N.O.A

Notes On Allure has grown over the last few months and I have enjoyed watching my online space become a place where I can discuss, create and publish all the fashionable, musical and sometimes strange things that I discover. I have let down my creative writing when it comes to this online world of mine, but I have the chance every now and then to infuse my train-of-thought style into short snappy pieces that somehow fit into this, what seems to be now, fashion and lifestyle blog.

I have been asked a few times recently how I came about blogging, and especially how I ended up writing about fashion and beauty, so let me tell you a little secret dear readers – Google analytics tells me most of you are from the UK, but they are a few from all over the world, 2% in Russia, Zdravstvuj to you – I am not entirely sure. When I was at university I started up two blogs simultaneously. One was my cultural voice and the other was pure escapism, a place to publish my fictional imagination. In February this year I merged them into Notes On Allure and began reviewing beauty products and commenting on fashion. That’s where my fashionable mind lies; I am not a trend forecaster, I find it hard to get my head around working 6 months in advance like I had to do with long leads whilst in PR. I started this blog as a place to put all my thoughts in one place. I have one of those annoying minds, that never slows down or stops thinking of new ways to describe the mundane, and somehow – possibly due to my current masters degree – the majority of posts end up being about designers and style or the way to mix them with the music that fills my ears. I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday, a young guy who also wants to write, and will make a great writer one day, discussing the flakiness of the fashion publishing industry. He works alongside the industry and sees how it is run from the inside out, so has many thoughts and opinions on the people who work in and also those who think they run it. I love our chats about this because as a blogger you can be seen as an outsider to this world. A person so independent from it, that to wish to be part of it almost makes your blog obsolete.

But writing was always my main goal. I know there isn’t many fashion writers that get onto the bestsellers list for fiction, but it would be nice if it happened. Don’t you think? Wouldn’t it also be nice to read pieces about next seasons runway shows written by Haruki Murakami, Jeffery Eugenides or the late J. G. Ballard. Only me? My mind wonders. So this is my point, if you didn’t quite get it yet, fashion and beauty may seem fickle to some of you out there, and Notes On Allure may seem to be targeting mostly females now, but I assure you this will change very soon as I will be welcoming a male fashion editor in the next few weeks, however there are some amazing beauty and fashion writers out there who tackle current trends and products with such intelligence and wit like Eva Wisemen, Sali Hughes and Joanna McGarry, that why couldn’t they write a stimulating piece of fiction. And for those of you still a little slow on the uptake, I want to be one of those writers.