Céline Baby Cabas

When I first got my PPI cheque I didn't even dare look at it. I just held it, took deep breaths and then crossed myself approximately seventeen times. Ain't gonna lie- it wasn't as much as I was hoping for. My battle to get any kind of payout at all has been ridiculously epic, with my bank at one point even denying I was a customer of theirs. (Serious case of WTF). But at the end of the day, I'm now a rich bitch. Ha! (Well, at least, it feels like it, if only for a hot minute). Naturally, once I'd got over the shock, excitement, and slight disappointment of receiving my cheque- my thoughts immediately turned to handbags. And the wish list compiling began in a flash.

My mum tells me one of the first words I ever learnt to say was 'baggie'. I even went round Disney World, aged seven, carrying a clutch bag and wearing large shades. (#yergetme) So, to say I'm an obsessed bag-laydee is something of an understatement. The bags I dream of owning are many and marginally varied, at any one time. Currently, it stands like this: Chloe Faye (large), Chloe Faye (small), Céline Trio, Céline Belt Bag, Céline Knot Bag, Céline Cabas Phantom, Céline Box Bag, YSL Sac Du Jour (small), YSL Universite, Balenciaga Mini Papier, Loewe Puzzle, Gucci Dionysus, APC Half Moon, Marni Trunk, Chanel Wallet On A Chain and every colour bucket bag that Mansur Gavriel make, (plus quite a few more). My sister's nickname for me is 'Greedy' and I can totally see where she's coming from with that one :) However, I didn't delay in getting my shop on and it's now not gonna be any great surprise to you- given the title of this post- that I went in- and I went Céline. I'd actually seen the Baby Cabas before and dismissed it (you know, coz I used to be poor); and I also had slight concerns about the proportions (it's on the small side for a tote). But I had a lovely time swanning round Céline like Lady Loadsamoney, and Melanie there is my new BFF. It was terrifying and exhilarating to just drop big cash bombs and not really have to stress about it. In fact, I got the wind in my sails verrrry quickly and started thinking about a knot bangle and a wallet and all sorts. But I want my fundage to stretch to some other stuff- like an Olympus Pen, and an Acne scarf, some Eames chairs, and maybe a few tinier treats too. So, thank you bank for ripping me off, then paying me back (eventually), thanks to my beaut sis for her perseverance in the whole matter (she's my rock) and thank you Phoebe P for being such a ledge. This bag lady is one happy obsessive.

Bag- Céline//Print- Sealoe

Skinny Rib Stripes

A couple of weekends back I went shopping with Mumsy. Sunday lunch out followed by some retail therapy has been a regular gig of ours for a long while. Until this year. (Tiny violin time). Both of us have been ill, and our outings have been on hiatus....until two weeks ago when we both decided we should 'try and be normal'. (Tall order for me in more ways than one. Insert yer own lol). One of our faves for a browse is Sandro. So in went, and cooed over errrything, but a navy pea coat combo-ed with a skinny rib stripey polo neck got us both silly excited. Mumsy said I should get both pieces (she hates that I wear cheap clothes); but even for a girl with a PPI cheque in her life, six hundred quid for the both seemed like a lotta cash to splash. A real case of 'look at this pea coat tell me she's broke', if ever there was one. Then I remembered that I'd seen a priddy good striped roll neck in Topshop. £28 is more my kinda thing (soz mum), and besides big money = handbags to me. *NB If you follow me on IG you'll already know I've bought one bag with my very-quickly-diminishing payout. And, well, Cos are normally ace on peacoats, aren't they? Catch you soon xx

PS Soz for the lack of thigh gap, lack of supportive nork harness and lack of in-focus pics

Striped Polo- Topshop//Cropped Flares- H&M//Bag- Mansur Gavriel

Instagram Irritations

As usual, pretty much everything on Instagram is annoying the beeejeeezus out of me, so I thought I'd compile a lovely list of my grievances to really give vent to my fury and hopefully cleanse my rather irritated soul.

Change Is A Good Thing

Er, no it freaking isn't. Who ever said change is good needs a cold shower and a head wobble. I'm referring (of course?) to IG's new and "improved" direct messaging. I used to love DMing. I'd be pinging pictures and pithy asides (ahem) back and forth all day to my main chicas, happily slagging off everyone in the whole wide gramo'sphere. But my preferred method of bitching has been cruelly taken from me. Basically, I have an iPhone 4S and an iPad Mini 2- so far- so first world. Neither allow me now to see my DMs for various techie reasons that I won't bore you with. So, I got in the queue at Apple where a bloke in a beanie told me I needed to back up, sync, load, reboot, go to Rymans, install the Apple app on my phone for an appointment (I made him try to do it- epic fail) and generally become the kind of person who doesn't need to get in the queue at the Apple shop. If I understood the first thing about technology I wouldn't be here, in this bastard queue, when I could be in Zara. Since QueueGate, I now can't use IG at all on my phone any more, it's hit storage and I'm not due an upgrade until next May. Fucking May. Pissed off? Just a teeny weeny bit.

Now You're Just Somebody That I Used To Know

With increasing frequency I'm getting girls who I once counted as 'buddies', not liking my pictures and then unfollowing me. Of course, being Mrs Loyal (first name Naive) it never occurs to me that these things are gonna happen. So I cheerfully carry on liking their pics and throwing out gushing compliments like Muggy McMugsville, when they've discarded my sorry ass some time back. Great.

Happy Fucking Birthday

Get on this: I'd been following and liking the pics of a very cool girl for some time when she finally noticed me. (Who, me? Fucking hell, this whole thing is like sitting on the 'Singles Bench' in Grease waiting for some boy to take pity on you and ask for a dance). Yes! Woo! She liked my pic! Emboldened by the positivity she was showering upon me I decided to wish her happy birthday. I thought nothing more of it until she posted her next picture. For some reason I decided to look back at her birthday snap only to find she'd said thank you to every other freaking arsehole person who sent her birthday wishes....except me. And I mean everyone. 

The Hulk

Some people on IG are just annoying aren't they? You can't put your finger on quite why, but they are. For a while I'd been getting what I consider to be 'passive aggressive' comments off one particular girl. I'd held my keyboard thus far, figuring I didn't really wanna get into a big aul' ding-dong on there unless absolutely necessary. But when she had another dig recently I couldn't let it pass. I thought about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it (only fools rush in). Anddddd......she apologized and I think felt suitably embarrassed. (I played the illness card. Not proud. But I am ill and I can't fucking see very well, so there you go). I could've torn strips off her, but I've a feeling I might need to save that one for another day. (Dot, dot, dot) *Not in the Mamma Mia sense
Rumi Has It
Do you follow Rumi Neely? You probably do as she has way over half a million "Insta Disciples". Increasingly she seems to enjoy courting controversy, or at very least, sparking debates about her weight. 'Stop thin shaming', 'She may be happy with her figure', 'Please eat something', and so it goes on, endlessly. I know I know, I can unfollow if I don't wanna see it. But actually, I do wanna see her weird, contorted, pseudo-sexual poses, and I do definitely wanna see The Fighting Followers trying to make sense of it all. I guess I'm doing the Instagram version of driving slowly past a car crash. But then again, that is basically what  IG is about, so I'm not losing sleep. 

What's been bugging you recently on IG? Lemmie know xx
PS Wow- look at my camera roll shot- so full of beautiful, fleeting, meaningful moments forever captured. On no, it's just full of self-obsessed shit for Instagram

Sunnies- Céline//Notebook- Bloggers Planner//Cup- Design Letters

Is Using Photoshop Immoral?

To Photoshop or not to Photoshop, that is the question. Personally, I love grappling with a moral dilemma and there's none more pertinent to bloggers than the fine art of digital retouching; so let's get into it.

Cards On The Table

Straight off the bat, I should fess up here and admit that I use both P-Shop and Facetune. (Actually, I use Gimp on my laptop- which in case you don't know- is like a freebie version of The Shop for tightwads). I started using Gimp when I asked a good friend if he knew how to correct a holiday snap of mine. (Vain much? You betcha). I loved the pic, but my flyaway Brillo-Pad hair and smudged mazzy? Not so much. He told me to download Gimp and gave me very specific instructions on what to do. (He knows I'm a complete div and would only have ended up asking him to help me anyway had he not put it in Gimp-For-Dummies terminology). I was absolutely fascinated by it and immediately set to work 'correcting' all sorts of shit- including a lovely snap of my mummy and me that I completely ruined by looking like Michael Jackson. 

A Little Goes A Long Way

So far, so what? All I'd done was rescue photos that I made look rubbish by 'merely' enhancing them into a printable, saveable and frameable state-of-being. Did that make me a moral pauper? Not if you go by the great Susan Sontag's theory that all photos are simulacrums and inherently 'fake'. Then I started blogging, and things started to get a bit more hazy.

Blurred Lines

I've read about girls who've used Photoshop, then given it all up and put out a confessional 'cleansing' blog post to heal the wounds. I've read about girls who use P-Shop on the regz and don't worry a jot about it. And I've also read about girls who stand in judgement of those that use it and think we are akin to Satan crossed with Lindsey 'Wonky Wall' Lohan. I actually think everyone has a valid point of view. I continue to use it,  and here's for why. The most valuable things that Gimp enables me to do are 1) crop a picture without losing pixels and 2) lighten a photo dramatically in a very precise way. For a long while I was cropping my pictures in Windows Photo Reader (srsly) and Holy Grainyballs did it show. I'll also go so far as to say that for a complete dunce like me it's actually enjoyable learning shit on Gimp, and it feels like it's the one thing under the general category of 'Computer Stuff' where I've actually developed any skillz whatsoever. I still don't know how to use it properly and everytime I Google how to do something my brain hurts immediately and I have to stop. But I look forward to stumbling upon new and interesting ways to make my piccies better. (I've included a Before And After below so you can see my corrections. Not vastly different at first glance it's true, but just that bit cleaner, and generally more pleasing to my eye- and hopefully yours).

Face Off

Finally, let's tackle Instagram. Facetune is my go-to app for all my gramming (including fliters). For my flatlays I clean-up any stray bits of dirt or hairs that magically always seem to find their way onto my white card (as per below) and yes, I'm not above removing a spot or a wrinkle. You may think that's wrong. Or misleading. Or as my friend Greg from college once said "you're only cheating yourself". (He was actually referring to the fact that my entire class cheated on their Art History mock A-Level, but the point remains). For me- someone with acne and acne scarring- it's oddly theraputic to magically erase the craters on my face, and is probably something that only those with skin problems can fully understand. (I'm far from trying to 'perfect' myself though and if you look back at any of my shoots on here you'll see I always end up looking stupendously average in every way). I'm just trying not to let the nasty shit detract from an outfit or an image. Sometimes of course, that 'nasty shit' can make a picture (particularly when a good photographer is behind the lens- think- Bruce Webber's obsession with broken noses for example); but for the purposes of blogging I feel no shame in tidying things up. What do you think about retouching? Do you indulge? Do you find me utterly Satanic? Lemmie know xx

Sneaks- Adidas//Cup- Design Letters//Flower- Sia