2014 has come to an end, and I thought that I’d share a few of my favourite things of 2014. From songs to bloggers and trends of the past 12 months. It’s going to be a wordy post, but I feel that a lot of the things mentioned here have got me through some really tough parts of this past year, and others have brought me a lot of smiles and a lot of confidence.
Songs:
It’s no secret that Korea gave me a love of edm – it is the club music of choice over there – and while the UK favours sing along club anthems over anything else, my favourite haunts in South Korea were busy pumping out the rave tracks from 11pm till 7am. It’s a case of if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. The tracks I got most hyped about on the edm scene this year were:
Bad – Davide Guetta & Showtek, ft Vassey
Wasting our Lives (WLTP) – Showtek ft. Tryna
Animals – Martin Garrix
On the non-untz-untz side of things, I’ve really enjoyed the British talent that stole the scene this year – obviously Ed Sheeran is pretty much loved by everyone, so no surprises there – among a variety of things. Crystal Kay brought out an amazing track this year, dubbed ‘yokohama ratchet pop’, and Block B continued to slay. So some of my most played tracks this year have been:
Blame it on me – George Ezra
Braveheart & Welcome to the Jungle – Neon Jungle
Chandelier – Sia
Her – Block B
Dum Ditty Dum – Crystal Kay
Albums:
For the artists who provided many a soundtrack to walks to class each morning, and home each afternoon, running around Seoul in summer and back in England. The songs that kept me grounded and together, while everything around me was falling apart, tracks clicking one after the other.
Save Rock & Roll – Fallout Boy
First Sensibility – B.A.P
Dark&Wild – BTS
Red Light – F(x)
Motion – Calvin Harris
Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die / Vices & Virtues – Panic! At the Disco
Crush – 2NE1
Recess – Skrillex
Bloggers(+Youtubers)
I think she’s such a lovely girl and I adore her style. And her hair. Her tutorials are really informative (even though they’re not always relevant to me), and I enjoy her styling videos immensely. She’s so engaging to watch that even if I have youtube on as a secondary to whatever I’m doing, if one of her videos comes up I will stop and watch.
Aside from the fact she has violet/purple hair, I find Victoria generally awesome. She has some incredibly informative posts about the financial side of blogging, and seems much more grounded and level-headed than a fair few others in this line of work. She’s definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already.
HelloOctober (Suzie)
My favourite posts of Suzie’s are definitely her Sunday posts – but everything she blogs about is generally lovely to browse through, and her photography is gorgeous. Her vlogmas this year was one of my favourites – then again, I am a sucker for watching anything with puppies!
A relatively new addition to my favourites, but from the moment I started following her, I’ve enjoyed reading everything she’s posted. The outfits featured are so on point, I’m really excited to see what 2015 brings her way.
Youtube
Pentatonix
I could go on for days about how much I love pentatonix – a cappella singing is notoriously hard, add remixing popular songs and arranging them for 5 voices and and and and. Yeah. Music is tough shizz yo (I am allowed to have an opinion I was brought up musical). They are spectacular and I wish that I can see them live sometime.
Beauty
I think the stand-out beauty products for me this year have been things I’ve found in Korea. Big surprise. 0 points if you guessed that.
Nature Republic Argon Essential Deep Care Hair Pack — this saved my hair in Korean humidity. And Korean cold. And, well, basically just all of Korea’s weather. It’s brilliant for dehydrated hair, totally and utterly brilliant.
Etude House Drawing Show Creamy Liner // Etude House Oh My Eye Line Eyeliner — so if you want an eyeliner that will not budge unless you have an industrial, Korean standard makeup remover, then I suggest you try, pretty much, any Korean eyeliner. I particularly like the Drawing Show, since it’s a gel liner and allows you to perfect the ‘Flick’. Razor sharp points.
Fashion
This was the year of the chunky shoe and coordinate set. Not necessarily together, but definitely two things I am very glad (sort of) 2014 offered us. I am a lover of the heels, and anything that gives me a platform while still being stylish is good in my books. I haven’t actually ventured into the world of the two-piece coordinate yet – I never found one that I wanted to invest in particularly, but I’ve loved seeing them at Fashion Weeks and around the blogosphere.
2014 also saw the revival of the hat. The fedora, the wide-brimmed floppy, the snapback was already a pretty strong contender, but 2014 was the year that we all went a bit mental for the perfect (black) fedora. An endless struggle for those of us with a smaller cranium than average – but h&m helped us all out there (ta muchly), so we could all have that perfect felt/wool/acrylic accessory.
Other honourable mentions go to; The Duster Coat, the Graphic Tee, the Blanket Scarf, and the summer aesthetic that was boyfriend/mum jeans with a white vest + the open toed heel.
I hope that 2015 brings similarly amazing things into my life, and that a couple of the trends we saw this year carry over. What were your favourite things of this year? I think that my most favourite thing of all was starting this blog, and all of you who read this. You’re all my favourite, thank you for an amazing year!
♥
Leave a Comment