on newbies and yellow

A few sneaky purchases made at Topshop last week. The cropped grey jersey has remained attached to my body for most of the weekend. It's easy to throw on and nicely ribbed which assures me I'm wearing it out of choice and not laziness. I only have two bottoms which come up high enough to wear it with (it's february-of all the months I'm least likely to wear my belly on show, which I probably wouldn't aside from the beach, this is it..) so I have been alternating between my brown suede trousers and the new blue skirt. Which to the discernable eye (see those creases!) has also been worn lots this weekend. In fact I wore the two together to the Unique show yesterday. And finally the off-yellow silky shirt with a sweet bonsai print. I see yellow as the trickiest of the colours to pull of and maybe it's for this reason that I've always had the desire to be able to wear it well. I attribute this to my Mum whose skin is just a shade darker than mine meaning she can call herself Olive and look fantastic in sunshine colours while I, sadly, don't look quite so 'wow'. Another precursor to this yellow desire-the historical moment (in the eyes of my 13 year old self ) when Chloe Sevigny wore that Yves Saint Laurent dress in 'cold tropicana for breakfast on a tropically hot morning' yellow. Gloriously refreshing and bright and not at all nauseating.

so here we are

This week has been an odd one mostly punctuated by me randomly falling over in public and being left with the kind of palm grazes you have continuously between the ages of 4 and 6 or sitting in lectures and just feeling a bit teary and sorry for myself. Clearly something is in the air as Michelle from Cheapskate Chic has has a similarly shoddy week! But having a Style.com tab permanently on my computer screen with incoming catwalk reports has been a nice distraction and with London Fashion Week kicking off this weekend it's a good excuse to let cyber people watching via style blogs monopolise my brain.

I usually find the Winter collections more appealing, perhaps this is just because seeing an influx of polonecks and cosy looking parkas while it's still chilly outside is physically appealing but either way the New York collections excited me more than usual. As naughty as it is to admit somethings I view NYFW as a bit of a pre-cursor to the more exciting and less commercial shows. (Proenza Schouler, Rodarte, Rachel Comey are exampt from this generalisation). But back to this season. Edun in particular which grows on me with every season, had a very cool ease about it. The sort of collection that has been styled well but would still serve you well once the outfits have been deconstructed and individual pieces worn. It always niggles me when you realise a collection that looked so wonderful on the catwalk was down to canny styling and it's brilliance doesn't quite translate onto the rails.

More updates after the weekend I should think, after a flying visit to London. There is nothing quite like London Fashion Week to encourage patriotism (okay, bunting-clad Royal Weddings street parties and Northern boozers are up there too..) and have me rubbing my hands together in anticipation of what the young british designers will come up with. For this reason Lulu Kennedy's blog is always good for a little peruse to the heart beating faster.

dipping a toe in the water..

 
image: russh jan/feb 2010 'julia likes metal and making out'

After toying with the idea for ages, I'm biting the bullet and offering advertising on the blog. As a blog reader I'm always of the approach that as long as the advertising is relevant and it reflects the personality of the blog (and it's not blanketing the entire screen everytime I bloody well move my mouse) then I don't have a problem with it. So I'll be taking the same approach here. But I'd like to know what you as a reader think about this, I  used to be incredibly put off by advertising and viewed it as some form of selling but I feel like approaches to advertising through blogs has changed a lot, certainly in the last couple of years and now I don't mind. I put a lot of love into this blog and as a student it would always be nice to have a few extra pennies in my pocket but if you think advertising would affect your enjoyment of the blog, do speak up as this is primarily something I do for enjoyment rather than some money-making scheme.

I'm interested in working with independant designers/vintage sellers whose products will be of genuine interest to you lot. As well as to me-I wouldn't include links to sellers that I wouldn't be compelled to click on myself. To potential advertisers, drop me a line at smackenziesmith@hotmail.co.uk if you'd like to ask about rates and and the ins and outs of everything. While I get the hang of all of this I'll offer a reduced rate of advertising, whoop de whoop!

the 14th

Ah Valentines Day. I know a love-related festival is borne out of good intentions (whatever you think about Hallmark related fanfare) but February 14th knows how to make singles feel shoddy doesn't it? This year's Valentines not-so nicely coincides with me being newly single as of this weekend so I am resolving to buy myself flowers (a usual non-Valentines related pick me up) and sneakily slide homemade cards under my friends' doors and not feel too disappointed when I find my postbox empty tomorrow morning. This all sounds a bit woe is me- to be honest I'd probably be doing the same even in different circumstances. I remember when I was at school I drew little cards with inappropriate pictures of lovesick sausages asking pigs to be their valentine and sent them to my friends through the internal Valentines post system. And a couple of years back me and my Mum went to an anti-Valentines screening of a series of short films which ranged from the music video for 'Elephant Gun' by Beirut to an incestuous tale of a brother and sister living in a tenement building somewhere in Eastern Europe. The latter was rather over indulgently arty but again deliciously inappropriate for Valentines. But the point is, Happy Valentines from me to you, take it with a pinch of salt, and maybe make some cool cookies like these for the equally cool people in your life, platonic or not platonic.

stevie jobs

Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  It has just come to my attention that on this fine saturday I have unintentionally dressed myself as the female incarnation of Steve Jobs. Cue a little snigger from me when I realised the comedy in channelling Mr Apple's apparel but have now resolved that it's quite fitting as it makes me Stevie Jobs? Haw Haw Haw.

Must admit bedtime is pretty much the only time my feet haven't been immersed in New Balance over the last week, it's getting a bit silly. The novelty of super comfortable footwear may be outweighed by the inevitable pong that's soon to come, so an airing is probably a good idea. On a side note, I went to see Hamlet at The Lowry on Thursday night. Even the bloody prince was wearing New Balance!

mood

Kim Noorda (via florencesw) / the simplicity of this lovely little outfit- cropped metallic thread roll neck and that little frill along the hem of the dress (via altamiranyc) / Kate Moss and Johnny Depp at airport (I know the old school Kate Moss pictures on blogs get kind of generic but I love this) / Angela Lindvall US Vogue Oct 1998 'Great Lengths' by Carter Smith / My feet in Peschiera Del Garda last August / Pregnant Stella Tennant in Margiela from Mark Borthwick's 2000-1 Maison Martin Margiela (via 11l13)

66kf

rather like this blog. www.66kf.wordpress.com. very little to know except that it's written by ekaterina, who is originally from russia and at some point along the line studied at central st martins. but what's of more importance is that her blog and the pictures she posts are plain old lovely.

year of the rabbit

Happy Chinese New Year! Things acquired along the way while wandering around Chinatown with five friends in honour of Chinese New Year this afternoon:

A carton of lycee juice. Absolutely delicious.

A bag of White Rabbits. I'd never tried them before and Yaz was pretty on the mark when she described them as like white milk bottles but tougher. They come in really cute little wrappers and rice paper that dissolves in your mouth, yum.

Paper Chinese Dragon puppet.

Bursting bellies full of tiger beer, noodles and pancakes and chinese jellies.

As well as some crappy photographic evidence:

Did any of you celebrate the New Year? Interested to know how you spent it and more importantly what you ate?..

swag bag

These days it feels like most of my money is spent on really mundane things. As much pleasure as I get out of cooking and eating nice food, my word, it costs money to keep the fridge stocked. And don't even get me started on the cost of pine nuts.. (but more about that later) I know this is nothing new for seasoned 'adults of the big bad world' who already understand that tough shit, sometimes you have to buy boring stuff instead of cool new clothes. But I digress. The point is my wardrobe hasn't really seen much action since I came to university in September. Very little in the way of newbies so after picking up some new purchases today I've got a bit of a spring in my step. For a start, after all of the harping on about New Balance*, I finally bought a pair. The mens sizes come up really small so though I'm a 7 in womens shoes, I was able to fit a mens 7 too. Just a tip in case you fancy ordering any online for yourself. I also went to the big bargain second hand store on Oldham St in the Northern Quarter where I managed to find a couple of old sports tee shirts (the Tommy Hilfiger inspired by Disney Roller Girl and Alice's American flavoured tops) and a brown ribbed rollneck. The rollneck, crucially is just the right height as unless you have the chin definition of Kate Moss there is a very large margin for double chin related errors..

Speaking of double chins, I cultivated mine over a lunchtime curry and catch up with my friend Tom who was visiting Manchester. Signficant topic of conversation= how cool/sexy Naomi Shimada is.

Also feel its my duty to share with you this Jamie Oliver recipe for Feta and Spinach Filo pastry pie which I made this evening as it turned out very well. Spending my post-lecture afternoons watching back to back episodes of 30 Minute Meals has turned into a bit of a guilty pleasure so I thought I'd actually try my hand at something. Really easy to recreate and if you're down with spending extortionate amounts of money on pine nuts (probably more valuable than gold right now) I say go for it.

At the risk of implying that I've somehow turned into some sneaker wearing, Lil' Wayne listening, Hilfiger wearer (well, okay I suppose I have but all in extreme moderation) I'm throwing down the gauntlet and recommending this track which my friend Joe has played on repeat for the last week- my love for it increases with every listen. Lil Wayne was never really on my radar but I can gladly listen to this and mumble something about it having 'a good melody'.

*for harping see here, here and here.

on my mind

Clockwise from top left: 'Julia Likes Metal..' editorial, Russh Magazine Jan/Feb 10/ the frontier cest belle ca via paris in dreams/ sarah jessica parker/ carrie bradshaw's adidas trainers and sports scarf/ adidas socks and shoes via tourist magazine/ 'Eniko is Everything' editorial, Russh Magazine Dec 10/ gorgeous PVC mac from Topshop (yet to go online..) / Josephine de la Baume via Style Caster / the supermegaultra cool Fran Burns and Victoria Young from Pop Magazine in Giles 'Scoobie' sunglasses/