This is my blog. I don't just write about fashion, I am interested in everything!

Today I have been thinking of the new Housing and Planning Bill which is currently in committee stage in the House of Lords. The provision of housing is such a vital need for everybody in society that it is important that we all know what is going on. From what I have found out so far, this current Bill will affect anyone who:

1. Lives in social housing

2. Lives in social housing and earns more than £30,000 per year

3. May wish to buy a property at any time

4. Works in housing, property, benefits/welfare or any local authority department

Hopefully anyone of these groups of people will join me to get facts and not sleep walk into something that will put a lot of our society at a disadvantage..

The new Bill among other things promises to; promote the supply of starter homes in England at 20% less than the market rate, ban and register "rogue landlords," re-enact the Right2Buy so council tenants can buy their home, allow social landlords to increase rents for "high income" tenants and phase out secure tenancies.

Here are my concerns.

1. Basic Human Needs - as well as food, air and water, shelter is described as one of the physiological basic needs in Maslow hierarchy of needs pyramid. What's the effect on a society when the people do not have access to the basic needs? Due to lack of money, there is a record number of people in the UK being referred to food banks and homelessness is currently increasing with more and more people on housing waiting lists. Is this how we want our society to be?

2. Not all properties are worth £450,000 - in the Bill, there is a cap for the price of starter Homes which is £250,000 or £450,000 in London. According to charity Shelter, to be able to buy a London property, first time buyers under 40 should have a deposit of £98,000 and a salary of, £77,000. Not all properties are worth that much but market forces keep it high if there isn't enough supply.

3. How much is £30,000?

The Bill will allow social housing providers to charge higher rent to households earning £30,000 or higher. In theory this sounds ok but at the rate that rents are increasing, this is a scary prospect. Also in the Bill, the way that Social Housing providers are allowed to "find out" what people are earning seems like a breach of data protection laws. They will be allowed to get the information from HMRC as if investigating a criminal or gaining evidence for a prosecution. So what's the alternative if you cannot pay? Has everyone forgotten the purpose of social housing? "Needs based housing" means the tenant had a reason (or need) that qualified them to move into the property in the first place.

4. Who will administer this?

The average Housing, Council, Local Authority worker will be on salaries that are around £30,000 per annum so chances are they may be affected by this Bill or be close to someone who is. Who will administer the new procedures? Are they all ok with it?

5. In the meantime....

According to www.emptyhomes.com at the last report from Government data in September 2015, there are over 200,000 long term vacant dwellings (more than 6 months) from a total of 600,000 empty properties. This is key in London with new properties that belong to the "super rich" laying empty because they wanted the "investment opportunity."

Although the dream that everyone should be a home owner is ok, it's a nice idea really, I think there is only so much monetising of our basic human needs that society can handle especially when the majority of those in need are priced out.

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Where can you find so many designer brands all in one place?

FashionMusicEtc now working with Accent Clothing; bringing you great deals on so many designer brands.

You may or may not have heard of new designer Danit Peleg but her Graduate collection of 5 pieces made entirely by using 3d printing techniques is worth a look. The designer describes the reason for doing this on her website;

"I believe that technology will help democratize fashion and give designers more independence in the creation process"

As the FashionLondon magazine lead writer for fashion technology, I am also keen to spot the new trends and techniques that effect the fashion industry.

There are more and more inventions and technological ideas that influence, improve and promise to change the way we admire, purchase and consume fashion and the last few years has seen funding go into new companies looking to do this.

One of these technological advancements is the emerging technique, 3D printing. Described on www.3dprinting.com as "...a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file."

Although there are different printers that result in similar results the main process looks like this; make a virtual image using Computer Aided Design (CAD) technology, use a 3d modelling program or a 3d scanner and then load onto a 3d printer. Once ready this will slice the parts into printable pieces and print it out so it is ready to be assembled.

So what does this mean for us as lovers of fashion? What does it mean for producers of fashion? Is this the way forward? In the same way that we now purchase music and videos by buying them online and downloading them at home, will this be how we now buy our clothes? Will we now be downloading our wardrobe? I look forward to seeing how this idea develops.

I've enjoyed this half term on a budget. Although in an ideal situation, money would be no barrier and we will have a car, drive to the seaside, go to the cinema, maybe even Disneyland...! In the meantime, we must seek alternative, friendly and fun activities that keep the

Mini-mes happy. With excellent timing, I spotted this TV package from orangeTv, all the key channels at a good competitive price. Worth a look :-)

1. Maiden form flexees low back bustier from Belle Lingerie

2. Laces & Beads Tara nude embellished dress £100 TFNC London

3. WalG Drape midi black dress £32.00
TFNCLondon

4. Selma's sparkle dress £31.30 Alice's Pig

5. Baby pink suede heels £24.99 The Fashion Bible

So as we are already into February (yes, the days - where are you flying to?) it would be a total shame to miss the opportunity of doing a "countdown to Valentines' day" post. So here is my Sunday: The cute card. I'm a firm believer of "love you all year" so Valentines' to me means to have a little fun :-)

As we all start our preparation for the upcoming LFW events, I've been thinking quite a bit about my conversation with my make-up artist friend. We were talking about how the industry had moved so far away from the professional fashion industry and is a stream of blogger selfies tweeting about their borrowed wares to make a little bit of cash. It makes me not want to go
....

I was thinking about my photographer friend talking about how instagram "photography" seems to fool the fellow man into thinking that it is actually professional. I would recommend anyone/everyone observe a real photographer in action and dare question the value of the end result. Sweat and tears people, sweat and tears....!

As a make-up artist she mentioned how the vloggers who claim to be make-up artists seem to make a mockery of her years' of professional training - I think I can put my own mascara on thanks!

I personally am aware of how bloggers today seem to get more attention when I am here doing what I have always done. I don't mind because I will always be true to me. I do it for the love and therefore do not need to be judged with the same brush.

The blog is a modern day version of my journal aged 12 and a half. I'm not collecting freebies for a tweet! I will continue to gasp at something beautiful and will always stand by my hard-working emerging creatives.

All for the love of creativity and the arts, it's beautiful dahlin'.

Nothing says Spring like baby pink, pastels and nude.

As the sun shine woke me on this Sunday morning, inspired, I wore my Cocorose ballet pumps to match my brand new Carvela (by Kurt Geiger) tote in nude pink.

Definitely a good colour choice for my mental wellbeing :-)

I'm so happy to see my styling feature in the new www.fashionlondon.co now online!

It includes the amazing engineered dress by EmileVidalCarr and the gorgeous lace dress from award winning RCW

The February / March (Valentine/LFW) 2016 will be out in print ready for LFW.

Hope you enjoy it.