Wedding Dresses.

As a recently engaged woman, I am surrounding myself with bride magazines and my Pinterest is full of wedding fever. 

I like to get inspirations from celebrities, and then obviously copy them in a much cheaper way! 

Now then, who has just got married, that's right...Kim Kardashian (again), and the first photos of her dress were released yesterday and I can bet you every single woman around the world was judging her choice, me included. 


This is the dress (left). What do we all think? Now then, I am going to start by saying that I really like it, and I am quite surprised to say that to be honest. It has subtle hints of lace that go right down to the arms, it has a high neck which shows modesty (yes, really) and it clinches in at the waist which we emphasizes her hourglass figure. 
I think her hair looks elegant down, and the jewellrey is to an absolute minimum, probably just her ring, which makes the dress the focus of attention. 
Job well done, girl. 

I'm now going to show you some more celebrity wedding dresses that I think worked well. Starting with a personal favorite of mine - Kate Moss. 
 
Now, shes a catwalk model and the face of fashion so I think she knew what she was doing when it came to her dress. 

I really like this dress because of its simplicity. Everything about it compliments Kate - the neckline, the fit and the fabric. It is floaty and light with a beautiful gold embellishment at the bottom. The different layers of fabric show just a hint of leg but in a way that absolutely works. Her hair down and in a tousled fashion makes her look like a beach baby, and makes it all relaxed and fun. 
I guess to round up, she is dressed in a hippy way - which is perfect. 

Another example of a simple dress that I think really works is on Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Mother). 

A simple white dress with cap sleeves and a simple veil flowing down to her lower back. No massive embellishment, no lace and no massive waist clinchers. And it works. 

This is someone you know felt totally comfortable, completely relaxed and at ease on her special day. Without going over the top on the dress, she oozes elegance and looks so beautiful. Her hair in a pinned back style and slightly curled looks lovely. 

She has gone for simplicity on her day and gone with 'less is more' - and you know what, it certainly is. 

I'm going to end this blog post with pictures of the kind of dress I am going to look for :) 

I want a dress that has a sweetheart shape for the bust and my dress has to have some sort of straps (I don't trust my boobs to make my dress stay put!) I would like some sort of lace effect on the main dress, and the shape of my dress will be A line/princess to fit my figure of 'pear shape'. 


This was the first dress (right) that I found with gorgeous straps, but in a way that they aren't just plain straps. I really like how they will support your dress but also flow a little bit down the shoulder giving you some more embellishment. I do quite like how it clinches at the waist slightly, but I would prefer a sweetheart bust. 

The next (left) is something completely different, no sweetheart bust. Instead is fitted to the top, below the neck. But the fabric and design on this dress is just beautiful. The floral patterns and the lace bit at the top is so nice. This is a dress where you need no jewellery as the dress does all the talking. Unfortunately as you can see, it works best with hair up - something I am not going to have. But this dress is on my Pinterest for the fabric and the perfect A Line style. 

Finally we have a dress that pretty much ticks all the boxes! This has a beautiful neckline (not completely sweetheart) that is much better than just straight across. It has a lovely touch of lace on the bodice and the straps and the back that opens up looks wonderful. The style of dress is perfect and would fit my figure nicely. I like that it is a bit more 'flowy' rather than structured so I would feel very comfortable in it. I'm still not sure whether I prefer the straps from the first dress (above) - hence why it doesn't tick all the boxes! 

So these are the dresses I am loving at the moment. I basically want a bit of design from each of them to make my perfect dress! 

Tattoos.

Tattoos are one of those things that you either love or you hate, you either have them or you don't. 

I myself have 5, and plan on getting more. For me I just like having cool art on myself and some of them have meanings, some of them don't. It's my way of 'being and adult on the surface but underneath still a little young at heart'.

The common words you will hear from those against are: "But when you're 80, how will you look then?!" - in my opinion, I will probably look a little weird, but I won't care, it'll remind me how awesome I was growing up! And I'll look back at some of my tattoos (for example my Rolling Stones one) and go; " Oh yeah, they were an awesome band". 

It's someone's personal choice as to whether they have them, and obviously tattoos aren't to everyone's taste. But they are extremely popular, especially since we are in the 21st century and I can guarantee you that if you take 20 people randomly off the street - at least 15 of those will have one tattoo. 

So, you take the popularity, you take the fact that people will have obvious mixed views, you take the fact that just because someone has tattoos doesn't mean you judge them as a person (the whole prison/tattoo thing) 

Do you allow people to show their tattoos while working? (and I am talking the standard retail job) 

I asked around...

Laura Stacey, a manager of a retail shop said: "I don't mind small tattoos being on show, if they are on show whilst wearing respectable uniform that I think it's ok. I think a smart appearance and great service are more important. I.e I wouldn't want someone bending over and being able to see a tattoo on their lower back..."

Jessi Rabicano, who works in retail says she "doesn't see why they can't be [seen] to be honest" she argues that having tattoos doesn't make a person incapable of doing their job and that "people are quick to judge others with tattoos with stereotypes."

An argument is that piercings are somewhat overlooked compared to tattoos. You can have multiple piercings in the ears, you can have stretchers in your ears and various facial piercings, which are a lot harder to cover up! 

Danica Goldsmith, a retail employee, says she was hired with tattoos on her wrists and arms which (on the wrist) you would have clearly seen while being interviewed - and despite the guidelines of her job stating that they need to be covered up, she argues that she was hired with them so refuses to cover them up. 

Me for example, I want to be a journalist, I know this is a professional environment and I could well get sent to do court reporting. So I make sure that any I get/have got are ones that you can cover up. They aren't plastered on my wrists for everyone to see, because I understand that people in my industry might judge me for my lack of professionalism - a wrong as I think that is.

A lot of responses I have had tend to fall with siding for showing tattoos, along with comments such as; "it's fine with certain boundaries" or; "as long as they're not offensive". So employees know full well not to get offensive tattoos, and if for someone reason you do, then you cover it up - there is a responsibility with tattoos.

It will at the end of the day it depends on the employer and whether they want them on show, but I think that tattoos are very widespread (and have been for years) and as long as you stay within the lines, why shouldn't you? 

 

Beginning.

Hello all, 

Welcome to my new sparkly blog. 

Let me introduce myself: 

"My name is Hayley Johnston, a graduate (2013) of a Foundation Degree in Journalism, residing in the lovely city of Norwich and living with my fabulous fiancé. 

I currently work 20 hours a week at Primark (fun) and I am heavily involved in looking for a job with more hours (this is what my life revolves around at the mo). In my spare time I read, do puzzles, make crafts, socialize with my crazy friends and spend time with my wonderful family and mad pet dog Toby. 

I am what you would call 'unique'. I have 82 rubber ducks that live with me and my partner, I am obsessed with Friends and Harry Potter, my sense of fashion doesn't exist and I wear vintage clothing most of the time. I am silly and like to laugh at things no-one else would (besides my nearest and dearest).  

My passions are: writing, travelling, crafts, ducks, film, music, fashion, celebrities, culture and art. That's me in a nutshell."

Let me tell you my journalism journey so far:

"I completed a Foundation Degree in Journalism where I studied radio, print, broadcast and investigative news. This course was only 2 years, I have no BA and never did a dissertation. I felt that a BA was not what most employers look for in journalism; it was NCTJs. I set out to complete those (although not really knowing what I had to take). My course was very limited with only 9 people on it so I have my Law NCTJ and my Politics NCTJ, that is all. 

Still under the impression of not wanting a BA and not wanting to do 10,000 more words, I did not choose to do a top-up degree. Instead my priority was to work full time as my student loans had come to an end and my partner and I were still living together (but he was on a 3 year degree and therefore fine). 

For the past year I have worked a lot and paid my own way in our flat, and that has been my focus because it had to be. I should have been writing stories that entire time, or even blogging, but (guiltily) my mind was not in it because of my work hours. 

I was applying for lots of jobs, some in journalism, and getting nowhere in anything. Then recently I had an interview for the Eastern Daily Press (Archant) as a Junior Reporter (wow). The job said NCTJs desirable but training would be given - I missed out on the job because of not having all NCTJs." 

This brought me back down to earth with a bump, I am by no means happy working full time at primark and failing at applying for other jobs but I had unintentionally put journalism on the back burner until this job came up, and so when I was unsuccessful because of my lack of qualifications - it got my mind racing. 

I need the rest of my NCTJs, and to be quite frank a BA would be preferable. The standard course the NCTJ offer to get the rest (but paying for all) is near £600. And a top-up now would mean (I assume) paying my own way with out being eligible for one year of student loans. 

I honestly do not know what I am going to do, I need to find a place that lets me sit the NCTJ exams singly and do them that way (and sacrifice not having a BA). BUT this is all for working in newspapers and I sat there and honestly thought "what am I interested in?" - magazines. 

Based on what I am interested in (see above) I thought, you know what I would love to work for Look magazine, or Closer, or Kerrang! or even any craft magazine, hell I'd love that! 

I googled magazine journalism and found this - https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/magazinejournalist.aspx 

So my plan of action right now:

- still find that other job with more hours to afford living with my partner still
- email magazines like crazy
- still pursue getting the rest of my NCTJs 
- write stories about everything and anything (tailor them to some magazines)
- put those stories on a blog in blog format and send that out to people 

So there, that is why this blog now exists, and will serve the above^ purpose. 

Ciao.