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Winter Loungewear Essentials
By Zoe Ormondroyd
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Places to Visit in Edinburgh This December
By Milena Jakubonyte
Edinburgh proves to be a popular destination for both domestic and international tourists. The historic city’s famous Christmas markets, or the Edinburgh’s Winter Festival, as the Council has named it, attracted over three million visitors last year. Edinburgh boasts a rich culture and history that is still present in its streets today. The city is the perfect destination to get cultured as well as explore all activities it has to offer. This list of locations has been compiled to be walkable, so no need for public transport! Tip: search these up on TikTok to see previous visitor’s experiences.
Scotsman Picturehouse, located inside the Scotsman Hotel, a 1905 building. This cinema with 1920s inspired interior offers Christmas classics like Elf and Love Actually. The perfect place to end your activity-filled day, by kicking your feet up and enjoying a movie with a not-so-ordinary ambience. Located next to the Edinburgh Waverley Train Station, visit Scotsman Picturehouse as a last-minute activity if you have time before catching your train home.
P.S. it is available for private hire.
Fan of Harry Potter?
Bored of Harry Potter merchandise shops?
This one is for you.
Department of Magic is located in the city centre and offers wizardry-themed escape rooms as well as a cocktail bar – The Magic Potions Tavern. Escape rooms are an immersive activity – it involves solving puzzles hidden in a room in order to ‘escape’. Not to mention the highly engaging storylines and costumes you can wear. While it is great fun, with escape rooms lasting about 60 minutes, it doesn’t stop there. Stir up a concoction of magic for yourself and DIY your cocktail at The Magic Potions Tavern or enjoy a sweet, crisp Butterbeer. Become a real wizard for a day at the Department of Magic.
P.S. alcohol-free options available.
3. Camera Obscura & The World of Illusions
This location, next to the Edinburgh Castle, is a four-story building offering rooftop views of the Castle as well as the Old Town. World of Illusions is an engaging activity, with countless mind-boggling illusions, suitable for all ages. As you move up the floors, you find a Camera Obscura Show with 360 degree views of Edinburgh. The charismatic showrunners give you some insights into the history of the city that you might not know about. On the rooftop, there are multiple binoculars and plaques detailing the buildings history.
P.S. once purchased, tickets are valid all day, so you may come and go as you wish.
4. Edinburgh Castle – Castle of Light
During the festive season, the legendary Edinburgh Castle, and the trail leading up to it, is turned into an immersive lights show. With the ticket, not only you get to experience the Castle’s majestic indoors, but also a bright and colourful storytelling on the Castle’s walls. The perfect Instagrammable spot to visit after-dark and get the most out of your day. Not to mention the breathtaking views of the night-illuminated city from the top of the hill, where the Edinburgh Castle sits. P.S. don’t forget your hat and scarf as it gets windy!
5. Victoria Street & Grassmarket
Did you know Victoria Street inspired the Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter book series?
This location is filled with independent businesses – there are various spots for brunch, coffee and a sweet treat. Try Hula for food, the Milkman for coffee and Mary’s Milk Bar or Kilted Donut for ice cream and donuts. Other small businesses offer authentic Scottish wool and cashmere clothing and accessories (they make great gifts for friends and family!) and Game of Thrones inspired souvenir shops. P.S. visit during daytime for the perfect pic for Instagram – just head up the stairs on the Vennel Viewpoint. You may recognise this spot from the Netflix series One Day.
Honourable Mentions:
Edinburgh’s Christmas Markets
The National Museum of Scotland
The Dome
Edinburgh Chihuahua Cafe
Never Really Here
Dean Village
Melville Monument
Edinburgh’s Harry Potter Tour -
Friendsmas 2024
By Nina Banks
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5 Brunch Spots in Edinburgh
By Lucy McMenigall
A day in Edinburgh can always start off with a brilliant brunch. Throughout the city there are many brunch spots worth a visit, here are a range of places for a morning coffee and some good food at these 5 brunch spots in Edinburgh.
The Milkman
The Milkman in the heart of the Old Town in Edinburgh is a great spot for finding brunch in the centre of Edinburgh. It opened in 2015 and has been a success ever since. Whether you are just visiting, or are a local, at The Milkman you can find high quality cakes and pastries to eat. The Milkman is a highly rated coffee shops in Edinburgh with amazing scenes of the old town for you to see while enjoying food and drinks. It has always been a trendy and popular spot with its unique style and branding. Perfect for those who love a photo of their food as well as those that enjoy a good quality coffee.
Urban Angel
Urban Angels is located in the New Town area of Edinburgh, a great central location where you can go for a brunch. With great customer service, in a comfortable environment Urban Angel can be a very enjoyable place for brunch, with high quality ingredients and bread made in-house. They offer the traditional Eggs Benedict and French toast, not to mention smoothie bowls or juices for you to appreciate and love. They have been open for over 20 years and are continuing to grow in success, as many visit and want to return for more.
Two Children
Two Children is one of the best brunch spots in Stockbridge in Edinburgh. Offering you many breakfast option, with a large range on the menu providing you with many pastries and cake choices to. A great selection of food for everyone and they have been highly praised for the way they can cater to vegetarians and vegans too. You can always find a delicious option there for everyone.
Loudons
Loudons has two cafes in the city. One that is located behind Waverly Station and a second café located at Fountainbridge. This brunch spot is one that is always filled with customer and is a popular brunch spot everyday. Pictures above show you Loundons have an excellent range of different food and breakfasts. Both with good quality food and customer service, you can’t go wrong with a Loudons brunch.
The Painted Rooster
The Painted Rooster is located just along from the Dean Bridge in Edinburgh. With amazing breakfast options available for you including freshly baked cakes and good coffee. The Painted Rooster offers a wide range from the Scottish Haggis and eggs on hash brown or a classic eggs Benedict. Its close to the main high street shopping spots and a great location for brunch on a shopping day out.
Go for brunch
These 5 brunch spot are definitely worth a visit for brunch while in Edinburgh, you can’t go wrong with a brunch and you definitely can’t go wrong with these brunch spot.
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Swipe Right – Gen Z dates (or tries to)
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Upcycling: how to create cool patches at home
Trinity Killian.
Do you have clothing in your wardrobe you no longer wear? Or is it just a bit boring and you crave novelty?
Then this article is just for you! Join me as I show you how to create cool patches at home with just a few supplies.
1. Gather scraps
First you’ll need to locate some scrap fabric you may have lying around your house. If you don’t keep scraps or have an old piece of clothing to cut up, you can find used bits of fabric (or damaged garments) at your local charity shop. Charities will bag up clothing they can’t sell and keep it in recycling bins, so it’s always worth asking if they have any bags ready for recycling. Don’t forget to donate some loose change in case they dig up something for you!
Old underwear, t-shirt with holes or stained sweatpants – time to snip them up and recycle the fabric Once you have chosen your fabric, you’ll need to cut it into smaller pieces. Shape is not important, but I usually start out with squares and rectangles. Keeping it simple makes your job easier once you get to the sewing portion of patchwork.
Material doesn’t matter too much when it comes to choosing which fabric to work on, but speaking from experience – thinner cotton or fake leather are the easiest to paint on. Thicker types of fabric will require multiple coats of paint and a bit of patience. Avoid anything too stretchy! Painting on stretchy fabric could result in paint not sticking properly and eventually flaking off. The stiffer, the better.
2. Supplies
You will need: needle and thread; fabric paint (or multipurpose acrylic like I have in the photo); old white eyeliner or regular soft white pencil, white chalk also works; brushes, and a black permanent marker (not pictured, oops, sorry!).
As you can see, the supplies you need to create patches are very inexpensive and you can find them in your local craft store or even some supermarkets. I’m positive that some of these things could be hidden in a junk drawer at home!
3. Getting started
Grab a piece of fabric from your scrap pile and sketch out your design with a white pencil (or chalk). The good thing about using a pencil or chalk is that you can wipe it off if you’re unhappy with your design and start over. Look for inspiration on Pinterest or see what other artists are selling on Etsy. Remember: do not copy original art! Try to come up with your own and if you really like a specific illustration, support the artist directly. This of course doesn’t apply to band logos, that’s a completely different thing.
In case you want to save time and energy and want to focus solely on band logos or simpler designs, Anarchostencilism will be your best friend. Their stencils are categorised by music genre and type of design, so it’ll be easy to find your favourite bands and other music-related graphics. Just print them out at home, cut them out, place them on a piece of fabric and apply paint.
Once you’re done sketching, squeeze some paint out into a plastic tub or on a piece of cardboard and fill out your design. Don’t worry about making it perfect, any mistakes can be cleaned up afterwards.
When you’re done, let the paint dry. If you’re impatient (I know I am), you can speed up the process with a hairdryer. You know you’re good to go when the paint doesn’t stick to your fingers. Next step is cleaning up your design with a black Sharpie and adding all the details.
I’m a big fan of medieval imagery and engraving art style, so here are my patch designs! Each one of them was first sketched out, blocked out with white paint and then I added all the details with a black permanent marker.
Before we move onto planning out the placement of your patches and sewing them on, you will need to iron over your designs to ensure they last. To avoid the possibility of white paint getting stuck to your iron, place a sheet of baking paper on top and then iron over the image on high heat for one minute.
4. Planning and sewing
Once you have played around with different placements and figured out where you want your patch to be, secure it with sewing pins so it doesn’t move around as you sew.
There are multiple options as to how you can attach your patches: hand sewing; machine sewing, or fabric glue. I personally wouldn’t recommend using fabric glue, because there is always the risk of it falling off in the wash. I will be using a sewing machine to save myself time and energy, but if you don’t own a sewing machine, you can look for videos online that show you different hand sewing techniques. This video from Madi Danger shows you how you can hand sew patches at home.
5. Washing instructions
Regardless of what type of paint you use, I would always recommend hand washing hand-painted patchwork items. If you really need to put your clothing through the wash, turn it inside out and use the lowest setting available. Putting it inside a washing bag also helps minimise the amount of friction on the design and helps it last longer.
TA-DA!
You are done! Enjoy your new upcycle project.
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Rise of the Jellycat
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Eco-Friendly Fabrics
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The 5 best books if you’re into anti-fashion
by Theo Fletcher
Anti-fashion has been present in many different facets of the fashion industry and continues to exist in the current day. For example, it has roots in punk culture as a result of its inherent punk nonconformist and rebellious views. However contrarily, it was defined early on by Gabrielle Chanel in the early 19th century, by going against the current style of conspicuous opulence, Chanel contrasted this by presenting simple yet evidently quality garments to consumers, rather than flaunting wealth.
Later on, this idea of anti-fashion shifted to the design language of ‘The Black Crows’, a term that the Western fashion press linked to Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake in the early 1980s when they first showed their collections in Paris. The garments shown in the early 80s by these designers were the antithesis of Parisian fashion at the time, and were heavily disapproved of by critics, these garments showcased distressing, asymmetry, oversized fits and monochromatic colour palettes.
A broader definition of anti-fashion would be a movement in fashion that opposes the current trends in fashion. For example, during the rise of the baggy denim trend, there were still people who stuck to a slimmer silhouette, choosing to wear skinny denim from brands such as early 2000s Dior Homme under Hedi Slimane and Balenciaga under Nicolas Ghesquière.
See the list below for my favourite 5 books I own concerning the topic of anti-fashion!
1. Others
Image credit
Others by Marco Bartolucci is a book that explores various philosophical ideas, and mainly focuses on the discussion of the notion of ‘The Other’ in fashion. While this similar concept for human behaviour surrounds the idea of non-conformism in society, this book defines ‘Otherness’ in fashion as: the deconstruction of garments, the post-human relationship, and the relationship between corporeality and garments. The idea of fashion is viewed from the perspective of the unconscious reasoning behind the garments, or in other words the innate human motives behind the differences in clothing design.
Page exerts from the book. 
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This book contains exclusive interviews from numerous designers who could be described as avant-garde, contemporary, very experimental and who also fit into the cohort of anti-fashion designers. Tatsuro Horikawa, founder of JULIUS (this is one of the very few interviews with him to my knowledge), Damir Doma, Barbara I Gongini, Henrik Vibskov and Boris Bidjan Saberi.
Boris Bidjan Saberi FW10 
JULIUS SS11Image credit
FirstView: Boris Bidjan Saberi, JULIUS
While this book gives a valuable and otherwise rather uncommon look into the deep background of these mostly self-effacing designers and their design processes, personally this book contained some ideas which were difficult to comprehend as the book seemed to meander around ideas without giving them a full explanation, making them complicated to grasp, however, is still very much full of interesting and unique ideas.
Price ~ £20
2. Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between
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The release of this book surrounding the work of Rei Kawakubo and her brand Comme des Garcons accompanied the MET’s costume institute exhibition that took place in 2017. The show featured more than 120 examples of Rei Kawakubo’s womenswear designs, this publication excellently photographs these garments illustrating the intricate details and styling opportunities of the pieces. The book starts with a conversation between Rei Kawakubo and Andrew Bolton (the author of the book) where Kawakubo goes into detail about her feelings regarding the exhibition, her thoughts behind which collections she chose to include and the reasons behind this, as well as her feeling that her collections are not fashion but art, and that they should be viewed in that way.
Page exerts from the book. 
Image credit
This book also contains important and well-curated quotes from Kawakubo that accompany each image and fit perfectly, giving invaluable context around the creation and appearance of these garments. This allows for a meticulous observation of Kawakubo’s feelings and thoughts throughout her whole career.
Overall, this book is a comprehensive look into one of the defining characters of the anti-fashion movement, into the world and the mind of Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons, it is an informative and inspiring book, that is simultaneously easy to digest and filled with exclusive imagery.
- Price ~ £45
3. Japanese Fashion Designers: The Work and Influence of Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo
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This book has a nondescript name in ‘Japanese Fashion Designers’, yet encloses a super interesting and overarching exploration into the 3 designers that were part of the so called ‘Black Crows’. This book goes into depth into the impact that these designers have had on Western fashion, and how they challenged ideas of status, sexuality and beauty in the industry. While this book discusses the past and present work of these designers independently, it also considers the past in unity, in order to establish the fundamental aspects of historical Japanese design and dress, and the differences in this compared to traditions in the West. These cultural traits are embedded into the work of these 3 special designers, creating an important outlook on design, that is culturally rich and imbued with history of the past. There is also a focus surrounding innovation within design, ideas and technology, this innovation is born from the cogitation from these designers about evolution, generated from the rejection of change for the sake of it, and the refinement and subsequent growth of previous ideas, collections and garments. There is also mention throughout of adjacent designers such as Ann Demeulemeester, Hussien Chalayan, Martin Margiela and Walter Van Beirendonck.
Page exerts from the book. 
Image credit
This book is more text-heavy compared to others in this list, however, it is easy to digest and a fun and accessible text. There is also sufficient images to accompany this text and bring context to the words in places. It is also a great read to learn more about these amazing Japanese designers, and fashion history.
Fun fact… This book is based on 12 years of research into this topic!
- Price ~ £20
4. A.F.Vandervorst: Ende Neu
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This book surrounds the Belgian fashion brand A.F Vandevorst, a brand inspired by horses, military uniforms, the red cross, and fetishes, among countless other reference points. Showcased within this book is 20 years of its fashion collections, from the first collection (Autumn/Winter 1998-1999) to the 2017 collection. Throughout I would describe this as an image-rich book, full of interviews, anecdotes from other designers in adjacent spaces, and exclusive archival imagery that is available nowhere else other than this publication. These archival pictures and accompanying description give an exclusive look into the behind-the-scenes elements of putting together a collection, in regards to references, producing said collection, backstage and editorial images of the garments and models (allowing for a completely comprehensible fulfilling outlook into the brands’ world) and the intimate story behind each collection told by the founders and creative directors themselves: An and Filip.
One of my favourite exerts is surrounding the brands’ work is the concept of the Spring/Summer 1999 collection, where the models were in hospital beds, that were completely scattered across the runway space, entangled with the audience.
A.F.Vandervorst SS99 collection
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The design of the A.F Vandevorst book is stunning and extremely high quality, without even taking into account the contents of the book. The front and back cover are canvas-backed, with the title of the book and the brand embroidered into the front and side of the book, and on the back the red cross logo is present. This is one of my favourite books I own, it is incredibly inspiring to see the images and references behind these beautiful garments.
- Price ~ £50
5. Martin Margiela: The Women’s Collections 1989-2009
This Margiela book reveals the fine details surrounding the 20 years when Martin Margiela was at the helm of his namesake label (before he left, and the following shift to Maison Martin Margiela). Contained is 41 runway shows from 1989-2009, this book has an adequate amount of high-quality images, from the time, including archival runway and backstage photos and even reinstations of the same styling that was seen on the runway back then, but re-photographed, allowing for better quality. As well as showing the garments on models, the book presents some garments in a flat-lay perspective. From the outlook of anti-fashion, Margiela is a very important designer (often placed in the same caliber as Rei Kawakubo), due to elements such as his deconstructionist style, distressing, innovation in design, minimal/no logo, and the anonymity of the designers himself. These characteristics are clearly established within the text and images of this book.
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This book is great for an introduction to each year of Margiela’s collections and immerses you in the Margiela aesthetic, containing context around each collection and the background of the day of the collection, as well as some information around the wearability and construction of the garments. I would say it is very digestible, while also holding some great insight into the design process and background of how each collection thrived, and the critics thoughts.
- Price ~ £35
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The Ultimate M&S Christmas Care Package
Promoted By M&S, Written By Julia Bullen
Once Halloween has passed, everyone’s focus shifts to Christmas and the search for the perfect gift begins! Each year, M&S transforms into a festive wonderland, making it easy to find unique and thoughtful presents. To help you get started, I have handpicked ten must-have items from M&S to create the ultimate Christmas care package, a gift that will add a touch of sparkle to holiday giving.
- Pyjama Set – You can’t go wrong with a soft, stylish pair of pyjamas. This PJ set is the ideal unisex gift, perfect for curling up on cold winter nights.
- Beauty Set – Indulge with the L’Occitane Classics Gift Set, filled with everything you need for a relaxing self-care evening.
- Percy Pigs – A classic M&S treat, loved by all these festive sweets never fails to make you smile.
- Chocolate-Covered Almonds – Rich and moreish, these chocolate-covered almonds are perfect for a sneaky indulgence or for sharing (if you’re feeling generous!).
- Fluffy Socks – Featuring the M&S Spencer Bear these festive socks are an essential to keep your feet warm and toasty in style.
- Mini Perfume Set – If you are looking for an on-the-go scent when you’re rushing out to that Christmas party, this mini set includes all eight of the Discover fragrances, each scent elevating every outfit.
- Hot Water Bottle – The trusty winter warmer, this penguin hot water bottle is the only partner you need for a winter movie night in.
- Candle – This neroli, lime and bergamot scented candle is a statement coffee-table ornament, filling every space with the aroma of the holidays.
- Earrings – Add a touch of sparkle to your Christmas day outfit, these gold star drop earrings add a hint of festive glam to your look.
- Slippers – No care package would be complete without a new pair of slippers. Whether you’re preparing the Christmas dinner or relaxing by the fire these suede mules are a must for keeping your feet snug.
So, if you’re stuck for gift ideas look no further! This care package can be made as small or as big as you like, feel free to make it your own with personalised treats and thoughtful items to show how much you care.
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