Believe it or not, I actually grew up trying my hardest to be a tomboy. When I was a young I was obsessed with Avril Lavigne and wanted to dress like her and be like her through any means possible. I would go to school and colour my nails in black with felt tip pens, I would try and act as boy-ish and possible and I would proclaim to everyone that I was a tomboy. Of course, this was when I was very young. Over time I grew and my style evolved a ton, and is still evolving every day. Some of you may know that recently, I worked with JORD on a piece centred all around the items I am happy to put a bit more dollar towards – the items I see as investment pieces. Well, the JORD team were so kind as to send through another watch (and sponsor another giveaway – which you can find all the details to enter at the end of this post!) When shooting this with my lovely photographer, she said that she never would have pictured me in a wooden watch, and you know what? A year ago I wouldn’t have pictured it either. It kind of got me thinking about my style evolution over time…

1. The all over the place period
After the tomboy period came the period where I was really just all over the place. I mean – I would wear running trainers as a fashion accessory type of period. This came shortly into starting secondary school – which of course is the time where your outfit choices get judged the most! I would wear the most random pieces of clothing all remixed together, from random thick running shows, bootlet jeans and woolly turtlenecks with a stitching of a cat sewn in. It was a mess. But the funny thing was – I thought I was super fashionable! Aside from two boys once pointing and laughing at my trainers (I’ll never forget…), I otherwise thought everyone was feeling my outfits. However some years down the line, people would always laugh and joke about “that time I didn’t know how to dress”, and I quickly realised that the fashionista I thought I was was grossly misinformed.

 

 

2. The super trendy period
I’d say some time into my teen years, I entered a period of being super trendy. I’m talking – every trend that was out there, I was on it. Heck, I was even more up to date with developments in the fashion world than I am today. McQueen skull scarfs are being warn by all the celebs? Well, let me take myself down to Primark and buy a £5 dupe. The Kardashians all own a Celine luggage tote? Well, I’m going to jump on eBay and purchase myself the £15 dupe. Wait – everyone is wearing the Celine Paris tee? Me too, once I buy it for £10 on eBay.

I would save up money from a webdesign shop I ran at the time and any left over lunch money I had and splurge it on eBay and Primark exclusively. I would also imitate celebs with every outfit I wore. As in I would Google ‘Vanessa Hudgens/Kim Kardashin/Cheryl Cole style’, see what pieces I owned which could emulate these looks, and wear them out. It used to take up SO much time in my day.

I would say its around this period that I really started to develop a love for style, and I definitely wouldn’t have this style blog now if it wasn’t for this transition.

3. The plain Jane period
When I started university, my super trendy days came to a swift halt. I suddenly stopped caring… and to be fair… I was probably too hungover most of the time to even do much more than grab a top and pair of jeans out of my wardrobe. I just really did not care about how I dressed at all, I’d pair things in the most careless ways, with all types of crazy colours, and not think too much of it. I even completely stopped wearing jewellery at the time – no earrings, necklaces, nothing. Which is such a far cry from how I am today. This went on for my first one and bit years of university, then soon into second year I decided to start experimenting with style again as I started to feel very out of touch with my femininity. Plus, I’d just got myself a new boyfriend and wanted to do that thing called putting in effort. I’d say my style definitely picked up at this point, but I really did not have tons of money to spend on truly transforming my wardrobe (especially not whilst I was spending tons each week to live in a central London flat), so my wardrobe really had to suffer. I entered a period of crop tops and skirts only and found myself in this cycle for the next c. 2 years (and not to say there’s anything wrong with crop tops and skirts… as you can see – I’m wearing them in this outfit!)

 

 

4. Me IRL
Finally, I started working full time this time last year. I’ll be honest, I didn’t have many plans to do a full wardrobe reshuffle, but it was actually my mum that encouraged me to start branching out at experimenting. Afterall, its really not every single day crop top and skirt. So I’ve been slowly building up my wardrobe – discovering new stores, finding myself, trying new things and still keeping the effort up. How would I describe my style? I would say quite simple, sophisticated, and (hopefully) stylish. Definitely a far cry from the tomboy I once was…

With this outfit, the browns in my JORD watch I knew would match so perfectly with the gold/black tones of the overall look. I chose to go for the CORA series zebrawood & turquoise watch purely because I was drawn by the bright turqoise face – little details like these are actually feel are what makes JORD watches unique. Plus – wooden watches are new and unique, why wouldn’t you want to be one of the firsts to board the train?

Photos: Marianne Paul

 

Now onto the giveaway…

I’ve teamed up with JORD and will be running a giveaway for your own wooden watch. There are no rules – no requirements to tweet, follow, nothing – just head over to the link, and enter your name!

Up for grabs is $100 to go towards your own Jord watch (many of their watches are actually in the c. $130-150 region, which means you could end up only having to put a very small amount towards your own Jord watch). Everyone that enters gets $25 towards their own Jord watch. Basically, there are no losers!

 

*This post has been sponsored by Jord – but all opinions are of course my own.

Luxury Wooden Watch