Frieze Art Fair

I visited the Freize Art Fair this weekend, it is hosted on the grounds of Regent's Park in grand white tents to allow for natural light to better view the artwork. This fair hosts galleries from all over the world with their best contemporary pieces to lure in those wealthy art collectors.
The place was full of interesting and eccentric people from the artists themselves to the curators, art students, wealthy art collectors and people like me who just went to take a look. Other than the great people watching the art was amazing too.
I noticed there were a lot of artists creating textural pieces by beading, sewing and knitting. There was one very large piece that was simply a panel of knitted wool in mustard yellow. I'm not sure why, but I am a sucker for super modern art like a simple block of colour and I love the warmth of knitted objects so this was a perfect mix of the two for me.

I am no expert when it comes to art but above are some of my favourite pieces from the fair:

The top one is by an Austrian artist named Gabi Trinkaus. She cuts up glossy magazines and collages them into portraits. This piece was made up of what looks like makeup adverts into a final piece that sort of looks like a makeup advert. This is my favourite piece from the fair because to me this shows our obsession with beauty and our need to patch up our imperfections. After reading about the artist she is referencing the aesthetics of advertising and media.

The next one I liked because it is made of string made to look like paint splatters and the third one I like because it is simple and graphic and I like the use of colour. (Sorry, artists unknown)

The best accessories from SS11- FENDI

 I love the colour combination at Fendi for spring and I especially love the tinted half-moon sunglasses.

Cycle Fashion-An Oxymoron?

I was caught in the rain yet again on my cycle into work today, not surprising as it has been rainy in London for three weeks now, grrrr.
I keep getting soaked because I am still desperately trying to find some sort of cycle rain gear that isn't fluorescent yellow and hideous. I know that's harsh, but the more I look for a stylish rain coat suitable for the bike the more frustrated I get and the more determined I get in finding one.

Is cycle fashion an oxymoron? I believe it does exist but I just need to find it!

Yesterdays style.com post on a Japanese based French designer Julien David gave me hope. His inspiration is "an elegant biking girl" from Tokyo. I like how the clothes are sporty more like street wear instead of "I am going to race in the Tour de France" sporty look. I like the short cape for light rain and the bike print is pretty cute too. Hopefully Julien Davids' first collection of this "sportif chic" hits stores somewhere near me.

Speaking of stylish cycling, I was in Milan a couple weeks ago and the Italian woman ride their bikes in high heels and the men ride in suits with perfectly polished shoes. I was impressed by their elegance on a bicycle. What do these people do on a rainy day? Maybe the women only go out on clear days or wear their trench coats to work which I find works well on drizzly days. These women also don't wear helmets, they know that this will give them terrible helmet hair and will not go with their classy outfits. Don't get me started on the bike helmet, I have given up hope on finding a cute one. My grey skate style helmet will save me just fine, just need to sort out the rest.

Bobbin Bicycles in Islington is the best bike shop in London by far, they sell super cute vintage inspired bicycles, great wicker baskets and a couple tweed capes to go with their vintage look.
As London is going through a cycling revolution thanks to the Boris bike hire scheme, we need more shops like this for the frustrated fashionable cyclist.

photo and quote from style.com

Details at Celine

I think most of us have been waiting for the Celine show this season to see what Phoebe can tempt us with this Spring. Following the current white craze Phoebe shows us how it should be done, with beautiful knits, quilting, interesting cuts and playing with white on cream. The flowy looks of the long trousers and the capes give you a feeling of freedom perfect for Summer.
The accesories were also fresh and exciting and I am sure we will see her new envelope bag on all the fashion editors come April.

Blush in Black and White

I have weeks of catwalk shows to catch up on and a pile of magazines to look through, somehow September went by so quickly and soon it will be Christmas! Hopefully I will have looked through everything by then.

The first magazine that took my eye this month is the second edition of The Gentlewoman. It actually caught my first attention because of the luxurious paper it is printed on. There are not many magazines out there that play with the tactile experience of the magazine. With the growing numbers of online magazines, I feel this is a very important part of a printing a magazine.
Other than that, this is a classy magazine that focuses on smart, inspirational and successful woman with an avant garde sense of fashion photography but with clothing that women really want to wear.

The Blush feature in this issue is brilliant. First of all, it is in black and white, we are talking about peachy, bronzy, pink blush here. Doing this feature in B/W focuses on the areas of application contouring the cheeks instead of distracting the reader with the colouring of the blush. The make-up artistry here is beautiful.
I also really like to 70's styling of the model, I can just image her wearing wide leg trousers with clogs sitting on a stool for the photographer.