The Invasion of Whisty… North London

Hello, ‘Wish you were here’,

Postcards from London…

The City of London, from Highgate Bridge, London N6 – The invasion began, my mates room, trashed as soon as my bag landed. So out we go and straight into town

First stop was, lunch at Sketch with Sophie from ASOS… Mine was the black bread Croque Monsieur

If portaloos were like this… the bathrooms at Sketch, Conduit Street, London WC1 W1S

Evening drinks with Amy and DSThe Boogaloo, Highgate, London N6

The Boogaloo Moggy… How much do I want that to be a G’n'T…?

Feeling nostalgic for the ’50′s at the ‘World Famous Boogaloo Juke’

The Notting Hill Carnival, 2011Passes for the fabulous Wrangler Carnival Party, at Bumpkin, London W11

Our welcome party at Westbourne Park Tube station

Our talented and incredibly down to earth entertainment for the evening, Maverick Sabre. In case you’ve ever wondered, being half cockney (he was born in Hackney) half culchie, (raised in New Ross, Co. Wexford) gives you one hell of a mad accent. Even so, he played a bloody beautiful acoustic set. Image via glam.co.uk

Post Party; neon specs and pints at The Good Mixer, Camden Town, London NW1

Hair of the Dog…

Whisky Cider = Whisty Heaven

Getting my tourist on. Note actual rucksack.At Highgate Cemetery, armed with map and nerves of steel. This is one atmospheric graveyard.

The gigantic stone head of Karl Marx on his Tombstone at Highgate Cemetery

Angel tombstones

Peaceful in the woods

And back to the land of the living…A rainbow at Aces & Eights Saloon Bar, Tufnell Park, London NW5. If I could imagine the kind of place Huey Morgan would live in, this would surely be it…

Curry heaven, London E1

Back to Highgate Village, before calling my Mum to tell her I’m effing nackered.

Yours,

Whisty Xx

Massive thanks to DS, Amy, Lynda & Sean, Sophie, Holly at Wrangler, and Ashley, for graciously returning a favour. Xxx

Fallen Leaves and Smoking Jackets

What-ho all,

Sorry about the greeting, I’ve been watching Jeeves & Wooster (Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie) and as usual got  randomly inspired. This time it was Bertie Wooster’s smoking jackets/ gentleman’s dressing gowns. Cue raiding shops ’till I found one, and wait a moment, it’s paisley and vintage!

Then there was a weather issue. ‘What’s that Mr. Weather man? A hurricane you say?’ Right-e-o, best get out there and take a few snaps before all the pretty leaves are blown off these autumn trees then.

Think the eye make-up was inspired by a slightly later era though, 60′s in fact. It took absolutely ages, I went through about 6 face wipes and after about an hour it ended up all smudged. But hey, practise makes perfect right?

The dress is from Oasis; it has gorgeous full-length sheer sleeves with button-up cuffs. It did have a bit of a frill along the bottom, which I cut off as soon as I bought it. I wanted to give it a bit more of a 60′s feel and I much prefer it that way too.

More photos and all other outfit details on HerApparel.

Xx

A lesson in cool.

OR: This is about as close to sport as I like to get.

Hey All,

After recommending it on here last Friday, I thought I should probably put in an appearance at Kings of Concrete. Ironically, spending most of the time there on the grass but anyway; I went along Saturday, kinda dragging poor Lorna from StyleIsle, in her fab heels, along with me. I was blown away by it and even though I hadn’t seen a single ad, it was crazy busy.

So basically this is just a glorified outfit post that incorporates some impossibly cool people who, well basically made me feel like a bit of a geek actually.

Happy to report that there were no rubbish slogan Tees, just loads of brands that were far too cool for me to have ever heard of. Did feel a bit Napoleon Dynamite actually, except even less cool. Must do better Whisty.

The leggings are blatantly dirty rip-offs of the Les Chiffoniers ones that everyone was wearing last summer to festivals and the like. But the thing is, you can’t really go too far wrong with a wipe-clean leggings at a music festival can you? That’s also my Zara Taylor mini harmonica round my neck, it gets so much love.

All outfit details and more photos on HerApparel

Skaters

Rob Kelly

Skaters

Beatboxing.

(You know when you don’t really know a word, but you have to say the word. And When you do say the word, it sounds a bit wrong and then you feel silly and don’t want to say the word ever again ’cause you’re pretty sure it’s not actually a word at all..? yeah that just happened there).

Skaters

Xx

Clothes v’s Cars

Dear Readers,

Happy post-bank holiday!

One thing bout being really into clothes is that, as with any obsession, it proves to be the perfect distraction and a constant point of conversation. It also means that I have friends that are equally passionate about other things, like cars for example.

That means I get to ‘borrow’ cars as cool as this one, to take photos with. Don’t be fooled by the sunshine on this photo, it was raining two seconds previous to it being taken.  Hence the fur coat. We had a bit of a drive around afterwards and went to watch a live band doing 60′s covers in a pub. There were a load of little kids running about outside with painted faces who couldn’t have been more excited about the car when we got there. It was so cute to see them coming up and staring at it, saying “wow”. It seems in a clash of clothes v’s cars, cars win, hands down.

More photos and all outfit details at HerApparel as usual.

Xx

Dear Readers,

How’s things?S;up

A Sunny Weekend In Dublin

Chères Readers

It was a fantastic, hectic, busy, lazy weekend. I shan’t bore you with the details, most of it was nothing to do with fashion, it was all about Dublin though. I’m just going to post a few words that made up one of the best weekends I’ve had in ages.

The Liffey Boardwalk, The Morrison Hotel

White Wine, Tanqueray

Cigarettes, Baths

McDonalds Cheeseburgers

New Friends

Old Friends

Reading Outside, Wild Horses

A new moon

The Seaside, Yachts

Talking, Laughing

Rocknroll

Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix

Flip flops and Dirty Feet

Taxi drivers

Lazy Sunday Mornings

Hugs, Photos, The Royal Marine Hotel

Vintage Festival

Buses

Boys, smiles

Ryan, Gavin, Stephen, DS and Emily.

More photos and all outfit details on HerApparel as usual.

Xx

Fashion Bloggers Tour

I’m really excited peeps! Myself and 9 other fashion bloggers across Europe have been asked to take part in an amazing blog project. Nokia launched their N97 Mini smartphone a couple of months ago and to coincide with that, they are asking each blogger to test out the new handset. They have asked us to use it as much as possible by blogging, uploading photos and adding our favourite shopping spots to ovi.com. Not only that but each blogger will take turns in receiving this suitcase. The photo was taken by previous blogger – more on that to follow. Apparently that’s her dachshund, Jarvis but… I can’t speak Finnish so I’m probably completely wrong. I like it though, Jarvis the Dachshund, it works, no?

So anyway, when each blogger gets the suitcase, they chose one item that best represents fashion / design / style in their country. The they are required to place said chosen item in a designated bag in the suitcase and send it to the next blogger on the list. Stella, writer if of the Paras Aika Vuodesta blog on http://olivalehti,fi, was first and yours truly is second. After the suitcase has travelled to the remaining 8 bloggers it will be opened, its contents posted on-line and “one lucky winner” will get the lot.

Deciding what should go into the suitcase to represent Irish style was pretty easy on my part really. I picked three pieces; an Aran Knit scarf, a Helen McAlinden Tweed jacket and a Peter O’Brien for AWear silk blouse:

The decision on what to include was more democratic; visitors to the Powerscourt Townhouse exhibition last week voted for the piece they wanted to include. So with massive thanks to the hundreds of people who voted I shall let you know, in the end the Helen McAlinden Tweed jacket as the winner. To represent Finland, Stella chose this great necklace from gTIE. I am actually sorely tempted to buy one myself. The cross and cameo pendent are on my own necklaces but I like the way they look underneath.

Don’t mind t!ts Magee behind me. (Anchorman reference there pop pickers)

As for the handset, I love it, I keep taking it out of my bag to look at it. I’m getting used to using the qwerty keyboard and touch screen and I love getting my emails straight to it. The photos above are taken with the camera, but I’m yet to blog from it. I will though.

Media Talk Photos

Thought you might get a bit of a laugh from these photos from the talk last Thursday evening. I just found them on the Nokia Ireland Facebook page. I don’t think I’ve ever looked so terrified! There are loads of great pictures on there of some ridiculously chilled and stylish people too. I will warn you however, they won’t offer as much humour as these  two photos will; don’t say I didn’t warn you! x

Dublin Balayage Update

Today was Balayage day, not only was it my first time getting these kind of highlights but was also the first time I’d had my hair done in Dublin. I was a tad nervous, but when I spoke to Lucy in Style Club, I realised that she knew exactly what she was doing and I began to chill out a bit. She told me she was doing Balayage in London 5 years ago and at Style Club since it opened in October last year. So I sat down and was given plenty of new magazines to read and as much tea as I could drink.

I took a few snaps of the process; The first picture shows the regrowth from my last set of foil highlights before any new colour was applied. The second pic is mid application as Lucy was “sweeping” the colour in sections through the top half of my hair, (evidently I’m not in the least bit proud…). The last pic is the end result, with some change?! (I could give The Lion King a run for his money with all that hair!) All in all the whole thing took about an hour and 20, including toner and a big-old, back-combed blow-dry. That is about 2 hours quicker than the last time I had a half-head of foils and I’m genuinely delighted with the result. (It cost €80 (+ tip)).

All new ombre hair.

Yours,

Whisty Xx 

The Style Club is at 12 South William Street, Dublin 2, Tel: 01 472 2444

Ground Floor, Pavillions Swords Tel: 01 813 2812.

Terry O’Neill Photography Exhibition Opens in Kildare Village

Last night, in Kildare Village, a temporary photography exhibition opened, featuring the work of photographer Terry O’Neill, spanning his whole career. A career that took off in the ’60′s when he photographed the most celebrated figures in the entertainment industry including; the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Brigitte Bardot (left) Orson Wells and Audrey Hepburn, (among many others). He not only captured these icons in a thought-provoking and poignant way, but also in a way that focused on their natural, individual style. Turning him from a mere rock photographer into a legendary celebrity artist in his own time.

The exhibition called Intimate, is free and running until January 2010 prints of all the images featured in the exhibition are also available to buy from the gallery space. If you do decide to go along, be prepared to be in awe. Terry O’Neill’s candid images capture the true beauty of every actress, musician and model he photographs. Included in the exhibition are a series of colour and B&W photographs he took in 1977. The images (see below) of actress Faye Dunaway lounging beside a pool in the Beverly Hill Hotel, are probably his most well-known. They were taken the morning after she won the Oscar for Best Actress for the film Network. He has also shot covers for Vogue and his iconic images have graced the covers of many magazines around the world.

EDIT: Photograph of Terry O’Neill at the launch of his exhibition in Kildare Village.

Here is a small study of some his other works.

Faye Dunaway

Audrey Hepburn

The Rolling Stones

Jean Shrimpton and Terence Stamp

Orson Wells

The Beatles

Brigitte Bardot Cover French Vogue

Images courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes.com and from an amazing collection at the UK National Portrait Gallery.

Kelly Osbourne Sparkled on Tubridy

If you get a mo, try and catch a re-run of Kelly O on The Late, Late Show with that Tubridy fella. If you didn’t like her before (why not!) you certainly will after you watch this, she comes across as honest, charming, self effacing and very sweet indeed.

She chatted openly about her addictions which were a result of the terrible slating she received from the ‘media’; as well as her love for her parents, they “come first”, her fiancé “my baba” as well as her hatred for her tatoos. “I hate them; I have a keyboard on my arm and I don’t even know how to play the piano”.

I just like her because she is smart as well as frank and open.