brb continued

Something amazing has happened. I am in New York City!

The fact I am in the Big Apple to work combined with the fact I have a dissertation that refuses to write itself means blog posts will be few and far between. I won't completely abandon the it but I can't promise that I will be posting as frequently. The good news is that NYC should provide me with at least a few good anecdotes to share with the world wide web.

See you in a New York minute...

brb

Something terrible has happened.

I went home for the weekend to celebrate my friends 21st birthday and upon returning to Manchester I realised I had left my laptop charger at home! Tragedy. I only have about 2 hours worth of battery left on my poor little laptop and one hour of that is going to be used watching Pretty Little Liars (guilty pleasure), therefore unless I am blogging from my phone you won't be hearing from me for a week.

Weep.

you said it sister

image courtesy of twelveofour

chanel a/w 12-13

In case I have not made this clear, Chanel is my kryptonite.

The French fashion house took a turn for the dark side for Autumn/Winter 2012-13 with Karl Lagerfeld delving into his darkest material yet. The set itself set the tone with the overbearing stalagmites and crystals as a complete antithesis of last seasons’ white and bright underwater extravaganza. As always the classic Coco elements were heavily featured but this time around the tweed skirt suits were loose fitting as opposed to cinched in and were layered over trousers for a masculine edge. More twists on the classics meant that looks were even more elaborate with feathers, appliqué and embellishments in jewel tones adorned to the extreme but with an unsurprisingly luxurious and understated effect. The styling was impeccable as always. The girls themselves were crystallised with glittering eyebrows which were offset by their slick ponytails and barely there make up. Each look was better than the one before with British Vogue’s fashion director Lucinda Chambers going as far to say, “it was one of my favourite Chanel shows for years”. The clothes were truly breathtaking. The baggy silhouette was given feminine touches with the aforementioned embellishments but also through Karl’s use of fabrics laced with glitter and unsuspecting pops of sheer and velvet. By Autumn/Winter standards this was also a relatively colourful collection, utilising beetle green and deepest amethyst in not only the clothes but the accessories as well. My most coveted accessory has to be the shoes; a cut out hybrid between pumps and booties with Perspex heels came in a variety of rich shades and have my name all over them, in particular the black leather and glittery black tweed pair with a clear heel which are so far my most coveted item for next season.

Karl Lagerfeld's very own brand of dark magic; beautiful and dangerous.

For more images go to Vogue.

over the rainbow

My head says "they are tacky", but my heart says "they are SO worth £2000 and would look so good on you".

 

I came across these Louboutin's way back when I was interning at Glamour when they were called in for a feautre on the new shoe trends. They blew my mind at first sight; the freaky way the gold crystals turned rainbow-coloured at the slightest movement and of course my propensity for anything gold, shiny or with a red sole meant that I fell in love with them instantly. But I was torn. How can something be so right yet SO wrong? Let's be real, they are a pretty tacky looking shoe that can probably only look stylish if worn by Kim Kardashian. They are so over the top and I haven't really been into wearing anything covered in Swarovski crystals since I was 15 and was desperate to own a crystal phone cover (and they aren't exactly wearable), yet I love them.

I guess in this case love must be blind...or at least colour blind.

marni for h&m

H&M has hopped from one Italian institution to another by enlisting Marni to create a new capsule collection following the commercial, although perhaps not creative, success of Versace last year. The Marni for H&M collection actually looks like something to be proud of, and something that many a fashionista will be coveting. I myself was taken back by the effortlessly cool dresses and tunics that the collection is offering up for the Spring Summer seasons and was even more shocked to see that, despite its low price point, the clothes and even the accessories don't look cheap (although the proof will be revealed in the changing rooms I'm sure). I am always surprised that designers of such high calibre still want to create lines for H&M considering the sacrifices they have to make in the quality of the clothing they produce; but then again I'm sure they are happy to make such sacrifices when they reap the rewards of the massive profits they make selling at a high street level and the profits they make from encouraging people to buy into the brand whilst generating an upsell from those who take their obsession further by actually going on to purchase Marni at full price. They are fully aware that us schmucks will seize at any oppertunity to buy into a designer brand so I am glad that H&M have finally produced a line that actually looks like it has some thought and style behind it, at least now the masses can buy into a product not only for the label but also for the creativity behind it. I was starting to get a bit sick of poorly designed and poorly realised collections being snapped up despite the fact that, in all honesty, they were pretty shit. It seems as though Marni have chosen not to sell themselves out by creating a half arsed collection and as a result I want nearly every item they have produced. Come 9am on March 8th I am sure that I will be sat in my lecture desperately tapping away on my laptop, not making notes like a good little student but being one of the thousands of desperate people that will crash the H&M website.

richie rich

Nicole Richie was everything I wanted to be when I was a teen and since getting a sneak peek at what is to come from her Flare magazine cover not a lot has changed. I feel like I can identify with her because we are both blonde and mixed race but unfortunately for me that's about as far as our similarities go.

May the perving commence.

the have and the have nots

I have been adding to my wardrobe recently under the pretense of buying clothing for my three weeks in New York (I fly out in three weeks and two days bytheway).

Of course in an ideal world I would be buying from net-a-porter in bulk but sadly I am living in the real world so therefore have been trapsing around Manchester city centre/scouring the internet buying the various things that I need want. However, because I am a masochist I decided to inflict pain on myself by finding items online that resembeled the items I purchased which instantly resulted in me resenting the items I have and dreaming of the items I don't have.

The grass is always greener.

have

have not

In all honesty I am in love with everything I bought...promise! In particuluar I am pleased as punch that I managed to find copies of those Chloe boots I was desperate for a few weeks ago (and at a tenth of the price). I love them so much I have worn them everday since buying them which hasn't been so great gor my feet but has done wonders for my soul.

Have: Asos playsuit £35, H&M cuff £3.99, Zara jacket £79.99, Office boots £80, H&M leggings £14.99, Aldo boots £40 (in sale).

Have not: Etoile Isabel Marant playsuit £230, YSL cuff £365, Alexander McQueen jacket £9325, Chloe boots £850, Stella McCartney trousers £430, Isabel Marant boots £365.

is it chic thirty already?

The most concise LFW round up I have come across...

london fashion week, bitches

“You will be stood in the cold for 11 hours a day and you will probably be very bored, so are you still interested in working with the British Fashion Council?” - Dumb question.

Yes it’s true that by the end of the week I had developed a pretty severe cold and was deliriously singing “love machine” by Girls Aloud on repeat due to sleep depravation, but working at London Fashion Week was an experience like no other. It was an opportunity for me to make some amazing friends, see some incredible people from the fashion industry in their natural habitat and of course be part of an event that is usually only privy to fashion insiders. In my interview I was promised some pastel Levi’s jeans as part of my uniform, but due to alleged health and safety reasons myself and the rest of the team ended up wearing a rather hideous white lab coat so that we would stand out in a crowd of well dressed people (I was sweet talked into liking it when the devastatingly handsome head of marketing announced “they wear them at Margiela”). I was working as a ‘Wayfinder’ which meant I was essentially an encyclopaedia on all things LFW. I needed to know which designers were showing in the various exhibition rooms, when the next show was starting in the Courtyard show space and even where the nearest toilets were located and I needed to know it all off by heart just incase some self important fashionista got lost in one of the many identical corridors of Somerset House. We worked in shifts so that we didn’t get too bored if we were positioned in a quiet area or die of hyperthermia stood out in the courtyard or on the terrace, which meant we got to see all aspects of what goes into running an event of that size and importance. Working out in the courtyard was the best spot for people watching (and celeb spotting) but it meant I also witnessed some very strange sights. The majority of people were exceptionally well dressed and looked so impeccable that I wanted to crawl into a hole and set my lab coat on fire. There were however people wearing the clothing of nightmares for example a very interesting man in a yellow and flesh coloured PVC gimp suit accented with PVC red lips and inflatable yellow hair and of course matching yellow stilettos. The most desirable position, in my eyes anyway, was on the registration desk. There we were guaranteed to be rushed of our feet,  but it also meant that we held the power to hand out passes to the designer exhibitions to the thousands of buyers, bloggers and members of the press that strutted in and out of the registration hall in their fashion week best. I went a bit power mad to be honest. Along with the passes we were instructed to hand out goodie bags, which were made by Mulberry, to press and buyers but NO ONE else. I think the fact that by simply uttering the words “sorry, no you can’t have one” to the unlucky bloggers, visitors and exhibitors who were not permitted to have goodie bags suddenly turned them into fashion weeks’ most coveted item and at one point we actually caught a woman trying to stuff no less than six bags into her handbag. Safe to say I took a bag or two for myself; let’s call it one of the perks of the job.

on the street: london fashion week

London Fashion Week was a completely new experience for me this season. Having spent the Spring Summer shows working at the Topshop show, spening Autumn Winter with the British Fashion Council opened my eyes to the wider reach of fashion week. Spending one hour shifts dotted around various areas of Somerset house meant that the extent of some fashionistas 'personal style' had the potential to become overwhelming on the eyes. Most of the editors, bloggers and buyers that I was interacting with were so well dressed that I had to surpress the urge to ask them where every item they were wearing was from and I was overcome with delight when, on my day off, I found the exact pair of shoes a lady from Vogue was wearing and was even more overjoyed when I realised they were from Office. The street style ranged from bloggers that were so put together I doubt there was even a hair out of place, to a gentleman dressed in a PVC gimp suit and black stilletos carrying an Hermes Birkin bag. People would literally stand around in the courtyard (the only area where those without a pass to the exhibition or an invite to a show are allowed to go) for hours on end in the freezing cold just to get their photo taken in the hopes that they would appear in a magazine or style blog. Here's hoping these snaps will make someones day...
 

newgen

This has been playing pretty much on repeat on the big screen in Somerset House throughout London Fashion Week. For those of you who haven't seen it the film is a collaboration between Topshop, the NEWGEN designers they have worked with over the last decade and the wonderful photographer Nick Knight. It stars Karlie Kloss strutting her stuff in 10 years of Topshop NEWGEN designs. It is incredible how many of these once up and coming designers Topshop has boosted to fashion stardom.

lfw

Guess where I am working...

Excuse the horrible lab coat, it's part of my uniform.

On the red carpet: rihanna

I'll be honest, Rihanna has been annoying me recently. All those semi nude pictures she had been posting on twitter and her pseudo pornographic lyrics and videos are just starting to become a little bit boring in my opinion- but holy hell did she look amazing at the Grammys last night. She was the personification of sex and I (along with the male population of the world) was loving it. Her super slinky dress was a collaborative effort between her and Armani and she looked slammin'. Yes it was kind of hoochy with the low cut top, high cut slit and no back to it, but I thought it was perfect for her and the event. Cold shower anyone?

on the red carpet: emma watson

Emma Watson looked ravishing in red at a Lancome Pre-Bafta event last night. Emma looked the personfication of Valentines day in a flirty lace dress by Valentino and borderline dominatrix stilletos by Christian Louboutin, finishing off the look with a slick of red lipstick and black nail polish. She looked beautiful, and this is coming from someone who loathes the colour red. I love this look on Emma and it seems to be working as a winning formula for the Hogwarts alum as a lot of her most recent red carpet looks have stuck to this silhoutte. I love it, I really do, it is so chic and sexy whilst being age and event appropriate and although Emma doesn't necessarily take many fashion risks with her outfits, her simplicity and the modern way she (or maybe her stylist) puts looks together is always so pretty and polished. Just looking at her makes me wish I had a red hot date for Valentines day- bleak.

droppin' bombs

I am pleased and proud to announce two pieces of news today.

Firstly, I have been offered a job working with the British Fashion Council during London Fashion Week...AHHHH! Obviously I am so excited and I just had to share this news! Hopefully this means I can blog from the front line and bring some really fun bits of info straight from Somerset House to the blog, but most likely it means I will be sleep deprived for a week and have no time to eat let alone blog so forgive me in advance.

Secondly, I have also been offered an internship in New York City with the fabulous Topshop PR team. Told ya I'd be droppin' bombs peeps. So basically I have known about this internship for a while now but have been keeping it under wraps until all the little details were sorted so that I could SCREAM IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS. I could cry with excitement, New York is my dream and I cannot wait to live it.

How long til graduation?

comebacks

Does anyone have £850 they would care to donate to my cause? My cause being the desperate longing for beautiful shoes. Probably not the best thing to put your money towards really- if anything that £850 should go towards my treatment for retail addiction.

Chloe have brought back THE boots- you know the ones, black booties with gold studs and buckles galore. Of course you know the ones, these were the boots that half the front row were wearing a few seasons back for Christ's sake. Well they are back people and my feet are crying out for them.

The only trouble is, as mentioned before, they are a whopping £850. That's about £800 more than I can afford to spend on shoes due to my current financial state. 

For me these are the perfect boot. They have summer and winter potential which is perfect considering England is in a constant state of transitional weather. They would be perfect with a floral dress in the hotter months but equally as show stopping with black jeans and a killer jumper once the snow hits the ground/the rain starts pouring. Basically, I need them. My only hope is that I meet a kind benefactor/drug my Mum and take her credit card/Office or Topshop provide me with a cheap copycat.

It's times like these I despise my Dad for telling my bank to never give me a credit card of my own.

images courtesy of net-a-porter

jean paul gaultier couture

What would Winehouse do? That seemed to be the question Jean Paul Gaultier asked himself when creating his spring/summer couture collection. The hair, the eyeliner and the clothes were all very much an ode to the memory of Amy Winehouse, cigarettes and all. The sporty shapes of addidas and Fred Perry that were championed by the late singer took a turn for high glamour when they were combined with classic Gaultier corsetry and styling and recreated in leather and sequins and paired with luxurious lace and vibrant prints. Colours were bold and clashing and this was carried through into the models beehives which varied in hue and hight. The show closed with an incredible display of models, in what appeared to the under garments of the outifts they had already worn, wearing heavy veils which made for a spectacular finale. For me the Gaultier show is always a wonderful event, he has an incredible imagination which he allows to run wild and in doing so he creates not only wonderful fashion and fabulous couture but also a wonderful performance.

My favourite looks...

images courtesy of Vogue

giorgio armani prive couture

Avatar came to life on the runway at Armani today. Green of all shades was the colour of the show with vibrant hues featuring heavily in nearly every look. The reptillian theme was reinforced with graphic lizard and snake prints topped off with sequin embelishment on jackets and then paired with pale green, lilac and champagne silk trousers. The plush fabrics reacted to the colours and prints with mesmerising effect and reminded me of the oil like iridescense of Chanel peridot nail polish which was the nail colour to wear last autumn. It was a show with a very strong image and all the looks were polished within an inch of their lives; super structured, super syled and super chic. The evening wear, and majority of the more day time looks, had the perfect ammount of flair and fantasy necessary for Couture fashion week and the finale gowns might as well have had 'Oscars' written all over them as at least one or two little green dresses are bound to scuttle their way on to the red carpet. Very impressed.

My favourite looks...

images courtesy of Vogue

pink ladies

I ordered this dress from Topshop Boutique this past weekend as they were offering 20% discount for students...I'd have been a fool not to right? One must always abuse utilise a discount.

I think the tennis dress style is so cute and I'm pretty sure that once the sun comes out I will be wearing the crap out of this dress. What I love most is the dainty shade of palest pink. It kind of reminds me of the sickly sweet Louis Vuitton spring/summer magazine campaigns with the girls surrounded by shiny ice cream colours. I am not the kind of person who usually wears pink though. I used to wear it when I was younger obviously, at around the age of 15 I think half my wardrobe must have been at least pink based, but now I am the ripe old age of 21 the most I can muster is a shiny pink t-shirt I got for christmas. And then by some miracle I was inspired by the movie Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn. I love any Audrey movie and used to watch Breakfast at Tiffanys over and over again when I was a child and wouldn't even understand what was happening. There is a scene early on in the film that came on television today and I just had to do a pink related post (the scene is below so be sure to check it out for some inspiration). It seems pink is going to be a trend this coming season with pastel colours springing up all over the high street after the heavy featuring of pale colours in the shows last September. If you aren't brave enough to wear the colour head to toe or simply aren't 'a very pink girl' then try and translate it into your accessories or, like me, invest in a pop of pink lipstick; but not the horrible pale stuff that makes you look like you are a chav on your death bed I go for a rich fuscia with a hint of neon. Think pink.

Proenza Schouler PS1 leather iPad case £470, Miu Miu dropped waist crepe dress £980, Tibi silk crepe top £205, D&G dropped waist silk shirt dress £330, Pierre Hardy neoprene and patent leather sandals £680, Stella McCartney perspex heeled two toned sandals £565, Tibi tapered silk crepe pants £300. All availale at net-a-porter. 



chanel couture

Karl Lagerfeld took the runway up, up and away hosting the spring/summer Chanel couture show in a purpose built Chanel jumbo jet. The skyline theme continued in the gravity defying hair and the sky blues, greys, black and white that carried through the collection. The sihouette and styling was simple, something that is definitely a recurring theme in most of the big shows so far, but Chanel utilsed embelishments and ornate fabrics to add the key element of fantasy to the already luxurious clothes. It would have been easy for the grand scale production of the show to overwhelm or out do the collection but the clothes more than held their own. Adorable drop waisted pockets added a feminine touch to the boxy suits, coats and dresses; and heavy sequins and beading embelishment made for spectacular evening wear. Perfection as always from my favourite fashion house. I am ready for take off.

My favourite looks...

images courtesy of Vogue


Oh and you know I love a good catwalk video...

it's about to drop...

Karl is coming people. At some point today Karl Lagerfeld is going to press a button in Paris and the collection for net-a-porter will hit the virtual shelves and no doubt sell out in minutes, if not seconds.

Keep you eye on twitter and facebook to find out when the collection will be released!

dior couture

Wearable isn't the first word that pops into my head when you think of Haute Couture, yet for some reason Bill Gaytten presented a couture collection that looked more like ready to wear. With that said, all of the more extravagent look,s and a lot of the more wearable looks, were breathtaking. Truly beautiful, if slightly too modest. The show featured stunning fifties silhouttes in pale greys, monochrome and the occasionaly burst of bright red and houndstooth print and transitioned from modest fiftes glamour to pumped up fantasy with six show stopping gowns closing the show. Sheer fabrics gave the full skirts a light and airy feel throughout the collection and billowing sleeves echoed the billowing hem lines. Much improved from last seasons effort by Gaytten and although there were some pieces that definitely gave a ready to wear vibe overall I think the aim was to create couture that was really an investment piece that would transcend the trends.The collection still lacks the spectacular, spectacualr that made me fall in love with the creations of  John Galliano but the collection is still something to be proud of.

My favourite looks...

images courtesy of Vogue

versace couture

After an eight year absence Donatella Versace returned to the Couture shows in Paris today. It was a small show of only fifteen evening wear looks that were paraded in a static presentation set on a spectacular molten gold staircase. It was a show that was typically Versace and utilised a colour pallete of yellow, green, orange lilac and champagne in variations of pastels and neons to give the sultry and sequined looks some Spring/Summer punch. The sihouettes again were typical of Versace styling- corseted, plunging and womanly with sex appeal to spare. It was all in all a very typical Versace show. Perhaps Donatella was playing it safe for her return to the runway? I have to say although I am slightly disappointed that were didn't see a more heightened and pumped of version of Versace, which is what is to be expected from the couture shows, it was not a disappointing collection. I am sure that nearly all of these looks will be making appearances on the red carpet in the run up to awards season as they are so super sexy yet super feminine that they would look incredible on any starlet. A nice return from Versace but hopefully next season we will get a peek at Versace collection...and then some.

My favourite looks...

images courtesy of Vogue

cravings

The Spring/Summer essentials I am craving for my wardrobe...

Balmain coated boucle biker jacket £3940, Lanvin frayed tweed dress £1330, Proenza Schouler raw silk shirt dress £1180, Missoni crotchet knit playsuit £355, Lanvin bubble skirt silk dress £2395, Etoile Isabel Marant printed cotton jumpsuit £230.

All images via net-a-porter

haute off the runway

Monday brings the return of Couture fashion week in Paris. This is my favourite of all the fashion weeks, the romance, beauty and pure creativity of the couture shows is so inspirational and it is so refreshing to see all the hard work that these already well established designers put in year after year to showcase their talent. Every show sees each couture fashion house out do themselves to bring beauty and perfection to new heights. This year is even more special as it marks the return of the house of Versace to the couture shows after an eight year hiatus.

Of course I will be waiting on Tuesday with baited breath for the photos of the Chanel show like the addict I am!

Stay tuned, I will provide photos of my favourite looks as they hit the runway.

new year, new shoes

So, I'm back everybody!

After a very stressful exam season and and even more stressful hangover I finally have time to devote myself to my blog. Oh how I have missed it!

Anyways, over christmas I got some amazing treats which will slowly but surely be revealed on the bloggy wog (Russel Brand's new book?). But first there is some urgent business to attend to in the form of some beautiful dark purple velevt shoes by Givenchy...did I mention that I am their very proud owner?

Well I saw them on the net-a-porter annual sale which is BY FAR the best sale out there. The reductions are ridiculous and if my student loan came in just two weeks earlier than usual I would 100% be the proud owner of half of the sale. However, I only came away from sale season with these stunning new playthings for my feet. At the moment they hurt like hell but I am hoping with some tender love and care they will soon be living in harmony with my toes. My favourite bit is the gold anklet on each shoe, they are detachable but I will never be taking them off.

In onther news I just signed up to twitter. I know I am way behind on the times but it's better late than never right? Be sure to follow me @merritt_laura