Watch this video on YouTube.

For reasons unknown, I intermittently get people asking me for advice on Tumblr. I am in no way any expert on anything and have no idea why anyone would ask me for life advice, so this is somewhat confusing for me. Regardless, it’s kind of interesting to read the questions and definitely a nice change from the usual ‘where do I get a black jacket from?’ and the like.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had a few more ‘life advice’ related questions than usual, and because sharing is caring, I’ve decided to enlist the help of some of my friends when answering the things, hence this (hopefully regularly) post: “Advice from a stranger”.

First up, the following:

“I don’t know how you feel about giving relationship/love advice but hopefully it’s a nice change. I’m your average 21y girl – reasonable looking, smartish, slim, kinda short, brunette etc – ie. nothing intensely wrong with me (I hope..). The trouble is, I have never had a boyfriend or kissed anyone while sober (total= 3 boys, each while both parties were drunk/Sat night in town). I’ve also never slept with anyone and am starting to feel a bit lame about it. I think I’m too scared. Any advice?”

I have thought about this question a lot and had Maddy Budd answer it. Why? Because Maddy Budd is also 21 years old, also only hadn’t ever had a boyfriend until a year ago, so she can relate.

Other things I can add to what she had to say above, is that sometimes you just have to put yourself out there. The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work out and you’re back where you started. I know this is easier said than done because I have conveniently omitted the part where you may have to experience the painful, self-esteeem destroying feeling of rejection, BUT as they say – no risk, no reward. My hairdresser told me that he thinks most men are shy and useless and scared. So basically everyone’s in the same boat. You’ve got to keep trucking on, focus on things that you like, and be social. Go out and meet people. I don’t know if you’re like me and you like to avoid situations with new people, but if so, you’ve got to push through and make friends!

Another question I have – have you even actually met someone you properly like? If yes, then put yourself out there. Hang out with them, then make it known. One 20 minute semi-painful conversation is better than days or weeks of not knowing, and wondering what is going on, if you’ve been friend-zoned, if they’re feeling the same way. If not, then I don’t think there’s any problem with not dating anyone, and especially with not having slept with someone. I mean, why date or sleep with someone you don’t really like, just because of your age? Without having too much of an overshare, I was 18 years old when I lost those V plates and I don’t know if I really wanted to do it or not, I just felt the pressure and everyone else had and I didn’t want to feel left out. I am the example of your average, wussy girl who wanted to fit in. Don’t be that girl! Also, as an aside, my advice with that stuff would be to not do anything sex related soley because you think it will make a guy like you. I think that’s one of the worst crimes girls make. You sound pretty nice and smart so keep being that. As soon as you stop looking, it’ll happen. Trust me.

Alyssa and Maddy. Image/Evan Tetreault.

Highs:

1. Rose Matafeo‘s show at the Comedy Festival. I’m writing this too late because her last performance has already been so you can’t see it, but I thought she should get a shout out regardless.
2. The Charlie’s Lemonade Quencher is really good, but they’ve come out with these new flavours for the season, including a Pineapple Quencher (which is amazing, tastes like a melted Pineapple Fruju, kind of) and a Sicilian Blood Orange Quencher, also amazing. On a related note, all of them are loaded with sugar. Like, ridiculous. It’s almost like drinking syrup.
3. It’s mandarin season! My favourite!
4. Hey, so I’m featured on Isaac’s latest ‘Maybelline New York to NZ’ webisode which you can watch here. Basically all I had to do was try on clothes and say a couple of things and try on more clothes and blow kisses to the camera so you know, it was my dream job.
5. Well Dunn with Jourdan Dunn. It’s kind of tedious to watch, but for some reason I’m compelled to sit through the whole episode every time. Even this 15:55 one with Karlie Kloss.

Low(e)s:

1. Why do guys do up the bottom button of their suits? Doesn’t anyone know that you don’t do that?
2. Spring Breakers. Okay, yeah, it’s supposed to be ironic or artistic or alternative or something, and it’s not a terrible movie, but it could have been so much better. The dialogue was not good. I feel like the hype made my expectation level too high so I was sorely disappointed. James Franco was pretty damn funny though, I’ll give it that.
3. Failed W.O.F?! WHAT?!!!!
4. Mo’ money, mo’ problems? No money, even more problems, so yeah.

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to come and check out the happenings behind the scenes at a Number One Shoes shoot. They were shooting their TVC and other press for the Winter boots which have just gone into store. Eager to see how things happen on a commercial shoot with an actual budget, I packed up my camera and my coat and went down on that cold and rainy day to do a little documentation.

Boy was it cold. I was not prepared to be standing outside for great lengths of time, trying to escape the rain. The models must’ve been freezing. Kelvin and Kelsey (both internationals at Clyne) were consummate professionals though – no complaints, no nothing – just get out there in their tiny outfits and do their thing until someone says they’ve got it. How they do this stuff for hours on end, I do not know. Anyway, I digress. Outside was the shoot location, inside was for giant wusses like me. Also, inside was where they kept the snacks (crackers, cheeses, lamingtons, donuts, lollies – a good spread for those wondering).

Here’s what I saw:

Kelvin (Clyne), pre-shoot, pre-makeup, pre-everything.

Kelsey (Clyne) pre-shooting.

Inside amongst racks of clothes (snacks around the corner).

Kelvin waiting inside before her next shot.

Outfit change!

So much gear.

Keeping warm, convenient gust of wind.

The setup.

Before you go, Number One Shoes has offered me a little giveaway for you readers out there. I’ve got four pairs of boots to give away to four people who may like a pair. The four styles are shown in various shots above  - there’s a leopard print ankle pair, two black ankle pairs (one of which is pretty motorcycle-ish if that’s your thing) and one almost up to the knee black pair. I know these descriptions I’m giving you are pretty crap, but you’ll see what I mean in the shots.

Anyway, if you’d like one of those pairs, all you have to do is let me know either in the comments of this post, or via email, or twitter, what is number one in your books. It could be anything, so go nuts. You’ll also need to let me know which pair you’d like and what size you are. I’m going to pick my favourite answers and those entrants will be the proud new owners of some Winter boots. You’ve got until 9:00pm, Sunday 19th May 2013 so if your feet are feeling a little cold, get onto it!

Teresa Oman. All Photos/Luke Byrne.

I got shown these shots a couple of days ago. They’re behind the scenes photos from the latest Glassons campaign shoot, ‘Escape’ by Tim Barber. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the results of the shoot, but of all the photos they’ve produced since they took on Adam Bryce as Creative Director (and really started cranking the benefits of using uber-stylist Zara Mirkin), these behind the scenes ones from Winter 2013 are my favourite.

My like for them is largely due to the fact that they’ve used two of who I would consider the three most well known short antipodean models (the third being New Zealand’s Zippora Seven) – Anja Konstantinova and Teresa Oman. The location ain’t too bad either – these were taken in various places around the South Island, including Queenstown and Wanaka. Check ‘em out:

All the behind the scenes photos were taken by Luke Byrne. For those interested, he also did a little behind the scenes video which is very ‘home movie’, very cute:

Watch this video on YouTube.

Watch this video on YouTube.

If you’re an internet freak and you keep up with all the brands and happenings online, it’s likely you’ve already seen this. If you’re a bit slower off the mark (ie. me these days) you may not have, in which case I implore you to take a look. This is Karl Lagerfeld’s latest Chanel film – 18 minutes or so long (five of which are credits), starring Kiera Knightly as Coco Chanel, and a whole host of models (Lindsay Wixson, Baptiste Giabiconi, Saskia De Brauw, etc) as other characters, including New Zealand’s (well sort of) very own Ashleigh Good as Jacqueline Forzane. Her role isn’t small – she’s got lines and everything. She first appears two minutes and 27 seconds in – it’s worth watching just to hear her New Zealand-y accent.

Photo/James K Lowe.

Highs:

1. Oh Lordy Lorde. Ella played her first public Auckland show last week and as I said last time, she was great. I ‘vined’ a couple of things of her singing to show you how good she sounds IRL on an iPhone recording. (Oh yeah, I have Vine – do you? I’m not sure about it yet because I keep forgetting to use it…) So there’s that. Not much else to report on here except go see her and stuff.
2. On Friday night I went to that teppanyaki restaurant, Daikoku, for dinner. You know, the one where they cook stuff infront of you. I forgot how good it is! I mean, you leave feeling overly full and kind of gross because of all the oil and ‘yum yum sauce’ (butter, egg yolks, cream, other fattening shit) but it’s entertaining as hell. I will be back.
3. For months I have been reaching maximum capacity in my gmail account. That is 10gb. I’ve been at 99% for so long now, going through and finding old emails with attachments and deleting them to allow for new emails to come in and for new emails to be sent. It’s been so annoying but I’ve been pretty stubborn about paying for an upgrade. That all came apart this morning when I caved and forked out the US$2.49/month for an extra 15gb. I’m now at 41% full and it feels so good.
4. My brother got me to watch Take Shelter the other night. He is pretty good at movies so I did it and I was impressed. Every frame looks like it could be a still, it’s quite beautiful. It’s also a little confusing and scary. Anyway, have a look-see, let me know what you think.
5. This article on depression that I found via David Farrier. It’s the least depressing article on depression I have ever read.

Low(e)s:

1. The rain this last week was insane. So much water. I dislike rain with a passion.
2. Out of date clothing websites without their collections up, or restaurant websites that don’t have their menus online.
3. I don’t even know anymore.

Team NZ. Images/Supplied.

This time a week ago I was in Sydney, prepping for what was to be the longest distance run ever, in my entire life, ever. EVER. To put this into context, the last time I had run further than 500 metres (which was during that traumatizing Charles de Gaulle experience), prior to training for this 10km Nike She Runs race, was in maybe third form at High School when I was made to do the Cross Country, which I think was probably around 3km. So basically I went from zero to a bazillion in 6 weeks.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t too bad! It’s hard for me to admit it after all these weeks of complaining about how terribly my training was going, but it was even kind of fun! Nike went out of their way to make it the funnest, most motivating running experience possible. I mean, you still had to run 10km, but everything had been thought of along the way – there were ‘last minute panic’ stands with hair-ties and glow-stick wristbands and bobby pins available for all, lots of loud music and lights. It was held in the dark at 7:00pm in Centennial Park, so all the glowing lights looked amazing. The ‘fun’ continued throughout the whole run – each kilometre was light up with a giant ’1′ or ’2′ or ’3′ etc, when you ran past it, DJ’s were posted throughout the course, huge tv screens projecting all sorts of things (including pictures of the participants, motivating comments, etc), at one point there were even huge flames in a line that fired when you ran past. Pretty motivating, especially when surrounded by 5999 other girls.

I did my usual run-walk-run-walk-run-walk, just hoping to get to the end without dying and it worked pretty well. For some reason my official time hasn’t been recorded/posted yet (IT’S LIKE I WAS NEVER THERE! *ugly cry face*), but I used my Nike+ app and I can tell you that that thing says it took me 1 hour and 7 minutes – basically an average of 6 minutes 45 seconds per kilometre, which is kind of slow but still a good 35 seconds per km faster than I had been doing in the weeks leading up. To put this into perspective my first 3km run from six weeks back was 8:51/km, so there was improvement. And I didn’t die! In fact, I wasn’t even really that spent at the end – I kind of wish I had pushed a lot harder to try to get a good time instead of just finishing (#regrets) and I still have an idea in my head that my official race time (which was tracked by this tag on your shoe) will be faster than what the Nike+ app is telling me… but it’s okay, I’m just happy I finished and a lot faster than I was anticipating. (SNAPS FOR ME!)

All in all, it was a fun time. Seriously. You know I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. I’m really glad I did it and I may even keep up the running. Who would’ve thought?!

Lonely Hearts Patchwork Dress in the new black and white floral. Image/Area 51.

Hey so that was the longest title of all time, but my post-Sydney-running brain combined with the absolutely abysmal cold rainy Auckland weather has given me blog-post-title block.

As you have probably already gathered, Lonely Hearts has released a couple of black and white floral pieces for high Winter that are right up my alley. Firstly, they’ve recut their infamous Patchwork dress in the new fabric. I own this dress in two other fabrics already and it is my go to. It’s literally one of the most easy things to wear – it’s supremely comfortable. Secondly, the ‘Easy’ pant: a drawstring, light pair of pants that feel like pyjamas but look a million bucks. Supreme casualwear. There are a few other dresses and things in this new fabric but the two mentioned are my favourites. All of the pieces are available at Area 51 (dress here, pants here) online and instore from yesterday, so check ‘em out.

In related news, Lonely Hearts has also (as of just over a week ago) opened up shop within The Department Store. They’re on Level 2, just next to Lucy and the Powder Room, so you can get your nails done and shop for lingerie at the same time. Marvellous.

Racks of Lonely Hearts, new at The Department Store.

New Lonely leather cases for iPad, laptop, etc.

Lonely Hearts Patchwork dress.

Lonely Hearts' new shop within The Department Store.

Lonely Hearts Easy pant.

Lonely lingerie at The Department Store.

An almost empty Margarita at Mexico on Thursday night.

Highs:

1. I RAN 10KM YESTERDAY FOR NIKE SHE RUNS! More on this later, but in short: It was actually kind of fun, I got to the end! I ran-walked it, I did not die, I did not come last, I did not get blisters, I feel like something is wrong with my left ankle.
2. The Fraser Suites. Like I said yesterday, an amazing place to stay. If you’re ever planning a trip to Sydney, factor in the Fraser Suites.
3. The Opening Ceremony x Adidas collection dropped into Area 51 on Tuesday night and there was a shindig for it, complete with Adidas three-stripe cocktails, ready-lawn displays and toffee macarons. My favourite thing? This tennis dress.
4. It was a week of events because on Wednesday I got to go to this Moet* launch thing at Soul bar – basically if you buy a glass of Moet at Soul bar this month, you get a gold Moet ball which kind of looks like what I think the golden snitch would look like in Harry Potter, except minus the wings. Anyway, 1 in every 5 of the Moet gold balls is a prize, and at the end of the month they are doing a big prize draw and the winner wins a trip for two to bloody Dolphin Island in Fiji – and get this: you have the island to yourselves (and the Dolphin Island staff, obviously). How mental is that?! I can’t tell if it would be awesome or not, I mean, what if you had a fight?
5. Thursday night was this party at Mexico to celebrate the opening of their new dining room – basically a place where you can now book for 10 or more people (as opposed to not being able to book at all), and as part of the hoo-rah, we got to eat and learn how to make margaritas. WHO THOUGHT BARTENDING COULD BE SO FUN?
6. In short it was a good ass week for events.
7. Ate at The Late Night Diner on Ponsonby Road. A couple of things: order the Bacon Croquettes, you won’t regret it. Also, get the homemade lemonade. I was too full to try the Peanut Butter Chocolate Fondant but I’m going to preempt myself and say that you should probably try that too.

Low(e)s:

1. Okay, so I ran 10km, and I did it in 1 hour and 7 minutes and 40 seconds or something, according to my Nike app, but I don’t have an official race time and I don’t know why! I looked at the results and I my name doesn’t even come up in the search! IT’S LIKE I WAS NEVER THERE AT ALL! *cries, smashes left ankle against wall*
2. Couldn’t get to sleep last night, the last thing I remember was looking at the clock and it reading 2:30am, then waking up at 6:37am and not being able to sleep then. We checked out of the hotel at 11:00am, so had to occupy ourselves out of the comforts of our rooms for a good 5 hours. I’m dead tired. Could be worse, but.
3. Currently at airport waiting for delayed flight. So far the delay is only 30 minutes, but you know, it still sucks. I want to go home!

*FYI for those who don’t know already, the ‘t’ in Moet is not silent. It is pronounced. Like, MoeT. Anyway, just saying.

We landed in Sydney at around 5:30pm last night. I’ve been feeling pretty good. I mean, I’ve been put up in one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed in - the room is huge, modern and clean, the pool/spa/sauna is open 24 hours, there are two televisions, a kitchen, a big ass bed with great pillows, a laundry and robes all for me – so there’s not much to complain about.

I haven’t done any exercise since Wednesday where I went on a 3.5km walk. We’re supposed to be tapering in preparation for our 10km which is becoming increasingly closer. It will be the furthest I have ever run in my entire life. On Thursday, us Nike running NZ media girls (Leonie Barlow from The Style Insider, Tina Moore from Remix magazine and I) were treated to lunch with Olympic athlete Sarah Walker. She gave us some pretty good advice: drink water all day today, have a good meal at 3pm, and one thing that resonated with me – do what you can do to make sure that you’re doing the best you can at this time. Forget about wishing you had a couple weeks more of training and do what you can right now. Particularly good advice for this non-running runner.

So basically for the last couple of days I’ve just been fine. Not worried, kind of excited, relaxed. I mean, I figure it’s like being pregnant. You’ve got to actually give birth at the end, it’s not like you can just keep the baby there forever. It’s coming. The run is coming and I am going to do it and it might be hard but the worst that can happen is that I’ll walk it and that isn’t so bad at all.

In saying all those things, I’m now slightly panicked. 3.5 hours is not so far away, I’m a bit jittery, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to run because I haven’t done it since Tuesday. Do I take a jacket? Should I try to nap now? Was eating fries for lunch a bad idea? Should I put blister plasters on? So many questions! Only time will tell. See you on the other side…!