Gucci Shades

As hard as I try, I can't seem to get over my love for the giant plastic framed shades. Everytime when I think I've found the perfect pair that would last me a lifetime, I find a new pair that is more perfect than the last. And the thing is, they're all basically huge shades with plastic frames!
So I am perfectly aware that this will probably not be the last time I utter this sentence, but I swear this time I've found the perfect giant plastic shades. Wandering aimlessly around the department store, I glanced over at the shades selection they just popped out from amongst the rows of oddly shaped new trendy shades that I doubt would look flattering on me. It was almost like in those cartoons when the character finally finds the item they've been looking for and the item just shines in the distant and music comes up and the world is perfect again. These Gucci shades are perfectly rounded and the nose support is just right that the bottom of the frames do not touch your cheeks (I have to admit, my current one does touch the cheek). And they look fabulous on. They are just brilliant in its simplicity and elegant shape. It comes in brown and black, but somehow I prefer the brown, thinking its more chic and not quite so dark. Plus, since I already have black plastic frames....brown plastic frames would be a variation. My current huge plastic framed shades are from Dior, and don't get me wrong, I still love it to bits. I especially love the Dior "D" on the side with the pretty flower detail on the edges. And it looks great. But I'm sure all of you will agree that they are very different from the Gucci pair......so it is a different kind of perfect. OR maybe the trend for huge plastic frames has evolved over seasons and I have not even noticed but just blindly followed to my liking. Wow, now even I am slightly confused with my logic. Whichever way, those Gucci are just soooo beautiful!
Incidentally, I would like to mention that I also tried on these pair from DVB, just because its from DVB and I wanted to see what they were like. The shape and design is actually quite nice. Only thing is, they are so black that I felt blind in it. I guess thats what celebs need for maximum coverage from the paparazzi?

Image Source: Otticanet

Milan Fashion Week SS08 Wrapup II

Sorry this post is late! I spent the last many hours getting to Chicago (first time here!) and am now jet-lagged (slept too much on the planes.) Thank goodness for the new runway photos -this season's Milan shows are definitely more exciting than last season's shows!

Prada

Wow. After last season's collection of heavy artificial materials, this season's sheer, flowy clothes is a great change. The first thing I loved was the dark, moody makeup. The makeup theme -dark eyes and light lips -is made moody and not sexed-up. Miuccia shot for 'fantasy'. And it IS fantasy. Even if it's not dramatic fantasy like Dior haute couture or Alexander McQueen shows, the clothes here are Prada's signature, understated and not-for-everyone sort of fantasy.

See the silk dress on the right -it's amazing how Miuccia managed to combine those peacock-ish colours and still make the dress look pretty and not tacky.

I LOVE that dress on the right with the fairy print. It's so elegant and feminine with a cute, pretty edge.

It's so refreshing to see Prada's intellectual, artisitc clothes not looking like it's usual, boxy self. However, I'm not sure how good they'll look on the consumers or who would actually buy crazy coloured pants (like the one on the left.)

Alessandro Dell'Acqua

While Dell'Acqua's collections have never been as fashion-foward as Prada's, the clothes are always great to see how he mixes his new inspirations with last runway collections' trends.

OK, so the first few outfits of underwear are pretty bad, but I do really like his cocktail dresses. (I have a thing for these fake strapless dresses. They're just so much more practical, modest and comfortable than the usual strapless dress, don't you think?)

I'm not sure how commercial these Japanese-inspired skirts/ dresses will be, but do note the wasit-clinching trend. Ooh, and look at the dress on Du Juan (left,) doesn't it look like flowers are growing on her (and tastefully covering up her private parts?)

Marni

Marni is a brand that I see people wear around a lot. It's so distinctive you really can't miss it. Whenever I see Marni clothes in real life, I've always been so bombarded with the prints and crafty accessories that it didn't occur to me that Marni's clothes are now less nature-like than a few years ago until I read the reviews on the SS08 collections. And even though the crafty necklaces are still there, the clothes now really do seem more modern and wearable.

The dress on the left is one of my favourites from this Marni collection. It's artistic without being too over-the-top. And that dress on Lily Donaldson (right) -it actually looks somewhat classic and sleek, something that is not very Marni-like.

The patent leather bags and skirts are still there, but this time paired with brighter colours.

Perhaps it's an attempt to try out new silhouettes, but some of the clothes like the dress on the right was so different from Marni's usual clothes that I can't quite appreciate it on the Marni runway yet.

Image credit: www.style.com

Milan Fashion Week SS08 Wrapup I

And we are off to Milan! Sigh, it seems just like yesterday I was walking along via Della Spiga, passing by the huge Armani building and breathing it all in. Anyways, back to the runway. Lets start with the most Italian of them all......

Gorgio Armani
Inspired by the languid sensual summers of Southern Italy, this collection had a much more relaxing and casual touch than Armani's usual sleek, sharp and sexy silhouette. And about time too! I was getting bored of using the same adjectives every season to describe Armani.
I am usually not one for gypsy looking shorts, but I am loving these. Armani upgrades them with the shiny material and the subtle tailoring, making them look feminine and elegant while still being very relaxing and comfortable. They appear to be very versatile too, looking great with equally relaxing looking tops, loose and fitted jackets. I want one of these next season!
Then there were the dresses. Or shorts integrated into looking like dresses (left and right above). He keeps with the theme by using these light flowing fabric further enhanced by its texturized print.
More into the evening, we have these creations. Armani's pairing of the sequence top with the flowing floral skirt is just genius.
Something a little more typical of Armani, the evening wear. I simply LOVE all of these, especially the gold one on the right that was the finale. Simply beautiful. Oh and it looks like I'm going to have to invest in light shawls next season too!

Burberry Prorsum
Christopher Bailey never ceases to amaze me with his collections that are always refreshing but still oh-so-Burberry. This season, the theme was the Luxury Warrior, I have no idea what the means but it looks to me that it involves feminine ruched up materials paired with rocker chic studded elements.
Personally I don't really like the look of these ruched up material. It looks like bunched up muscles....maybe I've been seeing too much Body Worlds.....But I DO like the whole long jacket over a dress and cinched together with a studded belt look. Very cool. And I LOVE the checkered patterns. Definitely more refreshing than the usual Burberry print.
Without the jacket, those studded belts look just as cool. I especially love the black bubble dress with the black blazer and belt underneath (right) look. Oh and I'm not too fond of that feathery looking pencil skirt (left), looks scary.....
More trenches. LOVE LOVE LOVE that updated trench (left). Looks soooo awesome. And middle outfit with the black trench and the big patent black bag looks soo chic as well. And the purple outfit (right) perfectly illustrates Bailey's mixing of lux materials.
More vibrantly there are these hot pink and blue looks. I especially love the sky blue on sapphire blue combo (middle). Its soo sharp. And that gray dress is just beeeeeeautiful.... so feminine and delicate with a bit of edge from that belt. Perhaps that is what Bailey means by luxury warrior?
Either way, one thing I'm sure you'll all agree with. Next season, the studded belt is THE accessory to have. And from the variety of ways Bailey has shown us how to wear it on this runway, I'd say its a prime investment!

Image Source: Elle.com

FW07 Trend: Blue Eye Shadows

The ballots are in. All the make-up houses agree. Blue is the shade this season.

As one of their new fall looks, Mac came out with this Blue Storm look.
Created with their new Matte² highly pigmented eye shadow, you can tell from the look above that the effect is very intense. This would be perfect for a dramatic look for a night out. Personally though this is a bit too much for my taste.

Laura Mercier also came out with a Stormy collection (I guess rain and wind is trendy this season). The ad is much more dramatic than the Mac, but the blues are still quite intense.
Their blue sky quad was actually what inspired this whole post. If you've been reading this blog for a while, then you will know that eye shadow quads are my weakness. Isn't this quad sooo pretty? After much admiration on the internet, I finally got around to trying it out the other day at the counter. Unfortunately it seems that blue really isn't my color. I tried, I really did. Usually when something looks nice, I can tell straight away. But this time when the sales lady tried it on me and I took a double take and had to cover my other eye in an attempt to find the beauty in it. The sales lady tried to help by adding eye liner and more of the darker shades for the more "full effect" saying that the blue takes some time to get used to, but no matter what she did/say and how much I tried, I still looked like I'd been punched. It is really too bad, I was fully prepared to buy it! The shades are just too blue! But the thing is, the sales lady looked perfectly fine with the blue shades on and she has a very similar skin tone as me. I don't know what went wrong there.
And then of course there is my darling Bobbi Brown with their limited edition metallics collection that comes in Midnight Metallics.
Isn't this palette so pretty too? I was torn between this and the Laura Mercier. But ultimately, I think this is the better blue palette around, because the two grey/silver blue colors are the perfect compliment to the dark blue, easily creating a whole smokey eye effect with a blue tinge.
Incidentally, I also love their Forest Metallics. The greens are just sooo rich and lustrous that it has blown away all my previous reservations about green eye shadows ever since my friend told me they looked slutty and I saw a middle aged lady wearing lime green eye shadow over her heavy powdered face and very red lipsticks, which really scared me. Those are lime green. But this is much richer and the effect is much classier and more elegant. I absolutely LOVE this palette. Hmm... so I guess at the end of the day, I just can't get away from Bobbi Brown.

Chanel also has an eye shadow quad with blue shades as well, though it is not new. HG has it and the effect looks great, all smokey blue eye with a very pretty sparkly undertone.

Image Source: Mac Cosmetics, Laura Mercier & Bobbi Brown

London Fashion Week SS08 Wrapup III

London Fashion Week's finished. Now all the fashion people are in Milan, but here are a few more London collections. On Thursday, BG talked about how she liked the Matthew Williamson and Erdem collection. I'm going to blabber on a bit how I don't quite love some of the collections: (Please note that this is just my taste. I'm in no way saying these designers have no talent!)

House of Holland

So I've decided maybe I don't hate those neon-coloured, slogan Tees that much. They're just annoying. Before this collection, I didn't know exactly what to expect. Afterall, he couldn't possibly do endless collections of slogan Tees. And even though I knew I wasn't going to like it, it was more terrible than I expected. The clothes are just so colourful in a trashy way. I know House of Holland is all about being worn to parties, but why would one want to turn up to parties looking like that?

Louise Goldin

Louise Goldin is supposedly this runway season's new London designer to lookout for. Since a few of the online reviews seemed to have liked this collection, maybe it's just me who didn't really get the appeal of these clothes so I'm really not too impressed. Maybe it's because I'm too much of a realist and can't imagine wearing these clothes in real life. Oh well, what did you think of this new designer?

And to finish this post with a pretty collection: Giles
Such a pretty collection! Giles has really improved since he first started. A lot of the dresses from this collection felt very 'fancy tea party' to me.

The techo, tie-dyed looking silk dresses are so pretty -the blue, the purple, the swirl of colours. And look at the dress in the middle, it looks like a painting of purple clouds (together with the white-ish chiffon underneath.)

And finally, the artsy dresses. I love how Giles (for the middle dress) combined artsy, cutout pieces with the simple mid-sleeved dress on top. It's a totally wearable simple dress without looking boring!

Next week is Milan Fashion Week -can't wait to see the Prada collection!

Image credit: www.style.com

London Fashion Week SS08 Wrapup II

As HG pointed out, London fashion week is always fun to look at, but a great pain for those of us who want to try and imitate the look. Or maybe that is just me...But anyway, lets look.

Matthew Williamson
Matthew's show is one that I always love to check out every season, because one can be sure that it is going to look fun and colorful. This season is no different. The clothes are colorful, fun, chic with a hint of tribal vibe (aztec prints?).

I love how he mixes the prints/colors here in these outfits and it still looks so perfectly put together and chic. I'd never be able to do that no matter how much I study unless I buy the whole outfit off the mannequin.
I especially love this outfit on the left. The simple pairing of plain top with printed shorts, and just a hint of mix 'n matching with the scarf is so me. Note the very colorful sneakers on this runway paired with everything, even dresses, which one wouldn't usually think to pair them with. Looks sooo comfy! Though I wonder if one can pull if off if one doesn't have legs as skinny and long as these models.
Then he has some tie-dyed outfits, which kind of reminds me of Prada and Miu Miu this season. But I do so like black, white and pink. And I absolutely adore pairing these flowy printed tops with structured blazers (right). Again, so me. Blazer is my uniform.
I am STILL looking for the perfect shift dress this season. You'd think with all these lovely creations sprinkling the runways the last few seasons I'd find one by now. But no, they just keep coming on the runway tempting me..... esp like the black dress with the printed trimmings.
Lastly there were these beautiful, flowy, colorful dresses. The printed one here on the right is soo Matthew Williamson!

Erdem
One of the brands I've been keeping a lookout for ever since I saw some of their collection in the Harvey Nichols catalog. This collection is the epitome of British casual chic cool for me.
I love the shape of these dresses, which are so different. One is structured and the other one is all flowy and free. And the stripey print adds structure to one and gives the other a illusion effect. So cool.
Casual cool outfits.
Its so cool how he put bold white stripes over the delicate floral pattern of the silk dress. It makes for a very sharp contrast.
Sharp design to match the bold colors on top of the silver grey. Gives it a slightly futuristic edge.
And these last four are my absolutely favourites. They are just so chic, classy and feminine.
Just LOVE these dresses in their soft, feminine effortlessly cool way.

Ps. Remind me to get bold colored footwear next season!

Image Source: Elle.com

London Fashion Week SS08 Wrapup

Woo it's London Fashion Week! LFW is always more of a fun, just-for-looking week of photos for me, but the clothes are always so young and creative, (though argueably and unfortunately not as practical and commercial.)

Luella
Even though I don't remember ever seeing Luella's clothes in real life before, I've always love the Luella vibe -that preppy, punk, fun vibe. This Luella collection, to me, seems very influenced by last season's collections of other designers such as Balenciaga, Marc Jacobs and Prada.

Luella's clothes usually has some really British feeling, like these little flowery prints. I love how she managed to make such otherwise grandmotherly flowery prints look preppy and cool.

And more British preppiness. Isn't it so unfair how the Luella models make huge black spectacles look cool?

The little party dresses are so cute and fun.

Christopher Kane

All I can say is, totally unexpected. Who would have guessed that Kane's new collection would have no tight-fitting, PVC or leather little dresses? This collection is made of lots of light material. I'm still not sure what I think of it. There were some outfits that I liked and some I absolutely hated.

For example, I absolutely hated the snake prints, which was extremely prominent in this collection. Even more ugly than the snake prints are the one pieces that have the snake print plus another type of print, like the middle outfit.

Out of all the outfits, these four outfits were the only ones I liked. I would love the dress on the right (although potentially in another colour.)

The snake print in small doses, like in the dress on the right, actually looks ok and much more tasteful.

Jonathan Saunders

Such clean-cut clothes for a British designer! These dresses would be so great for office, dressy events if you want a bit more than the standard little dress.

Most of the time we really just take black and white clothes for granted. Just take a moment to look at the way the black and white lines are on the dresses, then you can appreciate the design more!

Gosh, I really need to see these clothes in real life. Writing this blog is excellent encouragement for me to go to nice English stores like Selfridges and Brown more!

Image credit: www.style.com