Fashion Books I Had For My Birthday! :D

August 10, 2016 | louisealicejay

Hello! It’s Louise 🙂 I turned 20 yesterday and as the old person I officially am now I had mostly money for my birthday. However, my favourite thing about having a boyfriend is that I still get presents from him!;) okay… it’s not my favourite thing about having him but it is really nice to get presents. He asked me what I’d like and I asked for a few books that were on my reading list. Can’t wait to get reading 😀

The first book I’d like to talk about is a fashion journalism/ writing textbook (how boring am I?). It’s called Writing For The Fashion Business. Inside it has a guide to pretty much any piece of writing you would have to do within the fashion industry. As of right now, I have no intentions of going to university or working in the fashion industry, so the content of this book isn’t hugely useful to me, but it will still help me a lot. Even though I don’t want to have a degree doesn’t mean I don’t want people to think I’m skilled and intelligent. I think that writing is one of those make or break skills that everyone will judge you on. Somewhere in the future I’d like to start writing essays and publish them here, I actually enjoyed writing essays in college and I really don’t want to lose my essay writing skills. Even if I don’t, I’m hoping that this book will help me with my blog posts, especially ones where I would want to include references and sources.

Vivienne Westwood Autobiography The next book is Vivienne Westwood’s autobiography written by herself and Ian Kelly. I don’t know enough about Vivienne and I really would like to. When I was in college studying BTEC fashion, the girls in the year above had done a project on Vivienne Westwood and they were always talking about her. It made me really want to learn more about punk fashion and I had always been fascinated by the punk movement anyway. If you’d like to learn a little bit about it quickly I watched a brilliant youtube video about punk fashion a couple weeks ago. You can watch it here, it’s part of a collection of videos by a college professor called Amanda Hallay, her youtube channel is AMAZING for anyone wanting to learn fashion history. Her videos are in lecture format with powerpoints and it really does feel like you are taking a university class.

To Die For Lucy Siegle Is fashion wearing out the world This is the last of the books I actually asked for (he bought me one extra, so cute) is To Die For by Lucy Siegle. It is about the horrible conditions inside the garment factories in countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia. I’ve been interested in the ethics of the fashion industry ever since college where I was asked to do research on child labour in the fashion industry. The things I learned really changed the way I think about my clothes, and I haven’t bought any brand new clothes ever since. If I do buy something brand new, it will either be really high quality and made to last, or from an ethical fashion brand. I decided to read this book in particular after watching a documentary called “The True Cost.” It’s a really great documentary exposing the human cost that our cheap clothes have and it’s available on Netflix. I’d also recommend this documentary on youtube.

Aine Carlin Keep It Vegan The final book I’m going to talk about is one I didn’t even ask for but he got me so that I could have a surprise:). It’s a recipe book called Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin. I was really surprised that he got me this one as I was looking to buy my first ever vegan cookbook and this was the one I decided to get, I just never got around to ordering. I’m a very new vegan (about 2 months in) and the cooking side of things is great but I’m awful at it. Her book seems to be full of normal foods that aren’t too different to what I am used to eating. She’s Irish and I’m Welsh so we probably grew up on similar diets. I’m looking forward to making the Shepards Pie with a sweet potato topping, and the stuffed mushroom burgers. I love this book so much and I love Ryan so much for getting it for me 😀

Thankyou for reading my blog again, I very much appreciate anyone that takes the time to take a look at it 😀 Oh and thanks to my boyfriend again for the presents, I love you 😉

Eurovision Song Contest Fashion Review!

May 15, 2016May 15, 2016 | louisealicejay

The Eurovision final is honestly up there with Christmas in terms of my favourite days of the year. I love the music, the political voting, the fact we’ll never win… But, more than the music, I really really enjoy the crazy and glamorous costumes of the contestants. I’m going to be recapping some of my favourites. I probably missed loads out but I was drunk last night and my memory is a little fuzzy. Before we start I’d just like to express my anger at the rest of Europe for not giving Britain’s act more points. Usually, I don’t care because I don’t think we put enough of an effort into Eurovision to complain about losing. But this year our song was good and you all know it.

If you hate Eurovision, which I know a lot of people do. This fashion review by the Telegraph may be more to your liking…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/05/14/14-of-the-weirdest-outfits-at-the-eurovision-song-contest-2016/ Go be miserable there.

Let’s start with the winner, Jamala who wore blue trousers with some kind of dress/ cape over them. If I saw it without seeing the whole performance I wouldn’t have liked it, but in context, it is absolutely beautiful. The song is really dark and powerful and it wouldn’t have been as moving if she had been stuck in a gown she couldn’t walk much in. Well done to Jamala & Ukraine for winning I loved the song so much!

Now let’s talk about Iveta Mukuchyan who represented Armenia. I loved this outfit. If victoria secret designed a witch costume it would be this. Very dark & very sexy, it looked absolutely beautiful on her. The staging was perfect too. Very catchy song.

Next up- Croatia. This costume screams Eurovision and gets all the negative attention you’d expect it too. I thought it was beautifully detailed & must have taken the maker hours. I loved the combination of the white mesh and the silver reflective mosaic. It really went with the singer’s overall look. I just wish she didn’t have those things dangling off her arms they were too distracting. I liked the giant coat thing she was wearing at the beginning more than the dress. The coat was really interesting and I loved the shape. It’s a crazy outfit but this is Eurovision, not a royal wedding and I hate it when they wear plain gowns at Eurovision, YAWN. More sparkle please.

Spain’s entry was Say Yay! by Barei. I hated her song to be honest, it was very current though I can imagine it on the Radio. I thought her outfit was cute & simple. Sequin jersey’s are adorable, very 80’s.

Serbia’s entry “Goodbye (Shelter) really good. It had a very dark subject matter (domestic violence) and it was one of those strong powerful female ballads. The dress she wore was very dark & gothic. There was a lot of leather- look piping over sheer fabric and the way it was placed made it look like armour over a sheer black dress. I thought it was beautiful.

Germany’s Entries costume was… interesting. I personally loved it, I though Jamie-Lee looked cute asf. But, It would definitely look better on a barbie doll. It was obviously very japan inspired and I think that if it were not for the head peice I would love it. the skirt looked so cute and I loved the sleeves of the dress. This was one of my favourite songs in the competition.

During this re-listen, I think that Bulgaria’s song is probably my favourite. Her look was so edgy and cool. It reminded me a lot of the hunger games, I don’t think she’d look out of place walking down the streets of the Capitol. Seriously, LISTEN TO THE SONG. UGH. SO GOOD. Definitely one of those feel good songs to get ready to.

Let’s talk about Italy’s entries outfit. When I first saw it I thought it was Dolce & Gabbana (my favourite designer) but I’ve had a stalk and I can’t find out. Whatever it is, I don’t know why she would wear it over a plain white tshirt. She looked beautiful anyway. The song was pretty forgetable for me.

Samra, who was representing Azerbaijan, wore a jewelled sheer bodysuit. It reminds of the Bodysuit britney wore in the Toxic music video. I thought she looked so great!!

That’s all I can really be bothered to talk about for now. I hope you enjoyed this post let me know if you did and I will do more fashion commentary videos for you! Byeee love you x

Copyright Guide for Fashion Bloggers: How To Use Runway/ Red Carpet Photographs Legally on your Blog

April 18, 2016April 18, 2016 | louisealicejay

Embed from Getty Images

Since I decided to take this blog more seriously, I’ve been doing research into the legal side of all this internet stuff. I thought that tax would be the hardest thing for me to understand, but honestly, copyright is the area which I find the most confusing. Fashion blogs are FULL of copyrighted, illegally used images. Especially small little blogs like mine. At this moment in time I’m thinking about all the pictures I need to replace and thanking myself that I did this now and not later. A lot of people think that any photo can be used as long as you use it in the context of a review. Copyright law (in the UK at least) does state that you can reproduce small amounts of a copyrighted work for the purposes of reviewing it. What a lot of people don’t know, is that in the UK, copyrighted photographs are not allowed to be used in the context of news reporting. Here’s what I found on Gov.uk:

“Fair dealing for criticism, review or quotation is allowed for any type of copyright work. Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of reporting current events is allowed for any type of copyright work other than a photograph. In each of these cases, a sufficient acknowledgment will be required.

As stated, a photograph cannot be reproduced for the purpose of reporting current events. The intention of the law is to prevent newspapers or magazines reproducing photographs for reporting current events which have appeared in competitor’s publications.”

What I understand from this information is that a review is okay but news reporting isn’t when using copyrighted photographs. This is where it gets tricky, If I were to write a blog post about the red carpet of the MTV music awards, and included images of what all the artists wore and commented on it, what would that count as? To me that would be a review of the outfit choices of the celebrities. To the law however, it may be considered as news reporting. This is a risk I’m not willing to take. Bloggers can and have been sued in the past, it doesn’t matter if you don’t earn any money from your blog.

If I’m totally honest with you it makes me quite angry because copyright is not fair at all. As an aspiring artist/ designer I understand that these laws are in place to protect people like me from getting ripped off, however, that’s not how it works in real life. If a big company were to steal my work and sell it I would be powerless to do anything about it. Whereas I myself, could be sued for £10,000 by a huge company just for one low res image in a blog post that’s got about 10 views.

Luckily there free alternatives to getting sued that are totally legal and just as good in my opinion. Getty Images has a library of images that you can freely embed into your blog post. They come with the attribution already at the bottom of the image. If you look you will find hundreds of thousands of images you can use on your fashion blog. All you need to do is hover over the image, click on the embed icon (it looks like this </>). It will then allow you to select the size of the image that you want, and then give you a code. Just place this code directly into your blog post in the place you want your image and bam you are done. I actually prefer it because it’s so much faster than uploading images to WordPress.

As far as I’m aware, this is totally legal as long as you don’t use the images to suggest any sort of ownership of the image, or any partnership with the fashion brand that doesn’t exist. That being said, please please please do your own research before including images into your blog posts. I am NOT a lawyer, far from it. I just wanted to share this information that I found. I’m going to include some links below to information about UK copyright law. If you are from another country please look at different resources relevant to your own country. As far as I’m aware Getty images embed can be used in any country but PLEASE don’t take my word for it.

A VERY comprehensive but easy to understand guide by Gov.UK– This is a Government run website so it can be trusted.

A basic guide to Fair Dealing– Another easy to understand site, but you’re better off with Gov.UK in my opinion.

A link to the actual legislation– maybe worth a read if you are a brainiac/law student/ currently being sued. I haven’t read it.

Charity Shop Haul #1 22/3/2016

March 22, 2016March 26, 2016 | louisealicejay

Hello! Today I have a charity shop haul for you guys! I love charity shopping because you never know what you are going to find. I found some really cool stuff today and I’m super excited to share it with you.

Lately, I’ve been trying to simplify my wardrobe. I have so many clothes yet I feel like I don’t have any because nothing goes together. I’m also a bit of a hoarder. I have clothes in my wardrobe that I’ve had since I was 14. They look way to immature for me to wear at age 19, but they still fit, so I keep them. I’d been meaning to have a clear out before I bought any more crap but I just couldn’t resist these items. They fit in perfectly with the wardrobe I am trying to create.

The charity shops I visited were St David’s Hospice, Tenovus & Bernardo’s.

Let’s start with my favourite item!

Louise Alice Jay Fluffy Pink Jumper

I picked up this jumper from Tenovus for £4, its pastel blue with hot pink fluff all over so when you wear it, it looks pink but up close you can see how gorgeous it is. Look at that close up! It’s so beautiful. In the shop I didn’t recognise the label, it just said G21, but when I got home and looked it up I found out it was an Asda label. It’s quite cool actually, G21 is designed by up & coming fashion graduates. Maybe it’s a sign I shouldn’t have dropped out of my fashion course last week haha!

Louise Alice Jay Windowpane Shirt

I found this really cute windowpane print shirt in Bernardo’s for £3. It’s made with cotton flannel and it’s so comfy. It’s a size 16 so its huge on me but that’s how I like my flannel shirts.

Louise Alice Jay Embroidered Shirt Detail

I also found this pretty embroidered white shirt in Bernardo’s for £4. I really like this one, it’s going to look so nice tucked into a denim skirt. The label says size 16, but it seems a bit small to be a 16. Oh well, it fits my bust perfectly and leaves the rest of the shirt loose and breezy- perfect for summer!

Louise Alice Jay Pink Jumper

I picked up this jumper in St Davids Hospice for £1. I don’t have any jumpers with lots of gaps in like this so I’m glad I found this one.

Vintage St Michael Dogtooth Jumper 90's

This was probably the most interesting find! It’s a St Michaels Chanel Inspired cardigan. It looks really nice on, kind of like a bomber jacket. It’s a size 14 but it fits perfectly well.

After doing a little bit of research and comparing tags online. I’m pretty confident that it’s from the 90’s. My best guess is actually early 90’s because as you can see on the tags it’s supposed to have shoulder pads. They were still decently popular in the early 90’s but luckily the fashion forward previous owner of my cardigan picked hers off.

Louise Alice Jay Corduroy Trousers

Last but not least, I found this size 18 pair of corduroy trousers in Tenovus for £1. They are originally from the Edinburugh Woollen Mill and they are such good quality. My plan for these is to refashion them into one of those cute button up mini skirts, so that will be a future blog post.

Thankyou for reading! I’m going to be posting more regularly now that I have a bit more times on my hands.

This is what happens when you mix PVA Glue, Acrylic Paint & Glitter

March 17, 2016March 17, 2016 | louisealicejay

What do acrylic paint, PVA Glue & Glitter all have in common? They are all made from plastic! For our next and final unit in college, we are going to make a neckwear piece entirely out of plastic and it has to look beautiful. It can’t look like it’s been made out of discarded plastic materials so I am trying to come up with ways to use plastics in a creative way.

I have been experimenting with creating chunks of plastic out of dried paint & PVA glue but I think that the final pieces are going to take days to dry. I wanted to take some photographs to include in my sketchbook if the experiment work. the photographs turned out 100x better than I ever could have imagined, and I’m no photographer!.

LOUISE ALICE JAY PVA GLITTER PAINT 3

I was amazed at how beautiful it looks. I love how the PVA glue has caused the paint the separate and the glitter has stuck together to make swirls in the liquid. I am so glad I decided to take these photographs. It just doesn’t look as good in real life.

I am actually really glad I don’t know anything about photography. I was just selecting random settings on my camera and shooting pictures when I couldn’t even see the screen properly. Some of the pictures turned out extremely light and some pictures came out dark and grungy. I love how the dark images look, it really brings out the glitter. I wish these images were all the same size but I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.

LOUISE ALICE JAY GLITTER PAINT DARK

LOUISE ALICE JAY PVA GLITTER PAINT STRIPE 3

I don’t think that these samples are going to turn out right. They seem very thin and the consistency of the paint and glue are just too different, they don’t seem to have mixed well. I don’t think I would mind if it didnt work out as I still got a great result out of them, just in a different way. Also, I apologise for this blog post being a complete and total mess. I am still learning how to do this whole blog thing.

Last Day of my First Project and How I Shall Spend My Weekend of Freedom

October 8, 2015February 18, 2016 | louisealicejay

Today is the last day we have to finish off our garments. I’m really stressing but the second years in our group are convinced that it will be finished soon. I have been working on the ribcage for around two weeks now and they have been horrible but they are finally okay. Last night I stayed up until 12:30am to finish my sketchbook which doesn’t seem late but it is for me!

Here is our progress so far:

It’s been really exciting to see it all come together like we designed it. Our next project is to make a tunic, which we are doing so that we can learn lots of sewing and pattern cutting techniques. It starts on Monday and I don’t have all of my equipment yet. I have to order it all next day delivery which costs £15 + the cost of all of the equipment. The main thing that I need is a Graders Square.

I am excited to finish collaboration because the next step is to actually learn Illustration and Production which are really important skills that I will need to know. I am excited to learn pattern cutting especially because I would love to be able to design and make my own clothes. This is a dream I have had since age 7 when my favourite program was That’s So Raven. I have made clothes for myself in the past but those were from already existing patterns, I would love to be able to make exactly what I want. I don’t even plan on shopping anymore I just want to make everything.

This weekend is my first homework- less weekend in 6 weeks. I’m going to a vintage fair in Cardiff City Hall on Sunday. I’m very excited to go because I went a few years ago and it was great. The only problem is I am going with my boyfriend who will complain all the way through it and try to get us to leave early but he won’t succeed. I probably won’t buy anything I would just like to look around and take some pictures. I’ll probably do a blog post about it so that I don’t have to make one about the awful tunic we are going to be making. As part of my course I have to update this blog often with everything I have been doing.

This weekend I am also going to start making my halloween costume. I have a black lace dress that I never wear which I am going to turn into a witch dress. It’s not going to be very complex sewing or anything I was just going to sew some organza onto an elastic waist band and put it over the top of the dress so I can change it without ruining it for the sake of one night. I’m going to a Cardiff Devils hockey match on Halloween and then we will probably be going out in Cardiff after it so I can wear my witch costume.