Accessories Trends For SS06: Stockings Google

Accessories Trends For SS06: Stockings

Stockings were quite the rage on the ever-so-important Prada and 20th-anniversary Dolce & Gabbana catwalks. This is one weird trend for SS06, or for any Spring /Summer seasons for that matter. I mean, stockings are usually present in loads of FW shows, but who in real life wears stockings in hot weather?

Stockings%20 %20Prada Accessories Trends For SS06: StockingsStockings%20 %20Prada%202 Accessories Trends For SS06: StockingsIn the Prada show, stockings start right above the knees and are worn kind of crumpled. The material is translucent and slighly shiny. The key is to match the black or grey stockings with white/ neautral-colored shifts. And of course, it is only in the world of Miuccia that it’s ok to wear stockings with sandal platforms and still look so elegant.
Stockings%20 %20Dolce%20%26%20Gabbana Accessories Trends For SS06: StockingsIn the Dolce & Gabbana show, stockings start mid-thighs. You can only see this in some outfits (where the shorts/ skirts are short enough to see.) I didn’t actually notice this was a trend at Dolce until the new SS06 ads were released:2006 Dolce%20%281%29 Accessories Trends For SS06: StockingsBtw, I heard many bad comments about this ad. I admit the ‘lying on top of hay’ concept isn’t exactly what I pictured for this sophisticated season, but have you notice that everything in the background including hay is of neautral-colored? Talk about theme!

Oops, ran off the topic a bit. The question now are stockings going to become a main stream trend? The answer is: only if it’s picked up by high street stores. But from experience, many Miuccia trends are so fashion-foward that most people don’t actually pick it up, (or maybe Miuccia designs are just not slutty enough for the mass.)

Shop FW05 Sales For SS06 Google

Shop FW05 Sales For SS06

Shopping in sales sometimes uses up more of my brain cells than shopping at original prices. Reason for this? When I’m at sales, I inevitably think ‘lalala, I’m in a happyland where beeautiful clothes and shoes are on sale,’ and feel sooo cheerful just to be there surrounded by discounted racks. My brain zones into a ‘must must must buy at least one thing since everything is like, totally worth it now!’-sort of mode.

Unfortunately, all the fashion-y stuff I’ve read and know about next season’s style trends starts to dance around my brain and I start to analyse every piece of clothing I’m interested in. Questions like ‘Will the whole military jacket thing still be in fashion next spring or fall?’ are asked and the result is an indecisive, annoying customer staring at the jacket. And of course since I do possess quite a logical brain, I am at the same time covering all the typical pre-purchase questions like ‘How often will I wear this’; ‘What will this shirt match with my other clothes’; ‘Do I have something similar already’; ‘Can this be thrown into a washing machine?’ etc.

Shopping end-of-season, fun huh? After going through many such expeditions to malls and department stores in three different countries last month, I’ve managed to come to a few conclusions:

  • In anticipation for SS06, chose white, white, white! Anything in luxurious-neautrals should also be seriously considered.
  • To avoid disappointment, never have your hopes up even after you pick up the perfect discounted item until after it is confirmed that a) your size is still available, and b) that item is not damaged and still looks relatively new.
  • If it doesn’t fit you, then put it down! Don’t make pathetic excuses like ‘but I’ve been wanting it for ages and it’s actually on sale now.’ Better to spend the money on something that you will actually love and be able to wear.
  • Sale time is THE perfect time to buy closet staples like jeans. My sister managed to buy a pair of fantastic Blue Cults for only HK$1200 (US$150.)
  • Another closet staple for last year and this year still, are flats. Marc Jacobs makes some of the cutest flats. Image hosted by Photobucket.com
    Yes I know they’re pricy, but if you wear them almost everyday, then they’ll be totally worth it.
  • If you’re not familiar with the saleslady, then don’t listen to her! She’ll be giving you all sorts of praises even if the jacket makes you look like a puffball.
  • One of the best things being a student is that we can discount-shop on a weekday morning/ early afternoon. It’s so much more comfortable shopping without the crowds in weekends and not have to look at the same rack of clothing with someone else.
  • Since next season is all about white jewelry, don’t buy the leftover black jewelry (unless you really like it of course.)
  • No matter which season, there are always pretty, classical high-heels, which even if they are not particularly in fashion, are always needed for dinners and nights-out. Sales always has those. These Louboutins are great examples: Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Make sure you actually buy something before the end-of-season sales are over!

Gisele for Vuitton (Bye Uma!) Google

Gisele for Vuitton (Bye Uma!)

Happy new year people! Barneys Girl and I have a wonderful and restful week away from blogging and did what we said we will: I went to Taiwan with family, and Barneys Girl got sick and spent the days relaxing. But alas, I can’t believe the holidays are coming to an end. Barneys Girl is on the plane (with many fellow students from U of C and NW I hear) back to Chicago right now. And I’m in a panic to get all those ‘must-dos’ like getting a haircut and facial done before flying back to London this Friday. Anyways……

What a wonderful start to s new season of campaigns! To start off with, Marc Jacobs finally got rid of
Uma Thurman (read: yuck yuck yuck to the last few years of boring, celeb Vuitton ads,) and replaced her with ubermodel Gisele (an actual working model!) It was kind of hard to believe at first, and I didn’t actually believe the rumours until Gisele actually went to Hong Kong to open the Vuitton flagship store and I saw the new SS06 ads.

louisvuitton8wa Gisele for Vuitton (Bye Uma!)“I certainly feel Gisele is iconic and recognised all over the world as Gisele. Also, the clothes were hot and sexy and colourful, and we thought she would exaggerate the strength and the heat of the collection.” -Marc Jacobs

gisele%20 %20vuitton Gisele for Vuitton (Bye Uma!)From what I’ve been hearing on forums, people’s opinions have been sort of mixed, although to be honest, mostly negative: Some complained about the colors and how it’s a bit too ‘neon’; Some complained that the style of these Gisele ads are just too similar to the Uma ads; Others blamed the Vuitton SS06 collection was just ugly to begin with, so even Gisele could not make it look beautiful.

Frankly, I’m still too happy it’s a non-celeb ad to care how well-designed the ads are. I do think Gisele is the right model to give off that bright and strong vibe Vuitton is giving off this season though. And let’s face it, nine out of ten of Vuitton bags become hits with the customers anyways. Here’s a little preview to the upcoming campaign: yellow suede for February, perforated monogram for March, printed silk scarf bags for April, denim ones for May and a multicolored fringed number for June. Something for all Vuitton fans to look foward to!

Season’s Greeting With Love Google

Season’s Greeting With Love

Its Christmas Eve, officially the start of the holidays! Harrods girl and I have already started to party it up. Being the good girls that we are, the rule is that xmas eve/day is for family and new years is for friends. So to celebrate Harrods Girl and I hosted a little xmas gathering of our own before the actual xmas eve/day. We even sent out evites completed with a theme!

hols Seasons Greeting With Love

We settled on this very chic evite and came up with the fabulous title of, “Because I am Worth it” ending it with, “You Know You Love Us.” You recognize the “Gossip Girl” books theme we were inspired by? :D

170 7054.0 Seasons Greeting With Love

So we all dressed up (read: no jeans) in our “evening wear” and of course, “evening bags” and gathered at the Grand Hyatt for a completely sumptuous dessert buffet. As you can see, some bags, like Harrods Girl’s Paddington, can simply be used at all times. And some bags, like my gold YSL one, is limited to classy nights out like these (-there’s no zipper. so if I go party with it, everything will prob fall out).

170 7043.2 Seasons Greeting With Love170 7044.0 Seasons Greeting With Love
And for HK$180 (US$20) each (this is considered expensive already over here,) we were not disappointed. Everything sweet under the sun was available. For a girl with a super sweet tooth, I was in heaven. There were crepes, a table full of chinese desserts and haagan daz ice cream. HD ice cream are very expensive over here, like almost US$4 for a tiny scoop.

170 7042 Seasons Greeting With Love

. . a chocolate fondue. .

170 7041.0 Seasons Greeting With Love

. . a table full of apple desserts. .

170 7045.1 Seasons Greeting With Love

. . and basically just everything sweet under the sun. yum. I believe the only salty things were cheese, crackers and this salmon meatloaf. But thats beside the point.

IMG 1661%281%29.1 Seasons Greeting With Love

Apart from the eating and the chatting, in the spirit of xmas, we also swapped presents! And to make it interesting, we swapped it with a game of white elephant. I am still fuzzy on the details, but it was FUN. We strongly recommend you girls out there to treat yourself to something nice for xmas.

As for us, we are going to treat ourselves to a much deserved one week break from blogging (we’ve been blogging non stop for almost a year now!) so we can go on holiday (Harrods Girl to Taiwan and me on a much needed break), fix photos in our archives that are not working, rejuvenate and party up the holidays. We will see you all January 2nd 2006!

Merry Christmas and greet the New Year with style!

My Favourite Editorials in 2005 III -Glamorama Google

My Favourite Editorials in 2005 III -Glamorama

Another one of my favourite editorials this year is Glamorama (such a fabulous name!) from US Vogue Dec 2005. I LOVE how the models are in gorgeous dresses, doing laundry and doing random things like texting on mobile and sipping a soda. All the models look more like they were dressed and made up for a ball rather than the local laundry, but that’s what makes it such a cool concept.

Another great thing about this Dec. editorial is that you can make out some of next season’s trends from the shots, (and that is what Vogue is there for of course.) This editorial features models Gemma Ward, Lily Donaldson and Caroline Trentini, and was shot by photographer Stephen Meisel.

Again, the images are split into two posts. Thanks to style.com.
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Glamorama II Google

Glamorama II

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My Favourite Editorials in 2005 II -Lily Takes a Trip Google

My Favourite Editorials in 2005 II -Lily Takes a Trip

Remember back in June, I talked about the beautiful July 2005 issue of British Vogue? There was an amazing fashion spread in it called Lily Takes a Trip which features Lily Cole taking a trip to India in all sorts of gorgeous dresses. The shots turned out so well that one of the them even became the cover. The photos were taken by Tim Walker.

The scans here (thanks to the Lily Cole fan who scanned them) don’t totally show how magnificent some of these photos were. For example, a lot of the background is cut off. Anyways, here it is: (there are so many images that I had to split the editorial into a few posts.)

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Lily Takes a Trip II Google

Lily Takes a Trip II

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My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I -Lily Story Google

My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I -Lily Story

It’s almost the end of year, so I’ve decided to show you my three favourite fashion editorials published in 2005 in the next few days. After reading more fashion magazines this year (from ElleGirl and Teen Vogue to Cosmopolitan, Vogue and Glamour) than I have ever in my life, I’ve looked at a LOT of fashion spreads this year. It’s a difficult choice but I managed to narrow my favourites down to three.

The first editorial is Lily Story from Vogue Italia Oct 2004 and shot by photographer, Stephane Sednaoui. (OK so I’m cheating and this editorial isn’t from 2005, but it’s so amazing I must show it!) I absolutely LOVE this shoot. Lily Donaldson looks like a perfect, REAL mannequin. If you didn’t recognise Lily, then you wouldn’t have guessed it was a human model! They even drew lines on her wrists to make her look like a mannequin! And the photography itself is amazing of course. Here it is: (sorry the images are so small.)

Lily%20Donaldson%20Vogue My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I  Lily StoryLily%20Donaldson%20Vogue%20%281%29 My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I  Lily StoryLily%20Donaldson%20Vogue%20%282%29 My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I  Lily StoryLily%20Donaldson%20Vogue%20%283%29 My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I  Lily StoryLily%20Donaldson%20Vogue%20%284%29.1 My Favourite Editorials in 2005 I  Lily Story

Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Aviator Shades Google

Aviator Shades

Having unconsciously lost my huge black BCBG shades some time during the quarter (I seriously do not know when. One day I was looking for my shades and they were GONE. Not to be found anywhere) I was naturally very upset. I’ve only had it for a few months! But maybe the loss of my huge black shades was a sign that I should move onto other styles of shades (I also have a pair of huge white shades).

shades %20dior%202 Aviator Shades

Because, surprisingly, I ended up with the latest pair of Dior aviator shades. Its not exactly like this one, the glass on mine is two pieces, not one. But its close enought. I’ve never considered TRYING let alone BUYING a pair of aviator shades before. But the salesperson insisted and so I did. And lo and behold, I looked GOOD. The effect is different from a pair of huge shades, more. . . aviator period (whichever decade that was) and old hollywood-ish. Remember that movie Aviator with Leo in it?-THAT period of glam.

shades %20marc%20jacobs Aviator Shades
shades %20chanel%201 Aviator Shades


And it seems that our friends Marc and Karl agrees with John, judging from the latest shades from Marc Jacobs and Chanel above.

shades %20YSL Aviator Shades
shades %20fendi Aviator Shades
YSL and Fendi also make some great aviator shades. I love the purple of the YSL one, it makes it that much more feminine.

shades %20oliver%20peoples Aviator Shades shades %20UO%20%2414 Aviator Shades

Other choices include Oliver Peoples and this $14 pair from Urban Outfitters on the right. Its about time we moved onto something new. The mystique huge shades are starting to get old.