Yup, that was one hell of a brilliant year Killer Fashion has had! Last year I posted a reminiscing post of all that happened in the past 12 months, and I’m at it again; so here’s my Year in Review for 2015! Thank you again to my wonderful readers & visitors, as you know I passed the 200,000 mark before Christmas which was just amazing and it’s all down to you! It makes me such a happy bunny to keep writing blog posts for you darlings, as you keep reading and liking my work! So thank you!
In January, I noticed how popular my Steal His Style: Conor McGregor post was so I updated it and pressed it for my readers. This stylish Irish mixed martial arts fighter is a big influence on both the men and women of our small country, and I’m delighted that every day I log on to Killer Fashion, this post is at the top of my stats, and is the most popular & viewed blog post of 2015! Hopefully one day, The Notorious himself will see it! Coming in close to this post, my Steal His Style: Macklemore was a hot topic for many months too, and still garners a great amount of attention. I keep both posts updated as regularly as possible, so that you can actually buy the pieces featured.
I was delighted when I was approached by Mindy Burton of Kiki Magazine, an American fashion magazine aimed at girls aged between 8-14, to have my piece on the Best of Dublin’s Creative Quarter published. The February/March 2015 issue arrived in late January and my gosh, I had a three-page spread in the magazine! Influencing the younger generation on fashion is very important to me, and Kiki Magazine does such an amazing job at providing young girls with responsible imagery of the fashion industry. Catch up on my article here!
I kicked off my first giveaway contest of the year in January too, in time for Valentine’s Day, wrote up a whole load of Best Dressed pieces, attended a brilliant event with Stila Cosmetics at Harvey Nichols, and passed 60,000 on the last day of that month! A great start to 2015 if I may say so myself!
In February, I was announced as the first Blogger of the Week at Glitz N Pieces! I was more than happy to have been interviewed by owners Ellen & Grace, as I have such a love for their boutique and their products. Y’all know those Yves Saint Laurent earrings I adore so much – yup, Glitz N Pieces! I wrote up a review on my now-favourite Yves Saint Laurent Eyeliner Effet Faux Cils and also a Steal Her Style: Cara Delevingne. Both posts garnered great attention and are still top posts today! I also updated my Curvylicious blog post, because February was the month of love. And I’m all about that bass..! Keep smiling and be confident in the skin you’re in!
I attended the Arnotts Menswear Spring/Summer 2015 Live event in March, and my photo was featured on Entertainment.ie AND myself & the girls were featured in the official video for the SS15 collection too, on the Arnotts Facebook page in April! Happy days! I also attended The Body Shop Green Tea Ceremony event to celebrate their new Fuji Green Tea collection, which was great fun, and then also attended the two-year blog party for Haute So Fabulous by Rebecca O’Byrne! This was a brilliant night which I’ll remember, as I met many of my now-good friends that night!
In March I also hosted my first self-organised bloggers event, the Killer Fashion Girls Night Out Blog Party! It was a very fun event and I hope everyone enjoyed it! It was of course hosted in Opium, Wexford Street, which as you may know is my favourite restaurant of all time. The events were plentiful in March too, with an exclusive invitation to be a front row VIP at the Vodafone DIT Young Designer Show Semi Final, held in the extremely impressive Smock Alley Theatre in Temple Bar. I loved sitting front row and getting up close & personal with the designs during and after the show. I was also invited to attend the Mary Grant open evening press event at her first stand-alone store in Powerscourt Shopping Centre. It was a great event, at which I got to really look through Mary Grant’s designs, and she even gifted attendees with one piece of their choice! Thank you! And then I also attended the Ziaja 25th Anniversary event at Cleary’s Pharmacy, hosted by my friend & blogger Emma Sheehan of Mastering Your Makeup. So yeah, March was hella busy but hella fun!
In April I headed off on my holiday to Austin, Texas to visit my best friend Chloë, on my first cross-Atlantic holiday! I was there for Austin Fashion Week, though our own Dublin Fashion Festival is pretty spectacular in comparison. Austin itself was lovely, and my two weeks off was truly such fun! Catch up on the Holiday Diary here if you’re interested in visiting!
Then in May, I attended the SOSU by Suzanne Jackson launch party, that revealed the #1 Irish blogger’s venture into cosmetics. As a big fan of Suzanne, I was very excited to have attended and since am a big fan & lover of her SOSU nail polish collection. I also got to meet another of my Irish idols at the party, Rosanna Davison, and we had a lovely chat about the time my Mam went to see her Dad, Chris de Burgh, in concert while Mam was still sick and that he danced with her as she was the lady in red. My photo from the event was featured on Stellar Magazine’s website, and I’ve also reviewed the nail polish collection, which you can read all about here! Later in the year, when So Sue Me celebrated its fifth blog birthday, Suzanne actually featured our photo in the post! She’s really such a lovely lady, and I want to just say congratulations to her and Dylan on their engagement!
As I was preparing to launch my food blog, Cookie FM, in summer of 2015, it was time to venture into foodie events and my first invite was to The Gibson Hotel’s #GibsonGrillin summer BBQ event! It was such a fun and delicious evening of cocktails and barbecue food, two of my favourite things, which I shared with one of my best friends, Killian. Later in May I attended events for #TheTan by The 2 Jenns, the Wet N Wild #IrelandsBestKeptBeautySecret The Makeup Party of the Summer event party, the first Irish Beauty Blog Awards, and the collaborative #NarrateYourStyle event by The Gloss Magazine & blogger Rebecca O’Byrne of Haute So Fabulous at the Links of London. Just like the previous months, May was a busy one packed with fun events!
June was quite the happening month too. First there was the second Irish Bloggers Conference, at which my good friend comedian & DJ Marcus O’Laoire was hosting and my best friend Timi Ogunyemi gave a talk. This was such a fun and funny day; sitting in the back row with my friends, and causing harmless havoc from our über cool ‘BROW’, learning many lessons & garnering advice from experienced bloggers and business experts, and then heading to 10. Stephen’s Green with my blogger posse for a fun night of an after party!
Next up was the Goss.ie 1st birthday party at Buck Whaley’s, Leeson Street, which was a really fun and chill evening of catch ups & cocktails with all the girls and guys. My good friend Lisa McLoughlin works for Goss.ie, and having met her the week before she started at this Irish entertainment website at the first Irish Bloggers Conference, it was fantastic to get to celebrate with her all the hard work she’s put in in the past few months. This was also the fabulous event at which friend & photographer Jerry McCarthy snapped such a brilliant photo of the girls and I! I even used it to change my personal Facebook’s cover photo, something I’d not done in months! Goss.ie also featured my photo with the girls on their website – thanks for that!
I then attended the #BOUNDLESS ‘Transatlantic Fun & Games’ event by Picture This, which was held in Fashion Fair on Drury Street. This was a really fun event as it wasn’t anything necessarily blog related; it was all about street art! I was supporting one of my best friends, Timi Ogunyemi and his Picture This team as they showcased 15 of New York’s top artists and 15 of Ireland’s top artists in a mix of art styles, as each of the talents painted their individual water tower as designed by the talented duo at Boundless Brooklyn. It was such a successful event, which also ran on until July 4th.
I was featured on Entertainment.ie attending the Vodafone Comedy Festival Launch Party, which was a good event where I saw plenty of my comedian friends for an evening under the sun. In July, there were plenty of celebrations; from the Alex & Ani #AmericanStyle event at Arnotts, where I was featured on the Style Look page of the Independent.ie, I attended my very first races at the Fairyhouse Racecourse for Ladies Day and even put a bet on & won, and then when I was attending the launch for Thomas Sabo’s My Love Bridge collection and was featured on Evoke.ie.
And the July celebration definitely didn’t end there as the day of my birthday, I hit the 100,000 mark!!! This was such a wonderful present from you to me for my 25th birthday. My birthday weekend itself was fantastic, and truly enjoyed every minute of it. I partied from Friday 10th until Monday 13th (my actual birthday!) and it was just so much fun. My family & friends were a huge part of that weekend’s events, and I’m so grateful to all of those who came out to celebrate with me, and thank you to Odeon and Opium for their special birthday touches for the two birthday parties!
A few days after my birthday, I attended the Flormar Event with Leonard Daly at the Residence Members Club on St. Stephen’s Green. It was a really lovely event at which I was introduced to this brilliant brand, and I love their products I’ve been using since. (That Flormar Illuminating Primer is amazing!) I was also interviewed by Emma O’Farrell for the behind the scenes video, which you can watch here!
The blog events didn’t rest all summer, as in August I kicked things off at the Urban Decay press event for their new eyeshadow palette, Naked Smoky. I love this palette! I really need to do a review on it soon…but I really do recommend it! Then I finally got my hair did at the Style Club Hairdressing on South William Street, after months of being unhappy with the state of my hair and über cool stylist Hannah worked an absolute miracle on it! She turned it from limp, boring, plain brunette to a bouncy, soft & shiny, copper balayage style which STILL has its colour in now! Absolutely delira!
My new hairstyle was perfect timing as it was then time to attend the launch of the sixth annual Dublin Fashion Festival, which was a really fun event with my closest blogger friends. Then in September I was invited to the Canon Ireland Dublin Fashion Festival Bloggers Event, where my photo was also printed in The Herald newspaper that week! I also went to the annual Young Designer of the Year with the girls and the Creative Quarter fashion show with more friends, both events were great fun and the fashion was just amazing! I even got to meet the amazing Louise Roe at Brown Thomas, from which my photo was featured in the October issue of U Magazine!
In October, I turned the blog pink for my annual Pink October month to help raise awareness of breast cancer. The global awareness campaign helps encourage women to get breast checks, to encourage fundraising & awareness events, to learn more about breast cancer and to help those who have been diagnosed with this cancer in any way possible. The stats were brilliant but more so, I got great feedback from fans & followers and from the Irish Cancer Society on donations!
I was invited to an exclusive Afternoon Tea with Thomas Sabo, at The Dylan Hotel to celebrate their 10th anniversary of the Charm Club Collection. I really enjoyed this because it was both jewellery and food-related. This was a lovely event, getting a look at the new charm selection, learning more about the Thomas Sabo brand and I even received my first ever charm bracelet! So cute, thanks again! My photos were also featured on RSVP Magazine.ie, which the girls and I were delighted about.
Attending the Huawei Snapys Awards with my friends in October, I got to meet some really great people in the media & photography industry. I really loved the dress I wore for this occasion, which I bought from Rare London. My photo from also landed on the webpages of Image Ireland & Evoke.ie, as well as being featured in The Herald with Lorna! So it was definitely a successful event for me!
I brought the girls to the Zomato Birthday Party at which we had such fun and I actually won a massive prize for The Marker Hotel & Spa, which I still don’t know who to bring with!! I’m still in awe about this because I love a good spa and B&B at luxurious hotels, what girl doesn’t! Thank you again to Zomato and The Marker Hotel! And then I hosted my final Killer Fashion party in December, the Christmas Bloggers Party which was good fun with great friends!
I also had the opportunity of working with some great brands for blog posts, including Lyst for the Ghillie Shoes post, Adore Me for a lingerie & beauty post, Ennio Mecozzi luxury shoes, Henry Todd London jumpers, and So…! Fragrance, MyKindOfTie.com, Thomas Sabo and Urban Decay for the Christmas Gift Guide ideas. I really hope you enjoyed those posts, because I really love to write good articles that are helpful & different and especially hope the Christmas posts were beneficial to you. I also want to thank all the great people at the PR companies who have sent Killer Fashion beauty & fashion products, and have invited me to any events!
As I’ve mentioned plenty of times, I have my blogger besties with whom I’ve attended many events during the past year, but have also become four of my absolute best friends. They’ve all done so amazingly this year too with their blogs; Just Kassi by Kassi was awarded the Best Fashion Blog at the Blog Awards Ireland 2015, has spoken at the Irish Blogger Conference, Blogger Conf & alongside me at the blogging workshop at University College of Dublin; Fashion Boss by Lorna was the runner-up at the Blog Awards Ireland 2015, she won a trip to Milan Fashion Week and has been non stop spotted in magazines & papers, Darling Buds of Mei by Mei Ling has been growing and growing, garnering great attention at events, working with brands and also talked at the Irish Blogger Conference; and Enhance What’s Yours by my beloved Filomena was a Finalist for Best Blog Post at the Blog Awards 2015, as well as having huge stats, working with great brands and products and keeping me on my toes in both Buffalo heels and healthy food! Love you girls!!!
And I’ve also met other amazing bloggers who have become such great friends! I’m sure you know of Timi and his expanding blogs, including Picture This, I Am Timi and Nozzle & Spray, his amazing talents have had him in newspaper & magazine pages, on the television and speaking at conferences & presentations. And recently he announced that he and his gorgeous girlfriend are expecting a little baby, and I’m just delighted for them! Damien has been doing amazingly. I only met him in May at the Irish Beauty Blog Awards, and since he & his blog have risen so much. He was also named in the Top 5 Irish Guy Blogger to Follow, by Stellar Magazine, alongside Darren Kennedy, James Patrice, Conor Merriman and Rob Kenny! I’m so proud of everything he’s done, and really look forward to working with him for Killer Fashion in the New Year. There really are so many friends I could go on about but we’d be here all night, so do check out everyone’s blog and give them a follow on social media!
Aisling Regan – Ace Adores
Alex & Becky – Pink Elephant Blog
Chloë Slye – IXM Blog
Damien Broderick – Damien Broderick
Darragh Doyle – Darragh Doyle
Emma Sheehan – Mastering Your Makeup
Filomena Kaguako – Enhance What’s Yours
Gail O’Connor – Glam Force
Holly Shortall – Holly Shortall Illustrations
James Butler – Jus de James // MFI Magazine
Jessika Banaghan – Chaos Wearing Lipgloss
Kassiani Cheirogeorgou – Just Kassi
Lainey Moore – Ruby Laine Make Up
Lawson Mpame – Laws of Style
Lisa McLaughlin – Lisa Lists
Lorna Duffy – Fashion Boss
Marcus O’Laoire – Marcus Comedy
Mei Ling – Darling Buds of Mei
Melissa Carton – Melise Amour
Niam O’Donogue – Cultured Cuppa
Rebecca O’Byrne – Haute So Fabulous
Roisin Scanlan – The Fashionista Observer
Sarah Reiter – The Contouring Chronicles
Teddy & Alex Coptil – Teddy & Alex Blog
Timi Ogunyemi – Picture This // I Am Timi // Nozzle & Spray
And lastly, the top Killer Fashion picks this year include:
- ALDO Shoes – Lalia White High Heels, Tahlia Fringe Ankle Boots
- Alex & Ani – July Birthstone Bangle Bracelet
- Benefit Cosmetics – Benefit Brow Zings Kit, Gimme Brow
- Boohoo – Saffron Bandage Dress, Cameron Square Strappy Bandage Bodycon,
- Buffalo Shoes – Riviera Pointed Courts, Mesh Panel Pumps
- Flormar – Illuminating Primer Make-up Base
- Glitz N Pieces – Oversized Boutique Earrings, Midnight Mist Necklace, Bejewelled Necklace, Ushuaia Necklace
- Lancôme – Advanced Génifique, Hypnôse Mascara, Artliner Christmas Collection, Absolue βx Day & Night Cream
- Pimkie – Faux Leather Jacket
- PrettyLittleThing – Reena Red Lace Up Detail Mini Dress
- Rare London – Blue Floral Jewel Necklace, Black Button Plunge Bodycon Dress
- River Island – Cream Smart Sleeveless Jacket
- SOSU by Suzanne Jackson – Nail Polish in Nude Freak, First Date, Angel Kisses, Midnight Wish
- Thomas Sabo – Charm Club Anniversary Bracelet, Key Charm Pendant, Sterling Silver Glam & Soul Statement Pavé Ring, Love Bridge Bracelet
- Urban Decay – Naked Smoky Palette
- Uriage – Eau Thermale Aqua Précise Eye Contour Care
- Yves Saint Laurent – Eyeliner Effet Faux Cils, Rouge Pur Couture Lipstick Kiss & Love Collection 2015
The concert theatre at Madison Square Garden, New York holds 5,500 people. Killer Fashion was viewed over 155,000 times in 2015. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 28 sold-out performances for that many people to see it! The busiest day of the year was December 14th, following the Conor McGregor UFC fight, the stats boomed and the most popular post that day was Steal His Style: Conor McGregor too!
So there you have it! What a wonderful and very eventful 2015 has been. I just want to say another massive thank you to all of my visitors from over 150 countries who have stopped by Killer Fashion this year. I hope you all have a very Happy New Year, enjoy, stay safe & drink responsibly!
Images © Nirina Plunkett
Killer Fashion 