are you ready for this year's first gift guide? I surely am and I look forward to creating them all year round. it's not only to make Christmas shopping easier, but it also helps me get inspired. it makes me feel so festive and I really hope you find them helpful or at least visually pleasing. lifestyle gifts are beautiful to gift and receive as well and there are so many items which fall under that category. from stationery to tech, candles, and interior items, it can all make the perfect gift and lifestyle items do fit every budget for sure. 

one very thoughtful gift for anyone who loves planning and scheduling in an actual paper planner is a new planner for 2019. I need a planner to organize and keep track of my life. there are many different options and designs out there but this huge one from jo & judy. it has a ring back and offers all the space and pages for me to schedule and plan properly. 

another gift I love giving is books. whilst I find fictionary quite hard to buy when I'm not 100% sure of peoples taste and favourite genre, lifestyle books are perfect to gift. one book I absolutely loved and would like to give to anyone is milk & honey by rupi kaur. if you have not heard of it; its a poetry book and its so touching and beautiful and my favourite of the ones she has released. another book that would be great to give, especially to a friend, is the f word by lily pebbles. its a book all about friendship and even though I expected more from it, its a very light and easy read which makes you very thankful for the friends you have.

luxury candles are something beautiful to me and even though it can be really painful to buy them, they make a great gift. diptyque is one of the best and most expensive brands out there and their candles are just amazing. they release festive candles every year and already have their three limited scents available and I will probably get myself some as well. if you want to start with a very classic scent when it comes to diptyque, maybe start with baies. 

another candle brand I have been loving recently and have discovered this year is scandinavisk. their candles are all scandi inspired and come in the most beautiful containers. nordlys is a very fresh scent inspired by the northern lights. is there anything better than northern lights around Christmas?

even though I'm not really good at gifting tech items, there are a few things that would make amazing gifts. if you need to buy for an apple user, airpods are where it's at. they are life changing especially if you use your headphones daily. also, I'm still not over polaroid cameras. they are just so fun.

 

winter is coming, for sure and when it comes to styling during the coldest season, I find myself struggling a lot. winter can be very dramatic and very cold here. icy winds, temperatures below -10 as well as frozen lakes and snow. its beautiful and I'm certainly grateful that I get to experience all the seasons where I live, it makes not looking like a marshmallow as soon as its getting colder very hard. I won't lie to you, during the really cold days I refuse to wear anything but my huge winter coat and either ugg boots or the fur-lined doc martens but when moving slowly into winter, I try my best to keep my styling game strong and warm at the same time. denim is a must for me all year round but moving into winter, its basically the only thing I want to wear as I find denim very comfortable, high-waited off course, and it keeps my legs warm as well as being easy and versatile to style around looking good and not freezing to death. 

1. Perfect Denim

There was a time when I refused to wear jeans. I thought they were uncomfortable, restrictive and not very flattering and looking back, I feel like I haven't found the perfect denim fit back then because now, its all I want to wear and denim became my safety blanket, it just always works. High-waisted jeans is a must for me and these days, I like going for quite thick denim and even though I like a pair of mom jeans in the summer, straight leg or skinny is my choice as soon as it gets colder. There are many options for affordable denim but investing can be just what you want. As for colour; I either go for blue jeans or straight up black. you can shop some of my faves from trilogy here.

2. The Coat

I like to confess that I have a serious coat addiction. They are my favourite clothing piece to buy and to wear and to be fair, I have to wear one 90% of the year and I like to have fun with them and really make them the focus of my outfit. Whilst I find certain coats don't work with dresses or skirts I have, denim and a good coat, no matter the colour or style always works wonders. I went for this very fun checkered coat for my distressed blue jeans but a tailored black or military-inspired coat would look so chic with black jeans and truly pull the whole look together and go from quite casual, which my outfit totally is, to work appropriate. 

3. The Jumper Game

I love to wear playful and really feminine shirts but when it's getting colder, I have to go for a jumper and I have loads of them and I love wearing them all. From very basic ones in neutral tones to fun and thick knits. They are essential for me and for work, I like to go for high-quality materials but basic colours and designs. For a more casual look, I still prefer neutral colours but with a twist. this h&m one is so soft and white just works for me all the time but the back detail is what makes it fun and exciting for me. its one of my favourites.

4. Don't Freeze

As much as I love styling my outfits ahead, sometimes it won't happen the way in wanted it too because its too cold or too rainy so adding an extra layer or changing into something to fit the climate can be necessary. A pair of thermals works wonders under a pair of jeans as well as layering when it comes to jumpers and shirts. investing in a good paid of denim to keep you warm instead of having icy legs is a must sometimes.

my outfit

coat: tkmaxx

jumper: h&m

jeans: zara

shoes: primark

what about you? how do you style your denim into winter? please let me know.

❤︎

this post was kindly sponsored by trilogy 

well, that's the kind of question you either don't like to get asked or don't like to ask yourself. it's also a question that could cause some serious controversy. its a time of change in fashion and luckily, we are slowly but hopefully surely moving away from only portraying one type of model. always wearing the same small size, having the same look and features. it's about being inclusive and diverse. there probably is a huge spectrum of sizes now from very petite to plus and I always struggled to find a part of the spectrum for me. it's the grey middle part which probably most women and men fall under. even though I'm not a big fan of labeling myself or in fact anyone and the whole clothes sizing drama can be quite triggering for me due to mental health struggles, I came across the term "mid-size". never heard of before, never thought about it much but something clicked for me. am I mid-size? what is it even and should I even care? so let's talk about it!

what is mid-size?

it's basically neither petite nor plus-size. it's the middle which most people are. mid-size is a term which refers to clothing sizes 10-18 mainly. its the middle of the sizing spectrum if you want to say so and its represented in most fashion stores except h&m. I literally have clothing in about 6 different sizes from h&m and they all fit which just is not okay but that's beside the point. whilst petite and plus size options can be lacking and usually have dedicated section like Asos petite or curve, mid-size is widely available. yet, it's not the most represented sizing when it comes to advertisement. I'm 5''3 and wear between a size 10 and 12 which means I fall under the mid-size umbrella but I still am on the shorter side but even though I'm not the tallest, I would refer to myself as wearing and styling mid-size fashion.

What does that mean?

In general, it does only mean that there is more than being petite or plus size. there is a middle bit as well. so now, "skinny privilege" has been thrown around for a while and whilst I despise the word skinny to describe someone's body, the general idea of said privilege is that most high-street stores only cater to a very limited size range and even if they do size 16 and up, it might only be a very limited amount of clothing which ultimately aren't to everyone's taste and kind of dictate a way of dressing. whilst most mid-sizes can be found in every store sizing varies and a girl wearing a size 14-16 might be struggling still as stores such as h&m have the weirdest sizing out there and really only fit a small range of people. 

does it even matter?

sizing can be a difficult subject and certainly be a trigger. it used to be for me and probably still can be. for some reason, I almost got a relaxation out of finding out that there is more than just being petite or plus size. there's a middle and that's fine. it also for me can be a step further in accepting who I am. I have hips and boobs and I used to feel absolutely horrible about myself and it has taken years and years to accept me. at the end of the day, your size doesn't matter and doesn't define you but it can be a true hurdle and something that can put a little downer on a shopping trip with friends. I have been there and I know its painful.

there's more!

it's time to show the diversity and make sure to show not only one type of body. we might come up with more terms than petite, mid-, or plus-size. when I talk to my friends there are only a few who never beat themselves up about their size or the way their body looks and I have no idea where exactly that toxic relationship comes from but I sometimes wish there wasn't size or body pressure as I'm sure I would have a much better relationship with myself so celebrating diversity is the way to go.

my outfit

Dress: Zara
Bag: Zara
Shoes: TK Maxx

Photography: hummingbird photographs