New blog!

I am now blogging from a different blog, fashionforelephants.blogspot.co.uk.

Hope to see you there!

 

Love,

Mariana

Today is the greatest

Today was a great day.

Things just seem to be strangely falling in to place, which is scary but reassuring at the same time.

This blog is starting to make sense to me, starting be a part of my life, still very small but playing a role all the same.

I attended a series of seminars hosted by The Manchester Fashion Network today, on Making It in Design, Fashion Marketing, etc. I’m preparing a post so expect tips on how to make it in the fierce world of fashion.

I also finished writing an article for the Students’ Newspaper that I feel really proud of. It’s about a real issue on campus, so it’s kind of like reporting in the real world. Exciting!

Hope all of you feel good today! If not, maybe Smashing Pumpkins will cheer you up.

 

Love,

Mariana

Touring the UK | Oxford + First Outfit

Hello everyone,

So as you might or might not know, I am a portuguese girl studying full-time in the UK, more precisely in the beautiful city of Manchester.

Its is now my third year living in England, and I already feel like this is kind of my second home, which is really weird because Brits and Portuguese are two very different species.

As my time here is (probably) limited as I plan to live in other countries (fingers crossed!), I visit different cities every chance I have, hence the new category called ‘Touring the UK’!

This time I went to Oxford, and here are some photos…

My outfit for a day in Oxford

Here’s the shop Lewis Carroll wrote about in ‘Through the looking Glass’. Very very expensive souvenirs…

Oxford is a beautiful small city but our weekend was spoiled by the non stopping rain. I’m sure I’d have loved it if I had been able to walk around without the constant unpleasant presence of my umbrella, but it was still very nice to look for refuge in the little shops and cafés.

My favourite was Georgina’s, in the Covered Market, because it was like nothing I had ever seen. The decoration was all hippie-ish and I felt so comfortable there. There was nothing pretentious about it, unlike some coffee shops I’ve encountered in the past, and I didn’t get any dirty looks from regular hipsters.

The cake shop is also in the Covered Market, where you can see how they bake and decorate the cakes through the glass.

Little cake for Valentine’s day

Valentine’s cake

The most amazing wedding cake ever!

I also visited the bookshops there, because hanging around next to Oxford students is just too much pressure.

Blackwell

Blackwell was huge, and I found a very interesting book in the second hand shelves. I bought it because it was written by a Portuguese nun called Mariana! Haven’t read it yet though…

Have you visited Oxford? If not, please do, it’s beautiful!

Love,

Mariana

Harlem Shake… by models!

Cara Delevingne, Jourdan Dunn and Rosie Tapner joined the Harlem Shake trend. Watch the girls go crazy… it’s epic!

Love,
Mariana x

Life is but a Dream

Beyoncé is definitely one of my girl crushes, hence my excitment when I found out she made a documentary about her life!

It may be considered slightly egocentric – I confess I thought that too – but I understood the point when I watched the trailer.

Curious to see it?

Love,
Mariana

Oh the grammys… Best dressed crown!

And once again I was a bad girl and not a good blogger, shame on me… but I can’t help it, there’s just too much going on. Let’s see: dissertation, working for the students’ newspaper, working in a new magazine, a very ‘out-of-my-confort- zone’ module (Chinese Politics!), the Portuguese society, etc etc… Oh dear!

But anyway, I do have time to watch TV and read the news. And the Grammys happened!

The Grammys

Any thoughts on the best dressed?

I loved Beyoncé’s pantsuit, very classy and trendy – see the monochrome?

She was wearing OSMAN by Osman Yousefzada.

All Hail the Queen…

As for Taylor Swift, I’m not too sure, it all seems a bit white on white. But she does look very pretty.

J-Lo forgot her class at home apparently, too much skin…

… but it’s definitely an improvement since 2000. What was Donatella thinking?

However, ladies and gentleman, the winner is…

Rihanna!!

I’m honestly not a big fan of the lady, but this vintage Alaia black dress… I love it! Maybe it was the performance working its magic too but still… do you agree?

I also liked her dress for the actual event, it appears she’s becoming a lady. Who knew that could ever happen? Let’s just hope Chris Brown doesn’t ruin things.

Love,

Mariana x

The week ends and begins with (GREAT) cinema

Hello everyone,

I haven’t written in a little while, and although you may be used to my long absences, this was due to a fair motive. I had three essays due in last week and my brain needed the weekend to recover, it was a tough time for both of us…

Of course one my recipes for a GREAT weekend is GREAT films. And by great, I don’t mean anything specific, just what I’m feeling that day – Katherine Heigl films are rarely included.

This weekend I had the pleasure of watching these two amazing films:

Two opposites. Glamour in L.A. vs. poverty in southern Louisiana. Fighting crime vs. surviving Mother Nature and life.

Gangster Squad

Let’s start with Gangster Squad (even though I watched BOTSW first). This film entertained me to the maximum, I was practically punching the air in the cinema, trying to help out the fellas. The storyline is good, and in my opinion, it helped that it is based on true events because I feel like it’s sort of a history lesson (just let me be, ok? :p). Basically, a few good men go after the bad guys with a very hot romance taking place in the middle of it all (talking to you Stone) and loads – LOADS – of shooting and all sorts of fighting. I love seeing a good fight between good and evil, and I still laughed hard, which is always a plus.

The Beasts of the Southern Wild

The Beasts of the Southern Wild is like nothing I’ve seen so far. I was actually a bit disoriented whilst watching it because I honestly had no idea what was going on (you’ll understand if you watch it). But then I paused the film and saw how it was categorised and boom, mystery solved. This is a mixture of drama and FANTASY and the latter explains a lot. It portrays the world of a little girl through her own eyes, so it will not make sense unless you keep that in mind. Even though slightly depressing if you’re having a bad day, it can teach you a lesson about freedom and love. Not everything has to be conventional, we don’t all have to live under the laws someone decided to create. And who’s to say how or where we should live our life? These were some of the thoughts that I had after watching this film, but it may have a different effect on you, there’s no shortage of ‘serious’ issues here. It’s not a film I would watch to unwind but it is a beautiful film nonetheless. And how cute is Hushpuppy? Just remember, keep an open mind.

Two different films to be watched on different occasions and that have different effects. It’s all about timing guys!

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Mariana

Project Cinderela – And the winner is…

Hello everyone,

So, my decision is finally made! The winner is…

 

… this gorgeous dress by Elie Saab! I wish he was designing one just for me but oh well, one can always dream…

What do you think? Wise choice? I love this dress because of its cleavage, and I asked to have the same kind of cleavage in the back (I honestly don’t know how the original dress looks from behind but I have crush for back cleavages…).

I am now waiting to try a model of it and see how it looks. It’s not going to be with the right fabric yet, it’s just to see how it looks on me and take more measurements. Still, can’t wait!

The next step is probably the hardest one: find the right fabric. If you forget the feathers in this dress, the model is quite simple and if I go for a simple fabric, it might be too plain. So the challenge is to find a more elaborated fabric to make the dress stand out… Wish me luck!

I will keep you updated and please, feel free to make suggestions! 🙂

Love,

Mariana

Project Cinderela – Stage 1

Completely in love with haute couture, oh my lord… I’m already feeling sorry for my future self as I’ll spend all my money in just one Elie Saab dress if I have the money!

Here are some of the dresses I’m looking at to pick the model of the dress. I love some but others aren’t that great – bear in mind it has to be simple because it’s a favour! 🙂

Any favourites?

p.s.- Marchesa and Elie Saab- noticing a pattern here, gossip girl lovers?

p.s. 2- My first work on photoshop, please be nice!

Long time no see | Project Cinderela

And once again, it has been a while since I wrote here. I blame the holidays – family, food, tv, more food – you get the picture.

I’ve started a project recently: my own dress. I’ll have a ball in March at my university and after searching for dresses in various websites, I came to the conclusion they were all very expensive and the ones that weren’t I hated. As my mum works with factories making clothes, I found a way of making my own dress for the ball. I won’t actually make it, but I will have a say in the design without the price of haute couture.

I’ll show you the dresses soon, still getting the hang of bloody photoshop!

Love,

Mariana