The Naughty Girl's Guide to Life

Just like celebrity designs there seems to be a lifestyle guide around every corner. Let me see, there is A Girl for all Seasons by fashionista journo, Camilla Morton, The Little Black Book of Style by Nina Garcia who is the Fashion Director of Elle magazine and a judge on Project Runaway and then there is the much anticipated release from uber stylist made good, Rachel Zoe called Style A to Zoe. So quite a lot to look forward to. Which brings me to Tara Palmer-Tomkinson; in case you don't know she is best described as an IT girl ie a wealthy socialite who did very little apart from shop, party, shop and party some more and lived off a trust fund that Mummy and Daddy set up for her. A very charmed life I might say. Tara aka TPT became a household name a few years ago when she became runner up in the reality show, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. Her trait of wearing her heart on her sleeve made her endearing to the public who have since had a bit of a soft spot for her. This along with her well documented former drug habit played a great part in her winning Celebrity Fame Academy earlier this year. Nowadays TPT's life is full with writing for newspapers and magazines, presenting TV shows and spreading awareness about drug abuse as well as working on several charities. She has taken time out from her hectic schedule to write a book called The Naughty Girls Guide to Life. The book is co-written with journo, Sharon Marshall and tells women how to have a life full of mischief, sauciness and scandal. There are eight sections; love, style, work, home, money, travelling abroad, dating a celebrity and dieting. A third of the book is devoted to love and dealing with issues being akin to dumped, finding a man, coping with a loved up pal and being part of a smug couple. All amusing stuff but nothing thought provoking although the tips on getting revenge on a guy who has dumped you makes delightful reading. I also like the section on work where they dish out tips on how to handle a job you do not like. The bits on home, style, celebrity dating and being abroad I can do without. The Naughty Girl's Guide to Style is not a fantastic book in terms of it's writing but the design and format is pretty amazing. For a start the cover is bright red and full of funky illustrations of TPT and Sharon Marshall and I also dig the page design with it's fantastic use of colour. This book is eye candy and perfect fodder for the coffee table.

The Naughty Girl's Guide to Style is out now!


Picture from amazon.co.uk

London Fashion Week

Well this weekend it was off to South Kensington for London Fashion Week (LFW) to check out a few shows. The ones I saw were Ben De Lisi, Bora Aksu, Unconditional, Gareth Pugh, Julia Clancey and Eley Kishimoto.

Ben De Lisi: Elegant evening dresses, wearable stuff that would not look out of place on the back of his Oscar lovvies.

Bora Aksu: Little dresses with lots of flavour and with a masculine edge.

Unconditional: A combo of his and hers, in your face with original shapes.

Gareth Pugh: My initial reaction to the first outfit he sent down the runway was "What a load of rubbish." Why? Because the model was wearing a sequined black smock dress with what resembled a box over her head. There were lots of weird and wacky designs. I really wasn't sure what to expect from fashion's golden boy but I left feeling very unimpressed. The fashionistas just lapped it up and Pugh boy got the loudest applause so far. They must know something I don't.

Julia Clancey: This show was totally the opposite, well for a start it was held at the Vauxhall Scout depot which is the venue for the off schedule. Clancey presented a collection of a variety of evening dresses that was so wearable that you felt like you had seen them before. In fact I felt a sense of deja vu when I saw the Grecian themed dresses floating down the runway. Is it just me or where they so last season. Not a bad collection though, very boutique like.

Eley Kishimoto: Talk about leaving the best till last. This collection rocked!! Based on a fairground theme, the Eley Kish joint venture was charming, original with tongue in cheek humour. Their use of colour was a real breath of fresh air. I loved it.

The highlights of LFW were Bora Aksu, Eley Kishimoto, meeting up with fellow Bloggers extraordinaire, Susie Style Bubble, Roller Girl and Michele from myfashionlife, getting a free MAC makeover with lots of free MAC goodies and people watching in the swish press room where journos from Rubbish (official newspaper for LFW) and new webite osoyou.com were hard at work.

The most amusing was seeing the paps fall over themselves to get a shot of socialite and general layabout Tara Palmer-Tomkinson and on/off WAG, Elen Rives who is Frank Lampard's other half at the Ben De Lisi show. The most amusing bordering embarrassing was seeing Big Brother's Ziggy queuing up for the Unconditional show. He looked as terrible in the flesh as he did on the show.

Well that's me all fashioned out so it is back to the day job.

Picture taken from londonfashionweek.co.uk