I needn't have worried. It was beyond my expectations. The sourdough was perfectly soft, the cheese was perfectly stringy and the sauce perfectly delicious. In fact at the time I declared it to be the best pizza I ever had, though it's been so long now that I can't remember if this is true or if I was just very hungry (as one often gets when on a long pilgrimage). The ingredients are all sourced from Naples and slow cooked in a stone oven - according to the owners electricity kills pizza - so there really is no hope of recreating this at home.

I recently decided to torture myself even further and see what I missed out on from the restaurant menu. Aside from a large variety of other pizza toppings, I also missed out on mini deep fried calzones, tomato risotto balls filled with smoked mozzarella and most upsettingly, deep-fried Italian mac n cheese. Most intriguingly though was a recent addition to their Exmouth Market stall - pizza soup and a dipping calzone to go with it. Genius. I believe another pizza pilgrimage shall be in order.

SOURCE: dazeddigital.com // PHOTOGRAPHER: Evan Schreiber

If anyone didn't know hair could be so political, they certainly did after the release of Beyonce's Formation. (If you still don't know, you can get an intro here.) The fro is having a mo, and I'm sure I'm not the only one rejoicing. You can say it's just hair but it goes a lot deeper than that. Hair is our identity. It's often the first thing we try to change when we want to change ourselves, evidenced by Emma Watson chopping her locks off after ten years as bushy-haired Hermione, Miley Cyrus ditching her long brunette waves for a peroxide pixie crop and of course, Britney Spears' bald-headed breakdown in 2007. So you could say that after several years of moulding my identity to fit everyone else's, I am ready to start shaping my own. Here's 5 reasons why it's the perfect time to ditch the straighteners.

1. INDIVIDUALITY IS IN
Conforming is out - as discussed in my last post. Nobody worth noting achieved success by trying to be someone else. Being yourself is important but I've been learning that it's not always easy, especially now when we're faced with more influences and opinions than we necessarily want or need. The people I've always admired and quite often those who become icons do so because of what makes them different. Whether it's a tooth gap, a scar or just big curly hair - wear it with confidence.

2. AND SO ARE AFROS
There have never been so many models on the runway wearing their natural hair texture. Model Maria Borges became the first to wear her natural hair on the runway at the Victoria's Secret show last year. It's late but it's still a sign that the industry is slowly changing and coming round to promoting more than one beauty ideal. I never realised the importance of this more so than when I watched these little girls on the Tyra Banks show who believe their own hair is ugly and that people will only like them if they have straight hair. If they saw more women around them enjoying their curls/afro, then they wouldn't grow up feeling bad about their own. Which is why I love Beyonce for Formation.

3. BEYONCE SAYS SO
'I like my baby hair with baby hair and afros.' Just a small line but one that has caused much discussion. Blue Ivy is so young and yet her hair has already come under scrutiny when thousands signed a petition against it's unruliness. Beyonce's letting Blue Ivy and thousands of other girls know their hair is fine as it is. Growing up as a mixed race girl, there weren't many people around me (or celebrities) with my hair type. If I wore it down at school I felt uncomfortable: everyone would want to touch it, boys would make jokes and I was very aware and embarrassed by the fact that it was different. As I got older I would try to hide it as much as I could in buns and ponytails, only to feel ugly in comparison to the girls everyone liked at school, consequently resulting in the damaging years of forcing my hair straight. I'm paying for it now in the long process of trying to get my curls back.

SunKissAlba

4. MORE INFO AND PRODUCTS
Thankfully we are living in the internet age, meaning instant help is only seconds away. There is so much information out there now, bloggers and vloggers and floggers and joggers. Ok I'm getting carried away but you get my point. Youtube is probably the best place to start because you can find everything there, styling tutorials, product reviews, hair mask recipes and overnight techniques. The best person I've found is Sunkissalba who had her own natural-hair-epiphany a few years back and hasn't turned back to heat since. Watching her is enough to make any heat addict put their straightening irons down. And the best products I've found so far are from the Kinky Curly range. The Curling Custard is a life saver.

5. LOVING YOURSELF IS IMPORTANT
Cheesy but it's true. You know what's attractive? Confidence - someone who is happy in their own skin. This is not me saying that you should never straighten your hair or that straight hair is horrible, it's just me saying that it's ok not to when many of us feel pressured to look a certain way. It's about redefining beauty standards and being comfortable with who you are. Love your hair the way Darcy loves Bridget - just the way it is.

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'Something rather magical is happening in fashion: there is a gentle but significant new mood sweeping through design houses...I sense a remarkable era ahead, one that defines a new fashion voice where the brave and remarkable shine.' The editor's letter in the ELLE January issue perfectly summarises my current feelings toward fashion. For the first time in a very long time I feel inspired again, excited to wear the SS16 trends but ready to abandon them at the same time in pursuit of my own personal style. Either one will do, as luckily for me the industry's new mood is the individualist, or as Amelia Diamond puts it - street style has become personal again.

My most recent purchases are an affirmation of that: red co-ords, silky pink bomber jackets, patchwork jeans and strappy orange heels. Granted, they won't look good together but if I wanted to try it then why the hell not? Where fashion was once used to express yourself, a minimal and monochromatic palette bought monotony to the masses, eschewing any glimpse of the wearer's personality and extinguishing any love that I had for it. Until recently I believed that my lack of interest in fashion was down to me. Nothing was inspiring me and I thought I had outgrown it. It only occurred to me the other day when analysing my new purchases that perhaps it wasn't me - it was fashion.

When shopping online or searching Instagram for some inspo, everything looked the same - mainly variations of the Kardashian-clan prototype which consists of black, white and camel layers. I'm not saying it's a bad style but I think it's a safe one, an easy way out when you're not sure what your own style is. Bloggers on Instagram were sharing pictures in jeans and t-shirts and getting thousands of likes and comments on how well they dressed. Normcore was the current trend. Vogue defined it as 'a bland anti-style...The notion of dressing in an utterly conventional, nondescript way.' There's just two problems with that statement. Bland and conventional.

It is worth noting that average isn't inspiring. We are inspired by the extra-ordinary, something remarkable that motivates us to act a certain way. I couldn't be inspired by normcore as it was the antithesis of what fashion is about and what I love about it. The SS16 shows saw designers being the most experimental that they have been for a while and the repercussions show. Street style has character again. I remembered that fashion is meant to be fun and am relishing in the idea of dressing up and going all out Carrie Bradshaw style. My current obsession? Leandra Medine aka The Man Repeller. In terms of fashion she is fearless and she most definitely motivates me to act in a certain way - being confident enough to try new styles and slowly but surely introducing colour back into my wardrobe.

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Until now, I believed orange was strictly for prison jumpsuits and monks. It is a colour that has never lay in my wardrobe nor have I ever wished it to. It is halloween pumpkin costumes, high-vis traffic cones and ‘you’ve been tangoed’ jokes. It is not fashion-friendly. Or so I believed.

Fashion’s current individualist attitude is rubbing off on me. Maximalism is in, though it’s not something I could pull off. But keeping the style and cut simple and injecting a burst of colour? That’s something I can work with. And it so happens to be that orange is the colour I want to work.

Red may be the colour of the season, but it’s (currently) not a shade that I enjoy. Yes it’s love and lust and passion, but it’s also brash, flamboyant and brazen. It needs suitable colouring to pull it off, and a bold personality to match. It’s not something to be done half-heartedly. If red is danger and piping hot, orange is friendly fire. It’s warm and illuminating; if worn correctly it can make the wearer glow. You just have to find the right shade for you.

IMAGE CREDIT: ANNI PENG

So what is the answer to my ‘what goes with orange?’ question. The top of my tangerine wishlist is a pair of Missguided high-waisted trousers, and blogger Anni Peng (seen above) styles them perfectly, with a simple white cami top and some black platformed plimsols to keep it casual. I wouldn't add the sleeveless blazer myself as though I said above it's friendly fire, it's still fire. Approach with caution.