Quintessential.

Being in London has made me feel SUPER BRITISH and SUPER HIPSTER so most of the time I look like this:

Also the beauty of webcams means that my pictures are not beautiful, but are quicker to upload than with my nice camera. SOZ :'(

So yeah... I'm bored of hipsters. (Crazy, I know right?) I literally dont think you can live here without a pair of "geniously ironic" galsses, but everyone I've met is a genius, so I suppose it is fine.
I've got totally new style inspiration, and I'm going to quickly moodboard it here, but I might put a detailed one up if I can find a scanner, although I might look a bit like a Tavi fangirl because everything is handdrawn as all my magazines are back home.

^^^WOAH sorry about the long sentences there, sometimes I talk without breathing and I think that is a pretty good depiction. 

 Kate and Alexa and Peaches and the beautiful famous english girls that frequent Camden Town and expensive nightclubs and will forever look sleazy and studenty and young.

Mary Portas, because her shop has just opened on Oxford Street, and everyone in London always looks so polished but edgy. I like that polished but edgy look. Do it with kitten heels and shift dresses. 

  

I hear Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road' is being made into a film? Thats cool because everyone is casually undone, and likes beat poetry and politics and being clever and wordy, and looking deliberately scruffy-inteligent. But we're British, so add to their style blazers, tweed and Docs.

 Also loving the nails on Made In Chelsea, and keep copying them. Rainbow pastels? YES.


AND I'VE JUST SEEN THIS PICTURE AND WANT TO LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THAT. (Audrey Kitching love right now.)

keep calm, stay reem <3

I love London.

Because I love things for free, and really, London is the place for free exhibitions.  One of my favourite places to watch for "what's on's" is Selfridges. Being a department store, they often host touring exhibits of culturally based artistry, tucked away as a lure to the café on the ground floor.
This month (2nd September - 25th October) they have been running 'The Museum of Everything', a showcase for "unintentional, untrained and undiscovered artists". Although the exhibition is nearing it's close, I would urge anyone to visit it, and not just to charitably give "disabled artists" the time of day.
The exhibition is brilliant in it's own right, a bona fide modern art gallery; though some of the paintings seem simplistic and childlike, on closer inspection one can see the intricacy and time that has poured into this work. In fact, for me, the simplicity was what gave 'The Museum' it's impactive interest. The childlike drawings juxtaposed with the adult emotions and themes gave the art a very human characteristic, and was equally very soul baring. A stand out collection for me was a group of abstract pin up girls, all looking very coy with slanted eyes and curvacious figures, challanging the conventional pin up, because they were such beautiful paintings full of character themselves.

To some extent I think that the exhibition was also trying to challenge convention, by showcasing the artwork of people whom many don't expect to be productive, or creative, or able to relate to 'adult themes. (The pop-culture references, such as the paintings of all the different Presidents, and of Prince Charles and Superman beg to differ). However, I felt the videos of the artists were superfluous. Although they were insignificant and overshadowed by the work itself, I think the artwork could speak for itself, and the videos suggested some sort of agenda, or USP which, in my opinion, detracts from the emotional and humble artwork on display.
The effort and imagination in Selfridges this month is incredible; from an artist that used layers of text to form storm like canvases, to haunting and confused comic strips, to knitted household objects. 'The Museum of Everything' celebrates creativity in its most basic and emotional form, and after experiencing the raw emotion and feeling seeping from the artwork around me, the polished displays for sale suddenly lost their appeal.