Chronicling Cruise to New Caledonia

Recently I set sail on a 7 night cruise to the islands of New Caledonia, which proved to be a very relaxing break away from the chaos of the Christmas holiday season. We boarded the 'Carnival Spirit', aptly nicknamed the 'Fun Ship', from Circular Quay allowing us to take some snaps from our balcony of the glistening Sydney harbour before we sailed into the sunset. The days at sea before and after we reached our destination were filled with laying in the sun, swimming, going on the largest water slide on a cruise ship, playing mini golf and basketball, reading, eating 24/7, and then going to the gym so that we didn't feel so guilty about all the eating. 

In Noumea, our first port of call, we took a coach tour around the city, which hosted an array of French named boutiques and cafes, where I put into practise the small amount of French I learnt in year 8 to figure out what everything was, with little success. We then stopped off at the Le Meridian Resort for a swim in the pool and the ocean. The next two days were spent in Lifou, and the Isle of Pines, with the latter featuring the bluest water I have ever seen, making it perfect for snorkelling and relaxing on the white sand.

Whilst it was sad to leave, we arrived back just a couple of days before the most exciting time of the year, Christmas!

♫ ♪ Call Me the Breeze- John Mayer ♫ ♪

We would also like to take the chance to say we hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and thank you for all your support these last few months. We are looking forward to a very exciting year filled with new adventures and of course blog posts!

Chronicling our Christmas List

Christmas List:

1. By Charlotte "Sleeping Beauty" thread earrings - $139

2. By Charlotte "Shooting Star" white sapphire ear cuff - $329

3. Kikki K "A Sentence a Day Journal: Celebrate Today" - $24.95

4. Lack of Colour "Midnight Muse" fedora - $45

5. Wittner "Voyer" flatform - $129.95

6. Wittner "Osaka" boot - $149.95

7. All artwork by Kelly Smith

Chronicling Styling a Photoshoot

For the last three weeks, I completed a Summer school elective for my fashion degree, called 'Contemporary Fashion Styling'. One of the major components was to style and shoot an eight page editorial for a magazine in groups of five. We were given a pretty ambiguous brief and the target market of successful, relatively wealthy, 35 year old women, leaving us with ample room to experiment. We decided to keep the styling pretty minimal and used light and neutral colours to represent our concept of 'Sounds of Silence'. We also chose items that are not conventionally 'cool' e.g. crocs and a hat with a back flap, and shot them on someone 'cool' in order to generate new trends.

We woke up at 4 am, to start setting up on Cockatoo Island at 7am and found out Angelina Jolie was directing her latest film on the Island as well, and had blocked off half the site! We were slightly devastated that we didn't spot Jolie, but all in all we were really happy with how the shoot turned out.

-Jess

Chronicling Brisbane

This past weekend, we opted to exchange Sydney's bipolar weather for its sunnier neighbour up north, Brisbane. The getaway started on the 32nd floor of a hotel in the heart of the busy CBD, with views extending from Brissie river to Queen St Mall. This perfect location allowed us to explore what Brisbane's CBD had to offer, including their local restaurants, cafes and stores (minus the biggest Topshop in Australia that unfortunately opened the day after our departure). Within this relatively calm city, our new favourite hiding spot was uncovered in the form of eclectic cafe, Brew, in Burnett Lane. Not only did Brew have the best coffee in town, but their Brew's Brekkie Salad is now our favourite thing to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and all meals in between. In addition to exploring Brisbane's concrete jungle, a lot of time was spent in their trendy inner-city suburbs of Fortitude Valley and Paddington, where we discovered the perfect French patisserie for afternoon tea, at Le Bon Choix. Despite being 920km away from home, Sydney's erratic weather did not escape us, with much of the first 24 hours being spent with the latest issue of Frankie and novel, the Rumour Mill. 

Chronicling the MTV Summer Party

On Thursday night, we attended the MTV Summer Party in Sydney's historic Town Hall. The night started out well with us meeting Big Brother's 2013 winner, Tim Dormer (who was unfortunately not in his skeleton onesie) in the long line to get in. We then headed past the Justin Bieber imposter into the incredibly transformed venue. The roof was covered with inflatable pool toys, whilst the centre of the floor was an elevated dance floor that resembled a pool. Bikini clad and topless male models roamed the venue, alongside other Aussie celebs like Lincoln Lewis, Nathan Jolliffe, Tim Dormer and Mikkayla Mossop. 

Throughout the night, sweet tunes were played by Elly K on the dance floor to create the heavy Summer vibe throughout the moderate Spring night. Straight after Elly K had finished her set, Peking Duk came onto the main stage playing a supporting set that did not stop anyone from dancing. Finally, the anticipated 360 bounced onto the stage with deafening welcome screams being heard throughout all of Sydney's CBD. Our front row view allowed us to not only get a good close up of this Aussie rapping icon but get some good pics as well, with 360 himself regramming our image and MTV using it on their own site. All in all, the night was incredible, resembling a perfect summer pool party in one of Sydney's most prestigious venues in the middle of the CBD.

♫ ♪ Run Alone- 360 ♫ ♪