The day I met the Queen aka Lena Dunham

So today was finally the day, two years since I became obsessed with GIRLS, I finally had the chance to meet the one and only Lena Dunham. Lena perfectly captures the real life 'problems' and struggles of twenty something girls in her show, with characters that are as real as it gets. I love watching the show as it makes no attempt to be a glossy hollywood-esque show. My personal favourite character is Shoshanna Shapiro( far right) played by Zosia Mamet, she reminds me of myself a lot with her slightly neurotic tendencies and her social awkwardness.

When I first started to watch the show I didn't know who Lena was, or anything about her. But her creation of such relatable characters instantly made me love her. I love how she is so confident in her own skin, something that fans will understand as she is usually at least half naked in every episode. I also love how much Lena personally supports the feminist movement and politics for young people.

When it was announced that Lena would be bringing out a book I was ridiculously happy because I instantly thought of the possibility of a book signing. I bought the first copy I saw but only allowed myself to read a chapter a night, because like Lena says in the book I am very good at noticing moments that I know I will become nostalgic about in the future and therefore I didn't want my experience reading Not That Kind Of Girl be over too soon.

Still upset about missing out on her talk with Caitlin Moran at the Southbank centre tomorrow night I spent a lot of time Googling opportunities to meet Lena on her latest tour of the UK and was so happy when I saw that she was going to be doing a signing at Waterstones in Piccadilly, even if it did mean missing a lecture.

The signing was scheduled to begin at 1.30pm, so naturally I arrived at 9.30am and bought another book for £16 as I was told it was necessary to buy a book on the day to be admitted to the signing, which later turned out to be untrue. I was the third person there and spent quite a lot of time standing outside the shop in the rain before we were allowed inside at 12.30pm to queue at the signing area. 

At about 1.45pm Lena arrived and spent a few minutes having her photo taken by the paparazzi. They were all shouting things like 'Lena, look to the left' etc.. So she said 'Why are you shouting, we are indoors'. Until that moment I was nervous that her persona might be completely manufactured and that she might not be the down-to-earth girl described by many. Luckily I was wrong and she was just as kind and genuine as I have imagined she would be for the last two years. 

I was 5th in the Queue, we were told to put our names onto post it notes and hold our books open at a certain page so it would be quick for her to sign them. I decided to get both books signed, one for me and one for my friend. When it was my turn to go up to the table I was shaking slightly, I said something along the lines of 'OMGYOURESOAMAZINGILOVEYOUICANTBELIEVETHISISACTUALLYHAPPENING'

I then told her that the Cracksident was my favourite episode of GIRLS because of Shoshanna running around in her pants. Yes I spoke about pants with Lena Dunham. I told her that I basically am Shoshanna and she seemed genuinely interested and excited in what I was saying.

She then told me that she loved my jumper, which I bought from Topshop (shock!) about four years ago. I purposely wore this jumper today because Khloe Kardashian also told me she loved it when I met her last year. She then signed my books and I smiled like an idiot. I just loved how caring, genuine and happy she was. Today has just increased my love of Lena massively. 

Thank you Lena!

I also just want to add that a great day was made even better by a trip to the mother land aka Topshop Oxford Circus to get some mega cute cupcakes from Lola's!

#2 Was a feminist blog right to publish unretouched photographs of Lena Dunham?

Recently everyone seems to be going on about GIRLS creator Lena Dunham’s recent Vogue cover and how controversial the photographs of her are. Whilst retouching photographs is in no way a new phenomenon, people are still making a fuss about it. Yes it doesn’t portray a completely realistic image of a human being, yes it may feed body image issues and yes we know that Lena doesn’t need photo shopping, but it happened, it happens and we just need to get over it. Magazines are not supposed to show REAL people, if they did the supermodel would become extinct faster than Cara can record herself on the catwalk. Nobody really wants to open a magazine and see a picture of something that is less than perfect, these magazines are simply giving us what we want, and essentially what will sell. Photo shopping is just a result of this society in which we live where we idolise individuals for various reasons but then we wait, perched on the edge of our seats for them to do step out of line (cough Miley cough) so we can rip them to shreds with our words. So why would a magazine leave in certain imperfections in a photograph purely to receive tons of negative feedback. Fashion magazines are currently in a lose-lose situation in which they are damned for using retouching technology but then damned if they don’t. Surely if people genuinely want photo retouching to end they should work on changing the attitudes of society first ‘nip it in the bud’ is not a cliché for no reason, if the rest of society, or even just the target market of magazines such as Vogue make it clear that photo shopping is unacceptable to them then it will eventually stop. At the end of the day it all comes down to the bottom line and the consumer has the power to control that and so these magazines have it in their best interests to please the consumer.