A quick warning that this is a very colourful and photo-heavy post – Notting Hill is just so pretty!
Continue reading
Tag: tapeparade
Valentine’s Day + Give-Away!
I’m reviving my old “Laila Likes” series which died an unceremonious death about a year ago… essentially it’s just a list of things I like! I wanted to share a few things on a vague Valentine’s theme as I bloody love Valentine’s Day. I’ve also got a little giveaway because I love you too!
I think love can be so complex and to me it’s often confusing, but also thrilling and exciting. Why not have a day once a year where you can celebrate the simpler side of things? And on a practical level, what better excuse to spend a night in writing songs about all the boys you’ve met and daydreaming about Domhnall Gleeson?
HEELS
Heels are the one item of clothing I struggle to buy vintage as I have HUGE feet. These new beauties were just £12 from Office (still available!) and they’re very high, but so are all my high heels. It’s like everything in life – I don’t mess around, so if I’m going to wear heels I want the highest I can find!
LOVE POETRY
I am a voracious reader and I have a huge soft spot for love poetry. John Keats is my favourite of favourites (as I’ve discussed before) and this very well-thumbed collection of his best poetry is constantly by my bed for any required reading. The poems veer from his incredibly smutty teenage output (sample quote: “Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy; will ye give me some cream if I ask it?”) to his oft-quoted heart-wrenching later output when separated from Fanny.
CHOCOLATES
Valentines cliche alert. Lindt were kind enough to send me this box and to be honest, chocolate doesn’t get much better then these heavenly mouthfuls. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the chocolate Lindt bunnies; why not go for something a bit more grown-up for Valentines Day?
VINTAGE LINGERIE
I only shop vintage or secondhand with all my clothes, but I have a particular weakness for snatching up vintage nightwear. I rarely wear them to sleep in, instead preferring to waft around rehearsals and soundcheck in dressing gowns, because they’re comfy and why the hell not. The red dressing gown I’m wearing in these photos is my absolute favourite!
ELDERFLOWER GIN
Physical relationships are all well and good, but I’d like to know what relationship can really be more fulfilling then that of a girl and her gin? I make the best G&Ts in North London (YEARS of practise) and the recent discovery of elderflower gin has been a treat.
GIVE-AWAY
I’ve got a beautiful vintage 60s nightie to giveaway and IT COULD BE YOURS! I’ve also got a copy of John Keats love poems and some chocolates too (you’ll have to source your own gin). The nightie is lilac with pink tie straps, so it will fit a range of sizes from roughly 6-16 (measurements below). My apologies if you don’t wear nighties or if these sizes do not work for you; I hope to have some more giveaways in the future! This is my first one ever and I think poetry plus vintage nighties is about as TAPE PARADE as it gets.
TO ENTER:
1. Make sure you’re following on Bloglovin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Soundcloud etc – each platform follow counts as one entry.
2. Either RT the below tweet, or do your own tweet about the giveaway (with me tagged and this post linked) for an additional entry.
3. Leave a comment below saying where you’re following/how many entries. That’s it!
Give-away is open for a week and is open internationally (although please note if you’re not in the UK I can’t include chocolate… add that to the shopping list with the gin…) – I’ll announce the winner next Thursday evening and all being well you should receive your prize in time for V-Day :)!
Valentines Day likes PLUS A GIVE-AWAY!!!!! https://t.co/GMATy6uhSD pic.twitter.com/BBuJfwMPJG
— Laila ✨❕ (@tapeparade) February 4, 2016
Christmas Presents
The real point of Christmas is the amazing times you share with friends and family, and I am so grateful I had so many wonderful times which I have already documented in detail. But… the presents aren’t half bad either! My friends and I are quite big on presents but this year my parents and I exchanged gifts as well, which was unexpected but really nice. I’ve felt incredibly grateful integrating these new and lovely items into my life so I hope it doesn’t seem vulgar of me to share them.
Gifts From Friends
Cute twine, a half-head cat mask (I’ll have to share photos of the completed mask!), adorable notebooks and the biggest most beautiful book of Peanuts comics I’ve ever seen. My pals know me well. This is actually just a selection of the gifts my wonderful friends gave me: other gifts included an emoji cushion, a beautiful blue and red dress, afternoon tea, Prosecco, an adopted zebra (!!!), a Peanuts coffee pot, beer pong and tickets to a show. Pretty perfectly Laila. <3
The chocolates are actually from my students; I also received a chocolate Santa, perfume and tickets to a play from some of my other pupils. It sounds cheesy as teaching is it’s own reward, but it’s also a job that requires a lot of extra work around the edges when you’re not technically “at work”. It’s certainly not expected, and so I always feel so much gratitude to the pupils who give cards and presents to acknowledge this at the end of the year.
Gifts From Parents – Sailor Moon
It was only a few weeks ago that I mentioned my deep and unfaltering love for Sailor Moon. This year my Mum came through with the absolute motherlode of Sailor Moon goodies! We’re not big on presents in my family so to receive so many things which were all so perfectly suited to me was wonderful. Above you can see the Sailor Moon accessory set (mirror, bag and hair tie), earrings, locket necklace and cleaning cloth – SO perfect for glasses wearers like me. My Dad gave me a new camera lens which is perfect for close-up images such as the ones in this post…!
Gifts from Family
These socks are from my Mum and they are super comfy! My Auntie gave me this beautiful gold scarf and the glittery golden bow is from a cousin. I wear something in my hair every day and the gold bow was/is perfect over the festive season. I also received a giftcard from my Auntie which I’ve yet to spend – I’m terrible at remembering to use up gift vouchers so I’ll need to remind myself.
So there we go! I feel so incredibly lucky to have been given so many lovely things! What did you get for Christmas this year?
Highbury
This is a song I wrote in the summer. Like most of my songs, it’s about a situation I didn’t understand which I mentioned in passing at the time. There was a lot going on. I wrote the lyrics when I was still optimistic about the situation, but I wrote the music later when I knew where I stood.
I thought about typing the full lyrics out into this blog post but I think it’s better to just listen and interpret them yourself. Thank you if you do listen and please let me know what you think!
Hallowe’en Afternoon Tea & Musings
I love Hallowe’en. As I’ve said, I’ve always loved feeling scared; unsolved mysteries; freak sightings, unexplained disappearances and the paranormal. I’m slightly less interested in the costumes and sweets aspect of Hallowe’en (only slightly – I do love costumes!!) and more interested in the weird, unexplainable aspects of Hallowe’en; magic, ghosts, witches, voodoo. For me Hallowe’en has always felt a bit like the one time of year is on board with my interests and I’m less of an occultist geek.
Yesterday I went for Hallowe’en Afternoon Tea at the Hyatt Regency hotel with my Mum and James. The food was delicious, and with endless free refills of cakes and scones we were all stuffed even before arriving at the Hallowe’en cakes and treats. The rest of my weekend celebrations are a little more sombre; a 3 hour midnight walk around Hampstead Heath last night, climbing into a cemetery after hours, a trip to (another) haunted cemetery, fireworks from the top of abandoned scaffolding and tonight a trip to a haunted pub in Highgate.
My Hallowe’en weekend this year marks a year since my best friend Pete died. Traditionally, Hallowe’en was a three day festival where our ancestors prayed, remembered the dead, and felt they were closest to the souls of the dead who had yet to reach Heaven; pumpkin and turnip lanterns to light the way for lost and wandering souls. That’s not really the function anymore of Hallowe’en – prayers and grief are replaced by fake blood and cauldrons of chocolates – but for me at least it will be much closer to the Hallowe’en my ancestors knew. It’s certainly one way to feel close to the dead.
Those of you who don’t fancy parties, I’ve rounded up some of my favourite creepy tales for you.
A bizarre case of identity confusion with a shocking conclusion (60 minutes).
One of my favourite episode of the mystery/paranormal podcast, Lore (20 minutes).
My favourite horror manga (will take you about 5-10 minutes to read).
THE BEST CARTOON SHORT EVER (5 minutes).
Let me know if you watch, listen or read to any of those and I’d love any scary links from you guys. I cannot recommend the comic enough! Happy Hallowe’en!! x
200 Posts!
Welcome to my 200th post! I’m so surprised to have reached 200 posts, it feels like 100 posts was just yesterday but in reality it was over a year ago. Who knew I had so much to say? I always struggle when people ask what my blog is about. I mostly write about what’s on my mind and where I have visited, and I try and be very open. Thank you so much for reading my musings!
I thought to celebrate 200 posts I’d tell you about some of the posts I am most proud of, as I self-indulgently thought it would be nice to reflect. I was initially thinking of maybe doing some kind of question and answer post- (does anybody actually have any questions??) so anything you’d like to ask please do so. And I’d also just like to thank you so much for reading and your support of the blog, every time you share a post or RT a link you make my whole day awesome! If you’re feeling particularly supportive it would mean the world to me if you’d follow my blog on Bloglovin – thank you so, so much. 
So let’s look at some of my favourite posts..!
On Continuing: for me this post was a turning point on my blog and it’s kind of a mission statement for what I write now. I was fed up with trying to fit into the blog world with fashion-related content that didn’t feel true to me. I thought if I just wrote what I wanted to then I would feel more authentic and maybe generate more of an audience. That didn’t quite happen, but I’m happier with my output and that’s all that matters. (Although I still don’t think this blog accurately represents me, as it barely showcases my “animated” facial expressions at all, which are basically my number one defining feature irl…)
Tokyo DisneySea: aka my essay on Japanese culture, creating art and the importance of commitment in creativity. I am SO PROUD of this post and want to publish it. It’s probably my favourite ever post. One of native Japanese friends told me that in this post I articulated something about his culture that he understood immediately, but could never have expressed. Which is the highest praise ever!
Friends and Magic: these posts are similar in that I was trying to write about how grateful I was in the midst of very personal situations that were occurring at the time.
Amy and John Keats: I find it takes a lot of time to write about my heroes in a worthwhile way. I’ve only managed it twice so far and it was in these two posts. I’d like to try and write about more!
What It’s Like Not Being White: by far the most popular post as it went viral. I already discussed this in a response post here but I couldn’t really not mention it. I’m so, so grateful for the feedback I received on this.
Pete: my next most-read posts (after ‘Not Being White’) are all my thoughts on Pete. I feel like I’ve poured my heart out in a number of posts that aren’t about Pete, so I’m always surprised that they get more attention as there’s a lot of raw emotion on this blog. I think maybe people just have some kind of morbid, car-crash fascination with that particular subject, or possibly it’s people who knew Pete clicking through?
On Not Feeling Part Of The Sisterhood: this is the only post I’ve ever written that I thought might receive more attention than normal which goes to show my terrible knowledge of my own audience (hey guys!).
Sharm El Sheikh: I loved this post because I managed to sum everything up in one single post. No mean feat as I normally waffle on for 5 or 6 blog posts at a time whenever I go anywhere. I spent a long while trying to distill my magical time in Egypt to something that wouldn’t take hours to read. Here’s to efficiency!
I hope you enjoyed this blog version of Audio Commentary on a DVD. You can read all of my longer posts here or pick something else from the archives or categories if you’d like to delve more into the other 199 posts! Thank you again for reading, it means such a lot to me. Please do let me know if you have any favourite posts out of the last couple hundred and what you would like to see more of! Whether you’ve read the last 2 or the last 200 (if that’s the case, please get in touch for your trophy) I’m so grateful to you. :) 
Tewkesbury
If this outfit looks a little familiar to the last post it’s because I was only away for 5 days – so just took one coat and bag! I’m always amazed at bloggers who manage to generate 2-3 completely different outfit posts on a single weekend trip; how much stuff are you guys taking? It impresses me as I’m way too lazy to carry my own stuff and never pack anything heavy or bulky. I’m sure that will change when I get my own entourage..!
This dress is a rare new item and it was a Christmas present; I love velvet and I love red and I really love short dresses so it’s a winner all round. I got the coat from a charity shop and including dry cleaning it was a grand total of £14! Everyone describes it as red but it’s more of a very dark orange.
These photos are from Tewkesbury – the main attraction is the stunning Tewkesbury Abbey, but we spent a fun afternoon exploring antiques shops and tea rooms. That was kind of the timetable for the whole holiday if I’m honest – I’ve never really been on that kind of slower-paced, meandering holiday and so it was quite novel for me and a really different experience. I especially loved strolling along the river; I tend to think of London as quite green and full of nature (typical Londoner…) but there’s none of that woodland brand of stillness that I found in the Cotswolds.
Meeting Rags Of Love
It’s been a long time since I’ve done an outfit post! But first: Belphoebe. The first time I discovered Rags Of Love I found a girl with a sense of humour with similar taste in clothes and an Angela Carter fan (like me) to boot. Times have changed; we’ve both left peter pan collars behind for pastures new (Bel has gone more neon Hackney kid, whilst I’ve morphed to mundane office twat) but the humour, intelligence and personality I first fell for are still very much present. Yay for Belphoebe!
Last Friday I met Bel for lunch at Exmouth Market and two hours of houmous and unadulterated #ootd photos later I skipped back to my office with a massive smile on my face. “Blogger” is a a bit of dirty word and I’ve personally found the blogging world to be a cruel place (aside from a handful of lovely individuals), so apart from replying to comments I don’t engage much. However, making new friends in real life such as Bel more than makes up for the crappy online world and bizarre self-aware system we met through and it is these happy thoughts I’ve been carrying around all week. I want to meet all of you in real life now! Whose next??!
You can thank Bel for these awesome pictures. You’ve seen generic going-out Laila and this is default boring work Laila – print dress, one of my three jackets (tragic) and lots of stuff shoved in pockets. My knees look sort of weird?! They’re quite scarred and misshapen in real life (bike accidents/muggings) so it’s funny you can see in the photos. I associate most of my dresses with boys I know; this one is the “Danilo dress” as the first time I wore it Danilo was wearing a check shirt in almost the exact same colours. My fake leather jacket is horrible but I’d genuinely rather die than wear real leather. I imagine in like 20 years there will be attractive fake leather options and our kids won’t have to walk around wearing crap clothes in return for having morals. Le sigh. What do you guys reckon?
Which bloggers would you like to meet?
Dress – Miss Patina. Jacket – market in Barcelona.
Bloglovin / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
TAPE PARADE 