Author Archives: ameliaflorencesimmons

Happy New Year!

Posted in Positive Thinking by

A little late, what what?

I’ve been ghastly about posting for the past few months, because when things get busy the blog is the first thing to go. I started blogging regularly when I was working in a call centre as a form of escape, and now that I’m lucky enough to write for a living, it’s not the lovely indulgence it used to be.

That said, I’m going to try and post once a week, and most likely just a bunch of pictures. Lazy? NEVER. I had a whole post prepped about what I got up to in November and December, including the British Fashion Awards, gigs by Foals and Patrick Wolf, the publication of the first Sussex Style magazine and a trip to Antoni + Alison’s tea room, which I’m still sitting on. The post that is, not the tea room.

But anyway – this is a vow to post more often. For now, I’m going to leave you with my New Year’s resolutions, and wish you an awfully lovely start to 2013.

1. Go surfing – something I didn’t manage last year and am DETERMINED to do

2. Get some fresh air every day

3. Go back to keeping a journal and this blog

4. Cook more! – I have so many recipe books to work through. Look out for more recipe posts this year

5. Celebrate more – I fancy celebrating all sorts of festivals and various whatnottery. Burns Night supper? Why not.

6. Travel – mostly I’d like to explore the UK a little more. I fell in love with Oxford last year, and I find weekend breaks in the UK extremely invigorating. I’m off to Scotland next month, fingers crossed. Brrrr.

7. Always have a book on the go – my English degree was the death knell for my enjoyment of reading and I’ve mostly been digesting the most ghastly chick lit ever since as a remedy. NO MORE.

8. Do the splits – self explanatory.

I tend to stick more to challenges rather than things like ‘lose weight, exercise more’ because those are boring, don’t you think? Last year I did rather well on my New Year’s challenges and was still completing them by the end of the year, so much better than begrudgingly joining a gym and giving it up in January.

Ta ra for now my lovelies!

assorted 866

TOMS x Movember Launch Party

Posted in Fashion, Girl About Town, Positive Thinking by

Movember is about to begin: the month when chaps grow moustaches to promote awareness and raise funds for men’s health, in particular testicular cancer and prostate cancer. For a moustache-fancier like me, it’s a bit like Christmas. TOMS, the shoes and glasses brand, have partnered with Movember, and I attended the official launch party at The Hospital Club last night with Christie of From The Heart 90. 

The concept of M0vember started in Melbourne, and has grown into a global campaign, raising money and awareness for men’s health. The charity encourages men to begin November clean-shaven, and then to grow a moustache for the entire month, providing a constant visual cue to promote awareness of the cause. Since 2003, Movember has raised £184 million. In 2011 alone, £79.3 million was raised, with 1.9 million entrants. We can all work together to make 2012 the most successful Movember so far, and you can do that by donating, holding an awareness party, attending Mo events, or by getting the conversation started with some moustache covered clothing.

I didn’t know much about TOMS until yesterday, when I started reading up a little on them ahead of the launch. I knew they produced adorable shoes and had just introduced a range of glasses and sunglasses, but I didn’t realise the brand had such an altruistic philosophy. TOMS have devised a concept called ‘One for One‘, whereby for every pair of shoes you buy, TOMS will give a new pair of shoes to a child in need. Since the concept was devised, over a million pairs of shoes have already been given away. Likewise, for every pair of glasses bought, TOMS donate a pair to someone in need. To further support Movember, TOMS have produced some limited edition styles of shoe, with a portion of profits going to the charity. It’s exactly the kind of approach that more brands need to start adopting – using their klout to benefit those in need, and I think TOMS are hugely admirable. You can find out more about them on their site.

We trotted along to The Hospital Club to get into the swing of things – quite literally in the case of our dancing. The night was 1920s themed, and as we stepped in we spotted men in waistcoats, bow ties, and hats, and women in flapper dresses and headbands. We also spied a wooden record player, crates of TOMS shoes, and some rather magnificent moustachioed barrels. After swiping some champagne cocktails from the bar, we were whisked aside by a photographer, which entailed dressing up like loons and posing. We then explored the venue a little and listened to the amazing Franky and the Jacks – a very talented AND handsome band. We also caught up with the gorgeous, charming and statuesque Sammy Aki, aka The Groom Style Consultant, who runs an innovative service that aims to raise the style stakes for grooms on their big day. As the band played on, we decided to shake a tail feather on the dancefloor, busting out some prime 1920s moves including a sneaky Charleston, before screen-printing moustaches on t-shirts and finally heading home.

So, what can you do? To get involved with Movember, visit their website, make a donation, grow a moustache if you’re a chap, or get your boyfriend to grow one. If you’re of the female persuasion, how about buying some merch? Or hosting a mo party?  TOMS will continue their charity projects through Movember and beyond, so purchase any item to participate in their ‘One for One’ programme. Above all, be inspired, get involved.

Sussex Style Beauty Editorial

Posted in Fashion, Health & Beauty, Pretty Things, Projects by

I’ve been terribly quiet lately, and I thought it was finally time to explain why. A couple of weeks ago, I was appointed Beauty Editor for a new glossy magazine called Sussex Style. I won’t bombard you with info on it as most of you will have already heard about it, and I don’t want to be a walking, talking ad, so I’ll just say that it’s going to be high end, aesthetically driven, stocked all around the South East, and ultimately something that this county needs!

Anyway, with my deadline looming large like a…large loomy thing, I had to set to work quickly. I’d decided that I wanted to aim high with my beauty pages. Instead of featuring products alone, I chose to create an actual beauty editorial. Now, this was one of those cases where I’d blindly opted to do something without actually knowing whether or not it was feasible, but I’d set my bar and I was determined to reach it.

I soon realised just what I’d let myself in for. First, there were the creative decisions to be made: what kind of looks was I going to go for? I began to compile moodboards, both in real life and on the dreaded Pinterest (I continue to be the only girl in the world who despises the wretched thing). That was the easy bit. Next, I had to assemble a team to help me get my ideas from the ol’ noggin to the page. I have to thank the Twitter community here, because it just wouldn’t have been possible without them. Within a few hours of tweeting I was overwhelmed with talented photographers, makeup artists and hairstylists.

Next, I talked to the people who’d been suggested, and we started to work out teams, and dates. I was extremely lucky to snag a makeup artist called Marie-Isabel Kennedy, aka Maz. Not only a ridiculously talented young lady, but she also pulled a team together as she recommended a wonderful photographer called Parisa Walklett, and also an absolutely fantastic hairstylist called Stephanie Hayes. From there, it was all systems go – I put together a brief, we started to arrange dates, and then it was time to cast a model.

This actually turned out to be the most stressful part of the operation. Up until this point, things had gone alarmingly smoothly – the team had fallen into place, we had Parisa’s studio all sorted out, the looks were signed off on, and jewellery had been sorted (more on that shortly). As we were working on such a tight time scale, it was extremely difficult to sort out a model, so I spent a rather stressful day frantically emailing and phoning all the big agencies, throwing myself on their mercy. Tell you what, it’s no joke when they talk about how young models are; heaps of the girls I requested were at school on the day of the shoot!

On Friday afternoon at 5.25pm, with the shoot on Monday, Select Model Management came up trumps with a gorgeous girl called Hannah Murrell. Hannah had the most perfect face for the shoot, and we were delighted to book her. When the booking was confirmed, I’m not ashamed to say that I leapt out of my chair, punched the air a lot and ran backwards and forwards shouting ‘YES!!! YEEEEES!!!!’ like a fool. Because what good is a crack hair and makeup team, a brilliant photographer and gorgeous jewellery without a model?!

On Monday morning I headed up to London to pick up the jewellery. I was incredibly happy with how lucky we’d been on the jewellery front. I’d put out a twitter call for some high end, quirky pieces, and while I had a good response, nothing quite fitted the bill until I got a tweet from the lovely folks behind Jolita Jewellery. Founded by Algis Abromaitis (the designer) and his sister Jolita (the marketing/press/PR guru), their pieces fit my brief perfectly, and I spent a happy hour browsing their site and pulling options out. Jolita was delightful to deal with and made my job extremely easy, and was hugely accommodating; I’d recommend them strongly to any stylists or anyone putting shoots together.

I picked up my precious cargo from the lovely Jolita, and headed out to Finsbury Park to Paris’ studio, where I met Hannah, Maz, Steph, Paris, and the adorable Henry, a French Bulldog/shih tzu cross. I’ll leave you all to put those two breeds together…We listened to a lot of music, ate a LOT of biscuits, fawned over Henry, drooled over the jewellery, and I got to watch some extremely talented people in action. The whole thing was a dream come true, and I genuinely kept expecting to wake up at any point.

I’d like to take this chance to thank my MD at Sussex Style, Sean, for giving me free rein; my amazing team of Paris, Maz and Steph, the wonderful Jolita Jewellery, the awesome Hannah, and all the tweeters who helped me out on a VERY tight deadline. That photoshoot was one of the best things I’ve ever done, and I feel so proud of it. Not to get all soppy, but the whole thing meant so much to me, and I feel like I’m finally doing the things that I dreamed of doing as a teenager. I still can’t quite believe it’s all happened!

Sussex Style magazine will be coming out in November, and in the meantime hop over to the Facebook page or the Twitter account @SussexStyleMag to keep up to date with the latest news!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Posted in Fashion, Positive Thinking by

I’ve entered a few blog competitions in my time, and I’ve never won. Not once. Well, maybe a few tickets or something, but nothing….tangible. Oh, I know! Break out those tiny violins. Well, don’t actually, because I’ve only gone and won TWO competitions in a week! I feel very lucky, and perhaps like I should go and buy a lottery ticket.

The first I won was a giveaway by the adorable Caitlin of From the Heart who reminds me of Leighton Meester, which is filling the Gossip Girl shaped hole in my life. Along with her gorgeous sister Christie, she’s created a very sweet new blog, so it would be lovely if you could go and check it out. They’re just getting started but it’s already shaping up to be a lovely blog; a great mix of beauty, fashion, OOTD posts, DIY tutorials – my kind of blog, really! So do go and check them out. I won a gorgeous bracelet which you can see below:

The second thing I won was actually something I’d had my eye on for ages. I’d clocked (aha! Puns a gogo!) Larsson & Jennings a little while ago on Twitter, and was very taken with them. I’d spied them on Helen Glover and Heather Stanning during the Olympics and thought they were adorable, so when I saw that L&J were holding a Twitter competition and giving away a watch every day for a week, I thought I’d enter.

And guess what?? I won! I won the beautiful Windsor watch with white & gold face, and I’ve been wearing it every day since. It’s fab quality, has garnered heaps of compliments, and is really sorting out my life (I seem to have recently developed a rotten habit of being late a lot). If you like them as much as I do, the lovely people at L&J have kindly given my friends 20% off the watches. All you have to do is enter ‘LONDON’ at the checkout. Happy clock-watching!

I Scream, You Scream…

Posted in Adventures, Pretty Things by

Wow, we’ve well and truly plunged into Winter, haven’t we? On Wednesday, it seemed to be supremely dark most of the day, with icy rain appearing intermittently. Still, it wasn’t going to put me off my purpose for the day: ice cream tasting. It was part of the Lewes Octoberfest, and I wasn’t going to argue with such a fine tradition.

I was also in the mood to celebrate, having been officially named as Beauty Editor on upcoming glossy magazine Sussex Style, so ice cream was definitely on the cards. I was also planning on stocking up on some interesting magazines to butcher to make moodboards, so a day trip to Lewes seemed perfect. It was most definitely time to break out the fur trimmed items in my wardrobe, of which there are quite a few…

Lewes was rather gloomy weather-wise, but picking up some lovely magazines cheered me up hugely. I was pleased to finally get my hands on Wonderland magazine, which was full of the most beautiful editorials and which I’m still waiting to read so I can give it due care and attention. Teen Vogue is something I should really feel embarrassed about buying due to my non-teen status, but I always find it fun and inspiring. Also Company, which is fast becoming one of my favourites. A £1 cover price and packed full of interesting features, AND featuring someone I know from Twitter. Exciting times!

We headed to Limetree Kitchen, tucked away off the main high street on Station Street, a gorgeous little bistro-y type concept. We were warmly welcomed and swept in for some Illy coffee and ice cream tasting. We tried (if I can remember correctly): lemon meringue pie, rose petal, butternut squash and Amaretto, muscovado sugar and vanilla, and gin & tonic. Hands down, my fave was G&T – very refreshing, zesty and light. The chap behind the kitchen, Alex, was very charming, trained in classic French cuisine, and an ice cream maestro.

It was the perfect place to escape to on a miserable afternoon, and felt a bit like sitting in a friend’s kitchen, thanks to the relaxed and friendly nature of the people working there. The ice creams were out of this world delish, as were the truffles we were also treated to afterwards. You can have proper food too – Alex let us look through lots of old menus, and we were hugely impressed. The menu changes week to week, and the dishes are creative, appetising and well conceived. I’m planning on popping in for a proper meal so I can give it a real road-test.

Ta ra for now chaps, and remember, it doesn’t matter how cold it is, ice cream is ALWAYS acceptable.

Just Do It

Posted in Positive Thinking by

I’m sorry for being quiet on here of late – there was LFW, and then a crazily busy week, and then a couple of really exciting things happened which I’ll tell you about soon. But in the meantime, I felt like writing a post on something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. For those of you hoping the title means this post is about sex, you’ll be tragically mistaken. What I’m actually going to discuss is the extraordinary amount of people I know who aren’t happy with their lives, or who want to do something else, but just don’t do anything about it. They talk endlessly about their dreams, how much they hate their job/boss/colleagues,  constantly use the phrase ‘when I get my new job/my new place to live/some money/some free time’ etc but they never seem to move on.

Look, I’m not going to get all dewy-eyed and ‘Climb Every Mountain!’ about this, but really, now. Young people today, eh?! Obviously the job climate isn’t conducive to just leaving your job and pursuing your dreams, I understand that. But what’s wrong with putting a little bit of hard graft in during your spare time? We live in 2012, so much can be done remotely. I’m a bit sick of people telling me how ‘busy’ they are, when they actually clock off work before 6 and have whole weekends free.  See, right there! That’s heaps of time!

I suppose what I’m trying to get at here is the people who constantly blame circumstance or other people for not being able to do the things they want. I’m not being idealistic: of course, you’ll come up against problems. But you also need to look to yourself. I often have quite a few nice opportunities I like to pass on to friends or Twitter chums, purely because I think that if you can help someone get some valuable experience, you can get them to meet some potential contacts, and ultimately they can actually try out the thing they’re always saying they want to do. I had someone actually ask me to be involved with one of the days of London Fashion Week, only to cancel on me the very morning we were supposed to be working together, due to ‘busyness’. Look around. We’re ALL busy.

Maybe the reason I’m coming down so hard on all of this is because I used to be a dreamer. I’m still frequently quite shocked and proud of myself that I’ve done the things I said I was going to do. When I was younger, I was very much of the ‘talk about it LOADS then actually probably don’t do it’ school. I was full of ideas, some insane, and some which I actually could have done if I’d worked through it. These days, I’ve worked really hard to be reliable, trustworthy, and to actually finish the ideas I’ve started.

I’m not saying ‘go and quit your job this very morning and live your dreams! Sparkles and rainbows!’ No no no. I’m saying, hang on to your job, do things in your spare time. Yes, you do have spare time, by the way. If you keep saying you want to be a writer, start a blog. If you want to be a photographer…take some photos! Too many people think that there is a dream job that they’ll walk into and everything will be fine, and then they grow despondent when it doesn’t come along. You’ve got to work hard first, put in the extra effort and hours, and ultimately don’t turn down opportunities. Think about what you can do RIGHT NOW to start making your dreams happen. I bet you there are lots of things.

I’ve made a list of ideas that you can start with. Don’t expect things to happen overnight. Just over a year ago, I left my job in advertising with absolutely no idea what I wanted to do next. I’ve worked hard, put my heart into what I’ve done, and now things are really paying off (touch wood). More than anything, I’m very happy. I’ll be telling you more about what I’m up to very soon, but for now, here are some tips on pursuing your dreams, even if you’re currently working in a job you don’t want to be in:

1. Start with a list. Write down any abstract ideas about what you want to do, who you want to be, and any ideas you might have had. Don’t worry about making them too grounded in reality at this stage, the important point is to let your mind be a bit creative. Jot down any ideas that come into your head at first. Wait a day or two, then start to shape them into workable plans. Lists are your friends.

2. Don’t be afraid of hard work. This is a biggie. Not to get all ‘in my day!’ about it, but I see far too many other young people who just expect things to magically come to them, without any effort. This will not, I repeat, NOT happen. So best get cracking, ok?

3. Take every opportunity you think might help. As with the point above, you’ve got to put in the hard graft before things start happening for you. If you’re really serious about following your dreams, then yes, take every opportunity possible.

4. Engage with people. This is a huge one. Get to know as many people as possible – you never know who might be able to help you out. Be friendly, be interested, and be professional. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of people you admire and who might be doing the kind of job you want to do.

5. Be reliable. This is a huge one. I’m self-employed, so if I don’t get my work done on time for my clients, they can just walk away. Or walk away, refuse to work with me ever again, and I’ll start to get a reputation for being rubbish. But it’s not just with clients – learn to be reliable in every part of your life.

6. Keep positive. Things will go wrong on this journey. There have been times in the past year that I’ve been exhausted, stressed and unsure of where I’m going. I’ve kept going, and things have often sorted themselves out. Have faith. If it really isn’t working, you can always step away from it.

7. Manage expectations. In other words, don’t make promises you can’t fulfil, just to keep someone happy. Many times, I’ve been tempted to just say something I know I can’t do, just to avoid disappointing someone. Well, you’re only going to disappoint them more if you promise something and don’t come through. Be honest about what you can achieve and in what kind of time frame, and trust me, it’ll be much better than empty promises.

8. Be grateful, be gracious. Nobody owes you anything just for being you, ok? I am so thankful for all the amazing opportunities I’ve been given, and all the chances people have taken on me. I will never stop being grateful for that, no matter if I’m a multi-millionaire one day. Thank people for those opportunities and for having faith in you.  

9. Ultimately, just go for it. What have you got to lose?