Ghotic Collection

Monday was the end of an era.  I said goodbye to iPhone and hello to Nokia (once more).  I haven't had a Nokia since the good old days of the 3310 and things have moved on somewhat since then.  I have been a die hard iPhone girl from day 1.  I completely got sucked into the apple world of hi 5's, camping outside for a new release (OK I never did that), Apple snobbery and insanely shit battery power.  It is due to the battery that I made the mahoosive decision to move away from my beloved iPhone 5 and on to the Nokia Lumia 1020.  I'm not going to lie, I continuously had second thoughts through the whole upgrade procedure but now after a few days of adjusting, I'm 100% positive I made the right choice.

OK so lets talk about the nitty gritty details about the Nokia 2010...na not really, I'm not a phone geek but I will tell you a bit about the camera, which is to be fair the main reason why I went with this phone.  Its a huge 41MP Carl Zeiss lens, which is already giving my DSLR (Nikon D7100) a run for it's money!  There are loads of cool effects and functions with the camera too, for all you DSLR users out there, it's as easy as using your own camera; ISO, White Balance, Focus, Exposure, shutter speed...they're all completely editable just like a DSLR!  The f number can go as low as 2.2 which isn't bad for a phone camera.  I haven't had time to sit down and play with it properly yet but I will post some shots to show you how it compares to my DSLR.  There's a range of special shots you can take with the smart-cam too; action shots, the perfect shot, remove unwanted objects, make a strobe effect to emphasize motion and much more!  I'll be talking more about the camera on the blog but if you want to check out all the specs then visit the Nokia website here.

The advice I would give any other bloggers or photography enthusiasts out there would be to seriously consider this phone, for the camera alone it's totally worth it!

Here I go again with the culottes, I told you it was an obsession!  I've got another pair to blog in the next week too so sorry for the culotte overload but they are a must-wear for next season :)  Culottes are also a good piece to wear for this transition period where you want to introduce next season's trends to your daily looks but don't want to freeze your ass off.  Obviously you will need to add skin coloured tights which I know some peeps aren't a fan of, but so long as you buy the non-granny ones and carry a spare pare (in case of ladderage!) you'll be set. These culottes are from River Island and come with the little chain belt (they also come in a shorter length if these don't tickle your fancy).  For those office workers these might be a nice alternative to pencil skirts for your spring/summer work wear wardrobe.

It wasn't so long ago that I posted about Arcadia's SS14 press day and one of my faves from that day was by far Dorothy Perkins.  A couple of weeks ago I received their Lookbook in the post and it's so well put together that I had to show you all!  The weather has gone cold and gloomy, it's dark all the time so I figure we need some pastels and sheer fabrics to cheer us all up!  Have a gander at the collections and start making your wish list for next season!

Time for the first outfit post of the year, and with the new do!  Unfortunately due to this utterly shite weather, today wouldn't permit me to go to a more 'exotic' location in London other than my rather shabby looking back garden *apologies* through fear of being swept away in a not-so Mary-Poppins fashion.  Today like an eager shopping beaver I'm sporting some of my new sale purchases.  You may recognise the blazer and bag from yesterdays post, but I also bought a few pairs of sale jeans from Bershka and Zara (seen here) which I didn't add in, after all, jeans are jeans y'know.

Sale time, hurrah!  I wouldn't say I'm a total hardcore sale shopper, (otherwise known as lunatics), I don't camp outside Selfridges the night before nor do I rise at 4am to get to a Next sale (that shit cray!).  Throughout the year I do get gifted an awful lots of products and obviously I buy my fair share too, so more often than not, the bits that have gone into sale, I already have, booooo!  That said there are some things that simply must be bought when you see them in the sale.  Some people might not agree, but over the years there have been very few sale-purchase-disasters (bar the metallic space-style jumpsuit of 09', let us forget!).  So here's a few snippets of my Sale purchases thus far, stores are now starting their further markdowns and the one to watch is Zara!  As I used to work for them I know how they operate their sales.  They have so much stock that by the time the 3rd of 4th markdowns come into play, there's still stock that's not even been out on the shop floor yet, so that's the stuff you'll get at truly bargainous prices!

Check out all my purchases below and also some of my top tips for shopping the sales :)