Odd Shape Shades

As you all know, I simply adore large shades. Over the years, I think you've all heard me go on about big black shades, big brown shades and big aviator shades- all the classics. So where does one move onto next when they've been through all the classics? Well, according to Prada, it is big odd shaped shades! I love them. They have all the essential elements of big black shades that make them classic (the big squarish over sized shape and the black plastic rims), while the slight irregularity gives it that oomph it needs to be refreshing and 'new.'
Speaking of new shapes, I also adore these circular shades from Chanel. I'm not sure if you can see, but there is a thin white lining that highlights the black rims (this highlight also comes in pink too, which is absolutely darling!). At first I wasn't sure about the shape of these shades. It slightly looked like those glasses that incredibly nerdy kids wear in cartoons. Or those toy shades that kids play with i.e. heart shaped shades anyone? But then I tried it on and they actually look fabulous! It has the whole over sized shades thing going on for it. The white/pink rimmed highlighting and the diamond pattern on the side makes it feminine and sophisticated. And the circular shape is just more modern and fun.

The only trade off is that these irregularly shaped shades were just not made to sit on the head as headbands really well. Oh well.

Image Sources: Chanel and Prada

The Classic Denim Mini

Recently I've been in a major fashion slump, meaning that I've been recycling two outfits over and over again for the past few weeks. In fact, my fashion slump has been so serious that I've resorted to wearing my sister's denim mini skirt.
Yes that's right -a classic denim skirt. It's not even one of those trendy A-line minis, which are oh-so-trendy this season. And I'm so lazy that I just wear it with my current love, an American Apparel V-neck shirt. While the white tee and denim mini combination feels very juvenile to me (-it's very high school isn't it?), it's also strangely very comforting. With fashion trends coming and going faster than ever, it's just getting tiring and frankly, not very exciting to keep up with it all. I mean, I adore Zara and H&M for its fast fashion and prices but since I am stuck in a fashion slump, nothing seems more charming than a plain, casual outfit that is the tee and denim mini.

Right now I'm trying to find a denim mini to buy. A problem with the denim mini is that I'm finding it really difficult to find a denim mini which is of a decent length. It's not like I'm asking much -I just want one that ends around or slightly below mid-thighs. But in the shops tha't I've been to (-ok, basically only Top Shop,) all I've seen are mini minis. How do people even move around in those? BG tells me that America Eagle Outfitters makes pretty good denim minis (see image.) But since I don't live in the States, I'm hoping the next time I go to H&M or some other casual shop, they'll be selling some decent denim minis!

Image Credit: www.ae.com

The Vuitton Neverfull

By now I would've sworn that I was over logo patterns, but then I started seeing the Vuitton Neverfull bag everywhere.

On TV shows, on celebs (above: Kristin Davies and Heidi from The Hills) .... and they just looked so cool, casual and chic carrying it that I couldn't resist but lust after it. The amazing ad campaign they have for it this season doesn't help my case either. They make it look so versatile, perfect for a casual summer day....
.. or a fall day going to work. This above is my absolutely favourite look by the way, with her soft wind blown hair, clean barely there make-up, simple chic coat, effortlessly thrown on scarf, stylish jewelry and the bag- it is just perfect! And it doesn't appear like too hard to imitate either. All one needs is the Neverfull bag to spice up a standard chic fall outfit. What a clever ad!The bag itself even without such great publicity is rather clever too. The shape is super simple, but by making it in a thinner more malleable canvas material and the addition of the strings on the side that can be pulled to make another shape, it becomes a light, convenient (imagine all the things you can fit in there), versatile yet stylish bag. It's a wonder they didn't come up with that earlier! (or have they and I just never noticed until now?)
It actually reminds me a little of the Goyard bag, which I've been lusting after as well, also printed and similarly shaped, made of a more thin and malleable material. I like to think that the Goyard print is a bit more subtle and not as in your face. But then the Neverfull does appear to have more design and versatility to it, with its very cute strings on the side! Oh I can't decide which one I love more!

Image Source: E Luxury and Goyard

Olympic Fashion 2008

So last week, I did a prelude to the Olympic fashion this year. Now let's take a quick look at reality. Most teams weren't very exciting and the whole parade dragged, but here are a few of my highlights:
The much hyped up uniform of the US team by Ralph Lauren did not disappoint expectations. It was elegant, smart and clean cut, a very good representation of the US team.
Definitely not as bad and commercialized and humiliating as American Politics made it sound and appear (above right) like. The logos, even of the Olympics were discrete and appropriately sized. And as for the cutting, I cannot quite tell from the pictures, but they appear fine to me. Granted I wouldn't really wear this uniform out in public (being hip and fashionable obviously is not a priority), but given the occasion and how they had to design it for both sex, I thought it was really well done.
Another country I rather liked was Britain. I thought the uniform for women was much more feminine, with the navy dress, white blazer and belt, that gives it more shape. Though I must say, I think the over all look is compromised by the fact that so many of them are wearing the same thing. I know that is the idea of uniform, but... I guess that's why people don't like it when they clash clothes!
A few more examples of potentially cute looking outfits being compromised by replication: France (left) and Romania (right). The French looked simple yet chic (maybe minus the bag though...). The color of the Romanian team's outfit also looks very pretty (though I probably wouldn't wear it quite so matchy matchy). And check out those pumps!

Image Source: American Politics and Yahoo News

V-Neck Shirt By American Apparel

Remember how I did a post of the American Apparel Reglan shirt awhile ago, basically professing my love for them and acknoledging that I had worn them almost everyday last winter and realising I should probably buy new shirts? Well, now that it's summer, I can't really go around wearing the Reglan shirt -it's simply too hot. So not surprisingly, I decided to try out one of AA's oh-so-popular V-neck tees.

We all know that AA is really popular for it's deep V tee, but seriously, the V is so deep that I can't say I actually understand why people even feel comfortable wearing it casually (or not casually.) What's the point of a basic, boring tee if it's not comfortable and I have to spend the whole day pulling my shirt up?

So I stuck to the basic V-neck tee. Before trying on the tee, I imagined that an AA V-neck tee would magically transform my outfit to look cool and all, like you know how it always looks cool on whoever's wearing it in the photos you see in paparazzi or candid fashion photos? Alas, from what I could see in the AA changing room mirror, the tee totally did not make me look any cooler (not surprisingly I suppose.)
The coolest way to wear the AA tee is probably with skinny jeans or denim shorts -they really create a more unisex, effortless feel. Although admittedly, I've been wearing the tee with a denim skirt. And after wearing this outfit a few times, I'm really appreciating how brainless the combination is! (Brainless-ness is clearly one of the key factors to my favourite outfits.)

And yes, I realise the AA tee is totally last year's news, (or maybe even news from the year before,) but hey, at least I'm learning to appreciate this boring (but very useful) basic tee now.

Image Credit: www.americanapparel.net

08 Trend: Gold Eyeshadow -The Smoky Eye

So while finding the runway photos on style.com for the Pure Gold post, I realised that the gold eye shadow look that has been in my mind wasn't really the Bottega Veneta S/S08 look but it was the very different Versace S/S08 look: the smokey eyes.

For a light smokey eye, go for the Zac Posen S/S08 way.

You can see that there's obviously yellowish-gold eye shadow in the inner corners and on the bottom lashes. As for the top outer eyes, the brown eye shadow is applied in a 'wing out' way, which may look cool on the models, but I imagine very hard to apply on yourself in real life -the winged shape is so hard to acheive!

For something more smoky and made-up for a night out, try the Versace S/S08 way. The Versace 'face' is definitely one of my favourites this season. It's pretty do-able in real life, (as long as you don't expect to look 100% like it does in the photos.)

For an imitation of this smokey eye, just blend gold and brown on your eye lids.

Try this: Mac's Goldmine + Tempting. I've never actually tried tempting, but I'm guessing most shades of shimmery brown would be ok.

Pale lips seem to be the way to go, although for some odd reason, pale lips never seem to look as cool in real life as in fashion magazine photos.

Picture yourself in this makeup for a night out -loves it!

Image Credit: www.style.com, www.elle.com, www.maccosmetics.com

Ralph Lauren at the Beijing Olympics

It's the opening of the Beijing Olympics today! Granted I'm not much of a sporty person myself (my idea of sports is walking/shopping), I can't wait to see the opening. Not only because the performances at the opening ceremonies are always really amazing, but also because I can't wait to see the outfits of the US team! I always have the impression that the opening outfits are very old fashioned and not very flattering. But this time, designed by Ralph Lauren (how much more American can they get?), it should be much more fitted and elegant. In the mean time, let's take a look at the Ralph Lauren Olympic collection.
Usually I'm not too excited. They're almost always very touristy and looks more like an advertising campaign than anything. This hat is no exception. I can totally picture an American tourist with a big camera wearing it.
The polo with the Chinese characters saying Beijing is ok. But I can't help but think that these two tops are something I can grab from a tourist shops in Beijing. You know, the tops with the name of the city emblazoned on it, that can be found in any tourist shop in any city... this is especially so for the red top.
They do however, have something a bit more subtle, like these two polos. They're quite cute, but then again nothing that out of the norm for a RL polo. So where is the happy medium between too touristy and too subtle?
These tops. I'm loving these RL polos. The trimming and the stripes are genius. They are patriotic, very Olympic yet stylish. For one thing, I'd actually wear these out in public- even after the Olympics!

Let's see if RL maintains this happy medium for the opening ceromony.... in 8 hours!!

Image Source: Ralph Lauren

08 Trend: Gold Eyeshadow -Pure Gold

In an attempt to 'live young', I looked into fashion magazines for this season's beauty trend in search for eye shadow ideas, as opposed to my usual eye shadow style (the few times I bother with eye shadow;) Read: brown. If you read every magazine out there for a few months, you would realise that they feature eye shadow of every colour so I ignored the obviously magazine-styled ones, like many shades of green, yellow and blue, and have decided to accept the classy trend: the gold eyeshadow. There are two types. The first one is pure gold.

As you can see, pure gold basically means just plain gold all over the eye lids. The looks above are from the Chanel F/W08 runway show. Obviously I don't recommend you actually taking this look literally in real life.

Another show that had all gold eye shadow was the Bottega Veneta S/S08 show. Here, it looks simple and elegant -perfect for day and night.

A closer look on the eyes. While it looks very effortlessly applied on, I'm sure we wouldn't be able to replicate it quite as well in real life.

The way I'm planning on trying out this look is to first adjust by dabbing a tiny bit of the gold just at the inner corners of the eyes, so it will look as it does in the image above. Just a tiny dab to add a little something to the otherwise plain (but equally elegant) look. After trying it out a few times, I'll move on to try the all-gold look (like in the other Bottega Veneta images, not Chanel!)

So I headed to M.A.C. and found this colour: Goldmine. The makeup lady applied the colour all over my eyelids and honestly, it looked more like sparkly yellow than the pure gold in the Bottega Veneta show. But since it usually takes me a very long time to accept new makeup colours on myself and I wasn't bothered to search for the perfect gold, I just picked a Goldmine up. It's something for me to look foward trying on my next quiet night out.

I'll blog about the other gold eye shadow look soon! Thoughts about this gold look?

Image Credits: http://www.elle.com/, http://www.style.com/

Ipod Classic Cases

When it comes to music players, I'm not exactly the most up to date girl around. My music players never break. My Sony MD player from back in the days when people knew what MDs were, still works. And thus, as the world moved on with colored screens, nanos, videos and touches, I was still using my ipod mini v2, with its measly 6GBs and black/white screen. After 3 years though, the battery in my mini finally showed signs of giving up and I can finally get a new one. After much debate between the pink nano (cute and adorable!) and the classic ipod (the itouch is too big, if I was going to get that, I might as well get an iphone....), I settled on the classic, figuring that I can outfit it however way I want- thus this post.
My first thought was just to get a regular silicon plastic case like the one I had for my mini-except maybe this time I'd be more "adventurous" and try a colored case instead, like these ones above. It comes in packs of three and I love ALL the colors in the packet- I can literally help my ipod change clothes like a Barbie!
But then, just as I was about to grab them and leave, this retro pink acrylic case caught my eye. A few days before, I wasn't even aware that ipod cases came in acrylic, until I saw my colleague's ipod encased in them. But then I thought, maybe it was time to try something new and fun, and this was definitely it. And that was how I ended up with this case. Once I got home, I googled up the reviews and concerns were raised. Apparently these acrylic cases don't exactly fit like a glove and will potentially scratch the very pretty, currently scratch free and pristine surface of my new ipod. The want to protect and keep it as clean and new as possible arose, but was quickly squashed by my mom's voice in my head going, "if you're not going to use it because you're worried it'll get dirty, then don't buy it." Words from a wise lady indeed. You might wonder why I didn't choose a gorgeous designer ipod case or one of those super cute ones that keep on popping up on Shiny Shiny- I'm of the opinion that designer ipod cases are unnecessary and that an ipod should look like an ipod and not disguised as a fluffy stuff toy. One ipod case I DID like from Shiny Shiny though, are these Griffin Reflect cases. They're basically mirrors encasing an ipod and when your screen it turned off, it too becomes an reflective surface! Perfect to double as vanity mirrors on the go!

What does everyone else use?

Image Source: Apple and Shiny Shiny

Teen Choice Awards 2008 Fashion

The celebs at this year's Teen Choice Awards seems... younger, more teenage-y than usual. Gossip Girl, (a fun, girly show full of beautiful clothes) won six awards, although I don't understand why Blake Lively won both Choice TV Actress Drama and Choice TV Breakout Female. I like watching Leighton Meester's (Blair's) scenes so much more than Blake Lively's! And is Chuck really a villian? Anyway, back to the fashion there, this year's dresses were surpringly mature -maybe it's because of the floral and maxi-dress trend. So unlike the years before, there weren't really any shockingly ugly outfits.

My favourite outfit was Rachel Bilson's (even though I'm not sure what she's doing there.) I love the silhouette and colour of the dress! It's fun, bright and just so cute! The accessories -the shoes and earrings matched the dress so well too! Somehow she always wears the best little dresses!

Blake Lively's outfit is great too. The colour's vibrant and it also has the tulip-skirt silhouette that I like so much. Very young and trendy!

Oddly enough I'm not a fan of Leighton Meester's green dress. (Usually I prefer Leighton's outfits over Blake's.) The green looks good on her, but the silhouette just seems a bit mature. It's classy, but doesn't seem like it's a TCA dress. Plus the green blends in with the background too much!

Kristen Bell's outfit is so adorable! I love the colours and that skirt is such a perfect fit!

Not a fan of the print of Lauren's dress. It looks so messy.

Sophia Bush looks gorgeous as usual, and the dress is so pretty too. But it just seems so mature for a TCA show.

Hayden Panettiere's dress is my favourite long dress. The colours are so sharp and the dress just fits her so well.

Vanessa Hudgen's dress is young, classy but not particularly interesting.

Who wore your favourite TCA outfit this year?

Image Credit: http://justjared.buzznet.com/

A Crazy Hat

The other day I was walking around Bloomies when I spotted a stack of random hats on sale. Being on sale the selection obviously wasn't that stellar. It was all really rather old ladylike and odd. But inspired by HG's hat post, I decided to play around and try them on anyway- just to see how outrageous I'd look.
Surprisingly during the process, I got attached to one hat in particular: a black felt wide rimmed hat with a simple black patent belt wrapped around it with a discrete bow (above). It was just so ladylike and simple. And at that moment, I thought it actually looked quite good on me!
It reminded me of the women in those (60s?) posters wearing a big black hat, looking really elegant and ladylike (a bit like the poster above). And I'm nothing if not a sucker for ladylike looking things. Encouraged by the saleslady who claimed she got one too and by the fact that after an additional 50% off, it was only $5, I bought it and wore it for the rest of the day just to prove my friend, who told me that I'd never wear such a crazy hat, wrong. A good thing too, since I ended up going to a golfing range that day and it proved to be a very good defense against the sun. I thought it was really cool and ladylike. The rest of my friends hated it though and thought I looked witch like.
On the other hand though, it gives me hat hair, so I'd look really weird going indoors with it, but since it is felt, I can't very well wear it to the beach. So where would I wear it to? And the other problem is what would I WEAR it with? If I wear it with jeans and tank top, I'd look like I just picked it up off the sales rack to try on (which I guess I did). But if I were it with something equally somber and ladylike to match the hat, I'd look like I was going to a funeral. I considered wearing it with my American Apparel black dress (above shown in Raspberry), because it is simple but the cutting is still rather casual and young....... but the too black thing comes to mind. Maybe I should just get that dress in this Raspberry color.........or maybe some accessories? Decorate the hat with a brooch or a colored bow? Suggestions on how to carry this off?

I know, most of you probably think it's a really crazy old lady hat and cannot fathom why I'd buy it in the first place. I guess I just cannot resist a bargain (it used to be $70). Maybe I'll just save it for Halloween! :P

Image Source: Hat-a-tude and American Apparel

Where are the Wearable Heels?

Shopping for shoes is really harder than I thought. Last month when I was in London and had nothing to do, I went shoe-shopping and to my surprise, it was very hard to find shoes that I actually liked enough to try on. The reason? Mostly because the shoes out there were super high-heeled -mostly 4-inches high.

Shortly after, I read this article on timesonline.co.uk about the current trend of skyscraper heels. It basically tries to use the current social environment to explain why skyscraper heels are so popular and that the most fashionable women would not dare to wear shoes lower than 4 inches, (although flats are acceptable.) I don't agree with some of the points in the article but it's interesting to read about the super high heels out there.


OK, back to my original point. The point is, it's just so hard to find shoes that I like (the look of) and are practical. When I mean practical, I don't even mean 1-inch kitten heels (although 1-inch heels sound nice for work) -what I mean are 2 to3 inch heels, which to me sound like heels of the perfect height for partying or a nice night out.

Yes, I get that 4-inch heels would make one look taller, obviously. But what's the point when you're going to spend the whole night hobbling around and feeling tired or even pain (from just standing!)? Perhaps the pain of skyscraper heels is worth it if you're a celebritiy who is getting photographed on the red carpet in a fabulous dress and you only have to stand around for awhile. But if you're a girl who just wants a fun night out, you probably don't want or need such high heels. Clearly as consumers we have the choice not to buy such high heels if we don't want to, but the problem is, it's just so hard to find pretty heels of decent height these days!

Seriously, am I the only one who is finding it harder and harder to find a wearable pair of heels?

Image Credit: http://www.sakefifthavenue.com/