So, where do I begin? Well in regards to how I’ve been styling myself, I don’t think I’ve posted any of the outfits that I’ve been hammering through this winter so I think it only fair to give you guys little look into my winter wardrobe…

My favourite part of this look has to be my scarf. It’s a fairly new purchase but I adore it. It’s ridiculously chunky, beautifully patterned and more importantly keeps my neck and most of my upper body warmer than the majority of my wardrobe ever could. It was £15 but I bought it almost a week ago for £5, gotta love January sales.

My sheer blouse is from a concession called Uttam which can also be found in Dorothy Perkins and was £22. It’s the perfect top to wear with high-wasted bottoms whether skirt, jeans or trousers, and I can’t get enough of the colour. Dark greens have this tendency to look lovely with alot of other colours, strong or otherwise. It has two pieces of material which are meant to be tied in a loose bow, but I let them drop naturally because I loved the way it looked.

My skirt is from Zara, I believe you’ve seen it a fair few times before now. It has to be one of my absolute favourite skirts to wear, the colour is so vibrant that it brightens up everything I wear with it. It was another sale purchase and if I remember correctly only cost me £15 from around £30.

My cross earring which I don’t think I ever take out for more than a couple of hours a day for sleeping purposes was only £4 from Topshop. This still to this day stuns me. I have them in gold, I have them in silver and I feel almost obliged to go and buy them in the funky spray-paint-pink I saw them coloured in a couple of days ago…just because I can. Obsession is a sad, sad thing…

My jacket is from Dorothy Perkins as well, I tend to browse as I work if you couldn’t already tell. It was £59 and money well spent. I wear this jacket with everything, from going out in the evening with a mini and heels to layering up for a full day of university in the cold, it just always seems to ‘go’.

My mass array of bracelets and my watch are just mine I found around my room/house that I’ve bought or been given as gifts over the years. It’s such a great way to get a real use out of all your random jewellery that you may not really know when or how to wear and adds this strange edginess to pretty much every outfit I seem to put on.

My jewelled ring, which I always get so many compliments on, is from my beloved Topshop and if I remember correctly only cost me about £8 and my beetle ring was bought oversea’s in china on one of my online fashion searches.

FINALLY! My beautiful suede booties! They were bought aaaages ago now from Asos for £55 and despite the platform heel are so, so easy to walk in. I always feel like by the end of the day I should be dragging my feet home, tear-stained cheeks, boots filled with my own sweat and blood but I always surprise myself when I am just as comfortable and contented as I am when I leave the house. Such a good buy.

I recently noticed I hadn’t yet played with the concept of bows and ribbons which is MADNESS because I love the idea of having a bow-tie as a woman, it makes outfits look so chic and stylish. I’ve seen countless pictures of the Kardashians rocking the type of bow/ribbon that I’ve attempted to construct in this look myself and felt inspired to begin to use it much more as I LOVE what it did to my overall look! I found a random ribbon in my jewelry box that I’ve seen floating around my room for a while and simply ignored and looked for a blouse or shirt that I have that buttoned right up to the neck to pair with it.

The shirt I chose, after about 10 minutes of scouting through my once tidy wardrobe, was a neutral, beige cap sleeve shirt from Topshop’s Boutique brand which I adore! I have to admit at first the colour…or more the lack OF, did geniuinly put me off, but after wearing it countless times with various different colours, shades and patterns I came to terms with the fact that the neutral shade of the shirt acts as a simple base for other crazy pieces I love to play with so it worked out for the best! I don’t really remember how much it was exactly but I believe it was around £30 – 50 and it’s worth the money, I adore almost EVERYTHING from Boutique so my now undying love for this shirt came as no shock.

My skirt you have seen before in my previous looks, probably not on here but definatley on LOOKBOOK.NU and I am also in love with it, it was in the sale at Zara for basically like half price, I think if I remember correctly it was £15.99 and worth every penny again. It’s made so well, and it’s crazily heavy, also, the colour is such a vibrant red that it put’s this unique boldness into every outfit…aarggh I love it!

And last but not least my shoeees, oh my beloved shoeeees, they are beautiful aren’t they? These tribal beauties are one of my proudest buys, they were from Office Shoes and were £80 of money I will never regret spending. They inject this quirkiness, which is what I am aaaalll about, that you couldn’t get from a pair of courts.

SO, first we have Californian born Actress, or if I’m being politically correct, Actor, *discrimination doesn’t live on this blog!* Elisabeth Moss, who harbours a hilarious sense of humour and it would seem, a coveted eye for fashion! *or a highly paid stylist* Elisabeth emulates in MY opinion, what these huge awards shows are all about….beauty, glamour, and maybe the promise of an award or two which is communicated in her natural, but confident smile. That dress looks beautiful on her incredible shape,  sculpting out her hips, bust and from what I can imagine, bootaay, BUT, with some serious class making it more feminine than femme fatale. I do have to add that although Elisabeth DOES look amazing in this elegant Marchesa gown, I was a little shocked that she was wearing it as earlier on, on the Red Carpet,  Miss Osbourne clearly stated Marchesa was only dressing one person, Lea Michele, this year and that she wasn’t allowed to pull any dresses for the occasion herself… awkward much?

My next favourite look of the night was Gwyneth Paltrow in this incredibly stunning dress by Emilio Pucci. Although at first I was a little sceptical about her midriff being all out like that, I realised that behind the veil laid what I perceived to be some serious abdominal muscles and I  began to calm down, if you’ve got it flaunt it right? The detail on this dress is so hauntingly beautiful I can’t stand it and even though I  have to say I am not a major fan of wearing black to red carpet events *I feel like there are too many beautiful colours in the rainbow to resort to a mere shade* she is rocking this look and it’s pretty much 90% see-through anyway so technically it’s black and tan!

And last but my no means least is the mesmerizing Nina Dobrev in this red gown by Donna Karen…there are LIT - ER – ALLY no words to describe how incredible she looks. The hair was simple yet effective, the choker was small yet extremely glamorous and the dress…oooooooh the dress, had me GUSHING about her pretty much all day to anybody who would listen. For me Nina most DEFINATELY stole the show at the Emmys, this whole look was just the image of perfection and among so many Ladies in Red who walked the red carpet that night, Nina rocked this one the best by far!

For me, I found Lea’s dress a leaving a little to be desired as chic as it may have looked. I thought Kate’s figure was sculpted out beautifully in her structured dress, Nina, Kerry and Giuliana skin tones make their red dresses look so incredibly exotic with Kerry really wowing with the shimmering textures in her gown and I felt Adrianne looked real old hollywood with a modern twist in the form of a risqué slit, which I thought really suited the dress…but in all honesty, who DID wear it better?

WHO:  Adrienne Palicki

Although there were countless celebrities that were all rocking dramatic shades of red quite well last night, including Lea Michele, Kate Winslet and Kerry washington, I did feel as if it was a colour that HAD to have been anticipated by the stylists surely, and honestly as much as it should have been anticipated it really could have also been avoided.

WHO: Lea Michele

WHO: Nina Dobrev

Such strong reds on a red carpet can have that awful overkill affect, luckily the dresses designs, the cuts, the fits, and the rest of the overall looks including hair, makeup, jewelry and shoes rounded off what could potentially have been several red carpert disasters.

WHO: Giuliana Rancic

WHO: Kate Winslet

WHO: Kerry Washington

Images courtesy of Style Bistro

I love playing around with skulls and crosses, it feels so intense!! I love everything about Madonna’s sense of fashion especially in her ‘Like a Virgin’ video and I kinda feel like I’m channelling that vibe in this look. I’ve been looking for some form of corset/bralet to create a look like this but until today I had NO luck what-so-ever, so now it would seem that my luck was in as I found this beauty in Topshop for *drumroll* 3 pounds!!! Shock horror, I know, in the sale, £3…it’s CRAZY! Now, granted this isn’t a corset persaaaay, it’s a corset dress/slip thing, I am preeetty sure it’s an undergarment but I don’t see anything wrong with wearing your underwear as outerwear, within reason of course…

The scarf and necklace are from some pieces I was selling a while back. If you are interested in buying any I may have one or two left but I don’t know so email quick if you do! The scarf is amazing, it’s totally in dedication to the late Alexander McQueen, his skull scarves were so edgy, love them! My ring was £8 from ASOS and I wear it all the time, I think I may have about 3 posts wearing it..so sad! My skirt was a MAJOR bargain from Zara’s sale thats just passed, it was reduced from like £35 to £14.99, I know, big savings right there!

These badboys were from Kurt Geiger or, Nine West, sorry, but I bought them from Kurt’s online store. They are so comfortable and look great with everything and I mean EVERYTHING. They are also not AS high as they may look, I love them! The only thing is that my ankle looks super skinny in them, but I don’t know if my ankle filling up the gaps would be much better so I guess I’ll just be happy with the legs I have!

I adore these Riding Pants! I have done an outfit post with them before, they look so amazing with fresh whites and when paired with these black wedges look so simple but so effective. They are super comfortable to wear and the material is so thick it literally smooths over every bump and lump from any blouses or shirts tucked in which is figure flattering for all sizes. I love, love, love the colour, although I do plan on purchasing a couple more, maybe black or cream and they are completely durable and I can imagine will last for a VERY long time! To get your own run down to American Apparel and buy some of your own, I’m sure you can clarify this on the website but I belive they were around £60 – £62 and with student discount I got an extra 10% off which is always nice when you’re spending much more than you know you really should…

My beaaaautiful golden orb necklace is a personal favourite from the one and only Vivienne Westwood. It was expensive, retailed at around £75 off of ASOS.com but it is so worth it as it goes so incredibly well with pretty much every outfit, from dressy evening-wear to simple daytime fashion. I think of it as more of an investment rather than an impulse purchase…

These babies are so easy to walk in and are so comfortable I can’t even tell you. Yes, they look crazily high but they really aren’t, for all of you fellow shoe-lovers who can’t get enough of a good wedged heel you’ll understand that they usually aren’t very difficult to walk in due to the wedge itself. They were actually quite cheap, they were about £30 from a shoe shop called Garage Shoes which sells alot of reasonably priced shoes that are actually quite stylish for the price that they are and they are made very well!

Although it’s coming up to winter, very quickly might I add, I still couldn’t help but to milk the last few days of summer sun us Brits have left hence the major leg exposure. This is the first time I have ever worn ‘Nerd Glasses’ and I absolutely love them. So many celebrities have rocked this look and I’ve seen it but never once thought about trying it our for myself, what works for the masses wont necessarily work for you, but I honestly think this does! It’s preppy, cute, playful and gives an otherwise simplistic look a young, quirky edge it would have otherwise never had.

With my beloved Jeffrey Campbells, a red denim mini, a long white shirt, and my new favorite piece of eyewear, all from H&M I immediately fell in love with this look.

OH and before I forget, I love my sparkly new nails!! They look incredible with every shoe, outfit, glove, sleeve and sandal, they sparkle in dark and to be completely honest they sparkle in the light! I love playing with different types of nail art but I never bring attention to it in my posts, this one, although I didn’t directly do it myself, I am too proud of to ignore!

After a gruelling decade of educating myself, I am here to tell you I finally did it people. College Girl has officially ‘graduated’ from her college years, and is preparing to leave them far, far behind her in the search of bigger and better at University.  WOOOOOOH! For my American counterparts I believe this would be referred to as College, not University, but I am not 100% sure… ANYWAY, I decided to study Print Journalism BA Hons which is a full time course here in Nottingham, as an altercation lead me to change from my first option which was Fashion Communication and Promotion. However, coming to this decision was NOT an easy one and the difficulties I faced from the day I received my results to the day I sit here writing to you may have possibly been THE most important, stressful and emotional few days of my entire life. If I didn’t share this time  of my life with you all and give you some handy tips on how to avoid my mistakes and handle your own then I honestly wouldn’t be doing my beloved followers any justice.

SO, we should probably start at the beginning. August 18th, FIY, worst, day, ever. The actual grades for my A level results were supposed to be released on that morning at around 7, and we were meant to find out whether we were actually successful or not at around 8. Hoooowever me, being the sneaky overachiever that I am couldn’t wait and found a link via a Facebook friend which allowed me to log on and find out whether I was successful or unsuccessful good hour before I had even found out what grades I’d gotten.

So, this turned out to be my first major mistake. Do not ever be too hasty, always wait the alloted time to work out what grades you have received so you can sort out what options you truly have. Knowing you were unsuccessful for a place will only worry you, put you into hysterics and make you make the wrong decisions before knowing all the facts, like I stupidly did. I discovered I was Unsuccessful to study  FCP (Fashion Communication and Promotion) at Nottingham Trent University and became hysterical, inconsolable was probably the better word. I called through to Clearing almost immediately and had no idea what grades I had or how many UCAS points I had actually gained which made the phonecall painfully short and unhelpful, I was told to ring back when I knew what grades I had obtained. A very stressful hour, let me tell you. Then when I received my grades, finally, I called Clearing straight back and after sitting in a queue of what I remember to be about 150 people, including myself, I finally reached a woman who attempted to provide me with some options and other courses I could take related to Fashion. I was only left with Fashion Design and Fashion Textiles and Accessories, neither of which were anything to do with fashion journalism, pr or promotion, which is what I honestly had my heart set to do, yet, in my flustered, emotional flurry I asked to provisionally accept a place onto Fashion Design just to ease the bubbling sensation of being a complete and utter failure. However, the woman, clearly tired, bored and annoyed from the prior 149 calls before me told me I wasn’t able to do either as I didn’t have enough UCAS points…my hysterics reconvened.

My next piece of advice, always check and count your OWN Grade to UCAS Tariff point conversion for yourself and always clarify with  a 2nd credible source, don’t just believe the first thing someone tells you, it isn’t necessarily correct!! I was told I had 270 UCAS points which left very few options for me and as my course and many I wanted to apply for only accepted 300, I believed that the end of the world was nigh, but I was wrong! After getting up, wiping my crazy-tears and going down to speak with the Clearing department at Trent face to face, I discovered I had in fact 310 UCAS points, a pretty big jump from 270 don’t you think?

Next BIG piece of advice, always try to go and speak to somebody in person as soon as you get your grades/University decision. Now this is a hard one because not all of us are lucky enough to have such easy access to their chosen Universities, so take this with a pinch of salt if you can’t, but if you are able to go and speak to a Clearing representative or a Course Leader in your Uni’s chosen department in person, then do, trust me when I say it makes aalll the difference. Although they will try to be as helpful as they can on the phone, they will always be able to do so much more for you in person, whether it’s tracking down the head of your chosen courses department or speaking to a Clearing Advisor who usually tend to come few and far between to get your options and choices straight from the ‘horses mouth’, being there in the flesh forces them to really give you the help that you and so many other students need at this crucial time.

After figuring out that although I did in fact have 300 UCAS points for my FCP course the department didn’t accept AS levels, Key Skills or General studies which was in fact what helped to make up my 300 points, I had to quickly move onto plan B. I had to find a different course and find it FAST. Next point, always make sure your chosen University actually accepts the courses or qualifications your studying before applying. I was under the impression that my chosen course accepted UCAS points awarded from an Extended Project or EPQ Qualification that they offered at my college, only to find out that they didn’t. Although I was told by my college that this qualification would in fact be accepted, it would have been more beneficial to me and less stressful if I had really clarified this with the University as they are the ones who would be choosing whether or not to accept me onto the course. More than anything I felt annoyed, annoyed that I wasted so much time on a qualification that in the end, didn’t really count, this is something that you should all just be very, very aware of whilst studying because it can come around to bite you right on the ass! Moving swiftly on, I decided to move onto  a Journalism course quick-time, so I called a few other Universities that I could easily commute to from home such as De Montfort aUniversity in Leicester and Derby University to see if I would be able to apply for a course there, I have to say I wasn’t too happy about this but  I had to suck it in and deal with it! Which leads me to my next piece of advice, BEGGERS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS! I know it sucks, but if you can, really try your hardest to get onto whatever course, obviously within reason, that you can to get you into the higher educational system. As long as your on a course you have a whole set of brand new options to choose from rather than having to start from ‘scratch’ so to speak.

After all that luckily for me I was able to secure a place on a Print Journalism course at Nottingham Trent University which meant I didn’t have to commute anywhere, I would still be relatively ’close’ to my first choice, FCP, and would still be able transfer onto it in the event that anyone didn’t turn up or dropped out within the first few weeks. Failing that I was happy knowing I was still able to stay at home, studying a course still extremely relevant to my career prospects and that after a year if I found Print journalism wasn’t the right course for me I could simply transfer onto Fashion Communication and Promotion in my 2nd year. WIN, WIN. After giving the Art and Design Marketing Representative my name, UCAS number, Grades and contact details, (REMEMBER! all done face-to-face guys…) I was told I would still have to apply through Clearing but that the course itself wouldn’t be ‘publicised’ for anyone else to add it as a Clearing Choice and I would receive confirmation of my place by the end of the next day at the very latest.

*Pause for Sigh of Relief*

My penultimate piece of advice is to be patient and don’t panic. The people who work in the educational system are genuinely there to help and not harm us, as much as it may seem they aren’t being fast enough or helpful enough for what we need, it’s just because of the stress we’re under, they honestly are. Yes there are a few exceptions to the rule such as the utter fooligan who told me I had 40 UCAS points LESS than I actually had, the majority are really helpful! After I received that relieving piece of news I waited and waited for some kind of confirmation to suggest my place was sealed so I could frolic freely with my other friends who were already giddy at the prospect of Freshers fairs etc but at least 2 days after my conversation with the Marketing Rep at Trent I had received nothing. I began to panic, yet again. First thing Monday I made a much-needed call to the Uni and explained my situation as clearly and politely as possible, after a good 10 minutes of attempting to calm my rising tone to the man on the other end of the phone, he went to find the woman I spoke to and in the end properly confirmed my position on the course assuring me that my confirmation letter would be arriving in the post shortly. The happiness then slowly began to set in.

Okay girls and boys, my FINAL piece of advice, do not worry, YOU ARE NOT ALONE! The amount of people I have spoken to who have felt alone and worried that they are the only ones in difficult situations regarding University choices, courses, grades or all of the above is incredible, and the craziest thing is that there are thousands of us, all going through the exact same thing. If your feeling low find someone, find anyone, even if you have never met them, go onto forums, find blogs, speak to graduates, do whatever you need to do to help YOU through anything you’re dealing with, you can connect with them over a mutual understanding of how difficult all of this is and trust me, it will help you more than a tub of Ben and Jerrys and a sad film…

Let me leave you with this, you, no, we are all more than just the grades we conceive, we are all incredible for even getting this far and should feel empowered by that concept alone! University is NOT the only option, there are countless other ways to make something of ourselves, there are apprenticeships, there are internships, there are jobs available to every one of us even in this economic climate, and there are courses galore all at our fingertips. The future is bright for all of us, University or not, and I can’t stress enough how much it is what we make it.

Every man is the architect of his own fortune

- Sallust

Good Luck guys! I will be sure to keep you posted as I start my journey at University and if you have any queries, questions or worries don’t hesitate to email me and I’ll talk you through it as much as I can!

xoxo

College Girl

If you are looking for some more help, motivation or support here are some of the websites I used to get me through, I hope they help.

www.thestudentroom.co.uk

www.uk-student.net

http://www.studento.com

www.ucas.com

I love them both but I honestly am stuck as to which one to call my own. On one hand there is this ball of Faux Fox Furry madness that I can’t seem to put down, it was the last one left on the fixture and was reduced…always a plus, and then on the other there is this beaaautiful chocoloate brown Faux Fur coat that would look so lovely on and looks equally as cosy. I have to admit, one downside that continues to plague my choices in fashion is the concept of buying anything remotely popular from Topshop, there is this unspoken understanding that all Topshop lovers must grasp, that there WILL be another 50 girls walking around with that said same coat, bag, shoe or hat and there’s pretty much nothing you can do about it. This painful, but irritatingly true fact kind of makes me yearn for the sweat release of Faux Fox Fur even more…

Okay, so I’m thinking that the best way to figure out what decision I should make is to post it on the blog and hope for some form of USEFUL response, a comment, a suggestion, even a query, I really don’t mind, I just need to make sure I select the right coat and I need to make sure I select it NOW before I hastily rip the tags from this coats bosom and foolishly cast the receipt aside. Here is the link to the current coats competition, alliterary linguistics not intended, http://goo.gl/BhzYq, so you can see the dilemma in which I have found myself and I am praying someone out there will know what to do better than I!

I reaaally don’t think this is my coat, but after a good half hour of searching for a clear photo of it on the House of Fraser website and a pure loss of will power I kind of gave up and am currently happy settling for second best just to show you what this wonderful furry beauty looks like without the shoddy late night camera skills of my willing and poorly skilled other half. Picture this coat, but bigger, poofier and a bit more silvery with whiter tones …

My Shoes are from the one and only Jeffrey Campbell, you guys have seen them before..many times! My shorts are vintage from a little vintage place here in Nottingham called Cow for anyone who ever plans to visit and my shirt is a buy from somewhere I would never usually buy from…NEW LOOK! I know, I shocked even myself. I always felt that New Look was sort of, young…for me, no offence to those die-hard New Look shoppers but sometimes, once every blue moon, they come out with something, that one garment, or shoe or hat that just knocks me right off my high-horse and back down to earth. For me, this blouse was that garment. I love the colours, I love the material and I love the price…£16.99 with student discount made me so happy I can’t even describe. Students, GET TO NEW LOOK and make the most of your discounts!!!