With this dress I am one step closer to being Heidi Klum...

O. M. G with a double E!

Chiffon dress by Boutique £120 Topshop 

Whilst cruising the racks of Topshop I came across this quirky item that has thrown my love for the recent tulle dream I blogged about here,  into oblivion.  There was one left, it was not my size but reduced to £65 from £120 and it was the softest lavender colour.  In short it gave me goosebumps.  I flung the hanger of this divine number over my neck and strutted across the shop floor as if I were Heidi Klum at the Emmy's on sunday. 

Speaking of the Emmy's....I'm a little behind, I know, my winners of the night were Lea Michele, Heidi Klum and January Jones (no I'm not on crack cocaine!)

Lea Michele in Oscar de la Renta

Heidi Klum in Marchesa

January Jones in Versace

I love an outfit thats not of the most obvious choice especially ones that involve as much rich texture as these do.  Although I'm not an all out eccentric, mismatched but somehow it works loon with my fashion statements, when given a choice I would most definitely be tempted with the Jones dress, especially in that fabulously bold colour (which for a girl that wears mostly black is saying something!)

Anyway I digress...

With great force my friend prized my new love from me and reminded me that a nice dress equals a nice mess if the sizing is out.

"But I could find a tighter small belt to synch it in!"  I exclaimed

She shook her head and placed it back on the rail, dragging me against my will out of the store and onto lunch.

Topshop, if you're listening, please find this dress for me in a size 10.

Me with said dress (forgive my pale complexion and lacklustre hair please!)

Style Me Sunday: Airport Attire

So we're nearing the end of the generic "holiday season", I realise but I'm mostly certain that a lot of you fashionistas will not have braved the flight experience during this particularly busy month.  I was inspired to write this post on Friday after spotting actress Gemma Arterton in Gatwick North Terminal.  If I'm honest I would adore to slate her ensemble choice and even exclaim her as chubby and ugly but that would be my overwhelming jealousy speaking.  The green eyed monster would be rearing it's ugly head due to us both being actresses of the same area with one of us ridiculously more famous than the other.

Much to my distress and surprise (last time I caught sight of her was in Bungalow 8, in which she was rocking out a rather ghastly dress with some cheap looking extensions) Arterton looked simple and sophisticated and don't even get me started on how fresh her skin looked!  Ulitmately she had achieved the perfect airport attire by being style savvy whilst factoring in comfort. 

How to steal her style...

Navy Boyfriend Blazer £55 Asos

The Row loose fitting luxe tee £165 Net-A-Porter 

Turn up tuxedo khaki pants £35 Gap


For that extra wow factor I'd team this ensemble with....

Bloch carnivale ballet pumps from £75 at Asos

Coral snood £14 Topshop

"Bloody ELLE! They've done it again!"

Whilst working at ELLE I was privvy to many a meeting defining our brand and how we were going to project that to the reader.  One of the points made by Editor Lorraine Candy that really stuck in my head was how they aim to show the cover star in a completely different light to that which we are used to seeing them.  Their September 2010 issue could not have further proved that point.  Whilst grabbing snacks at a newsagents for the cinema yesterday with a friend I pointed out the Emily Blunt cover, for her to look at me quite blankly for a considerable amount of time.  The realisation eventually dawned across her face and there was most definitely a shock factor to it.  This friend worked quite closely to Miss Blunt back in 2008 during Wolfman and therefore should have known her from a mile off.  Her exact words were "My god she looks so different!"

Well done ELLE you've done it again.  To find out how they shot Emily's cover look read The Cover Blog

Two of my all time favourite ELLE covers....

Chloe Sevigny March 2008

This cover was made to "create a stillness on the shelves" and was the first after rebranding in 2008.  It was oddly enough the first issue that inspired me to buy the mag and randomly enough I interviewd for a job with them just weeks later.

Mary-Kate Olsen September 2008 (Subscribers Edition)

Newsstand Cover

This is by far the MOST amazing ELLE cover, great styling, great editing and great cover girl!

You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies

My current guilty pleasure is YouTubing The Social Network trailer due for release in October for both the UK and US.  The Screenplay has been adapted from Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires (which I am making my number 1 priority to get a hold of and read) based on the creation of Facebook by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and all the controversy it received at the time, including accusations that the idea was stolen from fellow classmates.  The movie set for release later this year is enticing me for several reasons...

1.  I remember the hype of Facebook back in 2005 when I was on an exchange program to MA, USA.  You had to have a US college address to even sign up to the site and no one in Britain had ever heard of such a thing, nor did they understand the overwhelming capacity for it to take over your life and ultimately lead you to procrastinate from doing pretty much anything.  It was a huge part of my college experience in the US and therefore is very evocative of an amazing time for me, a memory that the current Facebook just can't manifest. 

2. Justin Timberlake is starring in it.

3.  The trailer.  There are a few knocking about on YouTube but I would be lying if I didn't say that it is this one (see below) that I watch over and over and probably one of the main reasons I am so hyped up for this movie.  The trailer is edited together in rather a dramatic form, of course but it is the music used that has really caught my attention and builds the intensity.  Scala and Kolacny Brothers have covered Radioheads Creep (not that I'm aware of what the original sounds like) and it is such a haunting track, one that I desperately need to download , if anything just to stop me from watching the trailer over and over.

How to throw a FABULOUS Party, McNally Style, for under £200: Part One

My mother and I have always prided ourselves on our party planning skills and 2010 has seen us pull off a hat trick.  Secretly we dream of taking on this role professionally but we are both caught up with our other projects to actually seriously consider any such idea.  All three of the soiree's we have organised this year have had a trendy spin on them in some way or another and all have been hits for both ourselves and our guests so I thought I'd document in pictures our successes along with how we made them so....

Firstly we got Carrie-d away....

That's right, with SATC2 about to hit the cinemas (which by the way I still have not seen!) I couldn't think of a better theme for my 25th Birthday back in April.  A girls only event, we decked out our dining room New York style.

We went with the colour theme from the first movie, black and hot pink.  The floor was laden with balloons.  The table was laid to perfection by myself with black table cloths and hot pink and silver lip confetti (very Lulu Guinness) and hot pink table ware.  The room was adorning New York street signs also to give it that extra Carrie and co flair.  All decorations were purchased from http://www.partypacks.co.uk/ .  On first view their offerings do look somewhat tacky but they are like a really good thrift store, or TK Maxx, if you look hard enough you can find some buried treasures!

My mum's Strawberry Centre Piece

Fill a garden pot with cement and place a wooden stick in the centre. Place a whole small melon on top once dry and cover base with foil or spray paint, whilst fixing strawberries via cocktail sticks. The perfect accompaniment to a chocolate fountain!

My Magnolia Bakery-esque Cupcakes

Recipe taken from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook and decorated as per the darling SATC themed cupcakes Lola's in Selfridges were sporting back in 2008.

And finally the piece de la resistance.....

                                                

We projected the original film onto one of the walls, whilst playing some of my favourite tracks from both the soundtrack and in general as background music.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

Drinks were purchased from Sainsburys and there was a choice of either the classic Cosmopolitan or my personal fave the Margherita.  Both concoctions were premixed but surprisingly good and most importantly strong for a very reasonable price!  We also offered prosecco with a hibiscus flower on arrival, which went down a treat!

As you can see from the pictures above I chose to wear a simple black onesie with some sequin embellishment at the top.  I then blinged up the outfit Carrie style with my Ghetto Fabulous initial earrings (which were switched from two of the same letter to one of each....shhh don't tell Topshop!) and these outrageous wedges!

Ignorance is bliss...

Big Brother 11 aka the FINAL UK Big Brother is slowly winding down now and I am slightly ashamed to admit I've been hooked from Mario's mole costume to Corin's over use of the phrase "I'm buzzing!"  It's been a while since myself and the show have been on the same page but I figured with this being the very last (although my mum and I have a conspiracy theory that Channel 5 will pick up the rights and carry it on) I decided to at least give the wannabe celebs a chance and have been pleasantly surprised that this year channel 4 decided to return to their roots a little and choose the more sane of members of the British public.

However, in reflecting on series past, as we all wait with bated breath for the most memorable of BB housemates ever to re-enter the house with this years winner for a fortnight, it became apparent how far channel 4 really have taken it from it's original concept.  I realise that things need to evolve to keep them fresh and us entertained but surely one of the key points was that you were shut in a house with no contact with the outside world.  Isn't it kind of meant to be a bit of a social experiment to test how you behave under the scrutiny of camera's and being ignorant of what's going on out there?  This series feels far from that.  They've had tasks where they've been expected to perform outside the house to the eviction audience on friday nights.  There was the "ignore the obvious" task which saw celebs, family and friends all entering the house, culminating with Jedward doing a live concert in the garden and as the end is nigh we now have the Diary Room "pointless" task which has paraded ex housemates from this series breifly in and out, none of whom have been very subtle about the goings on outside.  New housemates brought in over the series have even relayed their predictions as to who they think will win based on their viewings and understanding of the media and the British public before they arrived.  I remember a time when this kind of information leakage would have been punishable. 

We've even seen John James exit out of the fire exit to talk to producers and other members of the crew in a state of panic, with at least two other housemates following him and finally yesterday after a rather mean showdown with first evictee Rachael on Wednesday he insisted on being able to speak, on the phone, to her now boyfriend, ex housemate Nathan, in order to apologise for his comments and so that he would feel "comfortable" about staying in the house and waiting for his eviction.  What's worse is BB actually honoured the request.  I'm starting to think that there's not much point even having a house, why not just follow them around in their everyday lives if we're going to tell them how they're being perceived and who's going to win the money?

Check out below this Big Brother comedy sketch by my idols French and Saunders, this is way more entertaining than the actual Big Brother.

A Peach Tulle Dream

Friday night I tweeted profusely about the fabulous peach tulle dress I had purchased for my "Best Bitches" Birthday Party.  Therefore I thought it only right to blog about it, as if any dress is worth blogging about, it is most definitely this one.

After trawling through store after store I was unable to find exactly what I was looking for, which was actually a bright green concoction similar to something I'd seen Lauren Conrad wear in an old Hills.  Just when I was ready to throw in the towel I stumbled across this girly number in Zara's.  It was nothing like what I was looking for and yet every stylish solution to my problem.

I flirted with the idea of leaving this dreamy dress behind but after I tried it on, that inevitably became mission impossible.  I loved the cut as it made me feel slim and curvy in all the right places.  The bodice sucked in my upper half without stopping me from breathing and the full ballerina-esque skirt gave me a great shape without making me feel bad for all that cheese and toast I ate last week.  All in all it was a peach tulle dream! I teamed the dress with a pair of grey Zara bandage stilletto's circa October 2009 and zero jewellery as the outfit already said it all.

Me and Kel Smells at Lea Lea Poos Birthday

Teamed with a blazer this outfit is most definitely versatile enough to make it from Summer to Winter and can be purchased for just £49.99 from Zara's.