Author: Lauren Bravo
Style & Social Media Columnist Lauren is a professional tweeter, pop culture junkie and Netflix addict. She's written about fashion since she was in flared jeans, and barely a trend goes by that she doesn't have an opinion on. An early adopter, she can usually be found hunting for a bargain on the virtual high street and blasting the latest high-tech skincare claims.
The week in hashtags: #Phones4U, #WhyIStayed, #LFW and more
#Phones4U After its final remaining network EE cut ties with the company on Sunday night, Phones4U has gone into administration. The store may have been one of the less soothing retail experiences out there, about on par estate agents and the Primark returns queue, but with 720 outlets the cheap and cheerful mobile merchants were…
First love: me, myself and iPod
Last week, we discovered that Apple has quietly killed the iPod classic. While I shrug off the news of most tech deaths with a ‘que sera, sera’, circle-of-life-ish pragmatism, this one has unleashed a wave of nostalgia that I wasn’t quite ready for. I’ve fallen into a Spotify hole and not climbed out for three…
Don’t call me, maybe? Why texts, email and social media are killing the telephone call
As a pre-teen, all I wanted, more than anything, was a telephone in my room – so I could talk about boys unobserved, without having to muffle my face in the hall coat rack. Clarissa Explains it All had a bedroom phone. So did The Babysitters Club. None of them ever had to answer it…
How a clothes steamer changed my life, and other gadgets your wardrobe needs now
I am a very creased person. No, I really am. Despite caring a fair bit about my clothes when it comes to buying them, I’m totally slack when it comes to looking after them, ironing them and making sure I don’t look like I fell asleep under a hedge. I don’t dare count the number…
Is the golden age of Twitter over? Why nobody retweets anymore
‘My very best gag about [X] and not a single retweet? You lot don’t deserve me!’ – another day, another person on my timeline. They may seem cheerfully self-deprecating, but under the faux outrage of those tweets there bristles a real insecurity (I’ve decided) about their place on the platform, and the future of Twitter. After…
Retro without the rummage: how to buy vintage clothes online
Vintage shopping can be wonderful, and awful. For every perfectly-tailored gem you dig out from the back of a dusty rail, there are usually several hours of exhausting, disappointing rummaging and trying on polyester frocks that don't stretch across your boobs. But thankfully that doesn't have to be the way anymore – because unlike our well-dressed…
Life beyond ASOS: the best online fashion stores you’ve not discovered yet
It's the world's most visited fashion site, and we've never wondered why – the postman always rings thrice where our ASOS habits are concerned (then pops back for our free returns). But even with its colossal choice of trends and labels, we're still getting a few too many 'ASOS? Snap!' moments these days – notably one…
Action this by EOP: the world’s worst corporate email speak
We’re taught many things at school that are meant to prepare us for the world of work, but at no point do I remember being told what EOP stands for. Nor did any of my teachers brief me on how best to go about being onboarded, or explain what it means when a future boss…
The Great British Bake Off: technology and gadgets to make you a better baker
You might not have noticed, but there's a little cake competition on TV at the moment. Alongside the emotional peaks and troughs, the perfect piping and the collapsing pastry and the 'bincidents', The Great British Bake Off is also doing more to get the nation baking than decades of Home Economics lessons ever did. Supermarkets…
Somebody: Miranda July’s new social networking app is wonderfully pointless
You’re either the type of person who will find Somebody, the new social networking iPhone app from writer and filmmaker Miranda July, incredibly lovely and charming, or the type of person who will want to throw a shoe at it. Based on the idea that ‘when you can’t be there… Somebody can’, the app bequeaths…
