Archive for the ‘Fashion Tips’ Category
Beauty, Beauty of our youth, Fashion Tips, Features, Nostalgia, Opinion
By Lauren Bravo on May 13th, 2013
The year is 2002, the product is Bonne Bell and the scent is pure, sugary joy. Were Lip Smackers the start of a serious cake habit?
Ever since the first cave lady crushed up a beetle and rubbed it on her face before a trip to the nearest water hole, we’ve used cosmetics to try and make people kiss us. Iodine, pearlescent fish scales, beeswax… and their eventual evolutionary zenith, Bonne Bell lip gloss.
Because, as a 14-year-old at an all-girls’ school, the logic went something like this: everybody likes cake. I will make my face smell like cake. Boys will then want to kiss my face. It was foolproof.
And easier, trendier and greasier than spending all day with my head in a packet of Mr Kipling was the American Bonne Bell and their wonderfully American range of glitter-crusted, dessert-themed, soda-infused lip lubes, all guaranteed to leave your hair stuck to your face in a breeze.
Occupying a wonderful space on the venn diagram of cosmetics between ‘pretty’ and ‘pudding’, they were plenty cheap enough to buy in bulk from Superdrug, but still had a gloopy novelty that left Carmex and Vaseline in the shade. Among my favourites were cherry cola Lip Smacker, birthday cake lip ‘frosting’ and chocolate fudge sundae swirl gloss. Did I mention it was American?
For more or less the whole of year nine, Bonne Bell was our currency. We swapped them, gifted them, kept them in sticky piles in our pencil cases. So prolific was our collection that we would take them out during English lessons and line them up along the whole length of the desks, firmly convinced that understanding Tess of the D’Urbervilles wouldn’t serve us nearly as well in life as smelling like the cheesecake rotisserie in a Wimpy bar.
Of course, for more or less the whole of year nine we also waited patiently for the queue of suitors to arrive, Pied Piper of Hamelin-style, in a cloud of leather thong necklaces and Lynx Africa. They never did.
But now, when I want to make my face smell of cake, I generally just eat some cake. And I do it for ME.
Tags: "lip gloss", Beauty Of Our Youth, Bonne Bell, Lauren Bravo, lip balm, lip frosting, Lip Smackers, nostalgia, teen beauty, teen make up
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Fashion Tips, Features, Festivals, Get the look, How to Wear, Opinion, outerwear, Sleeves of the week, Trend Alert, Uncategorized
By Lauren Bravo on May 11th, 2013
Ahh, the cover-up. A far less exciting term when it’s applied to clothes than to TV murder cases, cover ups are the maiden aunt of summer fashion – cumbersome and not much fun, but if you don’t invite them to the party you know it’ll end in the cold shoulder.
When the vast majority of all spring/summer frocks are frustratingly sans sleeve, the cover-up suddenly becomes your goosepimpled arms’ only refuge post-6pm. Or, let’s face it, anytime after the flush of your morning dash-about has cooled and you’ve remembered it’s only actually hot enough for bare arms in the UK about 3.5 days a year, half of which you’ll spend leaning over a freezer cabinet in Londis trying to extract the last un-melted Twister.
And so on you plod through the endless parade of cardigans and blazers and denim jackets, feeling dowdier and a bit more like Lorraine Kelly with every one, until autumn arrives and you can put a proper coat on again. Unless, that is, UNLESS, you find something dazzlingly awesome and build your outfit around it instead – less cover-up, more ‘I guess convention dictates I wear something under this, but gee, do I have to?’
Enter the kimono. Voluminous, fringed and tie-dye, this Topshop number is both a scene-stealer and a multitasker supreme. Belt it over a black jersey maxi, throw it on with rolled-up jeans, make like the model on the website and wear it over a bikini or just swap it for your dressing gown and lie around on a chaise lounge all day smoking cigarillos and talking to everybody in a Marlene Dietrech voice.
The tie-dye print even makes it look a bit like a thundery British sky, which is fitting. Last year’s bobbly cardigans will tremble in its wake. Cover-up: covered.
Tags: cape, cover-up, fringing, jacket, kimono, Lauren Bravo, sleeves of the week, summer, tie-dye, TopShop
Posted in Fashion Tips, Features, Festivals, Get the look, How to Wear, Opinion, outerwear, Sleeves of the week, Trend Alert, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Affordable Fashions, dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Get the look, How to Wear, Trend Alert
By Lauren Bravo on May 10th, 2013
Still waiting for your prints charming? From tribal to tropical and even a touch of tie-dye, we’ve rounded up the loudest, proudest patterns around
Long gone are the days when ‘print’ meant a polite little floral or a prim polka dot. This summer we’re pretty much being commanded to bedeck ourselves out like our Nan’s conservatory sofa, so it would be rude not to go prints all the way (before they become ‘the art formerly known as prints’ and we have to cover ourselves in symbolic squiggles instead).
As a rule of thumb, if it would look good on a plastic cafe tablecloth then it’ll look GREAT on you this season. ‘Aztec’ and ‘tribal’ are still hanging about like an enthusiastic gap year student at a house party, but there are also ‘tropical’ (think Carmen Miranda), tie-dye (if you’re lucky you’ll still have the stuff you made at Brownie camp) neon paisley (think PG Wodehouse at a rave) and photo prints, which are like wearing an entire landmark destination on your arse. Not that your arse isn’t already a landmark destination, of course.
So here are our pick of the loud, the proud and the really rather busy. Extra marks for clashing them. Points deducted if you apologise for being “a bit bright”.
Printed sleeveless bodycon dress, £32 Topshop
Tags: Asda, aztec print, bustier, dress, fashion, high street, Lauren Bravo, Lovarni, party skirt, patterns, Primark, prints, Pyjama trousers, River Island, sequin dress, Simply Be, TopShop, tribal print
Posted in Affordable Fashions, dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Get the look, How to Wear, Trend Alert | No Comments »
Beauty, charity, Ethical Fashions, Fashion Tips, Features, Nails, Opinion, Opinion peice, Reviews, ShinyStyle Investigates
By Lauren Bravo on May 8th, 2013
Long-lasting, premium nail polish that helps support women in Haiti? Dielle gets the Shiny thumbs up
Oh nail polish, wherefore art thou? Not on my nails anymore, that’s for sure. Probably on the pavement. The carpet. The floor of the bus. Dancing away on the wind, like glittery silver blossom. Nothing, not even the priciest brands or the most industrial-strength top coats, will keep polish intact on my nails for longer than a day.
Even the mighty Shellac gave me a week of wear at best, then left my nails like shredded tissue paper underneath. I’ve resorted to marigolds for the washing up, and never offering to find the end of a roll of sellotape for anyone.
Now, I’m not about to let ‘fast-chipping nails’ be added to the menagerie of physical failings we’re supposed to worry about as women – the list is already down to my flaky, substandard elbow. But as someone who feels so much affection toward nail polish, it just seems unfair how keen it is to escape life on the end of my fingers. “I love you!” I tell each lovely new shade. “Errr, I thought this was just a one-night kinda thing…” it mutters, and makes a dash for the floor or plughole.
So when I tell you that Dielle polish actually stayed glossy and perfect for three days on me, you will appreciate the small miracle. On a normal person’s hands, that’s like, six! Eight maybe. This stuff has no commitment issues. It sticks around and makes you breakfast.
And far more importantly, Dielle also has ethical backing. Founder Rosalie Audoin lived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for 12 years, and is committed to putting the proceeds from Dielle towards charities making a difference for Haitian women and children. Recent campaigns include The Haiti Hospital Appeal, and The A21 Campaign Against Human Trafficking.
On top of that glowing recommendation, the collection is also completely non-toxic and designed to cater for every skin tone, with names like “Majestic Obsidian” so that you can pretend to be a warrior space princess from the future. I tried Everlasting, a pleasingly muted teal, and Modern Goddess, a spacey midnight metallic, with a lick of Lustre Gel Coat on top to keep them shining for longer.
In its shapely bottles, Dielle makes a covetable dressing-table addition, and at £12 a pop can definitely give all those quick-chipping, non-saving-the-world premium brands a run for their money. I think we’re going to be very happy together.
Dielle is available from Not On The High Street, several London boutiques and its own site, with more stockists announced soon.
Tags: Dielle, ethical beauty, Haiti, Lauren Bravo, long lasting, manicures, nail polish, nail varnish, non-toxic nail polish, shellac
Posted in Beauty, charity, Ethical Fashions, Fashion Tips, Features, Nails, Opinion, Opinion peice, Reviews, ShinyStyle Investigates | No Comments »
Fashion Tips, Fashion's biggest myths, Features, How to Wear, Opinion, Opinion peice, ShinyStyle Investigates, Yay or Nay
By Lauren Bravo on May 7th, 2013
Printed pencil skirt, £20 Very.co.uk
You’re most likely to hear this rule from your granny – but doesn’t she know it’s going against nature? Lauren Bravo explains why blue and green should definitely be seen
So obviously false is this little platitude that we really shouldn’t have to waste screen inches debunking it – but just in case there are still people out there secretly putting on a turquoise frock with an emerald jacket and dancing round their room with the curtains drawn lest the vicar should see, let’s do this.
Firstly, whoever first coined this rule is going against NATURE. It’s the anti-Wordsworth of outfit assembly. Have they never stood in a meadow and looked up at the sky? Have they never been to the seaside, is that it? So they decided to punish the rest of us? Blue and green is one of the oldest fashion choices there is, along with ‘brown and brown’ and ‘lava-red with dinosaur khaki’.
Secondly, speaking of poetry, I strongly suspect that this might be one of those rules that arose purely because it rhymed – just like “tequila before wine makes you feel fine,” or “never trust a dog who looks like a log”. Which is all well and good, but do we want to be filling our children’s heads with these nonsensical limitations when everyone knows that the poshest poetry doesn’t rhyme anyway? We shouldn’t be denying ourselves potentially great outfits just because someone wanted a level 7 in their English SATs paper.
Thirdly, just as with all fashion myths, this one was clearly instated because somebody did it badly once. My guess is it was somebody’s auntie Marge at a wedding, who piled on so much grass-green eyeshadow with her cornflower crimpelene that she looked like the lady in that Vladimir Tretchikoff painting. This will not be you, don’t worry.
Think joyful splashes of complementary jewel colours rather than matchy-matchy blocks and you’ll be fine. It’s Mary Katrantzou, not the Virgin Mary standing in a field. Or an Asda uniform. This gloriously clashy Love Label pencil skirt from Very.co.uk, for example, does all the courageous work for you – like a kindly baroque leopard who’s wandered into a rave. All it needs is a t-shirt and you’re done.
Now go forth, dressed like the sea and sky, and be seen! Be seen by all! Unless you’re doing green tights, in which case we should probably talk.
Got a fashion myth you’d like busted? Comment below or tweet us @ShinyStyle
Tags: Blue and green, co-ordinating, fashion myths, fashion rules, fashion's biggets myths, Lauren Bravo, Mary Katrantzou, style rules
Posted in Fashion Tips, Fashion's biggest myths, Features, How to Wear, Opinion, Opinion peice, ShinyStyle Investigates, Yay or Nay | No Comments »
dresses, Fashion Crush, Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Get the look, Movie fashion, shoes, So you want to look like, Style Icon, Style spotlight, Trend Alert, vintage
By Lauren Bravo on May 3rd, 2013
Pour yourself a mint julep and swing those pearls – thanks to Baz Luhrmann’s new release, the 1920s are roaring straight back into our wardrobes
Are you a flapper? Do you flap? Not the type you do when you’ve got hot food in your mouth, but the fashion type, currently dancing its way across the silver screen again – on Carey Mulligan, Leonardo DiCaprio and Isla Fisher in The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece of jazz age ennui.
Decadent, libertine and eternally gorgeous, flapper style is the smart lady’s fancy dress era of choice because it’s more original than the 80s, less polyester-flammable than the 60s and less restrictive than the 50s, all those roomy waistbands allow for far more fun at the buffet table.
In normal life, though, it’s a trickier one to integrate. Unless you work in the kind of office where kooky feather headbands are tolerated round the coffee machine, the look is a more obvious choice for evening, when you can drape yourself in sequins and hit up a speakeasy* (*Wetherspoons). It’s also not an ideal look if you’re prone to spills – pastels and muted neutrals abound, as does Daisy Buchanan’s signature summer white.
Plus there are two other big obstacles to pulling off the 20s trend, and they’re bobbing about on your chest. As Thoroughly Modern Millie showed us with her beads that wouldn’t hang straight, those drop-waisted dresses are friend to the flat-chested gal, but a couple of cup sizes can take you from the beautiful to the damned. Or at least the ‘damn, that dress be hanging off her like a valance sheet’.
But hey – we ain’t about prohibiting here. Just find an embellished deep-V instead, or flap it up with accessories. Mid-heeled T-bars and Mary Janes have a fashion ‘moment’ so often you may as well stock up now, and there’s no desk-to-dancefloor situation (we have those ALL the TIME, right?) that a sequined cape can’t solve.
We’re also rather taken with Gatsby style as bridal inspiration… but one thing at a time, yeah?
Eden bib collar necklace, £19 Accessorize
I know, I know – you already have twelve ‘statement’ necklaces and you can barely afford the chiropractor. But look how beautiful this one is! Stick it on with a t-shirt and you’ve got downtime Daisy, the look she favoured for schlepping around the morning after all those gin gimlets.
Tags: 1920s styles, Art Deco, Baz Luhrmann, Carey Mulligan, evening dress, evening heels, flapper dress, Lauren Bravo, Leonardo DiCaprio, sequin cape, sequinned dresses, t-bar shoes, The Great Gatsby, vintage
Posted in dresses, Fashion Crush, Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Get the look, Movie fashion, shoes, So you want to look like, Style Icon, Style spotlight, Trend Alert, vintage | No Comments »
Accessories, Affordable Fashions, Celebrity Style, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Trend Alert
By Daisy Buchanan on May 1st, 2013
Writer Rachael Krishna explores some leather options. But not in a rude way…
Last October I bought myself a little leather mini skirt from H&M. I was kind of in love with the concept of this skirt: so versatile, so form fitting, I could team it with heels and power dress or with a pair of box fresh trainers for a weekend in Brick Lane. To me, it was a wardrobe refresher. Then my house mate saw it and exclaimed ‘That’s a bit…BDSM Rach…’ With my leather dreams ruined, and feeling more Cat woman than Wonder woman I retreated into my wardrobe, fearing judging eyes. However, a new season is bringing leather back again, thus I am emerging from my shame ridden hibernation with a whole new leather based out look. Here are my four tips on how to rock leather like never before and shame the neigh sayers.
M&S Autograph Blue leather pencil skirt, £149.99
If Grace Kelly went to Cyberdog: We all know what Cyberdog is right? That place in Camden with the flashing lights and go go dancers? Excellent, well imagine if the Stepford Wives, Lady Penelope, regularly went there for a bit of techno and cage dancing. Think bright leathers (all over A/W 2013) pencil skirts and crisps white blouses. Edgy enough to fit in with the cyber crowd, refined enough for them to hit a debutant ball for a G & T after.
River Island Black Contrast Panel Leather Look T Shirt, £16.00
If Twiggy and Viv Westwood had a baby: If only. I’m sure this amalgamation has featured in the rum induced dreams of fashion students across London. The beautiful fantasy that, by means of probably lots of bunsen burners and test tubes, the two fashion icons had a fabulous bubba. But whose style would it embrace? The answer is the best of both worlds. Think Twiggy’s sharp silhouettes combined with Viv’s bold prints and black leather. No baggy shirts, and definitely no monochrome.
Missguided Kyrian Biker Detail Jacket, £47.99
If Tim Burton dressed the Pope: Work with me on this one. It’s a shame that the Vatican probably wont be calling upon Tim Burton’s design talents any time soon, as the Autumn catwalks were full of religious imagery that looks straight out of Edward Scissorhands’ work shop. Big gold crosses, surrounded by jewels and black lace all held together by our fabulous friend leather. If you don’t want to look too much like you’ve just rolled about in your Grandma’s fabric basket, treat this look as more of a statement piece trend than a full body outing; a definite opportunity to invest in a customised leather jacket.
Nike Mid Leather Blazer Trainer, £49.99
If Kelly Kapowski was bitten by a vampire: Tiffany Amber Thiessen spent years captivating the hearts of men across the world, with her tousled locks and all american girl charm. But what if Kelly hung about with the lost boys or had an illicit fling with Tom Cruise’s Lestat. Go for 90’s teen movie meets 80’s/90’s supernatural horror… tight leather shapes balanced with bright prints and tied together with chunk sneakers. Cute enough to go to The Max, sexy enough to hang with a bitten Brad Pitt.
Follow Rachael on Twitter @RachaelKrishna
Tags: Brad Pitt, fashion, guide, Kelly Kapowski, leather, monochrome, Saved by the Bell, Tim Burton, trend, Vivienne Westwood
Posted in Accessories, Affordable Fashions, Celebrity Style, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Trend Alert | 1 Comment »
Fashion Tips, Fashion's biggest myths, Features, How to Wear, Nostalgia, Opinion, Opinion peice
By Lauren Bravo on April 24th, 2013
Still convinced your wardrobe should be built around a crisp, white shirt – despite it looking more Apprentice than Audrey Hepburn? Lauren Bravo’s on a mission to bust those fashion myths and set you free…
Image: La Redoute
I have a theory (actually, it is my mum’s, making it a hand-me-down theory which is actually quite fitting), that your school uniform bears a lasting impact on your wardrobe choices ever after.
Unless you were some sort of gilded Taylor Swift-alike, wafting down corridors like a soft summer breeze and being voted queen of things, the chances are this will be a negative impact, and your uniform associations will haunt you for at least a decade after you left. It’s the reason navy pleats, red berets and anything vaguely reminiscent of gym knickers still bring me out in a cold sweat – and why, despite it having been fiercely on-trend for a couple of years now, I still can’t bring myself to wear a blouse buttoned right up to the top. It feels like I’m doing it because a prefect told me to.
The shuddering school uniform link is also the first reason I’m invoking for why a crisp white fitted shirt is categorically NOT the foundation of your wardrobe. Not now, not ever. Not unless you are in the navy, or an Apprentice contestant, or possibly Gwyneth Paltrow.
There’s nothing wrong with a crisp white shirt, of course. By all means have several if you’re that way inclined. But aside from instantly taking you back to a time when ‘your greatest badge of style was a Kangol pencil case, the problem with the crisp white shirt is that fashion people are determined to have us believe it is some sort of one-style-suits-all chic-ness solution. “Throw on a crisp white shirt!” they bellow. “You’ll look so terribly French! Now leap across a puddle, holding a balloon!”
“Even better, don’t buy a shirt at all – borrow one from your conveniently-sized graphic designer boyfriend, throw it on with an insouciant shrug and go out to brunch.”
What they don’t tell us is how to avoid that embarrassing boob-gape down the middle, or how to scrub ketchup off our fronts in a portaloo, or how even if you follow the rules to a T and wear it with a fugly nude bra underneath, you will still probably feel more like a promotional model doing ‘saucy secretary’ than you will Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Besides, slavish devotion to the crisp white shirt in 2013 seems a bit like refusing to try peanut butter bacon biscuit swirl because you’d rather stick with vanilla. There’s a whole world of shirt out there, gang! And if you don’t tell the prefects, I won’t either.
Tags: "Charlotte Gainsbourg", Audrey Hepburn, capsule wardrobe, gwyneth paltrow, Lauren Bravo, office wear, school uniform, The Apprentice, wardrobe basics, white shirt, white shirts, workwear
Posted in Fashion Tips, Fashion's biggest myths, Features, How to Wear, Nostalgia, Opinion, Opinion peice | No Comments »
dresses, Fashion Tips, Features, Get the look, Sleeves of the week
By Lauren Bravo on April 19th, 2013
The sun is finally out! The birds are singing, the children are laughing, across the country our flesh is emerging, mildly shellshocked, from beneath woolly layers to flirt coyly with something light and chiffony, and all the fashion editors are racing frantically to their keyboards to type “the sun is finally out!” at the beginning of an article.
So as the antidote to all that ‘beach ready’ bumf, and because we still live in Britain, not Belize, and because like a lot of women, I’d rather keep my arms under wraps for 90 per cent of the year if it’s all the same to you, here’s our very first Sleeves of the Week – proving that great dresses with sleeves DO exist on the UK high street, if you look hard enough and throw enough magic pennies in the wishing fountain. Cardigans, know your place.
This sprightly green number from ASOS is a nice bright take on what’s usually a wintery print, with elbow-length sleeves to boot – therefore flashing enough wrist to show seasonal willing, but still very firmly With Sleeve.
Plus, I’ve always had a soft spot for paisley. For some it might say ‘Grandad’s pyjamas’, but to me it says ‘has raucous weekend parties in a crumbling castle with Serge Gainsbourg’. Worn right, it’s the very definition of 60s louche.
If you were ever planning on re-enacting Megan from Mad Men’s ‘Zoo be zoo be zoo’ song in a semi-public scenario, this is definitely the frock to do it in.
Tags: "shift dress", ASOS, high street, Lauren Bravo, mad men, Miniskirt, paisley, sleeves, sleeves of the week, Spring
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Fashion Tips, Fashion's biggest myths, Features
By Lauren Bravo on April 15th, 2013
Photo by ChinaFoto
Never wear navy with black? Or brown with black? Or colour with black? Don’t be ridiculous, says Lauren Bravo.
I can’t claim to have traced this one back to its historical roots, but if I did I’d bet my Nan that it originated in a warmer clime than this one. Because the main problem with this rule, and there are several, is: tights. When you spend three quarters of the year made partly out of black opaque nylon, you can’t be too choosy about colourways.
Navy and black can look utterly chic, especially with a nice shiny gold button or rosy lips. Brown and black has to work, because half of the animal kingdom have been working it for years. Beavers, grizzly bears, otters, all oblivious to their genetic style failings. Besides, great brown clothes come along so rarely that the last thing you need is someone telling you your shoes don’t go.
If, like me, you were a British female with eyes, ears and a body during the early noughties, you might also still be haunted by Trinny and Susannah. One of their shrillest bits of fash-ism was ‘never wear black with bright colours – it cheapens them’, and to this day if I put a cheery colour near a pair of black jeans I hear them screaming “CHEAP! CHEAP!” like a chorus of demented budgies
But while there is truth in their adage – colour on colour is such a thrill if you can do well – you can’t help feeling it applies more to the stretchy black bootlegs and pink chenille jumpers of 2002 than it does to our wardrobes now. With so many more textures and prints to play with, the danger of black making your brights look like something from a Oxford Street gift shop is pretty minimal.
Pretty much the only black no-go that has any truth, as far as I can see, is black-on-black – because, as generations of women are wont to warn you, it shows the age. Black will inevitably look faded against another black; the freshness of one will show up the bobbles and worn bits on another.
But if you’re happy to own your bobbles and worn bits with pride, I’d say you’re good to go.
Tags: black, black with brown, black with colour, black with navy, fashion, fashion rules, style rules, trinny and susannah
Posted in Fashion Tips, Fashion's biggest myths, Features | No Comments »
Fashion Tips, Gallery
By Elisabeth Edvardsen on January 21st, 2013
Personally I find it quite magical when it snows in the UK, and also hilarious to keep track of the headlines of the national newspapers that make it sound like armageddon is near. It’s only snow people! 5 cm is NOTHING. But that’s me speaking as a Norwegian. Having grown up fighting the cold each year, while trying to avoid falling on my bum, I’d like to think I know a thing or two about keeping warm in the ‘freezing, treacherous weather’.
Here are my five picks of fashion essentials to help you stay toasty and stylish.
Uniqlo x Orla Kiely
First things first, and that's to layer up. Adding lots of layers means that you can control your temperature easily when in the office and out and about. The Orla Kiely and Uniqlo collection is a fashionable way to keep warm. Available from Uniqlo from £12.90.
Tags: boyfriend coat, fashion essentials, gloves, mittens, pom pom hat, snowday essentials, winter accessories, winter footwear
Posted in Fashion Tips, Gallery | No Comments »
Christmas outfits, Fashion Tips, Knitwear
By Elisabeth Edvardsen on November 27th, 2012
If you’re starting to feel the dread of Christmas looming and you’ve got no idea of what to buy your boyfriend/brother/father, why not take a look at our brother site Brandish for inspiration. A selection of the things they’ve looked at recently include: cheap(ish) Cashmere jumpers for men, the 12 most iconic rock and roll band t-shirts of all time, 10 men’s trophy jumpers and retro gadgets the man in your life might like to own.
But if you, like us, would much more like to invest in your own wardrobe with some chunky knits, check out our round-up of the best women’s Nordic and Fair Isle jumpers out there or the jumpers Scandi crime queen Sarah Lund would kill to get her hands on (in our opinion). And if you’ve got the date for the Christmas party in your diary take a look at our favourite red dresses and the best LBDs this season to ensure all eyes will be on you.
Tags: Fair Isle pattern, Men's Cashmere jumpers, most iconic band t-shirts, Nordic knitwear, Nordic sweaters, red dresses, retro gadgets, Sarah Lund, the best LBDs, The Killing, winter jumpers
Posted in Christmas outfits, Fashion Tips, Knitwear | No Comments »
Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery
By Elisabeth Edvardsen on October 29th, 2012
We have a hate-love relationship with Halloween: We hate the way it’s an excuse for women everywhere to dress in skimpy outfits, slutty style, but we love the idea of transforming ourselves into mythical characters with the help of make-up and fancy dress.
But if you have no desire to dress up in Japanese cosplay or you’re not sure it’s a dress up kind of party, why not take inspiration from our fashion finds that will ensure you get into the spirit of Halloween without going over the top.
ASOS Bite Me Jumper £35.00
Make a statement at the office with this 'bite me' jumper. From ASOS, £35.00
Tags: Halloween, last-minute Halloween ideas, scary tops, women's tops
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Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Top Five, Trend Alert
By Andrea Petrou on May 31st, 2012
The Queen’s Jubilee is almost here and we’re already looking forward to the long Bank Holiday weekend.
However, with an event as big as this there’s always the dilemma of what to wear.
Thankfully we’re here to help and so is the highstreet, offering a range of Jubilee inspired pieces that will suit any occasion you are planning to attend.
Go all patriotic with a Union Jack tee teamed with jeans for a casual look that’s perfect for a daytime garden party or be daring for an evening BBQ with a cheeky pair of printed hotpants.
If you’re a subtle kind of girl then accessorise a plain outfit with a Union Jack scarf, bag or limited edition jewellery, which will not only give a nod to the event but is also a great keepsake.
Or if flags aren’t your thing then a bold coloured dress in red, blue or white will also ensure you make a Jubilee stand.
However, one word word of advice; wrapping yourself in a Union Jack flag is not a look you want to go for, no matter how much the Pimms has been flowing.
See the gallery below for some of our best Jubilee picks.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: British fashion, Jubilee fashion, outfit ideas, Queen's Jubilee weekend, Summer 2012 trends, Union Jack fashion, what to wear
Posted in Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Top Five, Trend Alert | No Comments »
Fashion Tips, Features, Gallery, Get the look
By Elisabeth Edvardsen on October 28th, 2011
If you’re going out this Halloween weekend but aren’t sure what to dress up as – of if you should dress up at all – finding the right outfit can be a nightmare! One simple, yet eye-catching way of adding a bit of ‘something’ to your appearance is investing in fake eyelashes. Luckily there are lots to choose from these days so you shouldn’t have a problem finding a pair.
Selfridges has a great selection of false eye lashes by well-known brands like Shu Uemura and Mac, as well as dramatic make-up brand for your alter ego, and a ShinyShiny favourite, Illamasqua. We also love the paper lashes from PAPERSELF. Inspired by the art of Chinese paper-cutting these lashes blend an element of traditional culture with contemporary design.
Take inspiration above for your next party – just don’t forget to bat those lashes!
Tags: fake eyelashes, Halloween, paper lashes
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From:Gwen Stefani ranked most appealing female musician/designer