Wednesday 25 December 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Happy Christmas to all my valued supporters who helped to grow my blog, and to my new blogger friends! Hoping you have a joyful day and fabulous new year! May the new year bring many new creative outfits and ideas, and may we continue to inspire each other to great new heights!


Monday 16 December 2013

SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS.....

DEAR SANTA.....


If there was any truth in the story about Santa, I'd write him a note with the request to leave this beside the chimney........ and perhaps leave him a generous portion of home made cookies and ginger beer. These pieces are likely to become tomorrow's vintage items, the type of bag and shoes that the young Ms Hepburn may just as well sported. I have always liked MCM for it's timeless beauty and classic designs, and this bag is exactly the right size, and the shoes the perfect height, what more can a girl ask for? The shoes are by Michael Kors and available at neimanmarcus.com, dear Santa........I've really been a good girl this year......

Anything else girls?

Tuesday 10 December 2013

FULL CIRCLE

There can be no doubt that the charm of bygone days are revived with full skirts, hence the welcome reception of this beautiful phenomenon! I remember my mother wearing skirts as big as a satellite dish, making her look as if she was spinning around the dance floor like a whirling dervish. The volume and fullness of a full flared skirt also invokes a feeling of childhood memory bringing a sense of freedom and femininity. Some fabrics are better suited for this type of skirt as the weight of a voluminous style just gives it much more body, allowing the cloth to fall to the floor  like concert drapes. It's  also well suited to rounded hips as it draws the attention away from pear shapes and leads the eye  to the legs and the waste, with mid length skirts adding some height. It's an easy trend to style, as the simple addition of a button up shirt gives it a feeling of formality without  detracting from the playfulness of the skirt. All you need to finish it off, is to slip into the Cinderella like rock studs to make you feel like a princess. Otherwise, a pair of strappy heels or T-bar Mary Janes are just as chic, giving the look it's final edge.
 
I love these skirts for the sheer luxury of metres of fabric being wrapped around you and making me want to take to the dance floor......
 
Voile Blouse - Thrifted
Skirt - Belle Epoque
Shoes - Valentino
Neck piece and bracelet - Sass Diva
 

Sunday 8 December 2013

TURBAN TUTORIAL

I was particularly fascinated by the amount of turbans being sported at Fashion Week during September this year, and with Milan being the birthplace of style and fashion, there can be no doubt that the trend is set to spill over into the next season. It's a marvellous way of adding instant flamboyancy to any look and rather convenient to keep your hair at bay around the pool, which is exactly why I am packing a number of scarves for my summer vacation in the tropics, where the temperatures still remain around 34 degrees celcius notwithstanding the fact that it is supposed to be winter. The charming Rhoda demonstrated how to tie a turban at the Style Society event in Cape Town last week, drawing many enthusiastic crowds. The Red Chamber displayed a stunningly beautiful collection of scarves in the most luxurious silks, from bright and luminous colours to soft hues of pastels and animal prints. 
The finished look:
Position the scarf in the middle of the back of your head, now tie the scarf around your head bringing the ends to the front, giving it a firm knot:
Then take the one end and turn it in the opposite side, towards the back and tuck the end;
Turn the other end straight across your head towards the back, and neatly tuck the ends, and voila!


Wednesday 4 December 2013

SHARING SECRETS

"A fool and his money is soon parted", my beloved late father often quoted. But it's not until later in life that it makes sense, and after having made a few silly purchases that one realises that value has to meet price. I'm acutely aware of the expression when I stumble onto things in my closet that still has labels on long after it's purchase.......I still get caught in the trap of sales talk when it comes to promotions  like "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday", both being catchwords leading us to stray from our own limits or budgets and causing us to buy things on the spur of the  moment.  I now approach it with much more caution, always considering the value that I could extract from a sale item in terms of the amount of outfits that could be styled with it.  So I imposed a little rule, whenever I buy something on sale, it has to be something that I really like and that allows me to style it in a multitude of outfits. This little jacket fell smack into the category of my self imposed rules, as a result of which I immediately snapped it up on sale, knowing that I would get considerable value out of it, allowing me to style it in numerous different ways. How else do we restrain ourselves from buying things that don't really fit our body shapes, or that we don't particularly fancy after it's found itself into your closet? Let's hear from you girls, come on, share a little secret........

 Jacket- Daniel Hechter
Pants - H & M
Shoes - Zara
Neon Peplum - Woolworths
Handbag - Thai Craft

Monday 2 December 2013

STYLE SOCIETY'S POP UP BOUTIQUE EVENT

The weekend's pop up event proved to be a great success with the delivery of Kumari Govender's 3rd instalment of her pop up boutique  during which local talent was promoted exhibiting their garments and accessories.
The event was held at the charming Victoria & Alfred Hotel at the waterfront in Cape Town. Ladies meandered through the many isles of rails filled with beautiful and stylish garments, mostly manufactured locally making considerable contribution towards the quality of lives of families in the capital of the textile industry by creating numerous employment opportunities. 

The exhibition included bespoke jewellery from Rawjoy, swimming costumes by Banana Moon, exotic scarves from  The Red Chamber and beauty products by Estee Lauder. Guests were offered a mini makeover with a touch up of make up done by professional make up artists, giving us all an instant lift with the age reducing agents of the house's famous regenerating cosmetics. The two designers that caught my attention was Anneen Henze, a graduate from my fellow university, and the charming and beautiful Mushra Hartley, both displaying a keen sense of style and feeling for modern trends yet each with her own particular identity.

Above, the beautiful Ms Kumari Govender, right, with her charming sister.
The talented Aneeqah from Phi Casa, right, and her statuesque model presenting some of her collection of garments.
The talented scarf ladies, from The Red Chamber, who taught us how to do a turban, to be featured in another post soon.... 
All in a day's work from the House of Miracles..... by Estee Lauder
The creative mind behind Mushi designs, Mushra Hartley 
available at www.bymushi.com 
The well trained eye of a make up artist, Nono at work for Estee Lauder