September shopping - so far

Here's how my current obsessions are manifesting themselves:

My vibe at the moment is very 90s mixed with modern internet goth.  I've started browsing through Wish and adding things to my basket throughout the month and then clicking 'Purchase' on the last day, which means that I get little surprise parcels from myself at the end of the following month.  The set of pins in the picture to the right are a Wish purchase, and so is the crystal necklace.  I'm disappointed with the necklace - it has a chip where the silver coating has come off and the 'crystal' part has kind of melted into the silver next to it which shows that it's definitely just plastic, plus it's much more translucent than I expected it to be.  However, it still reflects the light and I'll still wear it regularly.  I'm much happier with the pin set, I was worried that they would be really poorly made and illegible but they look just like the photo.  My favourites are the ghost and the 'Ugh.' heart which reminded me of The 1975's song of the same name.  I'm going to put the banner with "Sure. Fine. Whatever." on something I wear at work to point to when I can't be bothered answering someone's silly question. 
I found the Empire Records patch at Pie In The Sky in Edinburgh which has a wide range of patches, pins, band t-shirts and other cool stuff.  A lot of it is really pricey (they had some great Jarvis Cocker pins which were £8.50; other pins and patches in there are up to £20 each) but this one was £2.99 and will fit right in on my denim jacket which I've been embellishing all summer.  I was surprised to find it there because Empire Records is a totally underrated movie. 
They're all sitting on a checked background courtesy of some 'cosy' leggings I bought in Primark.  Their approach this season is apparently 'all tartan everything' - I'm not a fan of patterned trousers so I avoided those and went for the leggings instead, which I can wear under a skirt or short dress to keep warm this winter.

As everyone who knows me knows, I can't resist an armful of books, and I picked these ones up on two trips to my hometown charity shops.  Sylvia Plath is one of my favourite people of the 20th century; I've read The Bell Jar multiple times, along with her Letters Home and some of her poems, but I've never come across a copy of her Journals until now.  As much as I recognise her poetic genius, it's her letters and journal entries that enthral me the most - I don't believe there has been anyone who has written about the day-to-day experience of being a young woman as well as Plath did. 
I picked up the Oasis book to fulfil the '2 for 99p' offer that allowed me to take home the vintage copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I like Oasis but they aren't my favourite of the Britpop set (more on Britpop later); I get the feeling that the best book about them would be one that the Gallagher brothers took turns writing so that it had the maximum amount of petty sibling drama, but we'll see. 
Persepolis is different to my usual reading material in that it's a graphic novel but I've heard so many interesting things about it over the years that it feels like something I should get round to reading.  I'm also looking forward to devouring the Jim Morrison story in No One Here Gets Out Alive, which I've passed over so many times but finally decided to purchase.
Finally, I can't resist old Penguin copies of classic books, even if they're falling apart, which is why I came home with a 60s edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I do already have a copy as part of a DH Lawrence compendium, but this paperback is going to be much easier to handle as long as I don't lose any pages!  I also picked up a 70s copy of Franny & Zooey in the hope that I enjoy it more than The Catcher In The Rye, which I thought was a little overrated.

Now on to my favourite band of the summer, Elastica.  Even though they were active from approx. 1993-2001, I've been obsessively devouring any Elastica material I can find over the last few months.  They are the most underrated and overlooked of the Britpop 'big five' despite being the coolest of the bunch - there weren't and still aren't enough bands with three cool girls up front.  I'm currently collecting their discography on vinyl so pictured are this month's acquisitions: the 7" of their single 'Connection' and a promotional soundsheet of 'Vaseline'.  I think the soundsheet is particularly cool - it's a US item similar to the flexidiscs that used to occasionally come free with magazines over here but pressed onto a sheet of acetate rather than being disc-shaped.  I've listened to the first Elastica album so many times this summer that I feel like I know every single second of it so it's cool to have found pressings of two of my favourite songs from it. 

To jump briefly back to clothes and from one set of iconic ladies to another, I picked up this blazer in Primark yesterday which, like most of the clothes in there at the moment, reminds me of the girls in 'Heathers'.  I took it into the dressing room expecting it to look terrible on me but instead I fell in love with it and will be wearing it to work all the time from now on.  I now have a conundrum though: do I go to work on October 31st dressed as Wednesday Addams or Veronica Sawyer??

Back to the music and the pile of CDs I've bought this month.  See what I mean when I said I had a 90s vibe going on at the moment? 
At the start of the summer I began reading the book 'The Last Party' by John Harris, which gives a history of the Britpop era and how it contributed to the election of Tony Blair.  The book covers Oasis, Blur, Suede and Elastica, which occasional mentions of Pulp, Menswear and a few other stars of the time.  I've been listening to Suede since I was about 6, when 'She's In Fashion' appeared amongst the boybands on a compilation I got free with a magazine.  Their self-titled debut album is what I've been listening to on the rare occasions that I'm not playing the Elastica album and this month I felt ready to graduate to their 1994 follow-up, Dog Man Star.  Unfortunately, the only song on it that really resonates with me is the beautiful 'The Wild Ones', so I probably won't spend much time with it before moving on to the next album in their discography.  (A Suede side-note that I have to mention - their singer Brett Anderson wrote the most wonderful coming-of-age memoir, Coal Black Mornings, this year and I got to meet him at the Edinburgh Book Festival last month. It was magical.) 
I'm almost ready to graduate to the 2nd Elastica album too, but not before listening to their 6 Track EP which came out just before.  They changed their line-up a lot between the two so I'm interested to see how the music sounds.  I have, however, listened to Weekend Swingers, which is a bootleg I picked up on eBay.  It includes a 1994 festival performance, 2 of their Peel Sessions and some other demos and live bits and pieces.  I was worried that the quality was going to be bad but thankfully the sound is really good and so is the live show that makes up the first half of the disc - I wish I could time travel to see them play!
It was while I was browsing the Elastica section of eBay that I came across the soundtrack to Gregg Araki's 'Nowhere', a film I've written about before on the blog that is one of my favourite obscure movies.  I had no idea that both Elastica and Suede had songs on the soundtrack and I ordered it straight away - I wish finding a DVD of the film was that easy. 
I've also finally managed to pick up the first two Oasis albums.  Even though I said they weren't my favourite of the Britpop bands, it's undeniable that they had some really good tunes, most of which are on these two CDs.  I picked up Pulp's 2001 album 'We Love Life' out of love for Jarvis Cocker, Mazzy Star's 'She Hangs Brightly' out of love for their song 'Fade Into You', Bis' 'Vs. The DIY Corps' EP out of love for Scottish indie and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's self-titled just because I've heard they're good.  Reviews to come someday when I've had time to listen to them!

A couple of magazines since I've been in Edinburgh: Bust is a feminist-leaning magazine that I found very charming and interesting when I first bought it, so I always have a look to see if there are any interesting features when I see a copy.  This month's cover star plays the lead in 'Crazy Rich Asians' which I'm planning on seeing soon, plus there are pieces on cults, Michelle Wolf and Tumblr culture which are all things I'm interested in.  

I also bought Dazed because M.I.A is on the cover.  I saw her documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A yesterday and found it incredible so now I'm on a mission to read everything I can about it. 

One final music item to finish off: I haven't talked about Depeche Mode in this post but I still love and adore them as much as I did at the start of the year.  I've collected most of their vinyl now so I don't spend as much time in the Depeche Mode part of eBay as I used to but I had a look the other day and caught a copy of Black Celebration on cassette about to end with 0 bids.  I put a bid in expecting someone else to be watching it, but nobody was and I won.  As luck would have it, the same seller had also just listed the Suede album which I also ended up winning.  I keep a cassette Walkman in my desk at work to listen to when I have nobody in the office to speak to - or when I need to drown out the people who are talking so I can concentrate - so both of these will be joining the collection in my drawer.  

Paris Summer: a shopping round-up

Over the past month I've found myself in the city a lot which means I've indulged in a lot of shopping recently. Here are some of the things I've treated myself to lately:

The above tops are all from Primark and cost me £2-£3 each in the sale section, which is hard to argue with. At this point I've more or less removed colour from my wardrobe altogether to project a faux-intellectual Parisian Wednesday Addams aesthetic with plenty of stripes and Peter Pan collars. They're all perfect for me to wear to work aside from the long sleeve adorned with little Eiffel Towers which will be my friend on colder days. 

These dresses both came from the H&M sales (grey dress £5, black dress £10). 

The grey one is thick and wintry and not seasonally appropriate at all but I'll keep it stored away until it gets cold again - or possibly not because when it gets sunny outside my office turns the AC on and freezes us! 

I passed the black lace dress by the first time I went into the store because the mid-section has no underlay and I didn't think the peek-a-boo would look good on me. However when I tried it on I decided to throw caution to the wind and take it home and I'm glad I did... now I just need to find an occasion to wear it to!

The black jacket is another piece from the H&M sale which I picked up for £10 (sharing a coat hanger with a Primark jersey which proves I have clothes that aren't black). It hangs open the way I wear my much-loved leather jacket but I can wear it inside the office, which has already been a blessing on the aforementioned AC days.

I've recently reverted back to jeans after a spell wearing jeggings; I've always found that the jeans which fit my thighs are too big in the waist so the stretchy elasticated waistband of jeggings seemed like the ideal fix. Then I tried on Primark's Super High Waist Skinnies and I haven't worn anything else for months. I bought a pair with ripped knees which I've been living in but I'm growing tired of the jokes about my clothes having holes in them so I just picked up a normal pair, which are down from £10 to £8 at the moment for a little added bonus.

I bought a pair of round sunglasses in H&M a few years ago and they fast became my favourite shape so since Primark currently have them on sale for £1 I grabbed a spare pair. 

New in my nail polish box are two Barry M shades: Black Grape which is a dark blue Gelly polish and Crush which is a matte red. I really wanted a deep red colour and the photos of Crush look darker than it does in the bottle so hopefully it won't disappoint - plus it's matte which means it dries really quickly so there's a minimal window for me to smudge them. I've yet to try the Gelly polishes but I wear dark blue quite a lot so I'm looking forward to testing it soon. 

The third bottle in the photo is a True Brit shade called It's A Monthly Thing, which came in this month's Pink Parcel and was part of the reason why I reactivated by subscription. It's a super pale grey colour which looks really sophisticated and which I plan to use instead of white for a while.

I don't blog about it much but I have a little bit of an obsession with cute stationery. I have a pile of notebooks waiting to be used, a collection of different journals, a fascination with Paperchase and a fineliner selection spanning the whole rainbow. I picked up this huge set of fineliners in The Works for £6, mostly because it has such a great selection of pinks, including a peach shade which means I don't have to use brown and orange to colour skin when I'm doodling anymore. 

The glitter gel pens were £2 and they make me so nostalgic for a childhood where gel pens were a must-have item. I take them to work where I scrawl important Post-Its in sparkling cursive, the only downside is now all my colleagues want to use them too! Next up on the list: scented gel pens...

I usually pick up a magazine every time I go somewhere; as a kid I read Girl Talk and Top Of The Pops, then Kerrang! through my teenage years, but now I mostly go for fashion magazines - both the mainstream and alternative kind. I really like NME since they relaunched it as a free publication but sadly I live an hour away from the nearest stockist so I can only get it when I'm in HMV which means I miss out on most issues. 

I like Vanity Fair for the articles, they print content about old Hollywood and 20th century icons as well as current stars like Amy Schumer and it makes for great company on long journeys. I bought Pop because I missed the bus home one day and had some time to kill; I still haven't finished reading it because it's a few inches thick. I've been chasing the Fame Issue of Wonderland for months since it has great photos of Matty Healy in its pages, so I finally got that today and I'm looking forward to flicking through it because Wonderland is always great. 

Finally I ordered tmrw magazine online because their main feature is on The 1975 (Matty again...) and it has a homemade feel that I really like. I haven't read the cover feature yet but they've also published pieces on emo culture and the vinyl resurgence which sadly I found to be quite poorly written. The photos, however, are gorgeous - plus they sent me a couple of prints of The 1975 to sweeten the deal. 

Lastly, books and music. I've picked up a lot of 2nd hand books and vinyl lately but I'm just going to concentrate on the things I've bought as new. I read Less Than Zero earlier this year and absolutely loved it, so I was glad to find another Bret Easton Ellis book, The Rules Of Attraction, on sale in HMV. 

I enjoyed both Zayn's Mind Of Mine and Drake's Views when I streamed them so I picked up both of those, as well as Communion by Years & Years, which I haven't listened to all the way through yet but have high hopes for. I pre-ordered The F Bomb by Sonic Boom Six years ago (or does it just seem that long?) when they announced it on PledgeMusic and it finally arrived this week - it's been a while since I've really listened to them so hopefully the feminist-themed new material will kickstart the love I had for them in 2013. 

Finally, I used some of the vouchers I won from work to pick up the gorgeous vinyl edition of I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It by The 1975. It's my favourite album this year and I urge you to listen to it if you haven't yet, it combines so many genres and pretty sounds and feelings and I can't get enough. The HMV version of the album comes in a pastel pink slipcase which hides 2 discs of clear vinyl.