I'm not going to make this a regular thing as I don't plan on being a fashion blog, but I just wanted to share some of my favourite purchases I've made in the past month. The leggings were technically bought a little bit over a month ago, but it's one of my favourite pieces in my wardrobe at the moment, and since it is a fairly recent buy I thought I may as well throw it in. It's odd because I don't usually like leggings, but I completely fell in love when I came across them through a friend of mine.
I also fell in love with the chiffon skirt and the boots. The skirt is cut just above the knee and has another layer of asymmetric drapery over it, and I simply adore the colour. I bought the boots on sale so couldn't find the original picture on the Zara website, but the picture I've used is pretty similar to what they look like. They are wonderful and I wish I could wear them every day, but unfortunately I'm still not so good with heels.
I've listed all items at their original price, except for the boots because I couldn't remember how much they used to cost, but I bought everything (bar the boots) with my 10% student discount. Thank God for NUS, eh?
Internet sensation Lana Del Rey made her live US television debut as musical guest on the popular show Saturday Night Live on 14th January, and has since become the victim of ridicule and many criticisms, as the general consensus stated that the performances of her two songs, viral hit 'Video Games' and 'Blue Jeans', was "awful."
Daniel Radcliffe, who was hosting SNL that night, has defended her, mentioning that most of the complaints actually had nothing to do with her music. "It was unfortunate that people seemed to turn on her so quickly," Radcliffe said at the BAFTA award nominations, "If you read about what people are saying about her online, it's all about her past and her family, and stuff that's nobody else's business." Which is true, if you look up her name, you will find lots of speculations and criticisms about whether or not she's had plastic surgery, or if her family were as poor as she claimed. All of which do not mention her musical talent.
Now, I may be bias, being a huge Lana Del Rey fan myself, but I think people are being way too harsh on her. From video clips I've seen floating around on YouTube, Lana is a nervous performer when she is on stage faced with a large audience. In a lot of her live performances, she does not emulate her natural swagger and attitude that you hear on her tracks, and often over-plays her vocals a little bit out of said nerves. People forget that SNL was, after all, her first live performance on US television. Before that, she had only done live TV in Europe, and you could argue that collectively, the viewers who watch SNL are about the same amount who have ever watched her live TV appearances in Europe put together.
That is not to say that all of Del Rey's live performances lack her original quality, here, I have stumbled across a beautiful live rendition of her single Born To Die at Chateau Marmont:
So as we can see, she definitely can sing. Del Rey was probably nervous at the prospect of singing in front of such a large audience, and let it get into her head a bit. I'll admit, they weren't her best performances, but they were by no means 'disastrous'. What I think is that people aren't quite used to her style and a lot of them judged her too quickly on those two performances, without looking into others first. For example, Hollywood actress Juliette Lewis first tweeted about the performance: "Wow watching this ‘singer’ on SNL is like watching a 12 year old in their bedroom when they’re pretending to sing and perform #signofourtimes." But Lewis has since deleted the tweet, covering her tracks by saying that Lana has "great haunting melodies" and that she's a "fresh and yummy songwriter", which shows us that all everyone really needs to do is give her a chance.
Lana Del Rey is by no means a bad singer. In my opinion, it just seems that she was so under the radar for so long, with no-one really noticing her at all, then suddenly as if by magic, she became so popular and in-demand in such a short space of time that it overwhelmed her. Her stage-fright will fade with time, and until then, I'll leave you with one of my favourite songs by her, Blue Jeans:
Lana's single 'Born To Die' comes out on 23rd January, and debut album under the same title on 30th January.
