Holiday Gift Guide-No. 1

When I started my holiday gift guide, I knew what my number one item was going to be as I have been coveting this item for a while, but today I went back onto Colette for the photo and it is no longer there!

The photo above is the mens version of the Martin Margiela watch skeleton necklace which I found on Oki-Ni for £279. The womens version is a bit smaller and has a couple silver chains holding on to the charm for £180.
If my boyfriend is reading this, I hope you can find it!

Happy Holidays! xoxoxo

Holiday Gift Guide-No. 2

Perfume must be one of the most purchased gifts for Christmas, it is incredible how many sensual celebrity filled tv adverts you see while watching a holiday movie leading up to the 25th.

Diptyque doesn't need any fancy advertising as there is a somewhat of a cult following for this brand mostly known for their quirky and very expensive scented candles with scents like Mimosa, Freesia and Figuers.

This year, they have come out with a compact solid perfume so you can discretely touch up your scent before going out to that office Christmas party.

Buy at Space NK or John Lewis £28

Holiday Gift Guide-No 3

This Liberty canvas shopper is more of a gift wrap idea than a gift. I suggest filling this with the Sartorialist's book as a thoughtfull gift for that fashionable friend.
Liberty canvas shopper: £14.95
The Sartorialist Book

Holiday Gift Guide-No. 4

For a colourful but earthy touch to your home! These Canadian log bowls are by a group called Loyal Loot Collective based in Alberta. I actually discovered these gorgeous bowls on Cheshire St in London in an adorable shop called Shelf.

Holiday Gift Guide-No. 5

As a recently converted owner of a Mac I know how overboard people can get with andorning their shiny macbooks and ipods. This is one of the cutest macbook carrying cases I have seen as it can easily double as an oversized clutch on a night out after work. They also have small crossbody ipod carrying cases.

Mulberry Neon pink drummed patent leather, £350

What?!

Drapers headline this morning: "Belgian designer Martin Margiela, head of the eponymous French fashion house, has left the business. No replacement creative director will be appointed"

No reason given.

Read the full article on Drapers

Holiday Gift Guide-No.6

Buy this for that stylish chilid in your life, the mom will not be bothered if this Missoni print plush Reindeer is left hanging around on the living room floor when guests come over. From Collette, £122.18.

Holiday Gift Guide-No.7

For your intelligent but sylish friends, why not buy them a couple classics bound in pretty cloth that will look amazing on their shelves from Penguin books. £12.99 each.

Holiday Gift Guide-No. 8

Mini designer finger puppets! You can buy a set of London, New York, Milan or Paris designers in knitted form! Above are the Parisien designers John, Karl, Sonia, Jean Paul and Alber.

Buy them for £65 from Rubbish Magazine  (the creators) or at Liberty.

Sonia Rykiel pour H&M-watch the catwalk show live tonight!

H&M will be airing their Sonia Rykiel lingerie collaboration live tonight at 10pm (GMT) here from the Grand Palais in Paris. Expect a very sexy, sophisticated and Parisien collection as Tim Blanks reported. This collaboration as one twist to it, the H&M made lingerie will be sold in Rykiel's shops as well so you can go  away carrying a Rykiel bag instead of a plastic H&M!

Stylish Holiday Gift Guide-No. 9

Give the gift of Necklush! It's a scarf, a snood, a necklace or whatever you make of it as you can wear it short or long. Handmade and sold on on Etsy, the Necklush comes in many different colours and is an essential piece in your friend's winter wardrobe.

Stylish Holiday Gift Guide-No.10

This is a bit unusual for me, but I have finished and wrapped all my Christmas gifts and it is not even Dec 1st yet! I still have so many ideas so thought I would give you my top 10 stylish gift ideas that should help out for that hard to buy fashionable friend of yours.

Number 10 on the list are the famous Laduree macaroons for Marni. Yummy and Pretty.

Hinged Heels

These Donna Karen crocodile hinged shoes look pretty cool, but why would you want your shoes to bend the way your foot clearly can't?

photo: luisaviaroma.com

Filippa K

I am always looking for a casual but cool look that doesn't look too boring and too Gap like. I still love a hardcore look but I think that these looks from Filippa K is a good base. Then all I need to do is add some hardcore boots, a leather jacket and a touch of studding.

Filippa K

Silver vs Gold

I am a silver girl all the way but when I see gold worn well I think it looks really fresh, especially during Fall as gold looks amazing with autumnal colours.
Are you a gold or silver girl or do you wear both depending on your mood?

Live British Vogue Photoshoot

I tried to rush to the Live Vogue Photoshoot at Somerset House after work on Friday but they decided to finish early. I just made it there for 6 pm but it was meant to go on until 9pm. There were many unhappy stylish 9-5ers there! If you were lucky enough to see the photoshoot through the glass wall you would have seen Nick Knight shooting Natalia Vodianova for a fantasy themed story. A friend of mine was one of the lucky ones, she sent me this photo.
The Somerset House will be having another live shoot on Nov 12 for Re-bel fanzine photographed by Bella Howard, get there early.

Pretty DIY Poppies!

What a beautiful way to remember on November 11 by handmaking your own poppy!
After my friend at work lost her father last year, she wanted an extra special poppy for rememberance. She now makes these satin poppies for her and her 87 year young mother who goes to church wearing it every year. She is creative but also very generous and gives to charity all year long!

If you are an X-factor fan you can also buy these satin poppies from Yarwood-White that the finalists wore last week for £35, but only £5 goes to charity. Surely, it doesn't cost £30 to make this poppy?

Simply Beautiful-Exclusive Elle UK Covers

If you subscribe to Elle UK you get a simplified version of their on-stand covers. I think these look stunning next to all the other magazines I sift through. I know that all the slogans are needed on the cover to get peoples attention to buy them, but to me, this simple cover would make me buy it instead. What do you think?

photo: elle top: Dec issue with Kate Hudson. bottom: Nov issue with Cheryl Cole

Lace up boots...Price Compare!

Ann Demeulemeester -£695

All Saints-£165

River Island -£74.99

This morning I wore my new River Island lace up purchase to work and a girl complemented me on my "All Saints" boots. I thought I would see how much money I saved from finding this high street gem so I did a little price comparison. I would say I did good!

Topshop Holiday Bunnies!

Do you remember the little coco bunnies from my very first post? Well, I wish I could post Fifi Lapin everyday because I adore these cute fashionable bunnies. Now Topshop is selling Fifi Lapin charity holiday cards with cute Topshop outfits on! My girlfriends are actually going to receive cards this year, that is if I don't keep them all for myself.

J'taime Fifi Lapin

Happy Halloween!

This is the classiest Halloween window display I have ever seen. Touches of gold rats, spiders and frogs are scattered throughout the display. Not a shade of orange in sight in this window at Diverse

Fashionable Wedding

I don't remember where I found this photo but I have been saving it for my not yet in the future, future wedding. I love that that it is a white houndstooth print and I absolutely loove the spiky headband.

I finally did a search and it is from Givency's Couture collection from Fall'09

Cover Up

The Snood. I have wanted a cozy cover up ever since I saw the Missoni AW09 show and now that there is a chill in the air I went looking. I found mine at Zara for £19 and I cannot take it off, it is so cute and cozy and I love the look when you pull it up like a hood.

COS

H&M's higher end, sophisticated, structured, soft and cool line COS has been my favourite shop since I discovered it a year ago. Now they have an equally cool and clean website and magazine showing their new line, an article on the media shy Grace Coddington of US Vogue and some cool art. I have picked out my favourite pieces and am ready to go shopping on payday, thank goodness the clothes are also reasonably priced!
Check out the website and you will want to add it to your favourites asap. Coststores.com

Louboutin says Barbie has "cankles"

First Barbie is too skinny, now her ankles are too fat. Christian Louboutin is redesigning Barbie's figure for Barbie's 50th anniversary, I am guessing it it to make his shoes look better on her. These top designers always need a skinnier than skinny model don't they? The shoes will come in mini Louboutin boxes though! He is designing three slimmer ankled Barbie's which will probably cost a fortune to go with the price of his shoes.

source: ananova.com

Sihouette

Balenciaga

YSL

Sorry my little coco bunnies, I was in China for work, Dongguan to be exact, so I have not posted in a while. I was staring out my office window one day, dreaming of going back to the hotel for a nap which just happens to be in these photos, when I saw the silhouettes of these two beautifully contsructed shoes shining through the smoggy China air. It lifted my spirits for the afternoon reminding me that I work around gorgeous shoes all day long.

Disco Cavewoman

Style.com called Balmain's Spring 10 look, "Disco Cavewoman", it sounds like something StyleMixer would spit out.
The Spring 10 Balmain show still had big shoulders which is great because the structured shoulders make women feel powerful (and also slimmer) so I hope this look lasts for a while.
This jacket looks like the softest, most perfect fitting, perfect signature shouldered Balmain leather jacket. I want it now but unfortunately it is way out of reach. I will just have to wait for All Saints to hopefully replicate it next year.

photo from Style.com

Do you have designers block?

StyleMixer.com randomly connects two words together as you press the MIX button to create your new concept.
Today it gave me Garage Ninja, Victorian Symbolism and Metal Metal. What will you get?

Sweet or Gross?

I guess it is all depends on your past experience with birds whether you think the new AW Aquascutum ad campaign is sweet or gross. I showed this to some of the girls in my office and I either received a grimace or an awww cute. One girl said it depends if the birds are doves or pigeons. Well, considering that this was shot in Trafalgar Square in London, I'm going to say they are dirty pooping disease ridden little pigeons.
There is a video on the Aquascutum website here that shows you an archive campaign from 1955 shot in Trafalgar square with pigeons, I guess this was meant to bring back a classic ad, but to me all I can think of is how angry you would be if this bird poops all over your £1000 trench.

Shopping as Experience

Art, design, fashion, music and food all in one cool small environment. There are only a handful of shops that include all of these elements and they are so special, Colette in Paris and Dover Street Market in London are some of these types of shops and they just ooze cool. I was just in Milan for work and this is the first time I had some time off and able to wander a bit. Even though Milan is the fashion capital of Italy, it is not the most beautiful city. I was excited to be taken through a small hedged opening in the street through a gorgeous private garden cafe and into an amazing shop and gallery called 10 Corso Como. My heart started to beat just a little bit faster and I will forever be inspired by these types of unique shops that add a little more fun and culture to shopping.

Worldwide Fashion Night Out

Free Champagne, mini cupcakes, discounts, Hermes scarf tying sessions and photoshoots in Liberty. Free beer, mini cheeseburgers, exclusive t-shirts, and free manicures. This all happened one night when I told my friends that I could show them a good time without spending a dime. Cities all over the world including London, Paris and New York held Vogue's Fashion Night Out to enliven the consumer spirit. Most shops in London were serving free drinks and other goodies to get us a little tipsy to buy things.




The icing on the mini cupcake of the evening was walking into The Gap on Kingly Court and viewing Garance Dore's illustrations drawn larger than life on the walls downstairs along with her photos and an inspiration wall. The Gap let her do three t-shirt designs and they produced only 69 pieces (to coincide with The Gap's new denim line and establishment year 1969), and I was lucky enough to buy the design with the red frames! I was only sad to find out that Garance had left that morning to New York and so I will have to wait to speak to her again.

DIY Sonia Rykiel

Last week I did some shopping at one of my fav boutiques in London called Diverse. They had a really cute Sonia Rykiel striped top with mini Eiffel Towers attached for £169. That weekend I went to Paris and I saw the exact same mini Eiffel towers being sold on every corner! I had a definate lightbulb moment and bought 5 mini towers for 2 Euros. Today, I walked over to the Gap and bought a £10 striped top and added the mini towers, et Voila! DIY Sonia Rykiel!

Sailor Boys and Girls!

How adorable are these little models, or do you think they have been styled too much to look cute? These photos are from Vogue Enfants, it was a mini issue that came with this months Paris Vogue.
Whatever your opinion, I wish I was this stylish when I was young.