Sunday 28 August 2011

Lingering in the golden gleam.

Yes, that's right, a real outfit post. I shall say no more.





Bralette, Topshop; Gold trousers, Silence + Noise; Boots, Christopher Kane for Topshop.

Saturday 27 August 2011

Long time no see.

So hello again, it's been a while.
The causes of my lengthy absence are many, although the main one is that I have been having an amazing holiday, and have therefore been out doing what a person should be doing when it's their sixteenth summer instead of sitting at my laptop boring you all. Although it does seem that you haven't actually gotten bored, judging by the page views (which have not diminished at all), despite the fact that I haven't written a thing in over two months. Anyway. The point is that as September is fast approaching, this should hopefully be the end of my little hiatus. My two new-school-year resolutions for the blog are to post at least once a week (nothing new there, then) and to do more outfit posts.
Here is a little look at what I've been doing whilst you've all been missing me.











Sunday 19 June 2011

I love you Andrej Pejic.

Because....

You blur gender boundaries further than anyone has done before you, and make me wonder conventions fashion has left to defy.

You have the most camp voice I have ever heard.

You are a curious creature, and I find you wonderfully beautiful as a man and as a woman, something which I'm sure further confuses my sexuality.

The controversy surrounding your androgyny does not detract from the fact that you are extremely successful and talented as both a female and male model.






Tuesday 7 June 2011

Suck me dry.





Lizzy Glynn photographed by Craig Owen for Black Magazine, Fall/Winter 2010

I love this beauty story. The make up is intense and strong, which is beautifully contrasted with the plain white clothing and background. I am not familiar with Lizzy Glynn, but she seems very talented. She keeps the shots varied and exciting in what is essentially a very short and simple piece. 

Thursday 2 June 2011

Is it time to go home yet? I keep clicking these damn shoes, but nothing happens.



Velvet wedges, Michael Van Der Ham for Topshop; dress, charity shop (altered by me).


Once again, my posting has been sporadic recently, and once again, I'm sorry. Keep your fingers crossed that my unpredictable blogging motivation lasts this time!

Yesterday, these beautiful creations arrived, and I felt that they deserved a post all of their own. If you have been reading I'm Stealing The Thunder for some time, you'll know that I have a little problem with shoes. It has been a while since this post, and since then the situation has worsened, the collection grown. I continually convince myself that one more pair can't hurt. And hurt this pair certainly did not, both literally and figuratively.

For those that haven't heard, Topshop flagship stores in London and New York, and also topshop.com, have opened "Secret Stores" for a limited time. These pop-up stores sell hand-crafted, limited edition pieces - the products of collaborations with prolific New York and London designers, as well as items from the Topshop Unique archives and limited edition Topshop Boutique. I visited Oxford Street this week and loved the atmosphere of the miniature store, the door to which was hidden behind a colourful florist curated by Meadham Kirchhoff. Inside the little room the lights were dimmed and the interior had a gypsy-ish vibe to it, but of course the first things to draw my attention were the stunning velvet wedges - the love-children of Topshop and Michael Van Der Ham. I refused to stop stroking them (the velvet is so soft) whilst I struggled with the inner turmoil of really, really wanting them and really, really not being able to afford them. As difficult as it was, I walked away.

That is until I got home and they still had my size on the website.
I borrowed the money and bought them before I had time to think. It seems my passion for beautiful shoes overrides all common sense. I am now in debt, and blissfully happy.

Sunday 15 May 2011

Truths and roses have thorns about them.









All clothing, Lindsey Thornburg.


Lindsey Thornburg is an American designer who has rather enchanted me. She studied philosophy in Santa Barbara, but then went on to design school in L.A. where she created her first dress collection. However in 2006 she visited Peru (having already moved to New York) and returned inspired, going on to produce a collection of cloaks. And that, I believe, is where things got really interesting.

Cloaks bring to mind witches and wizards and mystery and magic. A cloak can be sexy or geeky, playful or mysterious, funny or dark. Cloaks represent what I love about good fashion - they enhance character and still allow for experimentation. And with an entire collection of them, each one different and beautiful in its own right, I am happy to say that Thornburg does this noble garment more than enough justice.

In F/W 2010, Lindsey Thornburg released her first RTW collection which only extended the charm of her cloaks to dresses and trousers and jackets and all number of wonderful things. As far as I can tell she is continuing to blossom, and is showing no sign of slowing down any time soon.

Friday 13 May 2011

Inspiration Friday: Searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there.






Sources; weheartit.com, google.co.uk

Today is Friday the Thirteenth, so the theme for today's Inspiration Friday is all things superstitious.

Superstition has always fascinated me, the idea that a tiny action or charm could change a person's luck for better or worse. In a world that is obsessed proving things through scientific evidence, it's amazing that millions upon millions of people still believe in these traditions that we have no logical explanation for. But although I admit it's probably silly, there will always be something that stops we walking under a ladder or opening an umbrella indoors. Just in case.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Let the rain fall down and wash this world away.










Georgina Stojiljkovic photographed by Ben Hassett for Vogue Germany, May 2010.

I have returned! I cannot apologise enough for absent for so long, a combination of a trip away, looming exams and a hectic personal life are responsible. I will just say how lovely it was to see that you all kept checking ISTT and didn't give up on me, and I'd also like to thank you for the positive response I got to my last post. Both of those things mean a lot. 

Now, let's move on to the actual post because this is starting to sound like an award acceptance speech. This fashion story is from exactly a year ago and I love it just as much. I still haven't seen a better use of water in a shoot since, and I think it deserves a lot of credit for managing to look sexy, fashionable and classy with a dripping, naked model in almost every shot. Plus, I love the contrast of the shoot being so dark and wet as we are just getting into summer, and it reminds me of a lovely walk I took in the middle of a thunderstorm while I was away. It was magic.

Sunday 3 April 2011

Heavier stuff.

Just a warning that this post is not at all fashion related and is a little more serious than my usual posts, so if you're not interested, look away now. I promise I will be quick to follow up with posts of a more light hearted nature.
I have been thinking for a while that I would like to write about a recent accident I had, as there are some aspects of it that I have found fairly difficult to come to terms with, and I find that writing can often be a very therapeutic release. Today, I did that. I find it very difficult to talk about, and often end up backing out of the conversation or making jokes when I try, but I think that I would like to put what I wrote out there to help me feel more comfortable discussing my feelings on the matter. So here it is.



"It is a strange thing to experience an instant physical change. To look into a mirror and see something suddenly different. It could be a change in hair colour or in make up, or indeed something more dramatic such as the loss of a limb, but I suppose that it is likely that everyone has felt that moment of disorientation that comes with not entirely recognising their own reflection. It changes, to whatever degree, the way we perceive ourselves - our definition of the term “me”.

Personally, my most negative experience of physical change has been a six inch scar across my throat, a result of surgery after a burns injury, along with a small burn scar on my chest which was not operated on. It has been three months now and yet I am still not sure how to phrase it. Do you “acquire” a scar? That seems like a choice. “Suffer” one? That seems to suggest ongoing pain, and I, surely, cannot be described as suffering. In my experience, a scar is just a happening, something that is irreversible but which must be accepted and tolerated. Positive or negative feelings have no impact on its existence, it will not be argued with.

Our appearance is the cover to our book, and despite proverbial preaching, it is on this that those around us judge us. As a teenage girl attending a single sex secondary school in London, I have felt the truth of this statement perhaps more than many. In my world, a rather small place considering the relatively short time that I have been around, but also in the vast majority of Western culture, appearance manages to hold an unjustifiable significance. Although we can be as righteous as we want about inner beauty, realistically it is not what counts in our society. I have grown up having it instilled in me from all directions that beauty equals success. Further than that, since childhood the media has taught me to specifically associate scars with evil - from Freddie Kruger and Frankenstein’s monster, to Scar in the Lion King, a film made specifically for very young children. With scars having so many negative connotations, I believe it is inevitable that my accident has brought about feelings of insecurity and self-doubt.

“There are people that have it so much worse”. I have heard this from others as well as frequently from myself, and it is true. However, these anonymous “people that have it so much worse” exist in every bad situation in life. I want to make it clear that I am not excusing self-pity, merely making the point that these people do not alter the fact that we have what we have and we must deal with it. My injuries are not the end of the world. I am alive. In practically every sense of the word, I am healthy. I was told that I would have to have my head shaved and a scalp skin graft taken, and coming round from surgery to discover that they had found a way around it was more heartening than I can begin to describe. I know that I am lucky.

But I cannot deny that undergoing what I have, however comparatively insignificant it may seem to those looking in, has changed me. It is certainly a process, but I hope that with time my relationship with my scars will become more positive, or at least less disorientating, and that I will be able to erase the divide that I see between “me before” and “me with scars”. I also believe the way I feel points to a much larger issue, and if I take one positive thing away from the experience, it will be that I am now much more aware of how we are subconsciously affected by society’s illogical values on appearance and I will do my best to change these values in those around me."



If you would like to help support people who are in a situation far worse than anything I could imagine, please donate to the Katie Piper Foundation. The work she does is utterly inspiring.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Gravity is a myth.


Sophie Srej photographed by Vince Baráti for Indie, Winter 2010/2011

I was going to post this whole editorial (which you can see here) but then I realised that the only part that really hooked me was this one photograph. The styling for the whole shoot is great, with platforms like blocks of flats throughout, but this shot is so futuristic and grunge-y and physically impossible that I just love it to death so here you are, sharing is caring. 

Friday 25 March 2011

Inspiration Friday: I love you more than being seventeen, in the evening sun.












Sources: Foam Magazine, Numéro, 10 Magazine, Amica, Pop, weheartit.com

My Inspiration Friday is very simple this week - sunshine.
There was so much of it today and it just put me in such a unceasingly brilliant mood. It wasn't uncomfortably hot, but just the right temperature to drink iced coffee and wear sun glasses and lie on the grass on Wimbledon common. There isn't much else to say on the matter, except that it has got me looking for the ultimate giant, floppy sunhat.

All I can think about is summer, and I hate summer. I conclude that this will be a short-lived phase, so I will enjoy it whilst it lasts.

P.s. I do realise that it will probably rain tomorrow, such is England.