A Spoonful of Sugar

I've 'moved' between home and university a lot - this is my fifth year. You'd think that after all the practice I've had, I'd have the packing-moving-unpacking game down to a tee, but I'm pretty sure it never gets easier. The pile of things that are absolutely essential for life keep changing, I forget about half my clothes until I need them, putting everything into boxes and then back out again within 48 hours seems like an epic chore and I'm back to dreaming of this Mary Poppins scene, and just how much easier life would be if I had magic tidying powers...

This year I'm battling a new city, a course load that seems to grow every time I think about it, missing assembly instructions for sister's old desk, and a lack of internet that is both confusing and refreshing. I still have 'basic' internet thanks to my trusty smartphone, but today I had to get over my pride and head to a nearby coffee shop to work out things for my course, attempt to start catching up with Fashion Month, and just be 'in touch' with the world again. Hopefully we'll manage to get our flat online by the start of class, but until that theoretical day, I think I'll be sticking with my semi-break from the wider world,except for academic emergencies (ah, no, wait, everyone else has reading already? I only found out my courses at the weekend? Am I behind already? ahhhhhhhhhh)

I could really do with that spoonful of sugar right now, Mary.

I Wish I Was A Girl

Even though I'm usually drawn to more masculine/androgynous looks when I'm getting dressed in the morning, I've noticed a counter-theme during the first half of Fashion Month. When I'm looking at runway shows, I'm drawn towards the more romantic, frothy, feminine looks; those are the ones that I've been saving to my computer. Much as I loved Margaret Howell's collection, in it's typical relaxed-masculine silhouette, there is something about the quiet drama of Oscar de la Renta, Emilia Wickstead, or Fendi that is irresistible.

 Creatures of the Wind

 Honor

 Jenny Packham

Oscar de la Renta

 Burberry Prorsum

 Emilia Wickstead

 Emilio de la Morena

 Marios Schwab

 Meadham Kirchhoff

 Osman

Roksanda Ilincic

 Alberta Ferretti

 Emporio Armani

 Fendi

 Luisa Beccaria

Mother of Pearl

images via Style.com

Summertime Sadness

Cardigan: Primarks Menswear, Dress: clothes swap, Leggings: asos, Shoes: Converse All-Stars

This feels a little like a non-outfit, just clothes to lounge about in feeling a bit under the weather, but the fact that I'm wearing leggings AND a cardigan inside for the first time since summer started is on the exciting side to someone who prefers layering properly than the awkward somewhere between the two seasons where it's too cold for shorts and t-shirts and too warm for, well, this.

My best friend and I are currently wardrobe-sorting and clothes-swapping, which is how I gained this dress. She's getting my v-necked jumpers from my preppy days, and in return I got several items in this colour, although she still has plenty of them. Isn't it odd that we all gravitate towards certain colours? We used to swap bank cards and make pacts not to buy certain colours in an effort to try and diversify, but it hasn't ever seemed to stick.

Even though this is, with the dress, a 'girly' outfit, for some reason it feels a little tomboy-esque, which is why I opted for my oft-neglected Converses to traipse up and down pavements in the rain, feeling a million miles away from my summer of nothing already.

Also (I appear to be in a rambling mood today), this is one the highlights of Radio 1's Live Lounge covers recently (they're running a live lounge a day through September). It's an excellent song to begin with, but this is a really amazing version of it.

AM

Talk about the Arctic Monkeys, and it always comes back to the fact that the band have never managed to match the everyman-anthem status of 'Whatever People Say I Am...'. But then again, no band I can think of has ever kept that going for very long in the end. And really, in the seven years since that album's release, I'd be disappointed if they hadn't switched it up a bit. With each record, they changed a little, and that's not a bad thing, when each release has been as good as the five albums currently sitting on my imaginary shelf. Scrolling through reviews of 'AM', more reference was made to 'Whatever...' than to any other Monkeys record, which says something about the place the record holds in popular culture, but it's in danger of eclipsing what is quite possibly one of the best albums of the year, from anyone, across any genre.

'AM', peppered with Turner's characteristic drawl, almost-whiny guitars, and the right amount of posturing, explicitly draws on a different kind of night out to their debut offering. This time around, it's less about the night out with your mates, and more about the emotional drag that offers around most people once they're in their cups. It's a sadder version of a night out than just freewheeling around town with your mates, and maybe it's just because we're all a little older, but it almost sounds more honest. It's a 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll' kind of record, but without the glamour put on the theme by other artists - the idea is portrayed as part of everyday life, which isn't a surprising attitude given that they can't escape from being a rock band at this point, but somehow seems fresh in the slightly seedy air they give it (things have always seemed a little seedy from where the boys are standing apparently).

This might be the album I've been looking forward to most this year. The gritty edges to the production, the very Monkeys nature of the music - because regardless of the evolution of the band, no one can ever quite sound like them - was something I almost needed to reappear again. Even though in theory anything highly anticipated has a small chance of living up to expectations, this did. Probably because, at the end of the day, what I expected was an album that filled out the gaps in the songs they'd released, and that's exactly what I got.

(No siblings were 'inflicted' to endless repeats of this album, I had 5 hours of travelling to and from Swansea to fill instead)

Erin Fetherston and Red Valentino Lookbooks

Fashion Month is upon us, as it always is, and with that comes the onslaught of runway shots. I love the idea of runway shows - the videos of girls strutting down the catwalk, the way that the music choice influences how you see the show, seeing the looks in motion - but there's something frustratingly 'flat' about runway shots sometimes. Lookbooks, on the other hand, are something else. Even though you lose out on the motion and the music, labels that opt for lookbooks sometimes have something else in their favour (when the lookbook is just the clothes on a model against bright white it's not the same thing). Just look at Erin Fetherston and Red Valentino's recently released Spring/Summer 2014 offerings:

images via Style.com

There's a whimsy about these lookbooks that couldn't be captured on a catwalk in the same way, without having the finances of much larger labels. In part it gives the label control of how the dresses are seen; they certainly add an atmosphere that makes up for the lack of music. They're like mini-campaigns and editorials, which is always my favourite fashion media.

Also, I know that the last couple of days have been a final End of Summer fling with warm weather, but they're making me wish the mid-afternoon heat would last all year, despite my love of autumn.

White Lies - Big TV

I often forget about White Lies, dwelling as they do at the bottom of my list of artists in my library and ipod, so I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the album review section of the paper and found a new album, without having missed one since "Ritual". I then promptly forgot again, until I spotted it scrawled on my noticeboard after its first listen, and returned to it today. Some bands change their sound over time, or from record to record, but there's a distinctive-ness to White Lies that for some reason felt very comfortable to hear again. "Big TV" very much follows in the footsteps of their previous efforts, which, thanks to their relatively individual style, is nothing to be disappointed in. Unless, y'know, you don't like their previous records. But I'm going to pretend everyone does.

Their anthemic, orchestral, post-punk MO from "To Lose My Life..." and "Ritual" is the same, and works well with their 'couple moving to the big city' concept/story arch. The almost eerie vocals, the big choruses, the semi-chanted moments that almost verge on mantras, everything that drew me to White Lies in 2009 is still very present in "Big TV". The only 'almost' that frustrates me about the band is that they're almost popular, when I think they're the kind of band that's awesome as a small-time band but will also be able to translate that to filling big venues.

Concept albums are occasionally tricky and feel forced, unable to work as stand alone tracks, in a manner reminiscent of some musicals, but this is one of the times it really does work. I listened to the whole album maybe one too many times for my siblings' sanity* (this happens every time new albums appear), and then listened to a couple of tracks that had caught my eye on their own a couple of times**, just to test it. It works.

It could be easily seen as another judgement on the times we live in, and the first and last tracks certainly suggest some materialism-bashing, but largely what White Lies are good at is creating little stories in their songs, sometimes with lyrics about objects that make the emotions of the characters seem a little more real to me. Characters, rather than personal emotions, seem to be a part of the band's tool-kit, and makes the ideas far more wide-reaching than the usual tales of heartbreak (not that I'm one to turn down yet another love song).

*the thing about people growing up is that there are increasing numbers of them on the same looong holiday deal as me, although I am about to be too grown up for that *sob*
**brothers, I'm very sorrynotsorry

(Daft Punk is Playing in) My House

Left: Blouse: Zara, Skirt: H&M - Right: Cardigan: H&M, Dress: Glamourous via ASOS - Phone Case from amazon

I skipped off to Bristol for the second half of this week, to find new house mates and a place to live for the next twelve months. I'm pretty excited to move in three weeks, to a flat in Clifton instead of the little village I've been in all summer. But I am going to enjoy the end of this summer before I get back to studying and looking after myself, just chilling at home, relishing the end of the almost-country summer, watching ANTM (seriously, this season is hilarious) and planning all the exciting things I'm going to get up to once I return to city living.