2013 has been a tumultuous year for me. When it came to sailing from one end of the year to the other the journey was less cruise control, sit back and take in the sights and more seatbelt lights on, hold on tight, you will be experiencing extreme turbulence for prolonged periods and all emergency exits are closed! But, its okay, several bumpy landings later and its finally time to bid it farewell and take on 2014.
It wasn’t all bad, I did have some great times, good laughs, lots of friends weddings and fun times but the best thing to come out of 2013 was definitely my blog. I had been contemplating starting a blog for quite some time, it had crossed my mind over the last two or three years so on April 19th, after much deliberation over what to call it, ZeeRailed was live with my very first post, read it here.
My blog has been the driving force behind some of the best moments of the last 12 months and when I say best I mean it! I was plodding along with my little blog trying to get to grips with Twitter and the ZeeRailed Blog Facebook page, which I have to say still baffles me at times, has the world stopped liking Facebook pages or is mine just that bad??... Things were going slow and steady with the blog and it was doing exactly what I wanted it to do, it was keeping me up to date with the fashion industry and keeping me busy, so I was absolutely delighted when it was nominated in three different categories in the Blog Awards, Best Newcomer, Best Fashion/Beauty Blog and Best Blog Post for two different posts “Colour Block Or Neon Flop” and “Resort... The Black And White Of It”.
In September Dublin Fashion Festival came along, I had heard of the festival in previous years but never bothered attending any of the events, this time though I had a purpose because i could blog about it. It turned out to be the most amazing experience because I won the Ilac Centre Stylathon!! You can read the whole post here, but basically I won the competition for being the most stylishly dressed over the three day festival. The prizes were amazing I won a €1000 shopping spree in the Ilac Centre, a weeks work experience with stylist Maria Kelly and a styling course in The LA Academy which I am to start at the end of this month! You can read about my other Fashion Festival adventures here and here, they are bound to give you a giggle!
Working with Maria for that week was great fun and I’ve worked with her on several projects since. I’ve worked on fashion shows with her, done shoots for Xposé on TV3 and worked on photoshoots for The Sunday World Magazine. You can read about some of these here.
Not long after winning the Stylathon I entered The Oasis Design Your Future competition on Ireland Am on TV3. The prize was a year working as a junior designer in Oasis head office in London. I got through the interview stages and was chosen as one of the 10 finalists out of hundreds of entries! It was an absolutely amazing whirlwind experience! Different challenges were filmed every week and aired on Ireland Am, unfortunately I was eliminated in the first round. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, it was an amazing opportunity, but having not designed a single garment since leaving college 4 years ago I must say I was very proud of myself for getting that far and it was a huge boost to my confidence in my ability as a designer. You can read the full post and see me on the telly here and here.
Filomena and I
Susanne Jackson and I
Suzanne Jackson and I
Two days after filming my first and last challenge for Oasis Design Your Future I attended the launch for the So Sue Me Book. It was a great night and an absolute pleasure to meet Susanne Jackson. She is a true lady, so sweet and supportive and a great success story. You can read about the launch here and if you haven’t bought her book already do, its a great little read and a brilliant go to guide when you need a little inspiration. You can buy it on her site here.
Catherine Kelly and I
Lisa Fitzpatrick and I
Clara, David, Catherine, Georgina and I
In November I attended the Oasis Design Your Future Launch in the Stephens Green store where I had a great night meeting up with the contestants again, chatting with judge and Designer Emma Manley and guest judge Lisa Fitzpatrick, both ladies are absolutely lovely, so down to earth and supportive not to mention gorgeous! It was great to get the opportunity to congratulate the winner Catherine Kelly in person too!
Finally the best thing about setting up the blog is all the new friends I’ve made. The Irish bloggers community is such a supportive network full of friendly, talented and very helpful ladies. I had the pleasure of meeting some of them in person when I attended two blogger meet-ups this year. The first organized by Samantha from All The Buzz and the second organized by Filomena from Belle F Beauty.
So thats my round up of all the good things ZeeRailed has brought me in 2013. I can’t wait to see what 2014 brings... hopefully some more likes on my Facebook page! So 2014 I greet you with excitement and great expectations, turbulence aside you have a lot to live up to and I intend to work you hard! Bring It On!!!
Photo's courtesy of Jerry McCarthy, Hazel Johnston and Ian Pelly
