Getting Dressed for Milan Fashion Week

Miu Miu Handbag Heaven

My love affair with Miu Miu is a rocky one. We hit a high (along with everyone else) with the incredible SS10 collection, but ever since the rose-tinted glasses have slowly been removed. There have been some glimmers of redemption; the cute bow collars (AW10), swan print satin dresses (SS11) and the fabulous glitter platforms from AW11. However, if there's one thing that can really revive my love for the brand it has to be this bag. If this isn't the perfect bag for summer, then I don't know what is. Its satchel style quite clearly resembles the famous Mulberry Alexa, while the raffia fabric makes it feel incredibly fresh for this season. Unlike Mulberry and other high-end brands, Miuccia doesn't seem to bestow names upon her handbags, which I think is one thing that really helps give a bag a hand into the realm of cult status. Just think of the Chanel '2.55', the Mulberry 'Alexa', and the Louis Vuitton 'Speedy'.  A handbag just seems to require its own name, which makes it all the more memorable and therefore, of course, all the more coveted.

Sadly for me, I don't have the funds to grant me this beauty, but if you do it's yours for £875 from Net-A-Porter.

If you were responsible for giving this handbag a name, what would you choose?

When Dreams Are Made of Net-A-Porter

Yesterday evening, while indulging in my day of nothingness and reading through Vogue, I got to imagining what it would be like to have Net-A-Porter as my wardrobe. Can you imagine?! Of course, for a lucky few in this world, this is pretty much their reality, but for the rest of us...what a dream! Whenever I go to Net-A-Porter, I always look through the dresses first, then the shoes, followed by coats, bags, jackets and trousers respectively, which explains why my choices are a tad dress heavy. But if I had to go right in and make an instantaneous selection, supermarket sweep style, these would definitely be my top choices.

Would you have anything on the list? What would your top choices be?

All photos from Net-A-Porter

thoughts and things

Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Mia Wallace, Burberry models, writing things by hand, Miu Miu AW10. Images from style.com, Google Images, and We Heart It

The Burberry show has just been and gone, and if you managed to see it I'm sure you'll agree that it was really special. Everything from the music (Dusty, Adele) to the sweet sixties style, to the carefree ponytails tucked into coats, was really spot on. I'll most likely do a post on it tomorrow though, so I'll hold back on the gushing of adoration. I need to get on with writing something for Claire for her new blog project. It's a really lovely idea where bloggers write posts by hand and send  them in to be published on the blog and I hope it develops - I'd be intrigued to see the handwriting of some the people who inspire me. I'm nostalgic for that sort of thing...

wednesday wishes 6

I'm writing this post while I'm feeling particularly peckish, so that may account for the inclusion of a cupcake and a giant cupcake mould. It's a bit like going shopping when you're really hungry - big mistake! However, my boyfriend and I are on the search for the perfect cupcake. We actually have criteria to mark our cupcakes, cake fiends/sad people that we are. I really should take more photos of the cupcakes we encounter, as there have been a fair few, but I can tell you that Tesco are actually in the lead at the moment with their Red Velvet cupcakes. They're not really true to 'red velvet' in that their sponge only has a tint of red in it, and the icing isn't made of cream cheese. However, for something ridiculous like £1.98 for 4 cupcakes, I definitely direct you to go and buy some as they are AMAZING! Also, this giant cupcake mould available from Firebox used to be a whopping £35!, which I just couldn't justify being a typically cuisine backward student. It's now £14.99, which is much more affordable, so I'm definitely going to have to buy it asap and make an absolute beast of a cupcake! 

I recently posted about my longing for a Christmas party to attend, and this is still playing on my mind. This Miu Miu little black number is gorgeous. The detailing is just beautiful and the more modest style cut of the top is lovelyl. It's on the LBD dream list, for sure. 

I'm trying to convince my boyfriend (and myself), that our upcoming two year anniversary really is an occasion that calls for a Yves Saint Laurent 'Arty' ring. Can you believe he doesn't agree?! I'm working on it. I think £115 for a piece of YSL is amazing and almost seems like a bargain in my warped mind. There are a few different styles, but I think rich purple/blue will go with more of my wardrobe than the others.

My current going out shoe crush lies with these little Asos numbers. I'm a real fan of block heels,  and these kind of have that going on, but they're slightly more sleek at the end. I hope that they will be much more comfortable than the stilettos I'm usually accustomed to wearing. 

Hope you enjoyed the post. Sometime this week I'll be receiving a gorgeous Asos dress and some flat, thigh high boots. My first ever purchase of flat, winter shoes that haven't arrived in a box with the label 'Ugg'. I can't wait. I seriously hope they're comfy!

Sources: Firebox, Asos, Net A Porter, Google Images

wednesday wishes 2

Topshop Jersey Dress, Miu Miu Leopard Heels, Reality Street Book of Sonnets, Kurt Geiger Pink Brogues, MAC Lady Danger Lipstick

Today's Wednesday Wishes is pretty hasty because I completely forgot I'd committed to this feature in all honesty. I've had a chest infection / flu type thing this past week, which still doesn't appear to want to vacate residence from me any time soon, so I'm all out with blogging and posting etc. 

Feeling a bit better today, I ventured into Manchester wearing my new experiment : flat shoes. I know that doesn't sound all too adventurous to those of you who are accustomed to the humble heel less shoe, but for me, patron of the stiletto, it was a big thing in terms of those sartorial decisions we make every day. 

To be fair, I didn't really treat myself to the best representatives of flats. I begrudgingly spent £4 on a pair of Primark leopard print pumps. I pretty much had to be taken kicking my heeled feet all the way to the till. I also bought a pair of Primark brogues (I really splashed out, didn't I!), which I've already hidden at the bottom of my wardrobe. Yet I went to uni with optimism in my little leopard pumps, happily thinking that I would be able to walk speedily from place to place and in comfort. Such feats are seldom heard of in the world of platforms, of which I am usually an inhabitant. 

However, by the time I'd walked 20 minutes my feet were hurting from feeling the cold, hard slap of concrete against my soles. I then wandered on into Manchester, and was practically hobbling home by the end of the day. I arrived home with some new purchases for my feet. A type of unbecoming toe jewellery, if you will, in the form of fabric. Fabric plasters to be blunt. 

Not only did my feet arrive back in the same, if not worse condition, than they usually do from wearing a good six inch shoe, but they didn't look half as good in the process. So as it stands, I still hate flat shoes.

Please, please help me find some comfortable boots that look really good and that don't have a heel, because I have to force myself to convert to their cause because I just can't skate around in stilettos on winter's upcoming ice.

Hope you're all ok. I've been reading your blogs even if I haven't been posting! 

Blogger Style: Chic Muse

I could thank ELLE UK for many things. This week it's for bringing Chic Muse to my attention. You guys are highly likely to have come across her blog, as this girls style has been acknowledged many a time by the fashion industry (check out the press links!). If you haven't though, prepare yourself for a treat. If I hadn't seen any of Denni's outfits I would have fallen in love with her hair and make up styling alone. She could easily slot into Erdem's a/w '09 collection with the high top bun and tangy red lips - a look I so wish I could pull off.

And yes, she has the Miu Miu's, along with an array of incredibly fabulous designer clothes. 

Take a look at Chic Muse.

Last Day of Paris Fashion Week

Do you ever suffer from what I call 'bloggers guilt'? It's when you neglect your blog for more than a day, in my case, and then when you go back to it, realise that about a million shows have been and gone, and that they've all been numerously blogged by the bloggers on your dashboard, and you haven't even had a look yet. When people are depicting the trends, and piecing together their favourite looks, whilst you're left to trudge your way through from the beginning it seems, feeling annoyingly 'behind the times'. This is how I'm feeling at the moment, and it's kind of ridiculous how guilty I feel, that I haven't followed Paris fashion week in the slightest, or some of my favourite designers, or even really cared for the past couple days; and this is all because I've been living in the little bubble that was my birthday. It lasted nearly 5 days, and I think I deserve some kind of recognition for managing to milk it this long. I'm really going to miss saying 'but it's my birthday'.
Now that everyone has gone back home, and I've crashed back down to the land of very fast approaching uni essays, I've realised how much has gone on in Paris fashion week, and what amazing collections have been shown - probably more than London I'd say.

So, here we begin. I'm going to make an attempt at getting back into blogging - good job I enjoy it, really!

Miu Miu.

I really  loved this Miu Miu collection, and it's kind of growing on me even more with every time I look at it. I love the sixties vibe in brash, clashing colours of purple and orange, and oversized flourishes of flowers. The rigid flair on the dresses, right near the hemline, gave a modern twist to the shift dresses synonymous with the sixties era. The key to all the garments were bow details from the neck to toe, which were particularly elaborated on the shoes. Talking of the shoes, interesting aren't they? Can't say I like them to be honest. You've got one selection that looks slightly Edwardian - square toed, with a high 'tongue' (I have no structural shoe knowledge, so this may easily be a term I've made up) heavily embellished and a rigid, square heel - and then you've got the other selection, which only serves to remind me of a Shire horse hoof, courtesy of the attached ankle curtains. There was a little too much black to the collection as well for me, but the twisted details that Miuccia brings to Miu Miu were as gorgeous as always. Note: the giant pockets on the lilac skirt below - adorable!

Louis Vuitton.

Who'd have thought the prim and proper look of a middle-class mother, would have become such a feature of the later shows this season? It's easy to see why - for what the mid-calf length skirts take away from showy, sexy legs, the low cut, tightly bound tops more than make up for. It's kind of refreshing, I think, after a couple of seasons of Balmain dominated body-con mini dresses, so overtly young and sexy, to see something a little more demure, whilst still so clearly worshipping the female form. The skirts at Vuitton didn't shroud the models and drown them in fabric; far from it in fact. They accentuated the hips and created the coveted hour-glass figure, with their continued high-waisted, wide-hipped, massively cleavage-enhancing silhouette. I loved seeing these skirts in leather, which made them very much high up on my 'wishlist-of-gorgeous-designer-clothes-I-create-dream-outfits-from-but-can't-actually-buy'. When floral prints were used, they weren't sickeningly over the top, but looked perfect for the transition from the pretty pastels of spring, into the duskier shades of Autumn. Slicked back pony tails, dewy, fresh skin and a lot of skin on top to counteract the cover-up on bottom, are key to this look to avoid looking like your fashion-phobic Grandma

The pièce de résistance was seeing Elle Macpherson, one of my all time favourite models, back on the runway.

Elie Saab.

One of my favourites, Elie Saab, didn't fail to deliver some beautiful pieces as usual. He layered lace underneath sheer fabrics, ruffled beautifully, which made the lace look much softer and more delicate. Some of the earlier dresses had that sleek, polished, chic finish, which I now associate with (dare I say it, yet) Victoria Beckham, especially with the models slicked back hair. I loved the short jackets, veined with a slight shimmer that gave a leather-like finish, paired with shorts, and chunky necklaces. I always go through his collections in anticipation of the evening gowns at the end, and they were expectantly stunning. My favourite was a dark, moss green gown worn by Liu Wen. She looked so miserable wearing it though, you would have thought she was wearing a shabby sack. 

So there we have it...it's not a lot, but I feel alot more up to date with what's going on. For the last day of Paris Fashion week that is...

Photos: style.com, put together by me.

Daydream

The spring looks are dropping into the stores rapidly now, and we're being told in abundance what we should be looking to wear in the coming months. However, what I haven't seen much of are the new beauty trends. As changing your hair and makeup is a far easier, quicker and cheaper way of updating your look now, if you're still embracing the Winter season, this might be a simple idea for you.

Whilst the heavy side plaits at Alexander Wang are sure to be a talking point soon enough, I loved the crimped curls at Diane Von Furstenburg. Created with multiple wet plaits (I gather from the photos at style.com), the look was classically girly, fun and pretty, and is something I haven't seen on the catwalk in a while. It looked perfect for that idealistic picture I create of spring in my head every year: green meadows, lots of daisies and lazing around in warm sunshine and gentle breezes, (maybe I should live on the set of Little House on the Prairie?). With added golden leaves and flowers intertwined in their hair, the models looked stunning, and the look was captured most perfectly on Arlenis Sosa.

Similarly to the plait seen at Alexander Wang, I loved the messy undone look seen at Miu Miu. I think hair extensions will definitely be in order come summer, but I might change the plait to a fishtail braid. I've always wanted to be able to do them, and have just learnt how!

So come spring time, I'll take the heavy fringe from Alexander Wang, the hip length plait at Miu Miu, make it my own with a fishtail and then undo it all later for the Furstenburg crinkles! Phew...sounds alot more complicated than I thought! ;)

What beauty trends do you want to try this spring??

I love lots of texture at the moment: rich embellishment, a plush of feathers and an overlay of lace add intricate and touchable details to any outfit.

Topshop Feather Headband (left)

Accessorize Feather Aliceband (right)

Miu Miu Embellished skirt

Topshop Feather skirt

Asos Aristoc Tights

Givenchy Feather shoes
Marchesa S/S 10