When In Tuscany // LOOKBOOK

This post contains gifted items.

My trip to Italy was courtesy of Bookings For You, who provided us with a beautiful villa for our stay on the Mansalto estate.

Hello you dreamy lot, I'm fresh from a five day trip to Tuscany, Italy where much pasta and wine was consumed, impossible looking craggy hills were conquered and a freezing cold swimming pool was braved for the sake of outfit photos (but more of all that in a future post).

For now I'm bringing you a lookbook of my outfits from the week, shot mostly by the lovely Liv with a bit of input from my gals Ashton and Violet. Most of the images were shot within our beautiful villa and the surrounding estate.

Outfit One // Dress - Vintage

Outfit Two // Dress - Asos (here) / Sandals - Boohoo* (gifted) / Sunglasses - Chinese Laundry

Outfit Three // Trousers - Chinese Laundry / Jacket - H&M (here) / Sandals* (as above)

Outfit Four // Jumpsuit - Matalan* (gifted - here) / Hat - Asos (here) / Sandals - Asos (here) 

Outfit Five // Dress - a Violet Glenton special / Sandals - Asos (here)

Amy x

Call Me Monthly // SEPTEMBER

This post contains gifted items.

It's certainly starting to feel like autumn isn't it? I've been rediscovering my warmer jackets and jumpers and wrapping up more. I even bought a woolly hat! (Feel free to congratulate me on being so wonderfully organised).

I've also been making a bit more of an effort with jewellery; I was kindly gifted the above gorgeous ring from Carrie Elizabeth from their moonstone rings collection and it's not left my finger. Rings are definitely my thang.

Liam Gallagher // Be Still

Blondie // Call Me

London Grammar // What A Day

The Stranglers // Golden Brown

Rancid // Fall Back Down

Liam Gallagher // Glimmer

Two Door Cinema Club // What You Know

The Last Shadow Puppets // My Little Red Book

Listen on Spotify

How I Met Your Mother // I've seen all of these before, but on the hunt for something easy and binge-worthy to watch we decided to do it all over again. I forgot just how funny they are and because I've only really seen them all once I've actually forgotten a lot of what happens.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris // An extremely powerful read, although one I'd have liked to have been a bit chunkier. It's one of those that really really hits you as it's based on true events and I found the sections at the end really interesting where you can read about the process of the book being written. 4/5.

Amy x

Travel Dreams And Absolute Scenes

Press event // I was kindly invited to an evening of cocktails, food and entertainment by eShores.co.uk but all opinions are my own.

Growing up America was never high on my travel wish list. Speaking of, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to have any sort of travel wish list because as soon as I hear someone speak about somewhere new/see photos on Instagram I immediately decide I'd like to go. 

But yes, growing up I was very keen on seeing a lot of Europe and much less enthusiastic about seeing anything else of the world; in fact I'll shamefully admit I many a time uttered the phrase 'I'm not really bothered about America'. It's safe to say I can now eat my words as that's well and truly changed, with not only a lot of America, but also New Zealand and Canada being fairly high on that extremely long list.

It just so happened that a week or so after discussing how dreamy a West Coast America trip would be I was invited to an event hosted by eShores based on their USA multi centre holiday to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas (ello there's a £100 discount for you if you book a holiday with them quoting USA/LeedsEvent you're welcome).

Now, I could tell you all about the tasty food we ate (tofu satay you were amazing) or talk you through the ingredients in our cocktails or I could tell you want really happened at the event (heavily featuring Violet and Ashton sorry gals).

16.40 // Each armed with one heavily overpriced drink from the station shop, we got on the train from Hull. I was that annoying person painting their nails and filling the carriage with fumes, Ashton was that annoying person doing her makeup on the train and Violet...well Violet just filled out a survey for the train guard so that's quite nice of her really isn't it.

18.00 // Arriving at Lambert's Yard we were told to 'drink drink drink' by the lovely Jennie because it was free cocktails for an hour. Violet and I politely obeyed and guzzled enough gin to make us do things such as...

18.30 // ...imagining that our main girl crush Chloe Plumstead had turned up to the event and proceeding to poke a little fun at ourselves by doing fan girl impressions of us meeting her. You don't want to hear them.

19.00 // Heading upstairs for food and realising there was wine served with it a bit of bartering and a scuffle ensued before a gin and wine swap was agreed between myself and Violet (am obviously joking about the scuffle but she is feisty so who knows what could have happened).

20.00 // I held my spoon in my pudding for a very unnatural amount of time so Ashton could take an action shot of me eating it. #forthegram

20.30 // I pretended I was sober enough to actually pay attention to the magician. I believe he made Victoria's engagement ring appear out of a piece of fruit?

21.30 // We decided it would be a good idea to take outfit photos on the station platform, resulting in us almost missing the fact our train had changed platforms.

22.00 // Well fed, bleary eyed and content, we were much sleepier and less annoying on the train ride home.

Amy x

P.S. Quick shoutout to Jennie for always organising such fab and fun events. 

Second shoutout to Elouisa for the photo of Violet and I boomeranging.

The Happy List // 4.0

The seaside.

Doing something that scares you.

Making travel plans.

Granola.

Cooking a meal from scratch.

Days and nights that provide you with endless funny anecdotes.

Cheese with more cheese.

Crisp, fresh mornings.

Eating outside.

Lie ins.

Lovely lazy Sundays.

Running.

Being productive.

Not needing to paint your nails for weeks because gel.

Clear outs.

Writing for the sake of writing.

Pizza, always.

The Power Of An Outfit

This post contains a gifted item. ANGELEYE has a beautiful range of wedding guest dresses as well as lots of other gorgeous clothes.

Dress - ANGELEYE (here) *gifted // Shoes - Converse (here) // Bag - Urban Outfitters

A love of clothes and fashion is often seen as superficial, shallow, even a little vain, but it's undeniable that clothes can make you feel good. It's also undeniable that your choice of outfit will make some sort of impression on the people around you, whether you want it to or not.

In my opinion the impression you make doesn't necessarily come from the physical clothes you're wearing; it comes from you and how wearing said clothes makes you feel.

And that's where my own love of clothes and fashion stems from; how wearing certain clothes makes me feel, how an outfit can completely transform both my mood and my confidence, how an appreciation of style can actually enable you to judge people less because aside from the actual outfit you're able to see the confidence it inspires in someone.

With the rise in awareness of the damage that fast fashion has on the environment, I think we're all trying to be a little more mindful of our purchasing habits. I know I could certainly do much better, but a small step I'm making on my way to change is only investing in outfits or garments that have a powerful impact on my mood and confidence.

Realistically, why would I wear a frivolous sale buy that may be 'on trend', but may also be a size too big or something I'm just not 100% comfortable in when I could wear something that I feel my absolute best self in?

From now on I'm only here for outfits that have the power to make me feel confident, comfortable and just darn good.

Amy x