Post Christmas Sale Picks

Happy Christmas to you all! I hope the day was filled with merriment and laughter and that Santa was good to you. We have literally not stopped eating since christmas eve, so I thought I would take a break from scoffing left overs into my gob and show you all a few bits and bobs I've gifted myself from the December Sales. Not that I have any money left, but I managed to find a few good buys that didn't burn a hole in my pocket too much! 

I'm not a great fan of online shopping (despite working in e-commerce for the House of Fraser website), partly because post offices are in my Room 101, but mainly because I just can't do it! There are some experts that can order tons, and know exactly what they're items will look like, and get it right every time. I guess this comes with practise, but I always end up having to do returns or not finding the best deal, the whole thing is just quite distressing for me! But with boredom creeping in, I began to scroll the sale pages of my fave fashion sites and I think I've made some good choices here. 

December Sale Picks by emilyrodgers18 featuring statement earrings

The camel coat is a piece I (actually my mum) bought in the store sales at River Island, saving £30 it was marked down to £50 from £80. I love it, it's an oversized cocoon fit with a lovely deep red lining and will do nicely for a new winter coat. 

Accessorize have some great savings as always at this time of year and costume jewellery is everywhere at the moment. They have a lot of great statement pieces, but after searching for some big embellished earrings for a while, I finally settled on these lovely pearlescent pastel drop earrings. They were half price, £7 down from £14, I may have to get another pair I've got my eye on! 

I know, I know, Christmas is over, so why on earth have I got a xmas jumper in here. Well, was it just me or did you also have a mad dash around Primark the day before National Christmas jumper day?! So, to stop that from happening next year, I've thought ahead and ordered one in advance. You can get some amazing deals on xmas jumpers at the moment, I bagged this one for just £6 from Boohoo! 

Urban Outfitters is great for knick knacks, and if you want to be super organised, you can start thinking about next years christmas presents! (too far?) I got the hip flask, iPhone hairbrush case, kitty pencil case, and Russell Brands book into my virtual shopping basket for a good price. Great gifts for the future or little treats for yourself, either way they'll come in handy! 

I've been searching for a new good pair of jeans for some time now which is an ever lasting struggle in itself #firstworldproblems but I thought I'd give some ASOS ones a try as I've always opted for Topshop's Tall section. This pair came in leg 34" which should just about fit, and they're under £20 which is a bonus!

I never ever treat myself to nice undies, I usually just grab the nearest bra to me in Primark and think that'll do. I've wanted to try the triangle unpadded bras for a while so when I came across this one for £6.50 on ASOS with its delicate feminine design I thought I'd give it a bash. Being bosomly challenged, I'm a bit skeptical on how it will look but fingers crossed! 

And lastly, the off shoulder, bardot style top is caked across the sale pages right now. I'm not sure if the trend has been a flop or if it's just getting started, but I love the look of the necklines so I ordered this one from Boohoo for £6. It's always a bit hit and miss with this site so we'll see how it turns out!

Hope you've managed to bag some good buys this sale season. If you know any good sites to recommend for some good bargains, please comment them below! 

The Wrong Knickers by Bryony Gordon: A book review

Scowling the non-fiction shelves of Euston station looking for the next book to fill the emptiness in my morning commute and my night time routine, I stumbled across this copy and thought it sounded like a laugh. On that 2 hour train to Manchester, I couldn't put it down, not even scathed by people beside me, looking alarmed at the title 'The Wrong Knickers', I was too engrossed. 

The story line follows Bryony through her twenties to early 30's on a whirlwind adventure (without sounding too Enid Blyton) of a career, boys (mainly boys), friends, drugs, sex, food and happiness in a discovery of realisation that your life will not pan out how you dreamt it, but the journey brought you self actualisation and a book deal. 

Critics are calling it the new age Bridget Jones, and I wholeheartedly concur, although I would say she is also a cross between Bridge and a grown up Georgia Nicolson (from the Angus, thongs and full frontal snogging series, for those who live under a rock). However be warned, only read this book in public if you are comfortable spluttering and snorting with laughter in front of on-lookers. For me, reading this book and giggling quietly to myself was not only fun in itself, but a revelation. How often do you see people genuinely about to wet themselves purely by what they are reading, and thats what this book did to me! The disastrous attempts at being the 'cool-girl', the numerous cringeworthy dates/ sex-capades and embarrassing tales left me in stitches and even better, left tube goers flocking to different seats, because heaven forbid I laughed in public. 

It was even weirdly relatable, it was like she was living my life, but doing it better. It started as her being a 22 year old (my current age), living on bethnal green road (my current address) with a best friend called Sally (my current housemate), the job I longingly crave for (working for a magazine) and crazy single girl nights out (not too fussed about this one for now, boyfriend and all). She became a writer for the magazine, and like most bloggers who don't have the bottle to pose for the camera in their OOTD but take to their blog to write, thats my dream job. For years I've wanted to write a book, and it almost felt like she was ripping the words from my mouth, but with greater conundrums and anecdotes and fuck up stories. By page 50, I was getting down right freaked out! But the pages turned and the plot changed. As Bryony progressed into her later 20's, the similarities faded and what was left was more hilarity, gossip, drama, and a rather happy ending.

The only downside to this story, of which I always find being a pessimist, is that I started to get irritated by how much of a f**k up she was being without doing anything about it. I'm putting that annoyance down to my uptight personality and inability to do anything spontaneously, so maybe more a pinch of envy more than anything. 

If anything this book inspired me. It made me realise I want to write, it's what I really enjoy. It's also an easy read, one that doesn't require much thinking, which is perfect for a half asleep journey to work. A thorough recommendation and a 4 out of 5 star rating from me. 

Thanks Guys! 

London Fashion Interns

Hi Everyone! I've been taking a mini break from Stray for the past couple of months, getting to grips with my new job, enjoying summer, but most importantly I've been working on a brand new project called London Fashion Interns. 

LFI is a community to come and share your internship experience with others or read about other peoples experiences in fashion internships. The day to day tasks, the ins and outs, in order to let others discover what being a fashion intern is all about. There are thousands of fashion companies and hundreds of different job titles within each one. Interning is a right of passage in most companies, therefore knowing what each one entails, how to get by and get the best from yours is a great way to get where you want to be with ease. LFI can also act as a support system for struggling interns. It’s a very competitive industry to be in, especially being paid next to nothing. Reading about other interns, knowing you’re not the only one struggling, how each person is coping and the option to contact each other is a great way to make it a bit better for everyone.

The idea for LFI came about in a rather simple way. Before starting my internship at Vivienne Westwood I wanted to do a bit of research to see what doing an internship there or in PR would be like, having never done an internship before. After browsing for a good hour on the web I found nothing, and LFI was born. 

A community website where people can share their internship experience with each other.  For those wanting to learn about the fashion industry, for those who’ve never done an internship before and for those who may want to branch out into different fields but don’t know much about it, this is the place for you.

We've already had a few contributors including fashion bloggers, Katie Meadway from http://www.aimabovelimits.co.uk/ and Essy Park from http://www.noirfairy.com on their experiences as fashion Interns. If you would like to read about them, head over to http://www.londonfashioninterns.co.uk. 

We are also looking for more contributors to talk about their internship in fashion. You don't have to be a blogger, or even live in London, but if you've done a fashion internship, we would love to hear about your experience! It's so simple to apply, simply head to the 'Get Featured' on the site, fill in the form and send it back to us via the email: londonfashioninterns@live.com and you'll be on the site for all to see within a few days! All we ask is that you share your post on your social channels to help us spread the word. 

We're very excited about this project and we hope to speak to some of you soon!

https://twitter.com/ldnfashinterns

Tumblr Tinkering

Whilst interning at Motel I was given the company's Tumblr to look after. Update it with awesome photos, maintain those witty hashtags and get those adoring followers up. 

It became my social media baby, my pride and joy, and it pained me to leave it to someone else. So I started my own Tumblr page for this blog, and filled it with my own inspiration and some awesome photos which reflect my style and personality. It's my new fave by far! 

I am still learning loads about Tumblr and love to look at great blogs for inspiration and to see how everyone represents their own style through images. If you have a Tumblr page I would loveeee to take a look! 

You can check mine out and follow if you like it, here! 

She's All That

Hello little bloglings! Since I've been gone (no, I'm not going to start jotting down kelly clarkson lyrics) I've acquired a brand spanking new job (PAID this time) at House of Fraser in the multi channel department of their Baker Street office! I'm still learning the ins and outs but my team are lovely and I can't wait to get settled there!

Secondly, to celebrate my first pay cheque in over 6 months, me and a couple of gals booked a holiday to Ibiza for the grand price of £200! Flights, hotel and parties included, well chuffed! The party places are not my sort of thing anymore but I just couldn't turn down a deal like that! 

Another bit of exciting news, Stray Closet has now reached over 40k views! That's probably a days work for a lot of you, but this has been a long time coming for me! So thanks guys!

Amongst all of this, I have seriously dropped off the fashion bandwagon and desperately need to learn whats what again! 

So, to kick off, I purchased this cheeky number a couple of days ago whilst watching Eurovision (who else is loving Conchita?!).

 I recently watched 'She's All That' and simply had to find a gorge 90s trend spaghetti strap dress like Laneys, and Fashion Union made this happen for just £12! This one also looks a lot like Cher's little white number in Clueless, you all know the one! 

It hasn't arrived yet but I'm hoping it'll be super cute when it does! 

Clueless by emilyrodgers18 featuring a white dress

I've always been so focused on print each season, so this time its all about plain colours and simple lines and shapes. A simple dress can look gorgeous when its got a great fit, and they're so much cheaper too! 

Motel Rocks Internship

Hello Everyone! 

I just wanted to share with you my internship experience at Motel Rocks, the online fashion brand, so far. 

Working in the Press Office Show Room on Great Portland Street, my title is Social Media Assistant and I love it, it's one of the funnest jobs I've done! 

When I started off there in January, I was collating imagery and writing the content to publish across all of the social media platforms which include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Polyvore, Tumblr, Pinterest, the list goes on and on! 

I now act as Blogger Representative, dealing with all the 2000+ existing bloggers on our system, gifting them samples, finding new ones to collaborate with, and ensuring they feature anything we send them! So if you're a blogger wishing to collaborate with us, you'll most likely be in correspondence with me. Until April any way! 

What I look for in a blog to collaborate with: 

Well the main thing is the amount of followers. If you have over 5000 followers on one platform such as Instagram or Lookbook (they're the best for imagery) but I will look at Facebook and Twitter as well, then you've got through the first stage. However if your imagery is extremely good, but you've only got 2000 followers, I may be able to overlook this.

I then look to see if you wear Motel, or the type of clothing Motel sells. If you do, and you have a good look/ styling ability and the pictures are quite editorial and would look perfect across our social, then you're in! 

It's quite strange having this sort of power. Not saying I'm the bloody Queen, but when I'm sending out my endless emails to bloggers from all over the world, it's nice to know I've made someones day by offering a collaboration (A.K.A free clothes!). 

I do still dabble in the social world, I write a few tweets, maybe help out with Facebook posts and Instagram imagery, but the one I still collate everything for is Tumblr. The Motel Rocks Tumblr page is my absolute social baby, I LOVE finding the images and seeing the followers grow, it's become my favourite platform by far. If you fancy checking it out you can do here!

I also got to help out at LFW on behalf of the brand which was an experience to say the least! I was in charge of collaborating with brands to get samples for about 300 goodie bags we were giving away, organising the girls to work to give out the goodie bags, as well as contacting all the bloggers that were going to LFW and arranging to meet up so we could get a few snaps of them for the blog. 

It was hectic but a lot of fun! And I even managed to feature on the blog here and the Youtube vid which you can see here!

AWFUL picture, where I seem to have lost my eyebrows, but beggars can't be choosers!

Twitter Bio Disorder

"Starbucks obsessed, life enthusiast" 

"Blogger, tea addict, and hopeless wanderer" 

"Lover of dogs, fashion, lipstick, curly hair, and TV"

These are some fashion bloggers actual twitter bio's, I didn't make them up, this is literally what people think they want others to know about them. 

Am I the only one completely baffled by having to give ourselves some sort of weird diagnosis in the contents of our twitter bio?! I like to read and shop online but I'm not boring people to tears with it on my social media platforms in some weird phrase that sounds like I'm talking to a support group for the dull fashionistas club! 

90% of the population love TV. We are a tea drinking nation. And what the DICK is a hopeless wanderer?! I'm pretty sure that girl is just traipsing the streets with a distant stare in an indie trance, wearing dungarees, carrying a ukelele and shopping for a rocking horse... 

You wouldn't put this shit on a job description or your cv. Liking coffee and dogs surprisingly does not make you unique. You are bloggers of fashion, which is probably one of the most creative hobbies of the time, yet all you can come up with is that you like curly hair?! 

Please, I beg of you all, if you're going to choose some words which sum you up in a short sentence, make them interesting, make them original, that's what people will remember. Not what you eat for breakfast. 

Slogan Sweats

You can't sit with us. by emilyrodgers18 featuring nike shoes

I love a good slogan sweater. I have my own 'that shit cray' in burgundy, however I'm looking to invest in another as it is too explicit to wear out doors. I already frighten small children, I don't want to scare the parents as well. I love this outfit (above), simple yet stylish. Although I dislike 'sneaks' being worn for anything other than exercise, this ensemble screamed Nike. Monochrome and Mean Girls, it works!