Victoria’s Worst Kept Secret

It wasn’t until I took my German exchange student to London last year (shoutout to Marie-Jeanne) that I realised how much of a big deal Victoria’s Secret is. Such a big deal in fact, that despite all the incredibly exciting things you can see in London ie. Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the Gherkin, MJ decided to spend three hours looking at kinky pants to take home for her friends and family- no questions asked- because apparently there’s no Vicky C’s in Germany and that is such a tragedy. Now if I’m completely honest I probably didn’t go in there with an open mind; we’ve all heard the stories of VS (for all those acronym fans amongst you) models, otherwise known as ‘angels’, going on cotton wool diets and renting rooms at their local gyms just to stay skinny but I was sure I would’ve been able to ignore those rumours if the shop had a body positive atmosphere that I’d just missed amongst its promotion.

 

Seriously, when I first entered the New Bond Street store- which is probably more the size of a small country than a shop- I was excited to discover a place where women would unite over the inconvenience of needing a bra. Where mums would take their daughters to make boobs seem a little less daunting. Where people would be measured casually in the middle of the shop floor, because who cares? It’s all women here. I had really high hopes.

Sweater Weather Tag

Welcome to not only a new week but also a new season, yes Teamales it is officially autumn and I blady hate it.

I’m pretty sure eighteen white girls just dropped their pumpkin spice lattes in utter shock so please let me explain. It’s not that I don’t like autumn (seriously A don’t take it personally) I just hate how it’s becoming yet another consumer holiday, Starbucks were probably the first to ruin it with THAT perfume tasting drink, then Instagram took their piece of the pie with all these fall fashion hashtags including layering which we’ve already discussed is highly impractical and now suddenly everyone is obsessed with Halloween? I just don’t get it. I don’t want to demote mustard and brown coloured clothes to a three month period. And- let’s be realistic here- what even is a pumpkin spice?

I stole this pic from Em

With all this in mind, when I was nominated to do the Sweater Weather Tag by the sugarplums at http://theclosetplebeians.com/ I was super excited. For anyone that hasn’t come across tags before the idea of them is to thank the person that nominated you, answer the questions provided and then nominate other bloggers to answer them too.

Girl Power Devoured ft. #LikeAGirl

Google’s definition of Girl Power: a term of empowerment, expressed a cultural phenomenon of the 1990s and early 2000s (decade).

The phrase is older than me.

But I’ve started to notice that despite woman crush Wednesday, Lena Dunham and spice girls lyrics, we don’t really have a lot of this so called girl power anymore; we are celebrating, idolising and empowering women more than ever but we’re not truly supporting and accepting them. Sometimes it feels like we’re screening HeForShe when we haven’t shown the SheForShe prequel. And this has very swiftly forced me to conclude that we hate women.

Now Teamales you may be looking over at your lesbian lover/best friend/I heart Tess Daly mug thinking BUT JESS I DON’T HATE WOMEN! And this of course is an understandable reaction, we don’t purposely dislike our own tribe, but we neglect them on a regular basis. For example, when was the last time you described yourself as a girly girl?

Back to Struggles

Happy Monday Teamales and what a wonderful start to the week as the child fares of the world go back to school- what do you mean they went back last week? Oh what a shame. I’ll just have to gloat about the fact that I don’t go back until Wednesday instead (definitely didn’t time this on purpose). I’m sure all said school goers are bored by now of the endless Back to School shop window displays, the Clarks shoes that are way too tight and the tutorials of ‘simple student makeup’ that actually involves two Naked palettes, a smoky eye and lip liner (wtf is lip liner) so I’m about to shake it up- and off- a bit. I’m here to talk about the bits that aren’t quite as glamorous as Zoella’s new pencil case: The Back to School Struggles.

When you forget to take blog pictures and have to improvise. Hashtag relatable.

The Tools: The first struggle of going back to school is how to spell ‘stationery’- I’m sorry it just looks wrong, who decided to get rid of ‘stationary’ which reminds me of a train station for missionaries and replace it with a gross ‘e’- a task that is almost as difficult as using all the stationery you buy. Because we all know that stationery is a highly important and totally useful purchase, I try to explain this to the manager of Paperchase as he issues my second restraining order, but you just won’t use half of it- I know, even the fruit scented gel pens that you impulse bought with what should’ve been your bus fare home. You’ll spend the next year borrowing a crappy biro off the girl that always has spare biros and everytime they say ‘get into pairs’ you’ll specifically only choose people that own highlighters. Simple. The remaining content of your pencil case can be reused as last minute birthday presents for the friends whose names you can’t really remember.