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Fashion. Described by the Oxford dictionary as “a popular, or latest, style of clothing, hair, decoration or behaviour”. A sentence I really do agree with. However, I feel we must allow for interpretation. For instance, I can easily follow a trend, style, or fashion, but I like to believe I add my own flare to the way I dress, my hair and my behaviour.

I have always had a passion for fashion since a very young age. A woman of amazing style, taste and grace brought me into this world and she’s still killing it today at 51 – albeit with a little help from me! More recently, I’ve been on a personal journey in discovering who I am and what I want from life. Through this journey, I have truly discovered my style. And with that have come the compliments. A lot of close friends have said how well I piece things together and I’ve been known as the stylist of the group on occasion. So I feel its now time to share this part of my life to the world.

After much thought, and a poll on my Instagram story, I have decided to start a blog. I would like to share my opinion on the fashion world, share with you; my style, how I create my looks (without spending an arm and a leg) and also share with you more of me. However, for my first blog I wanted to talk about something close to my heart, something which has been a big influence in my style discovery; Social Media.

We live in a world where the first thing we do when we wake up and last thing we do before we fall asleep is scroll through our Instagram news feed. I say this with such conviction as it’s 100% what I do. If I have a spare minute in the day it is spent double tapping. Instagram is quickly becoming ‘the next big thing” with now over 1 billion users worldwide, and I bloody love it! Anyone who knows me will tell you.

It has been a great platform to help me through my style discovery as it allows me to showcase my looks and get great feedback and comments on each outfit. I think of it as a virtual focus group, except that focus group is the world. It has also given me the confidence to start this blog and hopefully make a difference as a tiny star in this huge world.

With all this joy, there is obviously an amount of negativity. Our generation is being brought up with shows like Love Island and The Only Way is Essex. These shows, like marmite, either loved or hated with nothing in between, depict a certain image of how we should look and what we should wear. A lot of the ‘celebrities’ from these shows go forward and use the Instagram platform to boost their career. My news feed is full of what I am told to believe is the perfect male body – tight, bronzed and sculptured – and that makes me feel a bit shit as I’m sure it does others.

So recently I have been working hard at the gym 3 or 4 times a week and trying to eat the right things to get where I feel my body should be. Something which is making me feel more and more amazing every day but I still can’t help but wonder; am I doing this for me or for Instagram? Yes, body image isn’t strictly fashion, and you all may feel I’ve told a lie when saying this is a fashion blog. But doesn’t how you feel within yourself reflect what you wear? I think so.

My body type, of course, depicts what I will wear and how I will wear it. I’m sure thousands of you will agree. Although I am on this journey to improve my body, this blog will focus on making yourself feel and look amazing whatever your body type. I ask the question… how important is Instagram (other social media accounts available) to our fashion?

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