My Day of Holding an Oversized Clutch

Oversized clutches are all the rage this season. If you haven't 'tried out' this trend yet, imagine holding onto a bag with your hands the whole time you're walking around and trying to rush to your next destination.

So last summer, I had plans to have lunch with a friend of my mum's at a fancy restaurant. It was a rare occassion for me since I usually don't spend more than a sandwich's worth of money on lunch, or actually get up early enough to have lunch out (-hey, it was the summer holidays!) The thought of a fancy lunch put me in a weird, cheerful mood, which prompted me to only carry a large clutch. I was probably imagining myself to be a Hollywood girl about to be photographed by the paparazzis. Like I said, my brain was clearly not awake yet. So I painfully transferred most things from my normal, larger hangbag into a smaller, oversized clutch. My clutch is basically a larger version of this Marni clutch. It's very simple and made of patent leather.

Here's how my day went: I felt very glamorous at first, clutching onto my shiny clutch and rushing to lunch. But as the day went on, I had to go to a few places to run errands and let me tell you, it is very inconvenient to have to hold onto a clutch while carrying other paperbags, listening to your iPod and trying to dig out your wallet for the underground ticket/card. The novelty quickly wore off. The said clutch is now more of a dinner-out-only clutch. As for daytime, I will stick to bags that have handles or straps attached.

Have you tried carrying an oversized clutch for daytime yet?

Image Credit: www.net-a-porter.com

Happy St Patrick's Day

Happy (early!)St Patrick's Day everyone! It took me a while, but I think I finally figured out what this day is all about: getting drunk on beer and looking green. Since I'm not a fan of beer nor of getting drunk, I think I'll focus on the latter: looking green- stylishly of course. Getting into the spirit of spring, I'm loving these cheerful looking dresses from Tibi (left) and See by Chloe (right).

Since it is not quite warm yet, I think this green coat from FCUK (left) is awesome, the model looks so cool and this season. On the other side of the temperature scale, this paisley dress from J Crew (right) is just the thing for a beach holiday.
And for the night, we have this green Raphael dress, which is my absolute favourite! I love how the gold prints line the dress in absolutely the most flattering way. And for something simpler, we have this plainer, but still very stylishly cut with cute bubble sleeves, dress from 3.1 Phillip Lim (right).
Green eye shadows are also quite the thing this season and are everywhere. This Ponder Four Piece (left) from Bare Escentuals is to-die-for! And for something with a bit more variety, DuWop also has this lovely green eye palette (right), though I'm not so sure exactly how green it really is from this picture.
For more subtle hints of green (or if you're just looking for something to match your green outfits), these green Mawi teardrop earrings are PERFECT. I love them. Its so elegant and sophisticated. For something more casual for the day time, there is this Monica Vinader Luna cluster necklace. Doesn't quite compare to the teardrops, but they'll do for the day.

The great thing about everything on this list is of course that they are all perfectly wearable outside of St. Patrick's day!

Image Source: Sephora, Shopbop, Net a Porter, FCUK and J Crew

S/S08 Trend: Jumpsuits Continued

Last June, I blogged about how I didn't particularly like jumpsuits. And after looking through the S/S08 collections on style.com, I thought jumpsuits have become a thing of 2007. But it seems like my brain was so desperate for this trend to be over that it just missed the jumpsuits in the S/S collections. Vogue.co.uk identifies them:

Stella McCartney designed a few printed, light-weight, long-sleeved jumpsuits. They look like they're for people who are bumming around the countryside, and the one in the middle looks like PJs.
Bottega Veneta and Moschino both had tailored, summery-looking jumpsuits.

Many highstreet retailers have jumped on board and are now selling them:
Urban Outfitters (US) has a few styles. These are very casual and relaxed looking. These are way too casual and PJ-looking for me, but believe me, the models in these jumpsuits look very cool in UO's Spring catalogue images!
Even Lacoste (left) came out with a preppy version of jumpsuit. And the blue jumpsuit on the left (from UO) looks very LA-style.
Jumpsuits like this red, camisole version by Top Shop is one big reason why I don't like this trend. Seriously, does anyone actually just wear this and walk around the streets? Talk about cheap-looking and skimpy!
Although to be fair, Top Shop is also selling these two cute versions. (To my horror,) I actually really like the flower-printed jumpsuit on the left. It probably wouldn't suit me and I certainly won't dish out 45 pounds for something I won't wear often, but I can image it would look cool on certain people (like the people in Nylon magazine and Top Shop ads.)

2 months back, Vogue UK had a page or two featuring around 4 people photographed in different style of jumpsuits. They all looked fantastic of course and there were quotes from them proclaiming their love for jumpsuits. In the following few weeks, a couple of UK newspapers' websites also sang their praises for jumpsuits. But at the end of day, I just don't 'get' jumpsuits. I really don't think jumpsuits are versatile at all. I mean, wouldn't having the pants/shorts and tees/tops seperate be much more versatile to mix-and-match? Oh well, I suspect I'm just very biased towards disliking the fashion from the time period when jumpsuits were popular (-the 80's right?) Let's hope we'll stop seeing jumpsuits around next S/S!

Image Credits: http://www.vogue.co.uk/, http://www.topshop.com/, http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/

An Invitation to meet Nina Garcia

Just when the finale of Project runway was airing last week, I received the following:And such a pretty invite too! How could I resist?!?
So today I went to Costa, the restaurant where this cocktail event was held, at IFC, a mall/office building next to the harbor (this is in Hong Kong fyi). The venue itself was quite small and could barely accommodate the crowd waiting to meet Nina. Luckily, they had a lovely balcony outside, facing the harbor where guests could mingle and breathe in some fresh air. Personally we spent quite a lot of time there drinking fresh orange/champagne and eating hors d'oeuvre (we were especially fond of the parma ham wrapped around the bread stick) and enjoying the view- I do have a penchant for staring into the sea.
But anyways, inside the venue, it was gorgeously decorated with little display sections each representing one of the chapters of Nina's book, The Little Black Book of Style, which is the reason for her presence and the purpose of the event- to promote it. I love the displays, they were so stylishly designed. This one (above), featuring those gorgeous nude Louboutins was my favourite. I especially love the quote from Louboutin himself (right). Haha.
When Nina arrived (around half an hour after the event started), there was immediately a crowd surrounding her, greeting her, getting her to sign their books and, in typical Asian fashion, taking lots of photos of her. I happily whipped out my camera and joined in. Soon, the event became an impromptu book signing and picture taking event and we all lined up for our turn. I daresay, the event was genius. Almost everyone there bought a book or two so they won't miss out on the fun. Naturally I fell in with the crowd, despite the niggling part of my mind telling me that this is all a marketing ploy and I that do I really need this book (especially since a week ago I had no intention of buying it!)??

As for the book itself, I skimmed through it tonight and it seems as good as any how-to-guide can be. It has practical advice, interesting anecdotes, inspiring quotes and gorgeous illustrations. I REALLY must stop buying staples and buy more drama pieces- like a colorful bold winter coat!
Dressed in this studded top and black skinny pants from Givenchy and Balenciaga, Nina looked great if a bit disheveled (either from the hoards of people crowding her or its part of the "imperfection" she mentions in her book). We only exchanged a few words, but she seemed nice (especially considering that she's been smiling and patiently signing books and posing for pictures all night) and was surprised when we asked her why they thought that Rami deserved second place instead of Jillian. Apparently the HK channels were not up to the finale yet.... whoops! And as for the answer to our question, she cleverly returned that it was a question best answered with all the judges present.

Image Source: Amazon

F/W07: Fur Coats

I've been meaning to write about this, oops I mean last season's (F/W07) white fur coat but I kept forgetting. This is probably a bit outdated now, but it's so cold (by that I mean windy and rainy) in London that it might as well still be F/W07. Anyways, I'm guessing the recent trend of white fur coat started with Kate Moss wearing it to an event, (which unfortunately I couldn't find a picture of, although there will be other pictures of her wearing the same fur coat more casually below.)

To be honest, I've always thought fur coat as something middle-aged and old people like. Maybe it's partly because real fur coats are so expensive and so older people are more likedly to wear them. My mum also claims that they are really warm, although my high school physics teacher once said that fur coats would probably be more effective in keeping us warm if the fur was inside instead of outside. Since I'm not an old rich lady, and nor do I frequent formal parties, I frankly never got the appeal of fur coats. Actually, I find the fur coats that look like they were literally ripped off an animal a bit vulgar.

I only started to understand the appeal of fur coats when last winter, Mary Kate wore a white fur coat with a black mini-skirt. This is probably not the best photo, but it started to make me think that even young people can make fur coats look chic and stylish without looking stuffy. The mini-dress makes the whole outfit look young and most importantly, modern and wearable, not too formal and easy to put together.

So I ended up buying the same white, faux fur coat by Top Shop. The best thing is, it took me so long to decide whether to buy it or not that it went on sale online (back in December)! Hong Kong is not a cold place to I really didn't have much use for it. In the end, I wore it on top of my purple dress for New Years Eve celebration. When I walked towards the bar, I felt like a gorilla lost in the city! My dad confirmed this before I left the house by laughing and said I looked like a gorilla from old movies. (Thankfully, I dress too much for myself to care what other people think.) But during the night, I loved the coat. It kept me warm and when I held in my arms, I felt like a Hollywood celeb holding her little dog! Definitely made the night more fun!

If you're not a going-out-in-a-dress type of girl, then wearing it with jeans is also glamorous.

Apparently the fur coat can look cool for daywear too: MK (left) and Kate Moss (right)

Here is an example of how not to wear fur: colour fur! Heidi reminds me of that blue character from Sesame Street!

Lastly, I just want to say that I am not supporting or objecting the use of real fur for fashion. I personally haven't thought this issue through and have no opinion. Anyways, like I said, this post is very late but since fur seemed to be abundant in the F/W08 shows, this 'trend' will probably continue into next F/W.

What do you think of the white fur coat and fur coats in general?

Image Credits: http://www.topshop.com/, http://www.thefasionspot.com/