Graphite.

I have finally started sorting through the myriad of boxes filled with the contents of our student flat in Leeds. Both my parents have a penchant for stashing memorable trinkets - their treehouse business is named Squirrel Design after Mum's earlier obsession with 'squirrelling away' odds and ends in boxes, and Dad has always stridently refused to throw away anything that looks unusual or interesting or might come in useful at a later date to make into a piece of jewellery or a garden sculpture etc etc. With this in mind, the amount of sh*t I have accumulated over the last four years is quite impressive, albeit unsurprising given my parentage. 

One item in particular that I seem to have amassed is notebooks - who can resist a little (or a lot of) quality stationery? I have a particular infatuation with the Moleskine and carry my weekly notebook diary with me everywhere. After studying Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines for the IB and learning the name and design came from the travel notebooks he used, I bought one as my homework diary and journal and since then I have found no other partner more perfect for my love of lists and minimal design formats. With the quality of the paper being infamously beautiful to write and draw on, even the lined pages provide a perfect canvas for sketches. In one of the boxes from Leeds I uncovered this old drawing in another Moleskine - not a diary but a simple hardback notebook which I thought had gone missing. I misplaced it after only starting this one page, but now it has been unearthed I can start filling it with more pencil.

Now what.

Instead of calmly slipping into what has for the last however-many years been the reassuringly finite 'summer holidays', I now find myself standing atop the perpetually clichéd precipice of the beginning of the rest of my life. No more is the few month stint of flitting about haphazardly before returning to the comforting, structured bosom of university; the thrill is both breathtakingly terrifying and refreshingly liberating. 

Platitudes aside, my summer as a graduate (as of 22nd July if the treacherous exam season went accordingly) is set to be filled, unsurprisingly, with coffee and cocktails. Unfortunately the making-of, rather than the partaking-of, given the current status of my demoralisingly-overdrawn bank balance. If all goes to plan this should culminate in a beautiful, slow motion running across the beach movie-style reunion with my gorgeous gal palz in Indonesia. Post-uni gap yah, anyone? 

However, before then and in the interest of not running before I can walk, I'll start with some simple things that I want to do more of now I don't have to rehearse the Spanish subjunctive or proofread the correct usage of commas in 10,940,482,384 essay footnotes:

1. Write. 2. Read. 3. Draw.

That and maybe perfecting some highly unnecessary but satisfying latte art.

FKA twigs.

Perfection. Cover story for the one of the two current photo issues of The FADER magazine, featuring girl crush du jour/septum inspo FKA twigs. Girl got brows.

With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose,

There seems to be something in the air at the moment, enticing people towards punching tiny holes into their various corporeal nooks and crannies in pursuit of endless twinkling embellishments. Long gone are the days where piercings were confined to the rebellious/outcast/'I don't care what Mum says' attitudes of a select few subversive groups - you only have to catch a glimpse amongst the pages of any benchmark publication over the last couple of years to see that a gilded perforation of the ears and/or nose has become a key player in reviving the arena of accessorising.

Since Vogue Paris, British Vogue and Vogue Russia featured silver nose rings as focal points on the faces of Daria Werbowy and Candice Swanepoel, the trend is garnering more and more disciples. Both on and off the catwalks, models and fashionistas alike are opting for a fresh approach to facial adornment, amassing an ever-growing collection of gold and silver bars, rings, hooks and chains in varying graceful iterations. Scarlett Johansson (do not call her Scarjo, if her recent interview with Glamour is anything to go by) and FKA twigs are personal favourites of mine, while other partakers include Zoë Kravitz, Anja Konstantinova, and even Gaga herself.

It's not just the girls either: Korea's Sang Woo Kim, of Burberry and Kenzo prestige, also sports a silver septum barbell as the centrepiece to his razor-sharp cheekbones. Jealous, me? 

Who can forget Givenchy's Spring 2012 beautiful couture contraptions? As seen on Grimes below for Dazed and Confused, these theatrical yet intricate adornments serve as a predecessor to the current trend of a less-is-more aesthetic re: nose holes, by bringing to light the possibilities of moving beyond simply one ring in each ear. 

My advice would be to tidy away the multicoloured statement costume jewellery that appears so enthusiastically along the accessory aisles of every Topshop in the land, and opt for something more subtle, delicate and understated. Think along the lines of rings as thin as silk; gold or silver threads appearing to weave themselves around your skin like gossamer.

On that note: in my wildest dreams (i.e. if I was a resident of NYC) I would turn my ears and nostrils towards J. Colby Smith for any and all of my piercing requirements. As New York Adorned's resident genius with a needle he has an impeccable eye for placement and an invariably meticulous selection of jewellery in terms of both size and material. Take a gander at his Instagram below for a gallery of gorgeously curated ears and beautifully elegant septum chains. 

(@jcolbysmith)

As for me, I'm currently enjoying channelling Janet Jackson circa '97.