Going Out In Glasgow Tonight?

It's all happening tonight in Glasgow. I've got FOUR invitations to FOUR amazing events all happening around the city. Sadly, I also have to work later than usual and I'm only going to manage one (or maybe two?) of them.

City Centre
First up we have the opening night of Scottish Ballet's Autumn Season at the Theatre Royal. A double bill featuring Pennies from Heaven, a playful, uplifting work steeped in the vintage glamour of the 1930s and a new work created for Scottish Ballet by Boston Ballet’s Resident Choreographer Jorma Elo, Kings 2 Ends. It's curtain up at 7.30pm tonight so there's no chance of me making it along to this one, but thank you to the gorgeous Ann for the invitation.If any of you out there fancy something magical this weekend, tickets can be purchased here.

Hillhead
If you're out the west end this evening, The Only Way Is Glasgow, is sure to be a top night. A Fashion event dedicated to Glasgow style with all proceeds going towards Spirit Aid. Tickets are a tenner and everything kicks off at 7pm at Oran Mor. Again, I'm not gonna make this one...

Partick
Rachel Dill and Lucy O'Donovan are throwing a private view of their new exhibition 'People and Places' tonight at the Big Mouth Cafe on Dumbarton Road. This is one I'm definitely going to make. It's from 6-9pm if anyone fancies popping in. If you can't make it tonight, the show runs until 29th November.

Rachel Dill 'Late Home'

City Centre
Did someone say Lock-in?? All the students are back in town and to celebrate, vintage emporium Tatty-Bon are hosting a Freshers Lock-in from 5-8pm. If you're up the Trongate, pop into the shop on Parnie Street for a good rummage and wee cheeky Lambrini! Spend over £10 and get 15% discount. Customised clothes and handmade jewellery galore!

A very bad photo of a very awesome handmade Tatty-Bon cameo gifted to me by the extremely talented Lynne

A wee birdy tells me that Urban Outfitters are doing the same. Personally, I'm gonna skip the high street and head to Tatty-Bon instead - I suggest you do too!

Style Icon - Nancy Cunard

Feeling inspired by Nancy's stacked bangles and turbans at the moment. Heir to the Cunard shipping company, Nancy fought her upper class roots to become a political activist in the early part of the 20th century, fighting against racism and fascism. She hung around with the Dadaists and Surrealists and even published her own poetry. She suffered mental illness and poor physical health, worsened by alcoholism, poverty, and self-destructive behavior. At age 69 she weighed only 60 pounds when she was found on the streets of Paris. She died 2 days later in hospital. Her ashes rest in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery. Rock n Roll, baby!

Age of Reason

I'm a scarf addict. Rain or shine, I'll never leave the house without one - even in Tenerife I kept one in my bag - just in case. Can't stand a draft round the back of my neck. You can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon these Age of Reason scarves on Hivenn's blog. Scarves with naughty matryoshka dolls, handcuffs and a tall ship logo? Yes please!

"The label is called Age of Reason because it represents a seed change in our way of thinking about accessories. We seek to create scarves that will last you a lifetime; a scarf you'd actually hand down to your daughter even if it was in tatters.  The galleon ship is an important emblem because it reminds us to explore new territory, to come up with new ideas, and not to fear being different by saying "Buy less,  but buy quality. Be proud of your things and never throw them away." 

This one is inspired by the Royal Wedding and was released just in time for London Fashion Week. Available from Whistles but not online :(
You can pick up any of the other designs on the Coco de Mer site :)

This is a VERY naughty little number - oo-er indeed!

Penguin Ink Collection

Last year Penguin Publishers celebrated their 75th Anniversary by inviting 6 of the world's best artists working in the world of tattoos and illustration to design covers for 6 of their favourite books.

My favourite from this collection is Bert Krak's interpretation of Martin Amis' 'Money'.

Chris Garver's interpretation of Ian Fleming's 'From Russia With Love' is another good one.

This year, Penguin have chosen 6 books by British authors and asked 6 British tattooists to illustrate the covers. Here are a few, but you can see the full collection and snap each book up for a mere tenner here.

 Valerie Vargas and Han van der Sluys

 Duncan X and Lynn Akura

Thanks to Glitterbird for making me aware of these beautiful covers.

To Chop Or Not - Results

So here we have the results from my 'To Chop Or Not' poll. Short fringe, long bob (which has been scraped up into two messy buns for going out to the dancin' on Saturday night). Instead of just attacking my fringe myself I decided to go professional for a change.

On Thursday night I took the Style Fairy's good advice and nipped into Al-Aisha's beauty salon to pop my threading cherry. Two minutes later and I had perfectly plucked brows. Very pleased. Next, I headed into the town centre to hunt out a good standy-by deal to have my hair cut. Rainbow Rooms Buchanan Street could fit me in in half an hour - just enough time for a quick once around Frasers to pickup a new skirt (below) and sheer blouse (another time).

I opted to have my fringe slightly rounded at the edges. I'm still not too sure what I think of it - I usually just cut it straight across, but I'll live with it for a bit and decide what to do when it needs cut again.

This is also a glimpse of what my hair looks like 1 week after using the Manic Panic Electric Lava. It's nice and orange now, but my hair just refuses to hold any dye... Might be back to the drawing board again on this front.

Primark vest top // Miss Selfridge sheer skirt // leopard print tights // TK Maxx shoe boot wedges // New Look feather necklace

This was my attempt to show off how sheer the skirt is. Didn't work so well. We used Mr G's new camera phone but didn't check the settings, hence the poorer than usual quality.

On Saturday Mr G and I treated ourselves to a wee night oot. We kicked off the night at Balbir's Tiffin Rooms where we indudged in some Indian nibbles, wine and light Jazz entertainment.

Nom, Nom, Nom...

Green chillies in batter - HOT!!! You can also see my bargain New Look sale scarf and my 'fancy' nail varnish (inspired by the Dainty Squid)

After dinner we met up with some pals for a few more drinky-poos in the Halt Bar and listened to some Solid Gold Safari choons before hopping in a taxi down to the SWG3 to see Factory Floor - who were pretty damn excellent. I may have been caught up in all the excitment at this point because I then suggested we head to the Arches for some more dancing at Death Disco. This may have been a step too far for our old bones. We bailed early and went home a good cup of tea. Top night, but Sunday was a write-off.

Did you all have a good weekend?

Things I Love (and Loathe) Thursday

Everyone has shit days at work. This has been a particularly shit week for me - until today... Look what arrived on my desk this morning!

Things what I LOVE....

• Rachel Stamp. You've no doubt heard me bang on about my favourite band a million times on here. I've been after this delicious GREEN VINYL EP for years and it finally popped up on Ebay last week (I have 'Rachel Stamp' saved as an alert). I have no way of listening to it as we got rid of our decks years ago, but it makes a very nice addition to my (almost complete) RS collection :-)

• My brand new Banana Guard. It looks like a giant, deformed dildo, but it does the job - no more bashed and bruised bananas for me!
• Cold, crisp mornings. It was only 3 degrees this morning and it means I can start layering up.
• Another *new* thing for me this week was a wee pressie from the gorgeous Spinal Lou. Vimto bon bons. These chewy little sweets are just the bomb - total Vimto explosion in your gob. Only problem is that they are very moreish... BUT, they are also only a quid from your local Poundland - score!

• Aztec Print, especially leggings. So much so that I bought TWO pairs from Urban Outfitters on my way home last night. Including these ones: 

Things What I Loathe...

•  Aztec Print Leggings - on my thighs? Hell no. The stretched, wibbling print is enough to make anyone think they're on a bad acid trip. They'll be going straight back to the shop on Saturday.
• Untamed Brows - soon to be tamed as I plan to visit Al-Aishas after work to have them threaded (for the very first time - eek!)
• Unruly Hair - again, hopefully this problem will be solved tonight at a standby appointment in town. I'm a cheapskate and refuse to pay £40+ just to have my fringe cut and my hair trimmed.

Manic Panic Electric Lava

On Friday night I finally got around to experimenting with a tub of Manic Panic Electric Lava. It had been chosen especially for me and flown half way around the world by the wondrous Punk Glam Queen and my 'peely-wally' hair was long overdue a good dying.

Manic Panic classic cream dye is made from vegan ingredients and promises to actually condition your hair, rather than wreck it. Since stripping the black out I've been bleaching my hair roughly once every 6-8 weeks. Needless to say, it's not in the best of condition. When I applied the Manic Panic, I could actually feel my hair going "aaaahhhh..."  - like when you apply after sun to sunburn. It literally soaked up the dye like a sponge. The end result is a little more red than the bright orange I was hoping for, but I'm putting that down to my dry porous locks and hoping that it will simply fade to orange and actually last a lot longer than my usual dye (Loreal Majicontrast in copper) which fades at a ridiculous rate - 1 week tops :(

As you can see, I've not chopped my fringe yet. I'd normally just attack it with my own hairdressing scissors, but I think I'm gonna be all adult about it and actually go to a professional - after I've seen a professional about my caterpillar eyebrows that lurk beneath it! Next week, I promise. Hope you've all had a good weekend? x

My Little Pop Icons

My Little Mad Hatter

My Little Lady Gaga

My Little Frida Kahlo

My Little Damien Hirst

My Little Edward Scissorhands

My Little Slave Princess Leia

My Little Cthulhu

Demented customisation to the max. Finnish artist, Mari Kasurinen, makes over a whole herd of My Little Ponies. I think Cthulhu is my favourite.

Baby You're A Firework

Label Lab trench // green and orange tartan shirt from ASOS // scabby old black leggings // DMs

This weekend Mr G and I made a wee trip back home to the 'shire to visit my wee Mammy, overindulge (again) on some tasty grub and watch the fireworks display that marks the end of the week long annual Largs Viking Festival.

Mammy and me. Take a good look - as soon as she spots this, she'll make me take it down :(

After a few gin n slims, I couldn't resist the lure of the tacky neon kids toys. Disco Stick for me, lightsaber for Mr G. Also snapped up some bitchin' light-up cyberlocks, but holding them back for a special occasion.

Fireworks were pretty damn good. First 5 mins went pop to Katy Perry, but then the dj switched to some rather depressing Pink Floyd track...

It wouldn't be a trip 'doon the watter' to Largs without the obligatory ice cream stop at the famous Nardini's. I had caramel shortbread and coconut, Mr G had raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake laced with Scottish tablet. For those of you who are wondering, tablet is just a toothache inducing concoction of butter and sugar melted together and left to set hard. It's what Scottish we'ans are raised on after they come off a bottle - you don't need teeth to eat it (and you certainly won't have any left later in life).

To Chop Or Not? RESULTS

Voting has ended and the fate of my new haircut has been decided:

Short bob, short fringe               5
Shoulder length, short fringe  8
Short bob, long fringe                6
Shoulder length, long fringe        5

So, shoulder length, short fringe is the winning combo. Now all I need to do is sort out my hairy eyebrows before chopping my bangs. Thanks yo everyone for your input. I'll do the 'do this weekend and post the winning look!

Garage Magazine Launch

Monday 5th September sees the launch of Garage Magazine. The new baby of former POP magazine editor, Dasha Zhukova.

Timed perfectly for NY Fashion Week, The NY Times describes the debut issue as "one of the most intriguing magazines to come along in years, it is not entirely clear whether this is a fashion magazine that takes 
more than a passing interest in art, or an art magazine that knows its stuff about fashion." 


It comes with a choice of 3 covers: 

• Hedi Slimane's black and white photo of a young model's vagina tattoo, designed by Damien Hirst and tattooed by Mo Coppoletta. The actual tattoo is covered with a peel away sticker (similar to The Velvet Underground banana) and is already banned by WHSmith
• Or, you could choose a sketch of Richard Prince's smiling tattoo design
• Or, a Nick Knight photo of Dinos Chapman's dollhouse complete with Lily Donaldson puppet

I'd like all 3 please. And I'm hoping local Glasgow Magazine shop, GmBh might be able to hit me up.
There's still 3 days left to VOTE to help me choose my new hairstyle. Check out the right hand nav bar x