Things We Learn In Our 20's

The most difficult and most important life lessons are often learnt while we're still in our twenties, as this is a time when we are on a journey to 'find' ourselves and begin to grow into the people we want to be. Anything that's worth having doesn't come easily and in order to change, evolve and become the best we can, we have to face a few stumbling blocks along the way. These are a few significant lessons that most of us will learn while we're in our 20's. 

The Most Important Lessons We Learn In Our 20's

1. Love hurts, but not as much as not loving.

2. The friendships you nurture will have a greater effect on your life than where you work or what you earn.

3. You are not your job. You are not your bankroll. You are not the sum of your possessions.

4. The company does not love you. It has no heart. You are replaceable. 

Keep your parachute handy.

5. Few decisions will ever shape your future life more than who you choose to marry. 

To marry well, you must choose well.

6. Believe it or not, passions grow out of your values. Make early, wise choices to value what and who is good, trustworthy, and praiseworthy.

7. Rejoice in your health. It fades fast.

8. Find a passion. If you want to develop your passion and gift, stop worrying about the things you do poorly. Go with your strengths.

9. Don’t bother comparing yourself to others—this only leads to heartbreak, anger, and disappointment.

10. Most disappointments grow from unmet expectations. Set realistic expectations for yourself, based on your strengths, then strive to exceed them.

11. Don’t set expectations for others when they haven’t or cannot commit to them.

12. Don’t complain. Either change your situation, learn to cope, or change your perspective.

13. Don’t worry about making major money immediately, worry first about doing whatever you have to do excellently.

14. Little stuff matters—even in lowly jobs. The boss notices and even if not, your peers and colleagues do.

15. Don’t look down on others because they don’t have what you didn’t earn—your intellect, your beauty, and your culture of birth are undeserved gifts…be humble.

16. Failure is an opportunity: no great man or woman ever achieved significance without great failures to learn from.

17. Never withhold an apology when it’s merited. Deliver it quickly, sincerely, and personally—before resentment festers.

18. You don’t need to nurture old guilt when you’re forgiven. But remembering the remorse can help you avoid repeats.

19. The main thing you need to do quickly is to stop doing things quickly. Trade hurry for calm, confidence, and precision.

20. Everybody needs an editor. Everybody.

21. Avoid fights. Seriously. Avoid them like a plague: nobody wins in a fight, even if you walk away unscathed. But when a fight picks you, leave everything on the mat and give it your all. Hold nothing back.

22. If you’re bored, you’re doing it wrong.

23. The skills that will help your career most are the abilities to assimilate, communicate, and persuade. Keep learning.

24. Protect your joy. Nothing is easier to lose by over-thinking, overanalyzing, and second-guessing. On the other hand, always consider the long-term consequences of your choices: stupid decisions made in the moment can rob you of years of joy and happiness.

25. Your purpose in life determines how you frame events. You can maintain your joy in the most dire circumstances if you find meaning for your life. Dig deep.

26. It truly matters what you think about. Think well by reading good books, building good, loving relationships, having good conversation, and imitating great people.

What Have You Learnt in Your 20's?

*Original list by Rich Tatum. Editorial via Schon Magazine.

Things I've Learnt About Awards Season

Now that Awards Season 2014 has finally wrapped up, we can look back and discuss the valuable lessons we have learnt from this glitzy Hollywood charade.

Things I've Learnt About Awards Season

1. We know that top designers lend dresses throughout Awards Season to all the actors and actresses. But what happens to all these fabulous dresses once they have been worn? Obviously, no other famous person will wear the same dress twice. I think they need to make a Fashion Blogger Donation Box and dump all those designer dresses in there. 

2. A guaranteed way to win a Best Actress/Actor Award is to look your absolute worst, act mentally deranged or gain/lose enough weight, so much so, that people begin thinking you have an actual illness.

3. Do celebrities get tired of being asked the exact same questions by the (exact same) tv hosts at every single awards show? 

4. Isn't it funny how the ERed Carpet team gush over every actresses outfit when they interview them live and tell them how much they love their look, but then go (not so behind their back) on The Fashion Police and trash them to pieces over the exact same dress. #TwoFaced

5. It baffles me that celebrities have access to the best stylists and designers, but yet some of them still manage to look like they have worn a scrap of un-ironed fabric that's been stuck together with staples.

6. Another thing, the designer has been kind enough to lend you the dress, so be courteous enough to at least remember their name when asked on the red carpet.

7. Stars always get their hair done by an expert hairdresser, but some of them appear on the red carpet with hair that looks like it's building it's own nest or hasn't been brushed in a week.

8. Stars spend hours having their makeup done only to look like they have on no makeup at all

9. The Oscars Swag Bag this year was filled to the brim with $85 000 worth of fabulous goodies including a Swiss watch, spa home system, a tour to Japan, a holiday in Hawaii and Mexico, a trip to Las Vegas for anyone wanting to reenact The Hangover and a train ride to the Canadian Rockies. Strangely enough there was also some horse shampoo thrown in. Seriously? All the nominees can obviously afford this lap of luxury...why are they getting it all for free?

10. The critics who vote on these awards shows would have to watch each season of all the nominated TV series (dramas and comedies), view every single movie and made-for-tv-movie (more than once) and listen to every album that's up for an award. Who has that much free time on their hands? Is that all they do the entire year?

11. Men can wear the same classic black tuxedo to every single awards show, year after year and no one will know any better.

12. Celebrities, please secure yourselves in all the right places because there are cameras EVERYwhere on the red carpet targeting every single angle you own.

13. Every nude shaded and sequined dress is starting to look the same to me.

Elie Saab Red Carpet Dresses

14. If you don't want to be on any Worst Dressed Lists just wear a plain black dress or anything by Elie Saab. Or a plain black dress by Elie Saab. It's always the safest option.

15. But if you want to be at the top of any Worst Dressed Lists, just get your styling advice from Ke$ha, Jessie J, Nicki Minaj or Lady Gaga.

16. Someone needs to stop inviting Miley Cyrus to these high society events. Either that or at least lend her some clothes. Actual clothes and not shreds of a fishnet stocking or teddy bear.

17. It's really unfair when the Award winners are announced and the camera immediately flashes to all the nominees that didn't win, to capture the image of disappointment/envy/fury on their faces. That's just mean.

18. Someone please give Amy Adams and Leo DiCaprio an Oscar, they have each been nominated 5 times before, and all under the age of 40. I think that's impressive enough to snag an honorary win.

19. I find it a little confusing that celebrities (like Leo, Bradley, JLaw) don't walk the red carpet with their significant others to avoid the gossip mills but then sit right next to them in plain view of the entire world during the awards show. We can see you, you know.

20. And finally, now that Awards Season is officially over, will someone please feed these skinny celebs loads of ice cream, hamburgers and fries. They deserve it.

What have you learnt this Awards Season? I'd love to hear your additions to this list.

*Images via eonline, People Magazine

Things I've Learnt From Fashion Week

If you are a fashion lover even in the mildest of forms, for the past four weeks, your world has been a whirlwind of catching up on countless catwalk shows from New York to Paris. During the time we all were glued to our screens, I found that there is more to fashion week than just clothes. Whilst I learnt a few new lessons, there are also a couple of things that have left me in complete bewilderment. Probably the most invaluable pieces of knowledge I have ever picked up - These are the things I've learnt from Fashion Week.

Things I've Learnt From Fashion Week:

*Fashion is what we see on the runway, but Style is what we see on the street.

*Some attendees aim to get noticed by photographers by looking effortlessly chic, while others gain attention by looking like they had 10 seconds to get dressed in the dark from a box of costumes that belong backstage at a Broadway production.

*I wonder whether some of the heavily beaded colossally large ball gowns weigh more than the models themselves.

*It truly is a miracle that models still have most of their own hair after all the pinning and pulling, heat styling, braiding, curling, crimping, brushing, blowdrying, wig glueing, ironing and extending. I need to find out what shampoo they are using.

*I still have no idea why British designers (like Victoria Beckham) show at New York Fashion Week, and American designers (like Tom Ford) show at London Fashion Week.

*Designers usually come on to stage at end of their show to take a bow and bask in the glorious applause...This is their moment in the sun, so one would at least expect them to look their best or brush their hair for goodness sake!

*Designers can create just about any type of commodity from clothes to shoes, bags, makeup, fragrances and sunglasses, you would think that the least they could do is manufacture some underwear for their models to wear on the runway. I don't see how nudity is necessary when no one in their right minds (besides Lady Gaga) would dress that way in public.

*No matter what your style - minimalist, glamourous, sporty, classic, feminine, bohemian, tomboyish or dramatic, there is guaranteed to be a collection that will suit you. 

*I've figured that a model's real talent doesn't lie in the way she presents a designer's clothes on the runway, it's in the fact that she can walk 20+ shows in death-defying heels (without stumbling) and still look darn good doing it.

*Each city brings it's own brand of uniqueness to the fashion week table. New York yields a cosmopolitan blend of modern finesse, London has its roots in edgy innovation and interesting prints, Milan brings the high end glamour and sex appeal, and Paris is all about demure beauty and feminine elegance.

*I've realized that as long as you're designing for a highly admired and historically renowned fashion house, it doesn't matter if the clothes look like it's been strung together from the leftovers of a circus convention, critics will praise your work nonetheless.

*Runway makeup (especially the type that looks like the spattered remains of a detonated disco ball) Never, I repeat, Never Ever looks good in real life.

*I haven't quite figured out why designers create clothes for Size 0, 1.85m tall models, when the average woman (who is their actual consumer) is far off from that unattainable shape. 

*If Anna Wintour makes an appearance at your fashion show, either you must be exceptionally good at what you do, or she has a lot of free time on her hands. Which I highly doubt.

*It's never really worth buying into a $5000 trend that will only last one season. Or two. 

*No matter how many times I see the same collection on different blogs and websites, I always find something new to admire about it that I had originally missed.

*I find that the success of a collection can be established by how instantly recognizable any of the pieces are when worn off the runway.

*If socialites, heiresses and celebrities get most of the runway looks free of charge for publicity stints, who, then is actually buying these outrageously priced clothes?

*And finally, I've learnt that fashion week is a celebration of creativity, where ingenious designers convey their art by way of impeccably sewn clothes in exquisite prints and fabrics, brought to life by a supernaturally perfect human species known as supermodels. And as for the rest of us mere mortals, we just watch on in awe...then blog about it.

What have you learnt about Fashion Week?

*Images via Vogue.com & Style.com

Things We've Learnt From Gossip Girl

We've spent six seasons delving into the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite, and amidst all the scheming, drama, blackmail, backstabbing, social events, love triangles and fabulous clothes, there were quite a few good life lessons to be learnt, all narrated by our favourite (not-so-secret-anymore) source, 'Gossip Girl'. In tribute to the end of an era, I've put together some of my much-loved quotes from the TV series over the years, as related by 'the voice' of Gossip Girl. These are accompanied by a few unforgettable fashion moments from the show.

A Few Memorable Lines:

* "Forget a grand entrance. Everyone knows that it’s the exit they’ll remember.”
* “Sometimes, despite the risk, the most important thing is to seize the moment. 
Or whatever else you can grab.”

* "But our most dangerous enemies are the ones we never knew we had."

* “One thing about being on the top of the world.. it gives you a long, long way to fall.” 

* "Sometimes the most important thing to know is when to get out. And when to give in."

* “The thing about new beginnings is that they require something else to end.”

* "You better get your beauty rest now. Because it looks like things could get ugly in the morning. XOXO —Gossip Girl"

"In our modern age, when you call someone and can't find them
 you can be pretty sure they'll get the message.
But if they don't call you back, it usually means they don't want to be found."

I think I will be able to look back at this post in a few years and fondly remember a time when Blair was the headband wearing Queen B, Serena was a capricious It-Girl, Chuck ran the empire, Nate was being, well charming, benevolent Nate and Lonely Boy Dan was actually the one who spun everyone's world around. Which is your most memorable 'Gossip Girl' moment?


*The images and quotes do not belong to me, but these cards do, if you would like to use them, please refer back to this blog. Thank you!