Fashion from the 2010s and Beyond

Fashion has played a huge role in my life during the 2010s. My fashion style has evolved throughout the decade to what it is now. I really feel the first big milestone for me was when I moved to Dublin in 2012. I really feel this was the first time I was away from home and I could test out different brands and styles. With time I feel like I really honed in on my style to get to a real casual chic look.

In the early part of the 2010s, because I was really thin, I was able to wear tight bodycon dresses that really showed off my long legs and small body shape. This allowed me to feel really sexy but in the wrong way. I felt I was sexy but with hindsight I was really portraying the wrong image. As I grew into my 20s and put on a bit of body fat, I soon learned very quickly that this was the wrong style dress for me. I knew by the middle to late 20s that skater style dresses were the way to go.

In this time I was learning about skater dresses, I was also learning about online shopping and the many shops that I could purchase these fabulous dresses. I started to learn about boohoo.com, forever 21 and pretty little thing. With these shops, I was learning the different types of even skater dresses you could get. You could get peplum, maxi, mini and mid length. You can also even get straight cut or flowing. The fun you have online picking out the different dresses for different occasions was great to get away from the history or politics assignment you could have been doing instead.

Colours was my next learning curve. As being a blonde in college, I went for blues and reds and sometimes I wore purple when it was my birthday as that was my favourite colour. As I got older, and changed my hair colour to brown, I still kept the blues and reds but added in browns, yellows, black and whites now. The dimensions you get by wearing these colours is so much better. I wish I knew this when I was younger. By pairing a white top with a black skirt and putting a belt with it you are showing off your waist and hiding your boobs. It allows you to feel sexy without being in any way revealing. This is now the opposite effect I have from when I was in my early 20s. I feel as time has gone on, I have learned to go with what suits me and not what looks good on a hanger or what a size 8 model is wearing. I am so confident now more than I was when I was a size 8.

Fashion has taught me so much, how you wear the clothes not the clothes wearing you. Fashion has given me so much confidence that I can now teach people what I have learned throughout the years. Life is all about learning and growing and I feel through fashion I have done that really well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoyed it. I will be back again soon

Joanne
xxx 

A Very Irish Christmas

For my next blog post, I want to share a typical Irish Christmas with everyone. For me being with my family is the most important part of Christmas. Sharing dinner and laughter is the best part of any Christmas celebration.

I like to get my shopping done during the first two weeks of December so I am not in a mad rush at the end. I love walking around my hometown of Cork. They put on a festival every weekend in December called Glow and this has lovely food markets and a ferris wheel. It makes Cork way more exciting to go shopping as you have lights and songs being played all around the city.

Myself and my family put up the tree and the lights around our house on the 1st of December. I like to get the full celebration for the whole month of December and the first week of January. The other 10 and bit months of the year are bland and boring to say the least.

I love watching Christmas movies over christmas. I try to watch one movie per night from the 1st of December. It is like my advent movie marathon. Home Alone 1 and 2 has to be my favourite  Christmas movies. I usually watch them on Christmas Eve and Christmas day but I would have watched them during my advent marathon as well. With a cups of hot chocolate and the fire on it makes for a lovely christmas tradition.

On Christmas Eve, it is my cousins birthday so we go over to give her, her present and come home to some nice festive food. We usually have egg nog and a small bit of the turkey my mum has prepared for the next day. We then go to mass. This is very typical being Irish. Religion plays a huge part in my tradition by going once a year. It is a lovely mass as its full of carol singers and santa stops by. It really brings back my youth and really spells the true meaning of christmas that is the innocence of children. We then come home to a few drinks and a couple of movies and then head to bed for the long day that is christmas day.

Christmas day for us as a family is: get up put on your christmas clothes and head to the graves of our loved ones who are not here anymore. It is a very real part that there are a few empty seats at our dinner table every year. Still visiting their graves gets a little part of them sharing in our day with us. After going to the graves we eat christmas dinner. I usually have a sea food starter and then have turkey and potatoes as my main dinner. I then have chocolate cake for desert with some bucks fizz and some vodka as my drinks. We then open our presents. Most families open their presents when they get up but we enjoy opening them after dinner and then fall asleep while watching a christmas movie. Once the movie is over we head over to my aunt's house for games and drinks until around 12 where we come home and go to bed.

My fashion at christmas is usually dresses. I plan three outfits one for christmas eve, christmas day and stephen/boxing day. Since my influencing started this year, I have been more careful with my outfits and want to pick out three very different outfits that go well with each day. I was always into fashion over christmas but this made it all the more enjoyable.

This was a post on my very Irish Christmas
Have a merry Christmas and a great 2020

Joanne
xx

The Influencer Game

This is my first blog post for a while. For this one, I want to speak about my new trials and tribulations of blogging and fashion influencing. There are many highs and lows to this industry that I like to call a game. You have good days and you have bad days. I believe over all since I started in July this year it has been a huge help to me. It has built confidence for me that I have looked for through this whole decade and given me a purpose to try and help other people who have gone through similar problems.

I have always been interested in fashion but if you told me even a year ago, I would be sharing it with the world I would have laughed at you. I have shared my love of Boohoo, Missfiga and Rebellious fashion through my posts. My fashion has changed with time and I choose to go with affordable fashion because I believed you can make great clothes for an affordable cost. The love I have for clothes and love shown to me by my followers has shown there is a market for me in the instagram world. The help shown by other women in this industry has been second to none. I feel it is never about competition but about women sticking together to help and build each others confidence. You have never met anyone but you feel like you know them for years.

I did at the beginning lose confidence in my ability to do this by using bots and follow for follow magnets to get my followers up. I realised very quickly there are no short cuts to success. It is all built on long term strategies and a really strong work ethic. I have taken the good days with the bad and have learned from every photo and blog post that I have ever put up. I am not one to give up ever and I am not about to let that set in now over a few set backs online. I believe in my ability and strengths that I have been given here and believe that this will all come good in 2020. I would love to get some band ambassadors to work with me next year but sticking to what I know and working hard will be the order of the day.

I want to thank every person that has followed and supported me through this journey so far. It hasnt been easy but the support I have been given has really shown I can do this. I have worn my heart on my sleeve on every picture and blog post I have created and for me no matter what I love everything about this industry no matter what will be thrown at me in the future 

Online Shopping

Hi all,

For todays post, I am going to be talking about my love for online shopping. I love online shopping. I love sitting down after a hard days work and looking at new outfits that could look really well for my instagram account. As my viewers are aware or may not be aware of, I like to find clothes that are affordable for the everyday shopper. I love finding cheap items and making them look really expensive. The places I go to mostly online to shop are boohoo.com, littlewoods and rebellious fashion.

The first place I want to talk about is Boohoo.com. I have loved Boohoo since I was in college in my early 20s. I would buy clothes there as my going out clothes on a night out or use their clothes as the clothes I would wear going to college. Boohoo have amazing clothes and they fit any woman or man plus sized or thin. No one is felt left out with this brand. I loved their skater and their peplum dress and also their fabulous coats. They have really nice denim jackets but also fur coats. I have invested in a few over the years and they are still in use today. As I have gotten older, I have gone more towards shirt dresses, tea dresses and blazer dresses. I wear them all with a really nice belt and boots to compliment the outfit. Their prices are very reasonable and they have free delivery over 50 euro which is always very good. I usually buy in bulk when it comes to boohoo for the free delivery. I would usually spend about a 100 euro in one go and I would usually pick up maybe 4 or 5 outfits for that price. This is a photo of me wearing a boohoo dress. It is a red tea dress from their collection. I love wearing this dress as its really comfortable and elegant and could be wore with boots like I show in this picture or a pair of flat pumps if the weather was hotter. I do recommend boohoo for great style and affordability.

The next brand I am going to speak about is Littlewoods. I have had an account with Littlewoods since 2017. I have bought many goods online but what I mostly love in their fashion. The two sub-brands I buy off on Littlewoods is V by Very and Michelle Keegan. V by Very is Littlewoods's own personal brand. It is so cheap and their clothes are super cool and super chic. I buy dresses, tops, skirts and coats from their store. I usually get 5/6 items of clothing for about 100 euro. V by Very is again able to have clothes for every size body. This is what I love about clothes today is that you can be any size and it does not matter in the slightest. Michelle Keegan's clothes are a little more expensive but with this brand you get what you pay for. It is super chic and retro. I love her jumpsuits and her pinafores. They are styled both long and short depending the occasion that you need it for. I would usually get maybe 1 or 2 items for the 100 euro but the clothes are indeed worth it as they are of great quality. If you look up there is a photo of me wearing a blue V by Very dress from Littlewoods. This dress was easy to wear for a party and it was very comfortable. I would recommend Littlewoods for your clothes. Always the best part is that it is buy now pay later so you can have a lovely new dress and only have to pay some back every month. So you can have a brand new wardrobe and pay it back every month. Its completely win win.

My final online shop I love shopping in, is Rebellious fashion. I have only started really buying from this brand since I've started influencing. Their clothes are much more casual everyday wear. I have bought mostly autumn winter jumpers, jackets and a few cardigans from Rebellious fashion. What I really love about them is their clothes are really casual but they look a million dollars on. One outfit I wore, I felt like a fashion model when I wore it. My favourite colour from theirs in brown and white. They go so well together over a pair of jeans as a really casual autumn outfit. Their prices are so reasonable. I get 6 outfits for 100 euro. Out of the 3 brands that I talked about in this blog, Rebellious fashions would probably be the most affordable. I again have enclosed a photo of an outfit of theirs on this blog to give you guys a look at a few outfits I put together from this brand.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog on the 3 shops I love online. I hope you got a glimpse on the clothes and styles I like to put together. If you have any questions or comments please leave them for me.

Thanks so much for reading my blog
Joanne xx

Shops on the Highstreet

I wanted to share a post to tell everyone what shops I like to buy all my clothes in, in Cork City. I am a very picky shopper. I only like dresses that flow. I don't really buy bodycon dresses as they don't really fit my body shape or most importantly the style I like to go for.  The first place I buy most of my clothes is Penneys or for British readers Primark. Penneys is great as their clothes are so nice but are very reasonably priced. I usually buy my shirt dresses, jeans, tops, days dresses and some going out skater dresses here. On a normal day going into Penneys, I would spend between 50-70 euro and I get between 4/5 outfits for that amount of money, which is very very good. For Autumn season, I am finding velvet wine and brown are the fashion trends again. Green is starting to become more prominent as well. I will share a shopping trip to Penneys on my Instagram very soon .

New Look is probably my favourite of all the stores I shop in, in Cork City. I buy most of my going out dresses and playsuits in New Look. Their skater dresses are so cool and chic and they go really well with the style I like to create. New Look clothes are much more expensive than Penneys. Polka dots were so fashionable this summer. I was able to get a beautiful polka dot playsuit in New Look. With the same 50-70 euro I would have to spend, I would only come out with 1/2 at the most. The quality is much better as well for the clothes that I buy in New Look and I usually get much more wear out of the clothes. I find I can wear the dresses all year round from New Look, where I change my clothes for the season when it comes to Penneys clothes.  I will share some of my clothes on Instagram very soon.

Last up is River Island. River Island is again a shop I go to for my going out dresses and some day tops and skirts. I love River Island's clothes. They are more expensive than Penneys or New Look but again you are buying great quality. With animal print in for autumn/winter, River Island are getting trends right with their dresses and skirts. I am in the market for one of their new skirts which again I will do a post on when I have gone out and bought them. With the 50-70 euro, I would only be getting one item in River Island but again it is worth it as the quality is fantastic.

I hope ye enjoyed my post on the high street shops that I like. My next post will take ye through the shops I like online. Any comments or questions, just write them here or dm me on Instragram @joannemariecronin. For now thanks for taking the time to read this. Joanne xxx

First Post on Fashion

Hi all

Thanks for taking the time to come and visit my blog on fashion. I decided to start this blog because I wanted to share tips on fashion. I have always loved fashion but since June, I have been taking a bigger interest in it. I decided to become a fashion influencer on instagram and started sharing my love for all things fashion. I am a brand ambassador for a few companies most noticeably so far Just Strong who are a feminist sports clothing company who have the most amazing gym gear. Over the next few days I will do a post on this company and tell everyone more about it. For now enjoy Joanne xx