Caramel popcorn milkshake - Olivia – Earrings - Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate Tart - Rouen

Today is a very monumental day. It’s not very often that I put the pretty pictures aside and say anything particularly meaningful on my blog, but I felt like if there was ever a day for it, today should be it.

So, let’s start with the small: Just quietly now has over 105 followers! That’s so exciting – I hope despite my recent hiatus, people still continue to enjoy it.

And now, the big: today is the very last day of my 12 month internship at MaVieFrançaise!

It’s been the most amazing and challenging 12 months I think I’ve ever had. I’ve learnt so much: I know I’ve chosen a career I love, I’ve learnt so much about it, and I’ve learnt so much about myself too.

I’m also overwhelmed when I think of the ridiculous list of incredible people I’ve been lucky enough to meet, become friends with and even learn from over the last few months. From the amazing people in my course, to the fantastic crew at the office and especially all those truly brilliant individuals who’ve been part of MaVieFrançaise.

Now I’m lucky enough to be heading off the US for my big brother’s wedding, and coming back as Coordinating Editor for MaVieFrançaise.

So without getting to sentimental, I just wanted to say that I’m experiencing what it is to be thankful. So thanks guys.

Their wedding was so lovely – they just make me so happy! Congrats guys. xx

To fill the space for now, here’s just a little taste of what’s to come… more wedding photos! Stay tuned.

Dress – Country Road; Shoes – Wittner; Clutch – Mimco; Liptick – Rimmel; Nails – Revlon.

This means wearing coats, jumpers, scarves and hats; it means boots and umbrellas and sometimes wellies. It means that boys will be more well-dressed, and that I won’t look like a mess every time I go outside. I don’t do very well with heat – I was definitely made for colder climes.

At the moment I’m pining for a neutral, laid-back vibe for my winter wardrobe, but as with all instances in which I long for minimalism, I’ll probably get it wrong.

But, I’m loving Gorman’s Winter collection (as always), with’s it’s cosy knits, pretty dresses, surprising prints and bursts of colour. I’m also a huge fan of the menswear-for-women feeling that Vanishing Elephant have mastered in their Winter collection – it has seen me wearing my chinos/slacks more often, and searching for more pairs to add to the two I own. I’m also hunting for shirts and brogues…

I’d love to add a touch of forest green to my wardrobe (in the form of these Gorman heels perhaps), and am finding the challenge of finding winter-appropriate dresses to be a challenge.

Either way, I’m excited to get my wardrobe stocked up and in working order!

How are you planning to brave the winter months (if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere)?

Or if you’ve already successfully navigated through winter in the Northern Hemisphere – any tips?

Orange is a fruit. It is a colour. It is a town in NSW; a County in California; the name of a village in France, and many other towns in America. It’s the name of a bicycle-maker and a phone company; two types of software; an American punk rock band and a few songs.

But as Frank Sinatra so wisely said, it is also the happiest colour. Orange can’t be mean, depressing or evil. It can’t be spiteful or jealous – it’s just happy!

It’s the colour of Penguin Classics and French fashion house Hermès; barley sugars, orange cake and small ginger kittens.

I’m really obsessed with it at the moment – and I can’t quite work out why. Maybe I subconsciously feel that I need more happiness in my life?

If you thought I liked sport, then you must not know me very well.

I enjoy my regular visits to the gym – don’t get me wrong. I also occasionally sit down and enjoy watching an AFL match. I even used to play sport on Saturdays during Secondary School – but only because it was compulsory. This year, I really got into the Australian Open. Like, I reaaaally got into it. Didn’t actually go though.

I hate, however, watching cricket. I couldn’t think of anything more boring. I used to regularly wag PE at school. Only on incredibly rare occasions have I engaged in team sports willingly. Swimming at school was the bane of my teenage existence. I can barely hit a tennis ball to save my life, and if you asked me to play volleyball I’d laugh like a maniac.

Think I’m incredibly un-Australian? Whatever. There’s so much more to this country than sport.

I was very happy to read an article recently in The Age, from an author who shares my sentiments. Her hatred seems a little more marked than I (I do occasionally enjoy sport, she seems to never enjoy sport), yet I have to agree with her on most things.

In particular, how much money sports people are paid, and how ridiculous that is. And of course, how men get paid so much more than women for it. I mean, if our netballers are fighting for a pay rise from $10 000 to $25 000 (i.e. a pittance), and yet footballers are paid at least four times that… something is wrong.

But I digress.

When I was younger, I was a dancer. I started ballet at the age of 3 or 4. At my peak, I was doing about 4 or 5 various dancing classes a week. I was flexible, agile, and fairly coordinated.

Ask me to kick a football though, and it’ll go somewhere – though not where I was aiming. I can barely hit a tennis ball, hardly aim a soccer ball or a hockey puck. I’m not agressive in sport, nor am I particularly fast.

I have been an asthmatic my whole life, which never helped, and possess inexplicably stiff muscles. My muscles don’t just ‘move’ on command like everyone else’s seem to.

I also hate feeling incapable.

As a relatively intelligent and lucid human, anything that makes me feel less capable or intelligent drives me mad. I become spiteful when I can’t get the hang of a card game.

I hate feeling useless, and therefore avoid anything that makes me feel that way. Don’t get me wrong, I like to try new things, just not sports.

And so I spent my high school career avoiding PE lessons, or barely trying if I did attend.

“Why don’t you just try?” my classmates would ask.

Looking back, as an adult, I also realise that the way schools deal with girls and sports is completely wrong sometimes. I read another (more academically-based) article on girls and physical activity that appeared in The Conversation a short while ago. Now this is a whole other kettle of fish – one I’ll probably rant about in another blog post.

But despite my feelings, as outlined above, I really wish I was cool and cool wear this whole ‘sports chic’ look. Trainers, caps and baseball tees are everywhere. I want in on it for some reason – though it’s completely not me.

It’s probably half because you have to be model thin to look good in clothes like these… but also because as I’ve explained above, the whole ‘athletic’ and ‘carefree’ thing has just never been part of my life. And maybe that’s what you need to rock Nike runners or New Balance trainers with a dress; a Céline rugby top or a flat cap…

So yes, I will wear converse and a baseball cap. But no, I will not pick up a bat and hit a home run. Both because I don’t want to, and I can’t.

All images via Jak & Jil, most can be found on my Pinterest. Top image via Diamond Streets.

Since Suzy Menkes’ article ‘The Circus of Fashion‘ appeared in T – The New York Times Style Magazine, the blogging community has been in uproar. Claws came out and knives were sharpened.

The title says it all – Menkes thinks that the new age of fashion bloggers fighting for attention, and for freebies, is somewhat ridiculous. It has reduced fashion to something that is all about the wrong people. I do agree with her on some levels – there are bloggers whom I believe to be ridiculous. But many of those she takes aim at are in fact pioneers in a new era of fashion media.

It’s the old tale of journalism facing the new age, and appears across all fields of the media. We speak about it often in media courses at University. Our professors tell us journalism is a dying profession. Only the ones who are truly in tune with what is going on understand that it’s not dying, just drastically changing.

War reporters lament at the new generation of journalists trying to tug on heart strings and make a difference, rather than report. Experienced journalists out ‘on the beat’ sigh at the antics of newsroom monkeys who source information from Twitter, rather than speaking with real people.

The truth is that no one is wrong, and no one is right. We’re bombarded with information, and ways to source it, and we’re struggling to figure out what is actually defined as crossing the line.

The same can be said about fashion reporting – a field of journalism like many others (though too often dismissed as frivolous). The experiences old-timers (I do not use that term negatively) like Suzy Menkes describe the old days of “hip, underground presentations” in the 90s, in lieu of the fashion week frenzy of the naughties.

Grace Coddington shares some of Menkes’ sentiments in the closing chapter of her memoirs, but expresses them in a much less abrasive manner.

She and Menkes have a wealth of experience under their belts: their tales of how the fashion industry used to be (particularly Grace’s) are fascinating. I love them. As someone who indulged in nostalgia at every turn, I can appreciate this. I revel in tales of times gone by – of old celebrities and fashion greats.

But as a member of Gen-Y, I also appreciate the ever-changing nature of our world, and the need to constantly stay in the loop. As a media student, I have always examined this phenomenon in great detail. I firmly believe that if we let ourselves consider the democratisation of media, opinion and expression as negative, we let ourselves fall into a trap of pessimism. It is best to be optimistic about change, because so often it looks to be only doom and gloom.

To Menkes I say: see the best in it! And realise that while the fashion world you knew was indeed a fantastic era to be part of, it no longer exists, and will forever be changing.

Read more on the debate in this article on Fashionista. It will link you through to various articles on the same subject, written in response to Menkes’ article. Worth a look!

I immediately realised that I too was dressed in a very Oz-inspired outfit – a little bit munchkin and large amount technicolour.

No matter what they say, never give up on wearing colour!

[Skirt - Asos; Shirt - Lulamae; Shoes - Witchery]