Hello! I apologise for my general absence from this page / all other forms of internet and social media over the last two weeks - I've been away on a school conservation & biology trip (I scraped in on the excuse of taking geography A level) to Indonesia, living in the jungle then an island for a fortnight and a half. It was such a crazy experience and I have so many photos and things to share but I'll do it all in a separate post (also I've only just got back from three days worth of travelling home including five flights, so probably best to write properly once my mind is a little more collected). Here is what I wrote before I left:
In what feels like only a few weeks, I've finished my whole first year of sixth form, exams and all. It's been quite easily the best year of my school life (if not also my general life) so far, balancing meeting and befriending new people, travelling, going to a lot of gigs, finding my feet a little more in terms of what I want to do after college, and of course running this page. It has been the perfect transitioning period, during which I think (or at least I hope) both my style and personality has matured a little, and become much more reliable and less changeable than they used to be. This week has been a reminder of this - I spent Tuesday at a workshop with Tatty Devine (which I have loads to say about in a second!) before going to see the summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of art with friends. It felt very much like how I imagine life after sixth form might be like, on the days off I will have from an art foundation course. I then had a cute little 'crafternoon' on Wednesday, where a group of us hung out, made clothes from scraps of material or edited old pieces, and tie-dyed t-shirts we'd bought for less than a pound. On Friday, I spent the evening (and most of the night) watching music videos with friends, eating ice lollies at 1am and basically having a serious throwback to childhood sleepovers. It was weird to go from cute, teen things to older, more mature activities...switching constantly between the two, sometimes making it hard to even tell the two apart. Being 17 really is just that - you are still such a child, and able to enjoy the benefits of being one, but you are also rapidly maturing and the two kind of clash yet work together to create the sort of week I've just had.
Anyway, this outfit is from breakfast with Tatty Devine, which consisted of a dreamy combination of lovely ladies, warm, buttery toast, fresh orange juice and of course a lesson in how to make one of their famous bunting necklaces.
I wore a shirt from HFW Vintage in Margate with a silver crop top from Urban Outfitters and skirt from Primark. I will admit I did thoroughly enjoy sweeping through London in so much flowy fabric. The patterns are a typical combination of mine...they don't technically match but I liked both pieces separately and so felt they kind of worked when put together. The silver stems from my current obsession with silvery glitter, which is getting seriously out of hand (silver glitter socks are currently the only acceptable socks for me to wear). I also seriously enjoyed wearing an eclectic mix of silver jewellery I have collected recently, despite never wearing silver much before. I was strictly a gold coloured jewellery kind of girl but now I seem to be veering more towards silver...never say never I guess.
On Tuesday, I got to the wonderfully tucked-away Tatty Devine store quite early in the morning, and immediately fell in love with not just the amazing interior but also the boutique-y atmosphere of the place. It's visitors tended to be fans of Tatty Devine already, and it felt like you had stumbled across a secret haven, like the feeling when you discover a beautiful place in nature that you think may not have been discovered by other people yet. I was welcomed by the lovely Tatty family, Harriet Vine (one of the company's founders) and the lovely Jazmine who works for them now too! It was so lovely being able to meet the driving forces behind a brand I love and have known for so long, and to be where it all started really was something else. You couldn't help but be inspired, and that's before we had even started thinking about starting to make jewellery!
Over warm buttered toast and fresh orange juice, we were taught how to make a bunting necklace using jump rings, pliers and laser-cut flag pieces. I opted for the most monochrome colours there, which I liked as Tatty Devine pieces are often very bright and colourful, so I wanted to make something a little more unusual and maybe more every day that linked to my current love of silver and glittery things. It was so nice being able to have complete creative freedom about how you designed your necklace; having no limit or colour suggestions gave you the opportunity to really think about the kind of colours and vibe you were going for in the piece and what it would look good with. It was also interesting to see what other people chose, as it kind of revealed something about them, like a glimpse of their inner colours if that makes any sense?
The actual construction was fairly straightforward, and with help on hand from all of the lovely Tatty ladies you were guaranteed to leave the workshop with a beautiful, durable piece of jewellery. I found it inspiring in the sense that it made me realise how you can easily make jewellery yourself at home - I want to string together my own pieces now. Also, it's nice to know that you could have one of these parties and know that everyone would be able to leave with something they have made and will love.
It was such a lovely morning, thank you so much to Jazmine everyone at Tatty for inviting me, and to Harriet for putting up with my continuous stream of questions!!
I hope you all have a lovely weekend, I will be back with a more up to date post (and more about Indonesia) shortly!
