Birthday dress

Topshop, £45

After ordering LBD after LBD on ASOS and continuously feeling disappointed with each one, I finally found my perfect birthday dress - on the day of my birthday and literally hours before my celebratory dinner. I'm never usually a last minute person in terms of dresses; I can always be seen rushing around to buy earrings/tights/shoes on the day of the dinner, but the dress is always decided weeks if not months in advance. I think my recent shoots had a huge influence on my relaxed attitude this time - 80% of the wardrobe is generally purchased one or two days before the shoot, and I tend to find what I need when under pressure. Plus, knowing that I had four not-ideal-but-functional dresses waiting at home in the worst case scenario was a slight comfort! Having said that, I did try to squeeze into one of the dresses featured in my last post, but thus realised that 1) I am not a 5ft9+ agency model, and 2) I will end up poking somebody's eye out, if not my own.

I snapped up this gorgeous white dress from Topshop after spotting it on the website, and am so in love with it. The back is V-shaped with a big black zip running halfway down - at first I was apprehensive, but it definitely gave the dress a nice edge, and also made it a partial LBD! I wore it with a huge gold necklace, dark red lipstick and got my hair done in a half updo at the Hersheson's Blow-Dry Bar in Topshop - the experience was questionable, as it involved no washing or actual blow-drying, but I was happy with the result, even though I most likely won't return. £24 for a hairstyle that I could've created myself (albeit in two hours as opposed to ten minutes)? Thanks Topshop, but no thanks!

My birthday night out was lovely, I had a lovely evening at Gilgamesh in Camden (huge and amazing, the pictures on the website do not do it justice), followed by shisha in a very questionable spot in Stables Market (the shisha was rubbish but my friends made it fun!).

Now I'm unfortunately back to reality; I'm going back to university in a week and two days, I have a 2,000 word report to tackle but always seem to be interning when my university library is open, and the plethora of Bank Holidays means that all of my usual study spaces are closed - lovely. It's going to be a stressful week, but I will try to find time to update, especially after I finish my internship this Thursday - it will be quite sad for me but I'm looking forward to reflecting on my experience.