I want a Jeremy Scott meat dress, but made out of poptarts.

I'm averaging six hours of sleep per night at the moment. However, unlike the guilty, educationally-associated sleep deprivation I have bemoaned before, this type is from having ludicrous amounts of fun. I'll admit it, I love the 9-5 (or 10-6, whatever). Especially when the hours you're meant to be at work are spent at New York Fashion Week shows, or interviewing your latest girl crush, or running around NYC smuggling packed-lunches into swanky SoHo cafes.

My optimism in organising my internship around NYFW's S/S shows paid off - I managed to witness four shows in as many days this week. Granted, this is hardly a packed schedule in comparison to that of Susie Lau (whom I could spy sitting opposite during Sunday's Preen show), but considering I was turning up to every one in thrift-store finds, it's not bad going.

A 1982 SLR definitely makes me out as a serious fashion journalist and not someone who just blagged their way into a Preen show...

Exciting designer newbie Ann Yee's presentation in SoHo the next evening followed - inspired by Blade Runner, her pretty, accessible silk jumpsuits and crop-tops with flouro accents suggest that she'll be hitting the NYFW schedule in the next few years. The next evening saw Samantha Pleet's Chelsea presentation on behalf of green fashion week, which was breathtakingly beautiful. With a video starring this season's muse Victoria Legrand of Beach House forming the backdrop to a collection of vintage and fishing-inspired whimsical dresses, jumpsuits, blouses and bikinis named things like 'rust red walkabout shorts' and 'ivory moonbeam blouse', there was little else I could do but eat the free cupcakes and feel deeply inadequate - in a thoroughly inspired way, natch.

All of this intelligent, classy, accessible ready-to-wear was, however, blown out of the water by Jeremy Scott's celeb-tastic, 1970s NY homoerotic punk-inspired, screamy, pouty, sexy S/S collection. With guys built like tanks being sent down in bondage-style mankinis, girls wearing everything from bodega-bag-vests to meat dresses (Gaga, eat your heart out) and only a straight-jacket wedding dress pre-empting Scott's own lap of victory around the front row in an angel-tipped leather jacket and kicks, it was beyond amazing. Sitting opposite Kelly Osbourne and Kanye in the front row was pretty surreal, too.

To round of my celebrity-stalking in a more laid-back way, I caught up with newly-discovered girl crush Rebecca Schiffman. Full details on her greatness are to come in Nylon's November issue. However, two facts: she LOVES pigeons and bought me a hotdog. 'nuff said.    

For news about what I get upto when I'm actually IN the office, my first guest post for awesome aspirational writers website Wannabe Hacks made it up this week. As for now, my day off consists of far less glamourous things - wondering what's happening to my clothes at the laundromat up the road, contemplating what new flavour of poptarts I'm going to buy and itinerising my way around taxidermfest at the Natural History Museum... Oh, and happy Yom Kippur!

G is for Grunions and Graduating

This Sesame Street-style means of titling posts has really popped out of nowhere, and indeed not only illogically starts on the seventh letter of the alphabet but seems there to stay. There is good reason, however, and that reason is the invention of the word GRUNION. I've relished that ol' Biblical nugget 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings' many a time, including on Bowlface. But that's because time and time again it comes true! Grunions, as well as being a little-known eel-fish hybrid which are known for an 'unusual mating ritual', are also old people, according to the definition invented by an 8 year old Bowlface relation. More specifically than 'old','those who need a concession'. The fact it's been so well thought out really pleases me. Granted, if you look on urbandictionary.com there's a load of crude and frankly disgusting definitions of grunion, but using it to describe my Dad through his age alone is way more fun. Especially when it's used in a form of secret code.

So that was Sunday tea time, when I reverted to a happy childish place to deflect the academic pomp that was my graduation ceremony the next day. Yadda Yadda, multiclapping, wearing family heirlooms, not tripping up the step, being hooded by the 'hooding marshall', proceeding to wear the hood a bit like the Scottish Widow afterwards, eating a load of celebration food, making Mummy and Daddy Bowlface proud.

So, satisfied some Newcastle cravings and almost said a fairly comfortable cheerio to my student days before arriving back at the Shire to think that falling into the world of teenage style bloggers was a great progression. I really should know by now that putting even the smallest of toes into this giant talent pool only results in a state of misery and feeling I've failed in life. Tavi Gevinson, as practically any cult glossy magazine fan will know, shot to fame at 13 for her forward-thinking and ludicrously good blog. Ok, so she's 14 now, but at that age I was wearing dead people's jewellry and trying to grow boobs, meanwhile she's mastered the bowlcut/granny glasses combo that even at 19 I didn't wear as well. However, green is not a good colour for me, so I put the envy away and started following her on twitter. This resulted in a plethora of other teenage style 'rookies' (ha!) who all look like they should be on an American Apparel billboard, if only their mothers would let them out. Here's a couple of my faves:

http://ifthesokfitz.blogspot.com/
http://hipstermusings.blogspot.com/

G is for Gaga and Grandparents

Went on a Shire road trip to visit Grandpa Bowlface today. He's 92, lives in an unwittingly amazing house decked out in enough kitsch and vintage furnishing and wallpaper to stock most overpriced Shoreditch interior design stores for several decades, and takes me out to lunch to places where they paint 'CONGRATULATIONS' and flowers on a plate with free fudge for 'graduating' (which I haven't officially done yet, but what kind of weirdo turns down free fudge?) We drank Earl Grey, ate a load of cake and talked a lot about birds and converting to Judaism. It was the best.

As if my day off couldn't improve much, I come home to find THIS little bloggy nugget on twitter.

Yes gents, contrary to model rumour, this is Telephone-head Lady Gaga herself rocking the androgynous look. Two of my favourite things coming together in a beautiful slightly-Prince-esque way. For, nearly exactly a year after that ridiculous hermaphrodite Glastonbury motorbike scan(man)dal, Gaga has now shown exactly what her lady (gaga) bits look like in the Telephone video and demonstrated that so girly is she that she can even be a man. I've always backed the 'Gaga's a Man!'-dle, in that, hell, if she was a bloke, she was doing a bloody good job of being a lady. 

This piece of styling genius is down to Nicola Formichetti, internationally renowned stylist who I can pathetically name-drop after working the desk at Dazed and Confused during an internship. It took me at least two hours to work out how to put through calls from important types from the likes of Prada and Giles, always asking for 'Nicola' on strict first name terms. Shouty, continental fashion types are scary at the best of times, let alone when they keep being accidentally hung up on. 

Moving on, needless to say I am seriously considering getting a subscription to Vogue Hommes Japan now. Granted, I won't understand much of the text, and I'm not a Japanese man, but who knows which celeb may come under the androgyny treatment next?   

homewear: like homeware, but with vowels in different places.

Above is pictured what has been ruling, and continues to rule, my life of late. However, good news! I've been fairly obedient. Coupled with the fact I've working since stupid o'clock on today's project, the mysterious '2nd A.C essay (it's about Fight Club and neither as cool nor exciting as that should sound), and I've sacked off this evening.

As part of the list of 'acceptable assessment period fun tasks', blogging is taking preference. Then I'm going to rip the polythene of this month's Vice magazine, which I've been longing to do for a while now. First things first, and I thought it was about time to bring a bit of style back to Bowlface. It was, after all, around this time last year that Bowlface first stepped into the world of style blogging. Whilst I never pretended to be the next Susie Lau, I do really regret not buying those 50p desert boots I mused about on here. It took me a few months to come round to the idea that actually, yes, they were really cool and now I want a pair and refuse to pay whatever the high street is charging. Live and learn.

Now, by deeply ironic contrast, I'm refusing to buy anything. What with the relatively near future involving me living out of a suitcase - literally - adding anything else to my borderline embarrassingly-large wardrobe is only going to cause painful decisions later on. Furthermore, the current state of insane workload has resulted in me adopting 'housewear' all-day-round, often the same outfit for days on end. I am leaving the house, but the housewear habit is a hard one to kick.

Housewear constitutes the likes of the onesie. But, what with considerably warmer conditions, the onesie is kept aside for chillier days and evenings (I know how to party). With spring comes the arrival of garish elasticated shorts. PERFECT house clothes. On the same theme as the onesie, they're like pajamas in comfort but much less gross because you have a shower and stuff before putting them on, and are only appropriate for short naps, rather than full-on sleeps. My current favourite pair are part of a set a middle-aged woman bought in a Turkish market and then put on ebay for 99p. Here's the proof:
Yup. Due it not being quite Turkey temperatures, a pair of leggings are near-essential house clothes wear underneath. Currently I'm sporting a much-loved Primark pair which have shiny black zebra stripes on. They're bursting at the seams, which gives them slightly higher housewear points, but I can't bear to throw them out. Rope-soled espadrilles have come in where Grandad's socks and slippers went out, although these truly are housewear only, as I realised to my error in attempting to dash out to Tesco in them - trip-a-rama. Add to the mix the ultimate comfort in Truly Madly Deeply 'smushy' batwing top, a slightly-too large American Apparel oversized breton top and I'm as ready for not leaving the house as can be.

elasticated floral goodness

This is where that whole scenesters-wear-AA thing comes a little unstuck. I'm an American Apparel fan as much as the next 21 year old with a love of overpriced jersey, but I've strict rules. Namely: one piece per outfit (excluding underwear, another housewear essential). But furthermore, with the exception of those things with 'shiny' and/or 'disco' in the title, I never want to wear them more than when I'm hungover or sleepy. This, obviously, does make AA products amazing partywear because passing out in them after a night out is uber-comfy. On the plus side, they do legitimate an otherwise housewear outfit outside. I did go for lunch today in the shorts/leggings combo, but the breton top makes it passable, right?

Eye bags

of the guilty kind. From staying up too late drinking. Then too late working because of staying up too late drinking. I know, poor little me.

Summer terms at University comprise of three weeks of poorly attended, half-hearted lectures, insanely repetitive conversations about dissertations/deadlines/stress/ and a simultaneous attempt to squish in as much student fundom before the maturity of graduation arrives. As a result, I'm averaging six hours of sleep a night and suffering. To go from the luxurious slumber and overeating of Shire existence to rolling in and out of bed , surviving on lunches of pick n' mix and greggs sausage rolls and dinners of pitta bread and gin, is a rough slide.

Furthermore, Newcastle is beautifully sunny but deceptively cold. I've been powercycling around just to keep warm after foolishly leaving the house without a coat.

As a result, this little nugget of niche fashion goodness on Vice Style caught my eye. The only similarity being that of the headline theme. However, sleeplessness has clearly been a good thing for Ruth Hogben - give it a couple of months of this fatigue-induced stupor and I'll be taking over the world.

Online relief for Bank Holiday boredom

Oh my, a whole week in the Shire and so little blogging. The activities have been multitudinous, too. I mean, even if being encountered by a field of terrifying P.E teacher-esque (and not the fun Sue Sylvester type) sheep baa-ing at me during a run; being the most outspoken person in a room full of women-only Oxbridge college alumni and having the insides of someone's mouth flicked at me with a cotton bud whilst serving them behind a till weren't enough, I've also done some quite credibly cool stuff too.

But enough of that. That's not what Bowlface is for. If this blog actually showcased all the fun flea markets and male model-stalking and literary festival and top knot discovering I'd been doing to give me a load of cool points then the apparent charm of these vanity-inspired splurgings would disappear, right?

As a result of the above, temping in various high-end retail outfitters all week, and, more to the point, a load of really distractingly awesome stuff going on with the Vice site, Bowlface has been neglected. The Noam Chomsky interview was pretty brutal to the pile of real work I had to do, but this chappy really has caused some problems. It's mainly because I'm part-boy that this ticks boxes, as I'm not really one for the bulging muscles, but '>VBS meets...David Haye is like BBC2's Who Do You Think You Are but with a boxer and Senegal and it's much more interesting than working in retail.

For the rest of me, which is part-girl, Vice has launched a new style-dedicated site, which is ace, even if I didn't so love torturing myself by looking at pictures of beautiful people I will never be. So, any of you who still keep claiming it's sexist/producing porn for scene kids can eat your hats. Or buy better ones, after having a look at it... (although there still are a load of tits on show).

Get excited for a full Bank Holiday Shire report, Bowlfans!

My lecturer has a better blog than me

I can only dream of the day people will send photos like this into Bowlface

Not highly surprising, as Bowlface is, unfortunately, only updated weekly at the moment. However, it's more the nature of the blog, and indeed, that of the lecturer behind it that makes it so totally awesome.

Last weekend, whilst outstaying our welcome at the pub, myself and a couple of literary mates had a bit of real-ale induced confession time. That confession being that, yes, we loved to try and work out what our lecturers did in their spare time; that we got small thrills from seeing family portraits when let into their offices on the premise of 'borrowing a book', and furthermore, these tutor-crushes had, in some cases, resulted in guilty googling.

This is not all bad though, as some lecturers are clearly made to be googled. Take, for example, Kate Davies. Although not a personal lecturer-fave (she terrified and inspired me in first year in equal amounts after shouting at people for talking whilst sporting Heidi-braids), the dedication of her blog, needled, to knitting, walking, and things that she'd like to take onto Radio 4's equivalent of show-and-tell gives her about a gazillion cool points. I can understand why my Davies-fan buddies got so excited upon discovering it.

Anyway, needled puts Bowlface to shame, and rightly so. There are daily updates informed, but not self-indulgent, musings, and an evident international fan base in the thousands. Hardly surprising considering this fan base is delighted with knitting patterns and knitting pattern-related competitions. Under the cryptic title of 'parliament', a whole other world of non-academic Kate Davies fans can be entered. In which a competition for the best woolly recreation of Kate Davies-created o w l jumper pattern resulted in a parliament of o w l s. Amazing is not the word.

Anyway, writing about Kate Davies' blog is like dancing about architecture, or something. Just check it out. And then send me an o w l jumper, that would be nice. I can't knit.

Spending time with documentaries and onesies: Valentine's Day

Not unsurprisingly, I am entirely ambivalent about Valentine's Day. Not bitter, not angry about consumerism, not miserable, nor loved-up, but entirely ambivalent. It's surely just another day, made into a giant beast of pink and red trash which results in a whole load of disappointment, not least when you walk past reduced boxes of Milk Tray and bunches of roses. Why the hell should I contribute when I am, in general, a well-rounded and happy person?

So, as a result, I carried on as if it wasn't happening. Spent a few hours on a train with some mini eggs and postmodern literature, got home, got into a ONESIE and watched the latest VBS documentary about heroin addicts in Swansea. The perceptive of you out there would appreciate two links in the last sentence. That's because there are two really ace things in it.

Yes, the onesie dream has finally come true. Months of wishing, hoping and dreaming has resulted in around 300 grams of ribbed jersey pleasure, making me feel like a giant baby able to conquer the world. It was only fair that I spent Valentine's night with it. If Bowlface was a style blog, which would involve me:

a) having far more hair
b) having far less podge
c) being given free clothes
d) feeling comfortable with taking photos of myself and writing about them

then I'd post the photo taken in pure joy and excitement by my buddy in the American Apparel changing room.

However, none of the above apply, so you'll have to make do with the previous link. That's clearly what I look like in it. The till-man asked repeatedly if I 'could rock it', which I don't quite understand, but yeah, I'm in love with it, and turned down drinks last night just so the onesie and I could have a little more special time.

The other bit of ambivalent romance came in the form of the aforementioned Swansea Love Story. I remember trying to look at the photos of this on the library computers a little while back. They were so awesome they made the computer crash. I don't even want to know what watching this on them would do...possibly corrupt the entire university network with its brutal honesty and load of cool that the average Newcastle type probably wouldn't know what to do with. Then I'd get a massive fine and wouldn't be able to pay it and not graduate. So yeah, watch, get a onesie, and stay away from the library.

Bowl Spawns Miniballad.

Well, whatdyaknow, everyone likes a bit of self-proclamation in a blog post. Actually, no, nobody likes that.

Anyway, there's this really boss quarterly magazine called Ballad Of and despite only just being into its second issue you can buy it at Selfridges and all sorts.

I managed to take over their minds for a couple hours and they hired me as a style columnist. If you like reading about ugly things that amazing people wear, then you can check out September's offering at: http://balladof.blogspot.com/.

Speaking of Food...

Doesn't that just look amazing? Plus, it's got an egg on it. I don't even like egg.

After procrastinating by means of style blogs has become my recent obsession, it's refreshing to find one that makes food (something not so evident amongst size 6 girls) look so pretty.



Ai's blog, it will stop raining*, makes everything look so lovely and yummy in that near-perfect style the Japanese get so right. Think walking into Muji, but it being all food-orientated...yeah, that's how I'd like my tea to look too. Shame I just slop it on a cold plate as fast as humanely possible in the break between Come Dine With Me and Hollyoaks...

Procrastination = Selfloathing

It's another beautiful day. It didn't take long for the sun to rise me out of the grumpy stupor I was in yesterday morning and join in with the mass family pond clearout. Surprisingly satisfying, picking up dead, sludgy leaf mulch and running down the garden with a wheelbarrow. Looked a little like this, except everyone being aged by about fifteen years.

After four days of avoiding the small mountain of books thrown into a corner of my room, I've decided to sit down and look like I'm doing something. Instead, I figured I'd just check out a few current fave style blogs, such as http://www.childhoodflames.blogspot.com/, and http://www.fashiontoast.blogspot.com/ ; only to realise that, even if I did have their wardrobes, I would never have their thighs, and if I did there is no way I'd be munching on pizza. This conclusion made all the more painful by arises whilst shoving large chunks of easter egg into my mouth.

On a good note, Keats, Hunt and The Cockney School's looking really attractive right now.