Winter Wardrobe // LOOKBOOK

This post contains some affiliate links, which are clearly marked.

I'm normally very much a dresses, tights and boots gal throughout winter, but this season my style preferences seem to have changed a little. I'm all about jeans, jumpers and casual jackets and I'm very much enjoying getting dressed at the moment (which is handy I suppose seeing as it's something I have to do every day).

It's nice to have a new sense of how I want to dress rather than always turning to old favourites and styling them the same way; while I've still been turning to old favourites I've been experimenting a little more with them. Results of said experiment are below if you're at all interested in some of my fave go to outfits at the moment...

Outfit One: Coat - Topshop (here *aff) // Jeans - Topshop (here *aff) // Boots - Dr Marten (here)

Outfit Two: Jacket - Chinese Laundry // Sweatshirt - New Look // Jeans - Topshop (here *aff) // Trainers - Adidas (here)

Outfit Three: Coat - Primark // Jeans - Topshop (here *aff) // Trainers - Adidas // Hoody - Monki

Outfit Four: Coat - Dickies (here) // Jumper - New Look // Jeans - Topshop (here *aff) // Trainers - New Look

Amy x

Can I Be A Sustainable Fashion Blogger?

Oh hello and yes, I'm sorry, this is another post about sustainability in the space of a month. I promise I'm not going to go all preachy on you, but it's a topic that I suppose I've been thinking about a fair bit recently.

Sitting down at the beginning of the year to have a big blog planning sesh got me pondering on how being a fashion blogger really does clash with being sustainable. So rather than burying my head in the ASOS app and hoping my guilt would somehow disappear, I decided to tackle the issue in a blog post instead and question whether it's at all possible to be a sustainable fashion blogger, however much of a paradox it may sound.

Obviously I'm aware that there are plenty of sustainable fashion bloggers out there who are far more equipped to talk about the topic than me, but the whole point of this post is that I'm coming at it from the point of view of someone who enjoys a little jaunt into Primark, doesn't really pay attention to where or how her clothes are made and can't hold back in the Topshop sale.

In other words, I'm a complete amateur.

When I started blogging about style (I do prefer that term over fashion because I have no idea whether I'm actually fashionable at all, but I do enjoy getting dressed so there ya go) there was a lot of pressure to be seen in the latest trends, never to post the same outfit twice (both of which I didn't actually adhere to) and to generally buy a lot of new clothes (definitely did adhere to this one to be fair). Nowadays I feel like that pressure has been relieved, which is obviously excellent and it's changed the direction and purpose of fashion blogging as a whole.

Which leaves a lot of us wondering, what do we do now?

Over the past year I've already made a lot of changes in how I shop without even really thinking about it all that much. I've only bought things I really love (yes I do realise how ridiculous that sounds) , I've shopped locally more often than not, I've given up 'hauls' completely and despite never thinking I would, I've started investing in less, better quality items over lots of fast fashion.

The change in attitudes towards fashion blogging has certainly made being more sustainable easier; people don't mind if you post the same outfit multiple times, in fact it's applauded. The insatiable desire to own the latest 'in' thing that every blogger and their dog is wearing seems to have massively died down too.

While the above is all extremely positive, it does mean that as fashion bloggers (and therefore, presumably, fashion lovers in general), we have to question where we stand; how can we remain true to ourselves and our passion while not ignoring the responsibility we have to make some sustainable changes now we know the impact fast fashion can have?

At the end of the day, we're not all going to become sustainable goddesses overnight and as is the case most of the time, it's the gradual changes that stick. So for now I'm happy that I have at least been taking some positive steps towards becoming more sustainable fashion-wise and I'll still be blogging about my personal style; just maybe expect to see a little more outfit repeating and second hand purchases than before.

So can I be a sustainable fashion blogger? Watch this space...

My Love Hate Relationship With Setting Goals

So it's a brand spanking new year; a time we often associate with a fresh start, reflections on the past year and making resolutions for the year ahead.

I must admit I do enjoy the feeling that comes with a new year; I'm sat writing this in bed on new year's day with a load of washing on, a freshly tidied bedroom and all the best intentions of  completing the ginormous to do list sitting next to me. And I feel very content right now.

Somehow the first few hours of 2020 have cleared some cobwebs from my head and it feels good.

One thing I haven't done though is set any sort of resolutions or goals for the year ahead. I realise this is a very divisive topic; some people revel in making yearly, monthly or even weekly goals whereas others despise the pressure that comes with a new year and the assumption that we should use it to strive for something better when we may be perfectly happy with what we already have.

I sit very much in the middle; some years I've loved setting resolutions and goals for the year ahead, but those years have mostly ended in me being bitterly disappointed in myself for either giving up or not achieving what I'd set out to.

To put it simply, I love setting myself goals, but I absolutely hate not achieving them.

This year setting goals felt to me like I'd be starting the year on a negative; already piling enormous amounts of pressure on myself that I definitely don't need as well as not truly believing I'd achieve them all anyway.

So this year I'm resolution and goal free and maybe that's why I feel so, well erm, free.

Next year might be completely different and I might be in a goal setting mood again, but I suppose my point is, if setting goals means you're putting an unnecessary amount of pressure on yourself, are they really worth it? At the end of the day, you do you hun (bloody can't stand that phrase, but sometimes it's just apt isn't it?).

Amy x

Call Me Monthly // DECEMBER

I've been considering sacking off these monthly roundups for a while, but in typical Amy fashion I just couldn't stop mid-year because it would have felt incomplete. So here we are in December and it feels like a nice time to stop. I'm thinking of doing something similar but condensed on my Instagram stories in 2020 instead.

I have to say I am most definitely looking forward to 2020 and getting out of probably the worst (yet paradoxically also the best) year of my life. I've been much much happier for a good few months now, but there's something nice and fresh about an actual new year isn't there? (Cliche I know).

Anyway, I'll stop rambling on and give you a roundup of December:

Bastille // Hangin'

Maxence Cyrin // Where Is My Mind

Billie Marten // In For The Kill

RIVVRS // Walk In The Wild

Blossoms // Your Girlfriend

Bill Withers // Lovely Day

The Stranglers // Golden Brown

Artist of the year: Bastille

Listen on Spotify

Non-Stop // It's definitely film over TV series weather, although I can't say this was a particularly festive one. It's about an Air Marshal (Liam Neeson) who receives messages on a flight from someone threatening to kill passengers. Very much recommend and it's on Netflix at the moment, you are welcome.

Jumanji (and Jumanji 2) // Don't judge me, but I'd never seen Jumanji before so when they did that challenge on I'm A Celebrity I had no clue what it was all about. So I watched it, I like it, and that's about it really. (Also, side note, I always thought Jumanji was a giant ape, kinda like King Kong.)

TV of the year: After Life

The Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes // This book follows four women as they travel on an aircraft carrier ship from Australia to England so they can be with their husbands who they married during the war. I found it fascinating as I always do when a book is based around something that actually happened. Hooked from the beginning 4/5.

Book of the year: The Tattooist of Auschwitz 

Amy x

The World Is Changing And I Can't Keep Up

I have some confessions to make; sometimes I shop in Primark, my KeepCup has been hibernating in my locker at work for at least three months and I still haven't got round to buying a new reusable water bottle after my old one broke. Oh and occasionally I even forget to take my own bag to the supermarket and end up having to buy a plastic one.

The world is changing and certainly for the better; sustainable living has zoomed to the forefront of modern culture, meaning we're all being more mindful of our waste, less frivolous with our purchases and hopefully kinder to our planet. But boy is it changing fast.

It seems that in the space of a year (I know it's longer than that before anyone jumps down my throat, but humour my exaggeration for the point of this post thank you) we're suddenly all supposed to be zero-waste, cruelty-free vegans and if we're not, well we should feel pretty damn awful about it.

Don't get me wrong, obviously I'm 100% behind living a more sustainable life; I'm already vegetarian and cruelty-free and realistically I'm doing the best I can to live more ethically. But it still doesn't feel like enough. It doesn't feel like enough because there's always something new I should be doing, something I should be putting in my washing machine to stop plastic from my clothes reaching the sea or a new faraway shop I should be visiting so I can put all my pasta in jars instead of buying it in bags (to be fair I was totally up for the latter until wise Matthew pointed out it would probably use so much petrol to get there it wouldn't be doing the environment much good anyway).

With all this change comes a huge mountain of guilt. It's almost embedded in the human way of thinking isn't it? If we can't do absolutely everything then we're never doing enough.

I can barely complete my own to-do list for the day, never mind complete the to-do list for saving the planet.

Answers on a postcard?

I'd like to hope that despite not doing absolutely everything, the fact that I am doing something counts for, well, something. One thing I've learnt this year is I definitely need to stop beating myself up so much (although saying that and doing it are two rather separate things aren't they?)

Here's to everyone who also can't quite keep up with sustainable living, but are trying their damn best.

Amy x