Fashion Forum

Zara shoes, trousers, shirt and top. Topshop vest. 

This is what I wore on Thursday when I attended Company magazine's Fashion Forum in Manchester. 

This year, I've been making a real effort to attend as many events, workshops and masterclasses that might provide me with information or advice that could help me in the future. Thankfully, my dad (the best parent ever, it must be said) agreed to drive me there and back, so I could make it to the talk without taking any time out from uni.

The best advice that the panel (which included the editor of Company magazine, Victoria White) gave to everyone was to try as many things as possible, which is definitely something that I agree with. I began studying for a generic journalism degree in September but, after dabbling in a variety of things like designing and news writing, I've found that my heart lies with magazines - the fact that I spend an extortionate amount of money on them each month should have been a dead giveaway - and I'll be switching courses at the end of the year. 

In the past year I've taught myself that trying a variety of things doesn't mean I'm uncommitted - it just means I can be sure when I decide exactly what I want to do. And that's what's important. 

Emily.

Nostalgia

H&M shirt, Topshop jumper, Topshop trousers, Aldo shoes

Black trousers are not my friends. 

During the years that I spent at secondary school, we were simply acquaintances - thrown together each September to endure 11 months of unpredictable weather, art class spillages and dance studio mishaps that rendered many a trouser leg knee-less. 

Since then, I've dabbled in the abyss that is the world of black dress trousers: pleated, ankle grazing, textured, you name it.  But to no avail. 

At 15, I was a world class procrastinator - a habit that I've kicked now, thanks to a penchant for list making - which resulted in me spending a week of work experience wearing a pair of black trousers that appeared to swamp me, despite being at least an inch too short. 

I can distinctly remember rushing home at the end of my last day there to change into my pyjamas and gleefully deliver the polyester monstrosities to their rightful place: the kitchen bin. 

After finding the trousers I'm wearing in this post on Topshop's website, I made finding them my life's mission. On the third search of my local store, I found a single pair and they were in my size. It was most likely something to do with fate, or whatever. 

Do I like these enough to cure my black trouser woes? Not at all. 

But onwards and upwards - I'm sure the perfect pair will just land in my lap one day, because that's how it works, right?

At least, I hope so. I'm all out of other ideas. 

Emily.

Emily Starts A Bl*g

A little over three years ago, blogging found me.

It was January 2010 and I had a mere 15 years and three cats to my name. I was flicking through a magazine (the kind that accompanies the Sunday papers and that I'd now sandwich in the centre fold of ELLE magazine for the morning commute, from fear of being mistaken for a 68-year-old) and stumbled across a black hole. A one way ticket to the blogosphere, you could say.

On one of the pages, staring back at me, were the likes of Tavi Gevinson and Jane Aldridge: teenagers that had made a name for themselves by way of outfit posts and fashion-focused explorations, while my classmates and I had spent our evenings discovering how to accumulate the most Bebo Luv and exchanging indecipherable MSN messages, consisting exclusively of emoticons.

Since then, I've made countless vows to build my own little home on the internet. I'd tell myself that I'd begin on the 1st of January, on my birthday after receiving a brand new camera, or even after buying a pair of shoes that would, inevitably, change my life. "These are the ones; they go with everything and photograph better than the icebergs of Iceland (seriously, Nicole Warne, you've ignited a love within me that that will never go out). NOW I CAN START MY BLOG."

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Each time, I'd grind to a halt through lack of words and/or pictures and would spend months on end thinking that, one day, it would just happen.

However, the recent conversation circulating blogging - not least spurred on by Suzy Menkes' article for T Magazine - has given me the motivation to get this thing rollin'. While I've long been a fan of blogging and have willing stood in the hypothetical corner of those whose opinion and/or work has been dismissed due to their platform of choice being "just a blog," an inner conflict has been ruling my internet activity - or lack thereof - for the last few months.

In September I began studying for a journalism degree and, for some reason, the stigma attached to blogging (watch the film Contagion to hear Jack Gellar from FRIENDS call it "graffiti with punctuation") put me off for a while.

But then Leandra Medine both acknowledged and remedied my concerns with a single blog post entitled "Blog is a Dirty Word". In it, not only did she highlight how blogging has affected the fashion industry in recent years, but she also (at least, in my opinion) successfully defended blogging as a vocation.

While I can't promise that everything I post here will be worth your time, I can commit to trying to make it so.

Hopefully I'll enjoy keeping a blog as much as I've enjoyed reading them over the past few years and I'll be sure to try and keep it up this time.

You have my word.

(Not that that counts for much). 

Emily.