This reminds me of the MySpace surveys I used to fill out. This survey probably originally circulated around MySpace before working its way to Tumblr and then being copied and pasted onto my blog.
1. How often do you go clothes shopping? Generally I go every week, but I don’t necessarily buy things every time I go shopping. If I had a job then I would!
2. What are your favourite shops?Urban Outfitters, Oxfam, British Red Cross, Pop Boutique, Beyond Retro, Selfridges and House of Fraser.
3. What are your least favourite shops?Primark, Peacocks, Matalan, Shoe Zone, Priceless Shoes, TK Maxx, Jane Norman, JD Sports, Sports World, Jack Wills, Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, River Island… the list goes on! Basically, I hate chav shops. TK Maxx is OK at times, but everything is such a mess that it usually gives me a migraine.
4. Do you like shopping in your own country or do you prefer shopping abroad?I love shopping in the U.K; it’s no secret that we have the best high street in the world. There is such an interesting mix of shops in the U.K. That said, I love shopping in different countries too. But nothing beats the U.K.
5. Do you have any bad shopping habits?I do have one bad habit, yes, which is my inconsiderate nature. I don’t think about things before I buy them. I do have a tendency to just pick something attractive off a shelf and then buy it. I don’t usually have the patience to try things on. For that reason, I often have to return things to shops a few days later.
6. Which country has the best style?England.
7. Who are your favourite designers?Luella Bartley, Christopher Kane, Erdem Moralioglu, Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld.
8. Do you buy designer clothes more than you buy cheaper clothes from the high street etc?No, because I’m only 16! I can hardly ever afford to buy designer clothes, never mind being able to find the funds to purchase them regularly!
9. Are there any clothes/styles that you want to disappear forever?Jeggings, the “preppy chav” Jack Wills/Abercrombie/Hollister look, Uggs (a key part of the latter), the “indie/hipster” look (think wayfarers with clear lenses, brogues, high-waisted skirt, some stupid band tee, lots of flowers etc etc… they all say, “oh I’m so unique and indie”, but they’re not because they’re just being like two fifths of the British population).
10. Which style do you prefer: prep, emo, goth, punk, scene?I’m going to have to say goth because I just loathe all of the other looks. But what’s the difference between a goth and an emo?
11. Do you honestly wear everything in your wardrobe?No
12. What was your best fashion bargain?Brand new Russell and Bromley wedges for £7 from Oxfam.
13. Are you are shoe or a bag girl?A bag girl, because I’m still too young to wear the super-high heels of my dreams and not feel like a slut or a little girl who has raided her mothers wardrobe
14. What was your first designer bag like?A tan leather Luella for Mulberry Gisele. It was beautiful but I needed the money to go to Italy so I sold it on eBay last year. I really want it back now and I think about it all of the time. I am determined to buy another one from eBay… I might try a different colour, though. I bidded on a red one about a month ago for £142 but I was outbid.
15. Which designer bag(s) do you really want right now?I really want the Mulberry Alexa because a) I have always wanted a Mulberry bag, b) I love Alexa Chung so much and c) the bag is so bloody gorgeous that I just want to be able to own one for myself and be able to sit it on my lap and stroke it whenever I want.
16. Do you prefer heels or flats?Flats, but I love heels too. I’ll probably choose heels when I’m older but right now I still feel a bit awkward in heels.
17. Do you like sportswear?No
18. What do you think of resort collections?I don’t really have any strong opinions about resort collections. I have nothing against them. I don’t think they’re really necessary, but then again I am going to say that because I am not rich. I am not rich enough to be like the lucky people who, like the birds in the Aeneid, fly across the sea ‘when the cold of the year drives them across the sea and sends them to sunny lands.’ I don’t have anything against resort collections, though, as they are sometimes quite lovely.
19. Who are your style icons?Alexa Chung, Jane Birkin, Charlotte Rampling and Florence Welch.
20. Which celebrities have the worst style?Katie Price and Taylor Momsen
21. Is it more important to spend time on your make-up or to spend time on your outfit?It is so much more important for one to have beautiful clothes than it is for one to have a beautiful face.
22. Which five items of clothing could you not live without?My sailor dress, breton stripe top, Aran cardigan, polka dot skirt and leather jacket.
23. What do you consider to be “wardrobe staples”?Breton stripe tops, black tights, Doc Martens, ballet pumps, cable-knit jumpers, duffle coats, ribbed vest tops, men’s shirts, men’s jumpers, Hunter wellingtons, A-line skirts, black bodycon skirts and fur coats. And denim jackets too!
24. How much do you care about the quality of your clothes?It depends. If I’m buying essential pieces that I know I’m going to wear again and again, I am willing to pay more to get a better-quality product that feels good, looks good and will last. However, if I know that something is only going to be worn a few times then I will probably just buy it in Topshop because then I won’t feel bad about throwing it away.
25. What do you do with your clothes when you’re finished with them?I give them to the local charity shop. I go in there constantly, so it’s quite interesting to see which items I donate sell really quickly, and which don’t sell. On some occassions I have gone into the shop, seen something I’ve donated and thought, “I want it back!” and then purchased it.
26. What dress size are you? Are you happy with your size? Do you feel pressured to be skinnier after seeing super-thin models in the media?I move between a size 4 and a size 6. I’m currently actually between a 6 and and 8 because I have put on so much weight since finishing my exams. All my friends think it’s wrong that I’m so thin, and when they see I have size 4 clothes they always say, “Oh my God, Grace, you’re a size zero. Are you anorexic or something? What is wrong with you?” even though they know I’ve always been this size. I am naturally skinny because I don’t eat much and I have a very pleasing metabolic system! I sometimes enjoy being thinner than the average girl, just because clothes fit me better (with the exeption of strapless things because I am severely lacking in the breast department). However, I am becoming more aware that guys prefer curves and not protruding bones…
The abundance of size zero models in the media has not affected me personally, but I completely believe that those images do have a crippling affect on some people.
27. Which trends/styles do you love?I love nautical-inspired things, and I love the granny chic look as well.
28. Will you wear things even when they’re no longer “in”?Of course! I don’t normally wear things that are “in”, anyway, I just wear what I like and what I can pull off… if what I’m wearing is “in” is was probably unintentional.
29. Describe your own style?I like wearing flirty, feminine dresses and skirts but toughening them up with Doc Martens and leather and ripped tights and men’s shirts. That’s my usual style. It’s a bit trashy and I know that many people don’t like how I dress. I really liked the 90s, fashion wise, and the 60s. I like short skirts, but unless the weather is really warm I wear tights. I don’t dress cheaply, I don’t think… I do like to keep my modesty by covering my nasty legs!
30. Do you work in fashion?/Do you want to work in fashion?I was really creative as a child and I think it all boiled down to my passion for writing and reading. I was obsessed with reading when I was younger- while my sister played with Barbies I had my nose in a book- and I think my adoration of literature (OK, not that you could really call what I was reading when I was tiny ‘literature’…) made me adore writing, too. I used to write my own stories and created a series of books called The Topsy Diaries, which consisted of partly fictional stories about my grandparents’ dog, Topsy. I won poetry competitions. I wrote to Random House once to ask them if they would publish a short book that I had written (I didn’t get a reply). When I was about 10, I started creating my own fashion magazines, which I called Glitz, and I would spend hours writing features to put in them. My readership consisted of one person, though: my sister, who has never been interested in fashion. I still have some copies of Glitz in my bedroom. For a long time after Glitz had been put to bed, I wanted to be the editor of a fashion magazine.However, I don’t think I want to work in fashion. I would like to fall back on it, though, if things don’t work out. I used to have big hopes for myself. I thought I would be able to get into Cambridge to study English Literature, but now I’ve decided that I’m not intelligent enough. I know I’m going to cry when I open my GCSE results because I didn’t work at all for my exams; I did my revision for every topic bar Latin for an hour the night before and on the bus in the morning. Still, my dream is to get to Edinburgh to study English Language and Lingustics, as that is what interests me at the moment. Maybe that’ll lead to journalism? Fashion journalism? Who knows? I just want a well-paid job so I can buy designer clothes!
