Joe Gilgun photographed by Shaniqwa Jarvis, from her Instagram

Thanks to Twitter I found myself working as a stylists' assistant on a photoshoot for the upcoming issue of Wonderland magazine.

I saw the stylist Natasha Wray put the call out looking for an assistant on Twitter and offered my help, since that is exactly the reason why I came to London - to see what opportunities I could find and try to learn as much as possible. Her tweet didn't specify which publication the shoot was for, so it was super exciting to turn up and find it was for one of the most highly respected fashion magazines in London.

The shoot was part of a feature on the new season of Misfits, which has an almost completely new cast, apart from Joe Gilgun, pictured above. It was my first time working on a shoot with actors and it was rather an interesting experience. Actors always have that special energy, and Joe had bundles of it. He was a very charming person and had this incredible magnetism, though there was a flickering of darkness in him too.

London keeps presenting these surreal situations that I know couldn't happen anywhere else in the world and I still get a little giddy when I remember where I am. Coming to London to work in fashion has been a dream for a long time, so it's definitely crazy to think that that dream started to come true within my first two weeks here. I feel very lucky.

 

Princess Diana wallpaper at Kensington Palace

 I know I haven't been posting much since I got to London, but I guess I just have so much to say about my experiences and what I have seen here, that I don't even know where to start. Especially when it comes to writing a post about London Fashion Week. I can't seem to string together a coherent sentence about that right now. I'll keep working on it.

One of the very first things I heard a local say after arriving in London was on the tube from Heathrow, where a boy was wedged between his parents, gorging himself on lollies. His father looked at him and said, "Give mummy some of those, as long as she promises not to get too fat."

First thoughts on London

I'm super disappointed that my ability to imitate accents (any accent) has not improved since I've been in London. One of the things I am geekily looking forward to about travelling is that my accent will be the foreign one, for once. I thought this point of difference would be of interest in locals who would fall in love with my quirky kiwi accent and take me to their parties and introduce me to their cool London friends. What I had forgotten is that London is multicultural on a level I haven't experienced before. Everyone here is a foreign visitor or an immigrant. I didn't even realise the barman who served me tonight was a New Zealander until he was already pouring a drink for the cool foreign girl next to me. So I couldn't even ask him if he knew Steve from that band who lives in Grey Lynn and then we would have laughed about it because he totally would have known Steve from that band who lives in Grey Lynn and then he would have taken me to a party and introduced me to his cool London friends.

London is so dirty that it keeps clogging up my nostrils and when I blow my nose the snot is black from all of the soot. Snoot.

Cheese.

When I was living at home (like, a month ago) I threw out a block of cheese. I have no self-restraint when it comes to cheese so I just had to throw it into the rubbish bin and hope it made its way to those starving kids in Africa. Mum was mad that I had thrown out a seven dollar block of cheese. I was just relieved to be released from the power it had over me. Then she bought another block. Maybe if I eat heaps of cheese I will develop an allergy so severe that it will poison me if I try to eat it? That seems to be my best option for getting over this cheese addiction.

And then I came to London and cheese here is less than two pounds pounds, even the fancy stuff, like feta.