Geeking OUT !

Geek Attack! As if I haven't geeked out on Sussie Bubble before I keep geeking again and again and again. After reading on her site that she'll be at the London College of Fashion in Oxford Circus at say 5.30 I just happened to be around the corner finishing up from a press event and lunch at Busaba to then merrily walk in and sit next to fellow bloggers and peers to listen to the fashion blogger phenomenon who has about 14,000-16,000 hits a day.


The Apple chat was more chilled out with Susie doing most of the talking about what she does and why she does it. This time around people skipped the formalities and went straight into deep cut questions. The conference room became so full that someone actually had to me almost leaded out when she tried to sneak in to find her saved seat. Akwaaard! People were lining the back of the room with a-many crowding the front of the theatre. Many students and bloggers were recording the conversation which was super insightful. I am excited to share my notes with my fellow readers so indulge yourself below:

Ramblings& Notes from my personal diary:

• Susie had a dull job in media, only blog a few hours a day, last March she was asked by the editor of Dazed and Confused to be the commissioning editor of Dazed Digital. She recently got her own domain, .co.uk , and she has roughly 14,000-16,000 hits a day.
• AT one point she was obsessed with google analytics, the majority of her fan base is from the States the second is the UK. She thinks the States has more of a blogging routine.
• Teen Vogue mentioned her in an issue back in September 06 and she had a massive spike in traffic and US readership since then.
• Talking about blogs is a hot topic, The Observer pulled in a new audience. She keeps in mind that she chooses to be positive about everything and that allows her to be free and open. Her writing style has not changed, but now she more variety of content for her blog.
  
• Dazed has its own style and she has her own.
  
• Susie can write up a post in 5 minutes, and doesn't need to think about it.
• She laughs that she doesn't sleep much , she has 400 blogs on her daily blog roll, and logs on to 30 websites a day, she also reads magazines and tries to widen her media scape.
• Magazines are more well thought.
• She has outfit experimentations with her own style. Likes to link with what is happening in fashion which offers a personal connection.
• "I am worried about what people who think they know me and that worries me."
  
• "I used to go on Fashion spot forums. I like the interaction on the internet. People around me don't necessarily love fashion the way I do. So the internet to me is a release and space for me to geek out in fashion."
• "I started about 10 websites with Geocities on random topics which had no correlation before I discovered typepead."
• People tend to use Sussie Bubble pages as trend research and forecasting.
• "In 2007 Chanel and Gucci organized trips for bloggers to tailor made for bloggers, and you can tell they were trying to deal with bloggers in a different manner. It is a certain thing if I feel I could get content off of it that would interest readers then I would go and do it. But I try to show an account of my own experiences. This is what I saw. I don't have to write about them unless its of interest to me."
• How did you start getting traffic? It all happened in an organic manner, I just asked 3 of my favority bloggers to link to me. But I have already established myself on forums and commentating on other blogs. Style.com also linked to me and it evolved as a natural thing.
• Buys the Guardian the newspaper because she loves the writing style. Likes thier content and the way they write.
  
• Blogs make fashion more accesible and democratic.
• The relationship between brand and blog is very tricky but again its the way one handles it.
• It has been a struggle in the last 9 months juggling work and the blog and maintaining it and keeping it updated.
  
• I have limited knowledge with HTML and javascript aesthetics. But if I could go back and do it all over again I might have had customized skin for my page. Am not too fussed about pictures but its more about content.
  
• Where do you find the motivation to get up at 6 am and cover events like the Angel sale? I have a natural enthusiasm , I would be there anyways, queing and taking photos.
  
• I spend 1-2 hours a day blogging nowadays, but I constantly have 20-30 ideas for posts.
• I try to write openly and freely and not dispute a bitter tone when I feel like I am being attacked, but I do feel like I have a resposibility to fashion bloggers and my readers.
• The blog is a self reflection of me and a post is done in a state of mind so I don't regret anything I have posted about.
  
• I relate to fashion in a different way , I consume it through my blog.
  

Katja Power.

Taking me out of my London gloom purely went down to attending the Glam Canyon Event in 145 Shoreditch and meeting Katja the wonderful photographer who was hosting the event. Now to all credit to Borderline magazine, I writing a feature for the ubra-cool online magazine and was supposed to cover an event with Katja it just so happened she was hosting this one, so along cam Fashion Ambition. Now I don't want to delve into the copyright issue so I am linking her here so you may visit her site and view her photographs from that night on her own site. She lays them out in cubic squares that are so delightfully spread out on her page. Anyways Katja I loved, she was everything one dreams of a photographer. Funny, super friendly, smiley, and fabulous. This is sounding like one of my many (oohh I love Susie Bubble posts) but me no care as I walked out of the club scene in pure smittenens. If there is such a word. The event was a mixture of close friends and friends of friends with many people looking relaxed and dolled up. There were vamps, there was lace, there was leather and black lipstick. It was an eclectic mix of London's cool and slightly dangerous. Watch this space as I link to my feature with Borderline!

Next Glam Canyon event will be on the 24th of Feb and be sure to come.

Katja- the photographer

Bodyworlds for my Grey Soul

I left Bahrain for cold showery windy gloomy grey London. I am so cold and down-in-the dumps right now. You should see me. I am wearing a massive knit sweater, black pashmina wrapped around my neck, thick wooly socks, fake uggs, and am wrapped in my purple blanket having hot tea after tea. I am considering wearing gloves just to write this post. Coming from lazy Bah this is such a shock and after 5 years you'd think I'd be used to this by now, but so am not.

So anyways for those who have a weak heart look away as I reveal some pics I snapped at the Bodyworld Exhibit in London at the 02 center. I am lucky enough to have coolio friends who call me the second they have tickets to openings like these. This groundbreaking anatomical exhibitions is by trailblazing scientist, Dr. Gunther von Hagens, and it features a presentation of the human life cycle and ageing. The exhibit showed the complexity, resilience, and vulnerability of the human body through anatomical studies of the body in distress, disease, and optimal health.It was completely graphic and bewildering.

Fashion Ambition Is Now Reading...

I have been Tagged !

So i've been tagged! It was a while back and I want to thank Trisch Express for tagging me! It made me feel ever so special ! I was asked to write 7 personal things about myself and tag another 7 to do the same. So here it goes:

1. I miss my grandparents. They both died 11 months from each other 8 years ago when I was 14 years old. I still remember them clearly, my grandfather taught me how to read a clock and with my timetables. He hung paintings I made for him when I was very little in his store. I still remember the paper became yellow and my pencil colours faded but he still kept them hung. My grandmother used to love play dolls with me and I remember her soft skin and smell. I try never to bring them up anymore because it makes my mom cry.

2. I am inconsistent with everything except with my relationships. I go through phases where I read non-stop sometimes 3 books in a week and then none for a couple of months. Or all I crave is mexican food or strawberry juice and I binge on that for weeks at a time. It happens with blogging and answering my emails as well. I go through weeks of non blogging then one day I would write 10 or 15.

3. I dream of travelling the world in 6 months and following the trail of Che Geuvara when he was a still a student in Latin America. Some places on my worldly adventure include Greece, Tibet, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bali, Hawaii, Jamaica, Las Vegas and LA, Morroco, and Aussie.

4. My favorite food shall forver be Safi with white rice and daal, Bahrain's homemade speciality. It's the first meal I have as soon as my plane lands in Bahrain's humid weather.


5. I have lived in London for 5 years and its become so much apart of my identity and I have learned to embrace all that is British yet whenever I close my eyes, I see myself in NY. Head scratcher , me thinks so ..

6. I have a beautiful blag dog called Diesel in Bahrain, he is half retreiver, quarter German Sheperd and quarter Doberman. He is one year old, he pees everywhere and loves to be cuddled and hugged.

7. I have been lucky to meet and work with both Liza Bruce and Marko Matysik in London. Though they work in different fields in fashion, they are muses to me, and are artists, fashion designers, and visionaries. They have altered my vision of who I want to be and have expanded my way of thinking!

Day 9 in Gaza - 465 dead in Palestine

I never intended for this blog to be only fashion related. It was always a sort of self discovery journey documentation sorta thing, where I tried to bulge in my interests of books, travels, and interviews all mashed up in my teeny personal space. Seeing I am in Bahrain at the moment I have done some shopping but more TV hawking.

My father always chooses to stay away from politics and engage in it in his own time in the privacy of his own home, but I tend to be a little more vocal about it engaging in political chit-chatter usually around a subject I am very passionate about, and its usually Palestine. Bahrain is in a mood of mourning. Not only is it freezing cold, windy and dusty but also New Year celebrations have been canceled in coalition of our civilian brothers and sisters who are being butchered everyday by the Israeli war machine.

Its now Day 9 of Gaza being under fire in fresh new wave of attacks. Many reporters are comparing this massacre with what Israel had done to Lebanon in 2006. Gaza is a small strip of Palestinian land ( that has over a million people shoved in only 17% of the land which makes it one of the most highly dense spaces on earth). Israel have placed a blockade around Gaza where no food, drink, medical supplies or aid can come through the small city for the past 20 months but on top of that they have no electricity and are being bombed and raided on through battleships from the sea, by ground forces who have entered Gaza last night, these include soldiers on foot and tanks, and through rockets in the air.

So far 11 mosques have been demolished, newspaper and TV offices have been bombed, an Islamic university has been shredded into pieces, a police and traffic controllers graduation ceremony has been bombed with all its young graduates in slumps on the floor, an orphanage containing 9 children have been bombed as well as a group of 5 sisters all huddled in one bedroom have perished, 2 sisters in a separate home, and a doctor. 365 people have been killed, more than 30% of the women and children.

There has been protests in Bahrain, Egypt, Madrid, Paris, London, Washington, Chile, Brazil, Greece, Cyprus, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Palestine, Australia, Turkey, Morocco, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Mauritania, UAE, and even Tel Aviv with thousands taking to the streets condemning this genocide. I can only do so much but protest in Manama and Muharraq, donate whatever money I can to Islamic organizations, and write and blog in frustration.

To those who have access to Arabic television channels, watch Al-Jazeera or Al-Jazeera International, and Al Manar.

Some interesting blogs about Palestine, A Mother From Gaza, and Annie's Letters.

I apologize for posting such graphic images but its those same images which have awoken the world in anger at the genocide in our beloved Palestine. These images are a reminder that we must do what we can, protest, write, and give aid to the Palestinian resistance.

Touch Screen Shoes

It seems every piece of technology is succumbing to the touch screen effect. The iphone, the new blackberry, the teeny tiny TV's on British Airway planes. Once you go touch- you can't go back I tell you. We are definitely a generation of the future. What I didn't expect to turn touch screen were sneaker shoes. Not just any sneakers of course but good old Nike ( I am pronouncing it Nike not Nikey) to touch screen you own design onto your sneakers.

Days before heading back home to Bahrain I went about trying to spend every last penny on a new wardrobe for when I come back home - silly habit I know. And after frequenting a sample sale at the Hospital Club and buying a ballerina inspired black dress at Rokit I walked across the Nike store in Covent Garden in a hurry to meet my friends at The Apollo Theater. ( We are rushing to see Josh Hartnet playing Tom Cruise for the theater adaptation of Rainman). And in my hurry , there was rain, shopping bags, and uncomfortable boots involved, I actually stopped to watch some people touch screening a colorful wheel outside the store window.