Rookie.

So, as I mentioned on here a few times, when I was on holiday in London with my friends I went to the London meet-up for Rookie readers! It was such a beautiful, amazing experience and I had a really weird epiphany about how cool it is to find people in real life who care about the same things you care about.

(I had been waiting to post about the meet-up until I got my photos developed, but they all came out terribly so I have used other people's photographs. I will credit them of course, but I can't remember where I got them all from so if there is credit missing and you know who took the picture, please let me know!)

Lilly

Us pausing on the way to the Serpentine Gallery, mainly to decide which direction it was in and to check we hadn't lost anyone. I look a little bit spaced out (and also strangely authoritative?) here, but that's nothing new. The weather was (typically) crappy and cold and drizzly, so instead of having a picnic in Hyde Park which I think was the original plan, we decided to go to an undercover bit of the gallery instead. This was all news to me as I had barely been to London before, let alone walked through Hyde Park, and all I can say is BLOODY HELL IT'S BIG, and I'm pretty sure you could fit all of Newcastle town centre inside it.

Unknown.

The group at base camp! I am on the left, perching on a cork bench. I took so many photos under here but stupidly forgot to use flash because my eyes had adjusted to the gloom, so all of my photos came out utterly dark and terrible. I think I was the token Northerner, and I have to say it was pretty hilarious when I would ask people where they were from and they would answer with a really specific part of London and there would follow an awkward pause where I was like, "So, that's in London then?" making a tit of myself in the process.

Unknown.

Our really cool ~teen cult~ sign! I was one of the first people to get to the meet-up, I walked up the steps of Marble Arch tube station literally on the dot of 11am & saw a group of four very cool looking girls standing underneath the arch. Just as I was working out how best to subtly approach them, one of them unfurled this sign and I knew that these were my people.

Unknown.

The big piece of paper where we all wrote our names to document who came. I think someone is sending this into Rookie, along with a photo diary of our day!  You can just about see my name left of the pot of yellow glitter. I had one of those weird panics about how best to write my name creatively (Seriously, the things I worry about), so went for my 2009-era trademark heart balloon doodle.

Unknown.

Making flower crowns was my favourite part of the day! Everyone brought fake flowers (well done to those people because I couldn't find any!) & crafty things, and some very clever people brought glue to make our own Rookie crown with. Mine fell apart a little bit in my suitcase on the way home, but I shall patch it up and post about it later in the week! I brought pom poms, ribbon, feathers, a small paper parasol, weird plasticy animal things, some charms & a few pieces of broken jewellery. It was so lovely to see all the different things people made.

Ophelia (and there's more on her blog here!).

A (sort of) outfit shot! My skirt & tights are from Topshop, the cardigan is from a charity shop, the blouse is vintage/customised by me and I made the necklace and flower crown myself. Also, that blob beside my eye is a glittery heart sticker!

Ophelia (although quite a few people took a photo of my necklace, so it could be from someone else!)

I wore my feminist necklace, of course, and I got so many compliments I was a little bit overwhelmed! I took another necklace with me to swap (I shall show you what I swapped it for in yet another post!), and a girl I met bought one from my shop a few days later! I have never felt so, I don't know, comfortable and amazed to be in the company of people who were so interested in the same things that I am, not just feminism but the fight for equality as a whole, as well as things like clothes and hair dye and jewellery. For a long time now I have been thinking of submitting a little jewellery DIY to Rookie, but I wasn't really confident enough to actually put pen to paper (or open a document on Word), but now I am going to set aside some time to actually do it.

Unknown.

The whole group at the end! I had such a wonderful time at the meet-up, and I wish I could have stayed all day as I think everyone went on to the Natural History Museum, which sounds amazing! I would love love love to go to another meet-up, and I think there is another one planned for September. I was so lucky this time that I happened to be in London on the meet-up date, otherwise I don't think I could have gone! I am so glad that I did as the whole experience was just so brilliant. I met up with my friends shortly after this photo was taken, and we went to the Yoko Ono exhibition at the Serpentine - which I loved because Yoko is so funny and astute and underrated and misunderstood - and then the Ballgowns exhibition at the V&A - which was so beautiful and made me want to cry because Alexander McQueen. A very cultured, very Londony, Rookie day.