that reflect memories and dare I say it - outfits that people are actually willing to wear out in public...

Heartfelt rants aside, I've decided to create my own blog and (hopefully) find my niche as time goes by. I won't be uploading OOTD's captured in my bedroom, sharing my latest hauls or posting sponsored posts that have nothing to do with my blog content. Expect nothing less than me sharing my personal experiences related to fashion.
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