Nancy Dreaming is the fashion and beauty blogger with a penchant for pink and colouring her hair. We caught up with her behind the scenes of our photoshoot to chat about sewing without formal training, using vegan beauty products and why tattoos don't have to mean anything at all to look pretty.
Did you ever think that you would become a big blogger and influencer? Was it on purpose or did it just happen?
To be honest I just started last year in February because I always like, fashion is pretty much my life. Yeah, so I started to do this because I’ve seen lots of bloggers getting like, you can actually have the lifestyle you love.
It’s a pretty cool way to make money isn’t it? I mean like it’s fun to just...
Do what you love!
Exactly. What’s been your favourite brand to work with so far or a favourite company you'd like to work with?
I really like Storm! I like their jewellery and watches, they’ve always been really nice to me ummmm like the favourite...Storm I think.
What made you decide to do the photoshoot with Graduate Fashion Week?
I mean, when I heard about it, it was so exciting because I love fashion, I always wanted to study it but just never got the time because I was busy with so many other things, but never like focusing on the thing that I really, really loved. So like last year I just told myself yes, I’m gonna design and I was doing clothes as well so like…
So you’ve had no formal education in fashion design?
No, but I’ve done like dresses and haute couture, I love that style.
Do you like all the graduate collections that we’ve got here today for the shoot?
Yeah, I was so excited but I couldn’t… I picked two and then on the train I was thinking, yes I really like the third one as well. It’s hard to choose!
Do you think it’s really important to have a really defined style and to keep that going when do you think you should try out loads of new different things and see where that takes you?
I think so, yeah. I always try different things. Just experiment!
Because that’s how you work out what you really like?
Mmhh yeah, definitely. But not even just what you like, who you are at the moment because I think you’re constantly changing so it’s never like… a few years ago I liked something different, I would never say I would wear this colour or something like that and then you change, you meet new people, you do different things, experience so much. It changes you so I think that fashion always changes with you.
Something that doesn't alter are tattoos. Obviously you have quite a lot of tattoos! Do they all have a separate meaning, or are some of them connected?
To be honest, no.
They don’t?
I just love art, for example if I have artist; like he paints whatever like favourite paintings I just go with it. Or just ask tattoo artists to just create something or my idea. Like, I know people are always like what does it mean? It’s just pretty.
It doesn’t have to mean anything, it just looks good.
Yeah! Like a photo album or something.
From looking at your instagram page, you mention vegan products a lot. Are you a vegan?
Like, when people ask me this and I, I used to think that it’s not important. I thought it’s like funny to say or for animals like. You know, no one cares. No one actually cares and then ‘cause I was actually thinking about this a long time and then one day I got some like sausages or something like that from my mum. She sent me some and I didn’t like it. And me and my boyfriend, so we’re just going to throw it away he said to me, because I always wanted to go like vegan or vegetarian but you know I kind of decided more into the meat, and then he said you know someone died, some animal died and we’re just throwing it away because we don’t like it. And that was like December and we decided from January that’s it. And it was great.
Are you doing it together then? It’s nice to have that support
Yeah but I think after that we started to read stuff and like documentaries… Everything. Just to see how much is lie, you know, it’s like McDonald’s. It’s this image. How much these big corporations will not let you know. It’s actually even not healthy, it’s not. How can you imagine like the pig being tortured, stepped on, in their own faeces and this is healthy?
Do you try to use only vegan beauty products to?
Yeah.
Do you hand make some as well?
Yes, I do my lipsticks and like beauty stuff like creams and scrubs and oils! I use coconut oil or Or mango or avocado oil ummm I mean butter. There’s some oils as well and cocoa butter. It’s really easy when you get the right amounts and stuff.
Is that something you’d like to do more of?
Mmhh It’s just, you know there’s so many things out there. There’s big brands, it’s hard to start from…
Scratch. Yeah do not really wanna start competing with them?
I love it, like I really enjoy doing it so I think yeah I’ll keep going and see what happens.
Do you have like an inspiration for the looks you've put together or are you just sort of going with how you feel?
I just wanted to do something different. Like the big, like the big dresses. I thought about this. I don’t know, I like, I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Sex and the City, but there's one where Carrie went to this fashion show, and so I thought about this and it’s so like similar because you chose influencers and bloggers. So I really want to do like something, you know, inspired by sex and the city.
Thanks for chatting with us Nancy! We can't wait to see the shots.
Interview by Annabel Waterhouse-Biggins