Rydell High

I made these collages out of pictures I've liked since I got Tumblr, they're all themed and I am, as you have probably picked up if you read my blog often, obsessed, so to say, with America. England has Harry Potter and the queen but I'd say it can suck a bit, America seems like the promised land of thrift shops, tacos and well, all the stuff below. Each of these collage things underneath is meant to depict a different aspect of it all because it's too much AWSUMNESS to condense into one picture. I think they're quite nifty.

I love the glam cars and cadillacs and everything. The bottom left is Kate Moss for Vogue in the 90s, I think. The top two are sort of 1950's housewifey but I don't know the sources.

The ultimate girl gang the pink ladies. I feel like the movie Grease actually could portray all I'm trying to get across in this post. Grease is perfect.

Totes want to be a cheerleader - we can just ignore the fact I can't even do the splits and don't go to an American High School, they're only minor limitations. Anyway I love the sports team, almost again, girl gang aspect to them and the 70s mustard yellows and royal blues. Don't know any of the sources but I guess all but the top right are actual authentic pictures of cheerleaders.

I am also head over heels for signs right now. I spent most of my holiday in Malta taking pictures of the signs there. The bottom right is Autumn de Wilde, rest of the sources unknown.

Diners n stuff. SO stereotypical and associative. Only know the top left is from Grease, top right is probably an editorial of some kind and the bottom right a film.

Vintage disneyland. I've never been out of Europe and one of the main reasons I want to go to Disneyland is to experience it while I'm still a kid. I have like, 10 years though when I predict I'll still mentally be a teenager and look like one so I do have time. I saw my reflection today and actually laughed at myself because I'm meant to be year 11 and you just would not believe it. I belong in year 9 at most.

Pastel houses. Sort of like the ones in Notting hill but instead of townhouses they're californian dreamy suburban ones.

I'll post tomorrow or Monday as well. Sorry for not blogging recently. I also keep meaning to do a post about my bedroom, however I will need to make it in a reputable state for me to do that. My room is usually a hovell that lends itself to storing school books and clutter that really doesn't need to be there. My mum is super OCD about cleanliness and doesn't even venture into my room anymore. Probably that and you have to duck under all the hanging things to walk around in it.

It's twin peaks, and it's very in

I made a playlist on Friday in this free period lesson we have once a fortnight at school. We have to fill in a 'what do i hope to achieve this lesson?' and 'what did you do this lesson?' sheet, and for the whole time I just read Weetzie Bat and googled Prom pictures (I've been anointed as a member of prom committee at school!!!!!!!) and song lyrics, so I couldn't write that. Instead I wrote that I did textiles coursework, bending the truth a lil bit.

I made it into an actual thing on Friday night, and I undertook putting it on 8tracks, but it takes so long. I might try again at some point but for the moment here's the songs:

1)Ghost World theme tune

2)The Children of the Revolution

3)Life is Life - Noah and the Whale

4) Lust for Life - Girls

5)Wouldn't it be nice - The Beach Boys

6)Playground Love - Air

7)Twin Peaks theme tune

8)Mariella - Kate Nash

9)Off to the races - Lana Del Rey

10)Daydream Believer - The Monkees

I tried to mingle the creepy (theme songs 1, 6, 7) with the longing for (4, 5, 9, 10) with the odd matter of fact perky songs (2, 3 and 8), to reflect what I'm feeling right now.

Also, I found out a couple of weeks ago that I'm in a book! Someone else told me after recognizing me assuming I'd know already and I was like 'you what now huh what when why how i didn't know huh what!?' - all of this taking place over facebook chat. So yeah in September 2010 when I was just 13 I went to Somerset house to see the exhibition part of london fashion week which was stupendous anyway but while there Scott Schuman (of the Sartorialist) came up to me and asked to take my picture. Embarrassingly, I didn't even know who he was. HOW did I not know who he was. I hadn't really properly discovered the internet by then though, perhaps that's why, I'd started my first blogpost a couple of months before this and had an interest in fashion but this was like, something else. The photo was then on Teen Vogue's website a month later - which someone else also had to tell me. At london fashion week a few other street style photographers took my photo as well and I never asked who they were, I wish I had done so, though. I think it was due to being so young, and looking younger than I am, people thought I was barely 12 at the time because that's what they said in the comments on thesartorialist.com. The picture went up a month after he took it, and it was, and still is really surreal. People at school didn't even believe me that it had happened and by this time I had googled and searched and was quite aware of how big this was and I couldn't even talk about it because they thought I was lying. That was annoying.

Anyway this is the book! I'm on page 238. I would post a picture but It feels so strange putting my old self out to the world. I think when you're growing up, you're finding yourself and figuring out all that who am I stuff, and as you get older you're able to channel it better. In two years from now I'll probably cringe at the person I am now, but my point is that as a teenager, you'll always have a teensy bit of animosity towards the person you were before. I do anyway, but the link to the post on The Sartorialist is here. My whole awkward block brace situation doesn't do me any favours. My teeth used to be completely bucked. But, I'm still overly happy that I was included in the book and how cool is it to say that you were on The Sartorialist at 13 and in a published book at 15, and the comments on the picture are absolutely lovely. 

~sly reversion back to the autumny purpose of this post~ These below are some screencaps from freaks and geeks that I have saved on my computer. I see these images floating around Tumblr from time to time but I don't think this show gets enough appreciation aesthetic wise, because I've never seen the show - not with the price amazon are asking for the box set - I can't judge on plot wise, but any story about an A grade mathlete student revolting and becoming associated with the stoners, questioning religion and LIFE in general while staying relatively academic and retaining some dignity gets a pre-watched approval from me. It actually sounds a bit like me recently. Maths, physics and french make me want to become like Lindsay Weir; if it weren't for the fact I have only 41 physics lessons remaining in my entire life and roughly similar amounts left for maths and french, I probably would self combust and implode with incompetence, although the youtube video of my physics teacher singing a simon and garfunkel song circulating the school right now will make my next lesson more bearable due to the certainty of it being mentioned.

 The nerdy, slightly grandpa-y colour co-ordination, over saturated but muted hues and clothes layering accompanied by the tiny but much envied details such as the barrettes and the collars and the school folders make the whole thing to die for. Can I live in this awesome decade crossover and go to an american high school asap please?

Writing about the show has now made me desperate to see it really really soon.

This is a bit unrelated but I included this Virgin Suicides screencap because of the same sort of autumnal feel. They're wearing summer uniform but the sun is absent again, the soft iridescence just makes for an all the more better summer/winter  harmonious combination. I want to marry this season already.

Included for the same reasons, the colours really. Perhaps the contrast between the sky and the red drew me to this but it's saved in the depths of my folders with no source attached. Bum. The caption alone makes me wish I knew what It's from, I even googled the caption but found nothing.

This below is a picture I took last Wednesday, in a dress my mum bought me for £15 from a local vintage shop. It was in the tiniest corner and had marked on it that it was given to the shop in 2007. This beautiful thing has been there since 2007. I call it my stevie nicks dress because well, the sleeves.

I printed the picture off and scanned it with a book behind then cropped it to look like a polaroid. I'm living a lie here, it's not authentic unfortunately.

My boots with my skirt from Ebay for £7 underneath my dress. I am tempted to spray paint some witches onto the front of these boots, which are from Camden Market by the way, and are still too big for me despite logic telling me I'd grow into these when I bought them age 13.

This post is really disjointed so I apologise but I don't want to have so much to say just put off posting anything. Which happens. TTFN.

Lust for Life

My weekend has consisted of going to see the Perks of being a Wallflower (who didn't?), making t shirts, climbing trees in town at 7 o clock at night and gallivanting off to London as a spur of the moment thing. I rarely make plans or have a social life and things are usually planned to minute detail, but this weekend was different. I felt like I didn't actually waste the past two days of my life, and I'm not feeling deflated because of the weekend coming to an end because 1) I'm very tired and 2) I WENT OUTSIDE OF MY HOUSE. So on Saturday I went and watched the Perks of being a Wallflower, sour cola bottle sweets and pick and mix in tow. I knew from reading the book that it would be good. Stephen Chbosky wrote it and directed the film so it was bound to be, it was his creation in the first place, and I knew before seeing it that I'd overthink it and analyse it for the following few months and that I'd leave feeling strange - Emma Watson with an American accent alone is enough to cause this. I keep blurting out really philosophical questions catalysed by a 4 hour long conversation that  I had a few weeks ago with a friend that spanned everything and anything strange from the size of the universe to whether we all see the same colours or not and my peers are sick of these said questions, blurting out WILL YOU SHUT UP before I've finished saying something that boggles my brain, and after seeing this film there are a torrent more questions like these floating around in my mind, I'm quite meticulous with detail. Anyway go and see it.

It inspired me and the friends I saw it with to live more in the moment, I don't know. So we bought some brownies and discussed catching a train somewhere in the summer without a plan while climbing trees (attempting). This sort of escalated into catching a train to london the next day, and weirdly it actually happened. We didn't expect it to but I found myself on a train at 7:50 this morning with Amber and Flora. Heck, at 1 o clock we were cycling like maniacs on boris bikes down the strand trying to avoid being pulverized by taxis and buses fighting their way through the pot hole ridden london thoroughfare. If that's not Carpe Diem don't know what is. We cycled from Spitalfields to Soho where we went for lunch at an American Diner. 

In a tiny music shop somewhere in Piccadilly maybe.

Outside of the diner.

Menu.

Le front.

Flora back in the music shop.

Floras burger.

Flo's milkshake and jukeboxes that were on the bar and you could pick songs!!! However I'm not technologically competent so I didn't even attempt to try and pick one.

My boot, skirt, floor and a seat.

Flora and I. I have my hole patch on my mohair sweater. It's only the third time I've worn this jumper but It seems like more from my blog. 

Neon Signage!!!

'No dancin' in the aisles'.

Artsy angles guys ~ooo~

The best food in existence. Amber's waffles.

Condiments and straws.

 I have a tonne more pictures but I thought that may be enough! We also went to oxford street where we went in the flagship Topshop that supplies maps to help you navigate the FIVE FLOORS - including a built in cafe in the store, mayfair - where we visited fortnam and masons and felt entirely out of place when we went up to the fifth floor that we now know is exclusive to billionaires only, however there were eyeball shaped chocolates that I'd have been tempted to buy if it weren't for the price, knightsbridge where we went to Harrods and saw a load of monsters waiting for Lady Gaga to arrive at 7.30, I so wanted to stay but due to fickle things like school we had to leave at 6.30, and we also passed through the tourist traps like piccadilly circus and trafalgar square. I didn't eat dinner because of how full I was after going to Ed's diner. I had a chicken burger and brownies for dessert. It was so so so so so so so good, fully recommend due to both the food and the cheery waiter who kept singing along to the music.

These below are from Saturday, it made sense for me to put the ones from today on first, because I'm chronological like that obviously.

In the toilets at the cinema. I've become sort of interested in bathroom aesthetic actually just because of the colour schemes and dated-ness of them all. That totally isn't Mary-Ann climbing on a loo to torment Flora in the next one over.

Frankie and a toothpaste machine.

This is one of the t shirts I made! It says 'Teen Witch' on it with a pentacle that has old celtic symbols in each section majig, I cut the end off to mak it shorter. I also made a HOLE one and a LOSER one. 

The necklaces are vintage. The one that I call my eye necklace was 33p and it's of my best purchases ever.

You can't really see the celtic symbols as they're pale and in grey but still.

Phew. Hope you had a good weekend and can attempt to enjoy school this week despite the monotonous drone of it all. 

Hollie