Blog Highlights: I started this blog in March with the aim of sharing what I liked and meeting a few like-minded people. In the space of a few short months, I've racked up readers from around the world, landed a fashion column, learned a hell of a lot about the fashion industry, joined the Vice Blogging Network, went to London Fashion Week, networked like a mad thing, was mentioned as one of Ireland's most influential bloggers and made some truly exceptional, hilarous and supportive friends. All of this due to blogging aspersions. So, to my readers, I'd like to say a massive THANK YOU! You guys are the best. Seeing all your comments really brightens up my day.
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Click 'Read More' to, ehm, read more, look at nice pictures and watch some fashion films...
Personal Highlights: Moving in with my boyfriend. Getting to write a published fashion column every week. My father chose 2010 as the year to stop bursting into my childhood bedroom at 7am to ask me why I wasn't sending speeches to Obama and CVs to Anna Wintour and started to buy me copies of Granta instead. And I finally decided which Masters degrees to apply for.
Personal Lowlights: Moving in with my boyfriend. Getting food poisoning four times this year; while on holidays in both Italy and Egypt, on my birthday and on Christmas Eve. And my little brother moved into my childhood bedroom, which leaves me to sleep in a box room filled (appropriately) with a million boxes every time I come home.
I'm in no way qualified to say what the 'best' of 2010 has been, but I will share some favourites...
Favourite Magazine Editorial
I'm a huge sucker for cartoons. If it's animated, I'll watch it. Then I'll watch it again. I loved the 2007 Simpsons editorial in Harper's Bazaar, but I think that the Disney spread, illustrated by Ulrich Schroeder, in this year's April issue of Elle Spain just about trumps it in terms of technicolor delight. (scans via Miss At La Playa)
Favourite fashion item
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| Photo from Miu Miu website |
Leopard print. Leopard print accessories, leopard print Gaga-esque dresses, vintage leopard print swing coats, I love them all. Not surprising for a girl who has dressed up as both Bet Lynch and Peg Bundy for Hallowe'en (and maybe the odd Saturday night). Honourable mention goes to the return of the boob as seen at Louis Vuitton. Mad Men be blessed, I can stop hiding my 34DDs in buttoned up shirts and let them roam free, or at the very least peeping cautiously over corset tops. Combine the cleavage with the animal print and 2011 is sure to become a year to remember, in social terms at least if not in sartorial ones.
Favourite runway show
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| Photos from style.com |
I was totally blown away by Erdem's S/S '11 offerings. This was a twisted take on floralia that I could really get on board with. Do you have a designer that you don't really like because it's just not your style? Then one day you look at what they've designed and BAM! Everything they've ever done is instantly genius. You click your fingers and think 'Ah, I get it now'. That was me and Erdem.
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| Photos from style.com |
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also loved the A/W '10 looks designed by Christopher Kane, by then in his sophomore season for Versus. Sharp pleated cupcake skirts, tees imprinted with iconic Bruce Weber photographs, deep jewel tones and colour absorbing black - an easy marriage between Kane's bandage dress graduate collection and Gianni Versace's original knowingly wink-and-smile flirty Versus vision.
Favourite fashion films
2010 was the year that fashion film exploded. If I could, I would pick twenty films, but these are my five whittled-down favorites.
Favourite Blogs
- The Selvedge Yard. This is a menswear blog, but really you should look at it because the pictures are so well-sourced. It's so comprehensively researched that each and every post is like reading a fascinating encyclopedia entry. Devote at least twenty minutes per entry and left all the images sink in.
- Fashematics. This one is hard to explain. Imagine '300' - knives = Marc Jacobs on the beach. Think that doesn't make much sense? Click here.
- Beckerman Bite Plate. The three Beckerman sisters (and sometimes their parents) put together the craziest, candy coloured, multi-influenced, bonkers outfits and pose (or hop) in front of the camera. It's a blog world filled entirely with happy faces and derring-do 'tude. It is genius.
- Threadbared. The product of two academics, Threadbared is relevatory, insightful and often thought provoking. This blog proves that fashion is not all vacant stares and mindless consumerism. Both authors examine the machinations and implications of fashion with a balanced mindset, but never lose their heartfelt love for clothes.
Hopes for 2011
- To move away to another country and start a masters degree.
- To keep adding and improving this blog.
- To start clashing my patterns (very important, I know).
- To always be writing something.
- To make my mommy proud.
That's my 2010 round up of the great and the good (the bad and the ugly got lost on their way to the blog post). What was your fashion highlight? And what are your goals for 2011?
P.S I'm going on holidays on January 1st (Egypt by way of London) and this blog will be taken over by some of my favourite Irish Bloggers, who will be entertaining you with their personal style New Years Resolutions. I hope that you like their posts - I was editing some today and was blown away by the breadth and variety of the responses.
Next week's Licentiate column will be published on Thursday as usual and I might manage to fit in a post or two while I'm away. Normal service will resume after the 12th of January, when I'll talk about my own personal style resolution. If I manage to pull this out of the bag, it'll mean a nice change of pace for The Licentiate. Change is afoot, and revolution is in the air...
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
