A little something for the weekend...

If you've ever wondered what I wear on a day to day basis (unlike a lot of bloggers I'm not a big outfit poster) then click here to watch me ramble on about socks with sandals, fake J Brands and stealing clothes from your boyfriend.  The video is courtesy of RTE's Red Radar blog, which houses some more posts by yours truly, so get sifting through the archives.

Yes, I do a Vulcan salute at the end.  I'm considering using it as a sign-off in all conversations from now on.

Have an excellent Bank Holiday weekend!

The Very Last Ten Things

So, I've been tagged by The Hostess Handbook and given a Kreativ Blogger award.  Ta very much for thinking of me!  Here's my ten facts.

1)  Although it's very nice to be thought of and tagged, and I really enjoy reading other people's posts, I hate these things.  Once you get them, you feel obliged to tag another ten people.  It's the blog equivalent of a chain mail and I find that I'm getting so many of them I'm eventually going to run out of facts about myself.  Although, I've been in an inspiration rut recently, I don't think that these make for the best posts. So, this is the last.  This must be the last.  Absolutely the last.  Final.  Full stop. Never again.  Cross my heart and hope to die be spanked until my bottom goes purple.

2)  At present there are three large men ripping up the tiles in my flat and installing a new boiler.  All I can say about that is - thank God for watertight tenancy agreements, if not boilers.

Source

3)  New celeb crush - by that I mean 'guy on TV who is cute', not an actual crush (that would be weird):  Dave Franco.  Funny, great smile, seems smart and looks a little bit like an ex-boyfriend, but not so much that I'm totally repulsed.  Yes, he's James Franco's younger brother.

Melodramatic enough for ya? (source)

4)  Last book read - The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber.  I was really excited to get this as an early birthday present (thank you Alan!) and it was excellent - up until the last hundred pages or so.  The TV adaptation currently running on the BBC also looks amazing and has a great cast.  Although I don't know how I feel about the prospect of a full frontal Chris O'Dowd.  Oh, I know he went to LAMDA and everything but he'll always be Roy from the IT Crowd to me.



5)  Can't.  Stop.  Listening.  To.  This.  Song.  Against my better judgement.  Ev'ry day I'm shufflin'.

source

6)  My birthday is next week and a fluo Cambridge satchel is at the very top of the wishlist.  Add some Danielle Scutt for Topshop jewellery and I'm channeling my inner Man Repeller.  P.S.  I'd love one in leopard print.  Cambridge Satchel Company, if you're reading this...



7)  New film obsession - Paris is Burning, as seen at Style at Set last weekend.  I'd be foolish NOT to try vogueing on my next night out.

8) That Can Be My Next Tweet invents new tweets made from your old tweets.  Recycling is good for the environment.  But not for my imagination.  Ugh.  What a mental image.

9)  Speaking of which, I'm on facebook AND twitter AND Pinterest - so come say hello.  Validate me with your friendship!

10)  The last and most important point.  As I've said, there's been an inspiration drought sweeping the area lately, so I've set myself a challenge and I need YOUR help.  I've decided to write about any fashion/style-oriented topic that is put to me.  Every single one.  No matter how out there, or seemingly normal, I want to write about it.  Even if you don't think it's my cup of tea, I want to know.  You can give me a word, or a link, or a picture to bounce ideas off.  Leave any and all suggestions in the comments.  And thank you.

Stylish Blogger Award/ Seven Things... eh... thing.

So, this week  I've been given a Stylish Blogger Award by the lovely Jessica of Enchanted Vintage Clothing, whose blog I genuinely love, and not just because she tagged me in a post.  I really enjoy reading her educational, funny and promdress-filled posts, so check out her blog quick-smart. 

For no reason other than I like this, here's my and the boyfriend's feet

The point of these posts are to give a bit of blog love and get some in return, but I won't be tagging anyone in these.  If you like this post and want to do one like it, leave me a link in the comments.  I don't want to exclude anyone or make them feel like they have to do it.  I have to share seven things that you might not know about me.  I'm not much of a sharer, so these seven factoids were hard to come up with.  I hope you like them.

At a family party, note my super-smooth face.  Computers can do great things these days.

1)  My mother has had a formative influence on my life.  She works part-time in a library, where she heads up the county book club.  She's half the reason why I grew up in a house full of books.  She taught me the value of a Burberry trench coat.  I tell people who have never met her that she's a cross between Delia Smith and Audrey Hepburn, but I don't think that I've ever told her that.  She makes excellent scones and pate and bread and butter pudding (but not together).  She wants to go to India.  She has a rail full of Diane Von Furstenburg dresses in her room.  Anything she has, she'll give to one of her children without them having to ask.  She is one of the most tolerant, gentle and considerate people I have ever felt the good fortune to meet and I love her to bits.  Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

2)  My mother is from England and I have a lot of relatives there, but she was born to Irish parents.  Technically, I've got dual nationality and I do feel a bit British.  It's a really hard identity to reconcile when you consider the fraught relationship that England and Ireland have had.  Existential crises aside, I do enjoy a nice cream tea and an elaborate Royal Wedding.

3)  My dream is to edit and publish my own magazine.  I also want to write a novel, if only to prove to myself that I can do it.  And I will do it.  I will.

Looking pensive and hoping for a tomorrow without nocturnal corner-shop visits

4)  My boyfriend is freakishly supportive.  He goes to the shop in the middle of the night to get biscuits for my tea and sleeps on the couch when I'm sick (got strep throat at the moment). He's a very nice guy.

Bumper prize to the person who can name the most books on this shelf...

5) Of all the things I am proud of, I'm probably proudest of my bookshelf...

Disgraceful

6) ...but in every other aspect, I'm a massive slob.  In reality, my bedside drawer has this on it - plus five or six mugs, a pair of glasses, bottles of nail varnish and an even bigger pile of unfinished books.

7)  There's no food I won't try.  Bushtucker trials have got nothing on me. 

Is that a bandwagon I spy...

...because I feel like jumping on it.

I'm mightily interested in those 'what in your bag' posts that are popping up all over the place.  Part of the allure of blogs is the insight you get into other people's lives.  Now we get an insight into their accessories.



This is my bag.  It's a (genuine) vintage Dooney and Bourke bag in tan and black, accessoried with a leopard print Primark scarf.  I love it so.

I'm not a bag person.  I need to be strapped to my bag at all times, otherwise I'll wander off like Ralph from The Simpsons, off to the toilet or dancefloor without it, and never see it again.  Clutches are not my friend.  Backpacks make me look like an ant huffing a gigantic pile of rocks up a hill.  The mid size bag is a, uhm, happy medium.



For a medium bag, it holds a lot of stuff.  This week it's playing house for:

1. Travel itinaries and booking confirmations - going to Dublin for a few days to catch up with family, go to a few meetings, do a bit of work and hopefully buy a nice pair of pink trousers.
2. Wallet - a present from my aunt - it basically has my life in it.  A life with no money (so be warned, potential muggers).
3. Two of twelve billion Cork and Dublin bus tickets.
4. An iPod that has taken for too many knocks.
5. Coin purse - Marc by Marc Jacobs and was a Christmas present.  It holds coins.  And sometime lozenges (I'm such an old lady).
6. Passport - In case Enzo whisks me off to Milan at the last minute.  It is also helpful for getting into pubs.
7. Generic ibuprofen - because I'm too cheap to buy Nurofen.
8. Reporters notebook
9. Whatever book I'm reading at the moment - this one is a biography of Lee Miller.
10. A pencil - because someone took my pen!  My precious Bic!  I'll get you one day, pen thief...
11. A Nokia phone which is similar to a Blackberry, but nowhere near as fiddly.
12. Hand sanitiser - because you'd never know who has cooties.
13. A lolly.  Just 'cos.
14. Two bobby pins to whip back an unruly fringe.
15. Make up.  No. 7 Mascara, Bobbi Brown concealer, Mac eyeshadow in Bronze and Mac matte lipstick in Russian Red.
16. A pair of Ray Ban Clubmasters.  If I lost these, I would go hardcore baloobas.  My sunglasses are basically my ticket into the outside world.  If you've seen photos of me taken during the day, I'll have these on.  It's not because I'm an indie wanker (that's only about 75% of the reason).  I'm mildly photosensitive.  Direct sunlight hurts my eyes, makes them water and if I don't put my sunglasses on, I'll get a migraine after about twenty minutes or so.  Since Ireland is mostly overcast, this hasn't been too much of a problem.  It's just unfortunate that optimum weather conditions for taking photos are also those which make me want to run for the hills (or a darkened room).

What's in your bag?

An Introduction to The Licentiate...

... for those who are coming from the Irish Blog Awards website, who have never seen this blog before, and have no idea what it's all about.

Hello, I'm Sarah and this is my blog, The Licentiate (pronounced 'lie-sen-she-ate' - but there won't be an oral test, I promise).  EDIT: Here's a dictionary definition for curious comers.  In retrospect, it wasn't the best name to pick, but I'm not one to make things easier on myself. This is what I look like.

Did I mention that I hate having my picture taken and I'm very awkward and I don't normally look this smug and ohgoddontjudgemefromthispicture?!?

I've been blogging for almost a year now on style, (hence being a finalist in the 'Lifestyle' category in this year's Irish Blog Awards *happydance*) subculture and it's various permutations in film, books and art.  Any posts before the sixteenth of March '10 are imported from a previous blog.  I'm a freelance journalist and write a column, also called The Licentiate, for The Cork Independent.  You can read them here.

From the first Licentiate post:

This is the product of my obsessions including but not confined to; magazines, stealing my friend's SLRs and fiddling around with the aperture settings, internet shopping, colour schemes, frames of reference and inspiration, history of fashion, the tenets of style, bad taste, out-of-print fashion books, bad DIY, local goings-on, vintage, stuff collected on my travels, patterns and anything slightly insidious, off-kilter or weird.

That was the mandate then, and I've stuck to it as closely as possible.  Here's a few posts for the first-time visitor.  Consider it a cyber pocket guide.

Self-indulgent tripe

1 - A licentiate's backstory (involving me looking stupid in my graduation gear).

2 - Why I blog - You know the hows, now read the why.

3 - Ritualism - A blog post I wrote when my grandmother died and I nearly wore a tutu to her funeral.

4 - Nan's Legacy Part I and II - as you can see, my family is a big deal to me.  I often write posts about both of my grandmothers, who were equally inspiring in wildly different ways.  Here is some of my paternal grandmother's jewellery.

5 - My Family Portrait. Vintage inspiration from my mother's side of the family.

Favourites

1 - Probably my favourite post ever.

2 - Is the blog the modern equivalent of the zine?  A post about modern publishing and a full reproduction of original 70's zine 'How to Look Punk'.  I can't tell you how much I love this zine - every night I go to sleep and mentally thank the person who upload this on the internet (I may not actually do this).

3 - WWDVD (What would Diana Vreeland Do?) - Or 'why I detest American Apparel'.

4 - Mixtapes at the Glucksman - A closer look at Linder Sterling. Oh, Linder.

5 - 2010 Roundup - favourites, highlights and everything in between.

Reader favourites

1 - Bonnie and Clyde '10

2 - Style Icon - Wallis Simpson

3 - A handful of perfect Hallowe'en costumes

4 - Hell's Angels - Not your typical Old Ladies

5 - Royal Wedding Bonanza!

I'm terrible at signing off, so I'll just say that you can say friend me on facebook, follow me on twitter or leave a comment to say hello.  I love meeting new people (just as long as they don't follow me back to my apartment) and I hope that, if you like this, you'll come back again.  Over and out *does awkward Vulcan salute*.

Style Icon - Wallis Simpson

Today started well.  I found out that I was a nominee for Ireland's Top Fashion Blogger.  This is a total surprise, because I didn't solicit a nomination, but now that I've got one, I'm going to cling onto it until my fingernails fall off and pimp myself out for votes like an underage Jodie Foster.  Can you tell that I was the kid who never won any prizes on sports day?

I don't for a second think that I'll come out on top with so many excellent blogs nominated, but if you like this blog and don't want me to be Sad Sack Sarah at the bottom of the pile (fingers crossed!) please do vote for me by clicking here.  Go to my pic (I'm number 41), then press vote.  Easy as pie!

Then I popped down to The Fair Alternative to find a super-cute prize for my QUESTION! post and bumped in the lovely Lorna of Loladee (check out her etsy here) who gifted me an amazingly cute zipper brooch that I want to keep ALL TO MYSELF.



The winner, with an exhaustive list of blogs is Anne-Marie.  Congrats!  I'll tweet you with details. 

Now onto the blog post at hand...
My mother very thoughtfully bought me a copy of Any Human Heart by William Boyd a few days ago. I'm a bit of a pedanto at times, so I decided to watch the entire Channel 4 series in one go before reading the book. Sometimes I read the book before watching the TV series/film, but my reasoning was that it wasn't so much the story that I was looking forward to as much as Boyd's writing itself.  I'm so glad that I watched it now, because the series is so immaculate and well made and the characters so finely tuned and nuanced that I can't wait to read the book just so I can replay every episode in my head, complete with the fleshed-out details that the book provides. 

Gillian Anderson and Tom Hollander as Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward

One character who definitely didn't get enough screentime was Wallis Simpson, played by Gillian Anderson.  She plays Wallis as an abrasive, self entitled social climber with a dress sense as sharp as her cheekbones and one liners.  Paris Hilton - start taking notes.

Historical accounts of the real Simpson's personality run the gamut of bad to just plain evil.  She was characterised as a control freak with OCD (definitely) gold-digger (possible), a Nazi sympathiser (probable) and a pseudo-prostitute trained in the sexual arts in a brothel in China (eh, I'll get back to you on that one).  I remember reading that people thought that she was a hermaphrodite (or intersex, if I'm being very PC) in a bid to explain her childlessness.  Not very likely.

Whatever you want to say about her, the woman had charisma.  People are still boggled by her life, her personality and her political motivations.  I'm boggled by her wardrobe.  Wallis was exceptionally long and lean.  Her wedding dress was copied into the hundreds of thousands and she was (and still is) lauded for her personal style and attention to detail.

In an article for The Telegraph, the author Rose Tremain says:

"She, who is said to have coined the statement that "You can't be too rich or too thin", was stigmatised as being too ambitious, too ruthless, too greedy, too mannish, too sexual, too cruel, too divorced, too pro-German and too American. In the brilliant Irving Penn photo-portrait of her, which hangs in my study, she is backed into what appears to be a narrow cell, from which the only escape is towards the camera, into the glare of the flash and the click of the shutter."

Portrait by Irving Penn



Portrait by Cecil Beaton

Portrait by Cecil Beaton

What Tremain sees in the Penn portrait is a look of abject fear.  I, and many others, might disagree.  That's the allure of Wallis Simpson, who didn't just dress well, but was totally unknowable, and always will be.

Odds and Sods

I've spent this weekend travelling (one and a half hour wait on a freezing platform, thank you Irish Rail) and working while sick, so I'm a little bit burnt out and uninspired.  I'm going on an enforced blog hiatus (I'm away from my computer and photos and such) and I'll be back on Thursday, hopefully reinvigorated by some family get togethers, cups of tea and plates of shortbread.  Ok, ok, I'm going to stop moaning... now. Here's a few bits that are looking mighty good to feverish ol' me at the moment.

This is my favorite Christmas song. When the horns come in...

My new shoes. They are fakey fake fake Miu Mius but they rock my socks. Incidentally, I should probably think about wearing socks with them. My toes are still sore from the last time I wore them out.

It's the End of the World as We Know It

Conor Walton is my favorite Irish artist.  His still lives are amazing, done in the style of the Dutch Masters - exploring similar themes using modern, everyday objects.  Sinister, sexy, funny, amazing.  He'll be giving a lecture on the aforementioned Dutch Masters in the National Gallery on December 14th.  He has stopped painting and taking commissions for the time being due to a personal matter (my mom is on his mailing list, feverishly waiting to snatch up a still life) so this will be a rare opportunity to interact with a great artist.

Have a great week everyone.  Hope it's a festive one!

Question Time

I've been tagged by Think What You Like to complete an "I love your blog" interview, which means that I get to answer ten questions and pass the burden on to some more lucky bloggers.  So, if you're curious about who I really am and what burns deep within my tortured soul... don't look here.  They're not THAT kind of questions.

Why did you create your blog?

Handily, I already wrote a post on this very subject, so click to read!  The short answer, however, is a mix of April O'Neal from the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and a burning desire to NOT be an architect like my dad.

What kind of blogs do you follow?

I'm a blog dilettante.  I dabble in street style and beauty blogs and wordy, text heavy offerings.  Mostly, I suppose I like blogs where the writer has their own distinct voice, or shows me something new that I've never seen before.  Fashematics, Advanced Style and Threadbared would rank up there in my all-time faves.

Favourite make-up brand?

Mac for colourful eyeshadows, liners and lipsticks.  Bobbi Brown for everything else.  Bobbi Brown concealers and foundations are the best.  Even at the depths of my poorness I'll find a way to buy an under-eye concealer.  I'm also participating in a humanitarian act by doing do, for the world is infinitely better off without seeing my dark circles.

Favorite clothing brand?

This is a toughie, because so much of the stuff I buy is second-hand (err, I mean vintage).  I haven't bought a pair of high street jeans in at least two years.  Count 'em - two years.  I quite like Topshop, but River Island is also upping it's game (the sizes aren't so prohibitively small as Topshop's either).  For designer brands I love Alexander McQueen.  He was probably my favourite designer.  Vivienne Westwood is great for larger-chested women like me and I love Miu Miu for the cute factor.

Your indispensible make-up product?

The Bobbi Brown concealer, as noted above.  That and a good pair of tweezers.  While not technically make-up, they do make my face look a hell of a lot better.

Your favourite colour? 

Purple.  I remember telling some old biddy that when I was a child and left the room to the echo's of "Purple!  That's the devil's colour!" ringing in my ears.  The joys of growing up in rural Kerry.  As a teen I wanted purple converse so badly but the (one) shoe shop in town stocked red and blue only .  One of my friends revealed that she dyed her red pair blue, the end result being purple.  I though that she was the smartest girl ever.

Your perfume?

Victor and Rolf's Flowerbomb, which smells exactly how a bomb of flowers should smell.  For less aggressive floralia, I like Paul Smith Rose.  Men go absolutely bananas for it because it smells so innocent - hey, who am I to argue?

Your favourite film?

Nope.  Don't have one.  I am a film commitment phobe.  Off the top of my head, some films I really enjoy and would put in some sort of league table are Up!, Welcome to the Dollhouse, The Virgin Suicides, Malcolm X, The Last Picture Show, Sabrina, Some Like it Hot, All About Eve, the list goes on and on.

What country would you like to visit and why?

Japan, or specifically Tokyo.  Who wouldn't want to be subsumed into that landscape?

Write the last question and answer it yourself.

Erm, sorry.  I'm not good at these things.

When I ask myself questions, it's usually alone the lines of what I'm going to have for lunch.

Come to think of it, I'm going to have some smoked salmon with capers and cottage cheese on some home-made bran bread.  Mmm.  Sorted.

I'm going to pass the baton on to:

Blaubushka 

Magatha-May 

My Third Cousin 

My Republic of Fashion 

P.S  Scroll down for a great giveaway .  You can now 'like' The Licentiate on facebook , so if you do like this blog, don't be afraid to show your support and click here!

This is me. Jumping.

Two days ago, a funny thing happened.  This blog started getting three times the normal amount of hits and I had no idea why.  That is, until I went on Style Bubble and saw that one of my comments had been re-upped on a post about blogger poses .  This is what I said.


"The old 'mid-air jump' pose is another pose not for the light hearted blogger. Tried it once. Never again. Think I'll just stick to the 'Are those MY shoes?' pose in the future."


So, if anyone out there should click on the link and wonder what the one time I tried the mid-air jump and failed miserably looks like, here it is in all it's anticlimactic glory.  It was taken in a dingy smoking room in an even dingier nightclub and this, believe it or not, is the best of what seemed like twelve million attempts but in reality was probably only five or six.  In my mind, I look like an electrocuted sausage roll.  Hence, sticking to the 'staring at the shoes' pose in the future.

Jacket - Lipsy, Cardigan - Agnes b, Top - Ann-Sofie Back for Topshop,
 Borrowed scarf, Brooch - Sonia Rykiel for H&M, Tights, Primark, Vintage roper boots

PS - As you can see, I've a negligible amount of links at the side of my page.  I'm going to get on that very very soon.  I'd love to trade links, if anyone wants to, do let me know!

Changeable Weather

So, it's spring and the weather goes from sun so bright I wake up with spots dancing in front of my eyes (really should get blackout blinds) to torrential rain in a matter of minutes.  This makes dressing for the day even much more of an arduous process.

But then again, sometimes it's nice just to throw on a few classic basics in uncomplicated colours, like Converse, jeans, a Breton striped top and a nice mac, sit down on a bench, soak in the sun and let the world pass by - until it starts to rain again that is.

Ray Ban Wayfarers, mac - Uniqlo, red cardigan - American Apparel, black cardigan - Agnes b, striped tee - Topshop, jeans - Topshop.

Things are just better when they're symmetrical, aren't they?

I'll never apologise for loving Converse, although there are so many reasons why I should (poor arch support notwithstanding). 

The view from my vista.

A Licentiate backstory - A Graduate's Graduation.

Today I went to my brother's confirmation. Since my brother is the youngest of four, it inevitably doesn't have the same amount of ceremony as it used to. I also feel like I should add that in the past ten years since my confirmation, circumstances have somewhat changed when it comes to religious ceremony in Ireland. It's sad but it's true. For the confirmation my parents wore suits, my sister (who was my brother's sponsor, a kind of moral compass - ha!) wore a leather jacket and skinny jeans and I wore a polka-dot minidress, which my mother said was indecent.

Consider the below photo. This is what I wore to my graduation. This was the second university that I attended (but the first time that I managed to get a degree... long story).




Rented gown and, er, pennant thing - Arts Faculty at UCC. Shoes - Aldo. Tights - Penneys/Primark. Dress - All Saints. Jacket - Lipsy.

I graduated in September and, as you can see, I'm pretty uncomfortable. I'm really not good with ceremony and I usually end up dressing very inappropriately without really thinking (hence the mini dress in church situation). The shoes clacked on the walk up to the college president. He gave me an odd look due to the studded lapels poking out over the gown. The purple tights were a bit of a standout in the class picture. All in all, it was a sartorial miss for the people around me.

But it was my graduation. It was a celebration of all the hard work I put in. It was a time just for me. And that's why I love this outfit. Sometime you just have to go with what you like.

That and purple with navy is a criminally underused colour combo. Ahem

Ello!

Hi, I'm Sarah, and I'm a terrible blogger.

Evidence of my crappy former blog experience can be seen at Cheap&Nasty, which was my internet home until my uncle the PR Guru gently reminded me that calling oneself 'cheap' or 'nasty' might affect what kind of work I get in the future (I'm a journalist and not a porn star for future reference). I write The Graduate for The Cork Independent and freelance a bit. Sometimes I'm on Social Welfare... which is NOT good for buying clothes. It is good for devising recipes involving kidney beans, tinned tomatoes and rice.

This is the product of my obsessions including but not confined to; magazines, stealing my friend's SLRs and fiddling around with the aperture settings, internet shopping, colour schemes, frames of reference and inspiration, history of fashion, the tenets of style, bad taste, out-of-print fashion books, bad DIY, local goings-on, vintage, stuff collected on my travels, patterns and anything slightly insidious, off-kilter or weird. I'll be posting up some of my favourite old posts from Cheap&Nasty before I shut it down. Become a follower, leave a comment, it's all welcome!

Sarah x