Primadonna Girl - Bloglovin', H&M and Floral

Before you get started, I’d like to invite you to listen as you look today. This blog post has been inspired by both Lana Del Rey and Marina the Diamonds. Please click on the name of the artist you love to go through to a playlist I’ve created for background music, especially for this post.

I started this little blog in 2006. At first it was more like a journal, writing about things that interested me and trying to capture snapshots of my life. I didn’t put much into it and there was a whole year where I made under 5 posts. In 2012, I had a huge quarter life crisis and found myself at the end of the year in Paris with my sister, my whole reality unravelling like torn satin. The thing about being with my sister when everything came apart is that we’ve been through the worst of this world together already. When everything else seemed surreal and like the world was spinning too fast, she was a calm in the storm. Paris. Beautiful, Paris. It was the sixth time I’d been there, and the first time I’d loved it. It was there by Galeries Lafayette that I bought my first ever H&M item. This dress was part of a H&M collection with Lana Del Rey and my sister convinced me to buy it.

Fast forward a little over a year to the start of 2014, and my life was a very different place. It was then that I finally decided to make my blog everything I’d always wanted it to be. It was a simple decision and I found it only took a little bit each week to commit to do a single blog post. I noticed my blog traffic slowly increasing and excitedly looked at every site that sent me referrals. It was then that I discovered Bloglovin’ and how easy it was to follow all the blogs I liked in one place. After a couple of months getting into the habit of creating and posting a photo series each week, I saw the Bloglovin’ Breakthrough Blogger of the Year contest, and set myself a goal to try to enter it in a year’s time. So here I am! A little over a year of fashion blogging under my belt and still loving it.

Something Navy asked for entrants to style something that exemplifies my own style and The Haute Pursuit challenged entrants to look at their blog photography, with a special focus on using light to enhance what they capture. I wanted to do both of these things, and I was so excited to style this particular H&M dress for it. I adore classic feminine styles, and have been enchanted by the tragically beautiful styles of both Lana Del Rey and Marina and the Diamonds. To capture that emotion in an outfit post needs both light and movement to animate the romantic and surreal elements of the scene. I went to a historic music venue I love (Suttons House of Music) and used their beautiful upstairs room which has tall windows, billowing curtains and gorgeous old furniture to try and capture contrasting light.