// Fade to #C5C5C5

The first 100 posts

Pictures from some of the posts from the past year

Last summer Qing and I met up in London. We had been classmates in university many years ago, but hadn’t seen each other for the past five years. As we were catching up and reminiscing about the old days, we started talking about fashion blogs and how we both wanted to write one. An idea was born and we registered the blog.

Fast forward 12 months and we have reached a milestone, this post is our 100th post! 12 months have passed since we wrote our first entry, but our writing didn’t really take off before December. We still have a long way to go before we’re where we would like to be, but in the past few months especially we’re slowly starting to get there. As I am writing this we have just reached 31,000 hits. Maybe not a high number compared to many other fashion blogs, but still.

Since our first few posts last year, we have added quite a few new regular features we will work on from now on, these include:

• “I love you back” – A lot of fashion blogs, street style ones in particular, always show the front of an outfit. In this feature we show you the “backside” of fashion.
• “Outfits” – like a lot of other fashion bloggers, we like to dress up too. And occasionally we show off our outfits.
• “What’s in your bag?” – The one where we put unsuspecting victims on the spot, grab their bags and go through the contents.
• “Fashion Windows” – A series of posts documenting the fashion windows, displays and visual merchandising of different fashion stores around the world.
• Fashionology – A series for the true fashion geeks, it will have posts about fashion theory and fashion history.

In addition to this we will of course continue to post about other things as well – fashion weeks, different fashion campaigns, models, designers, collections, praises of things we love and rants about things that we don’t.

Another Chanel

Last week I went for screening of the other Chanel movie —- ‘Coco & Igor’. Indeed a powerful movie that I felt even more powerful than ‘Coco Avant Chanel’, which was  wide released last year in UK. 2 Chanel movies were actually being film around similar time. But both team were really supportive to each other like one family. They would stand up for each other when unnecessary comments attacked both movies.

This movie opened up with moving snow-flake-and-arabian-like patterns and Coco was rushing to theatre after meeting her long-term lover ‘boy’. This scene was captured in ‘Coco Avant Chanel’ towards the end. She was about to experience the issonance of the score and the shocking choreography of ‘The Rite of Spring’ by Igor Stravinsky. It takes 7 years before they meet again in Paris – now Chanel is both rich and respected (and moaning for ‘boy’s accidental death), whereas Stravinsky is living in exile as a penniless refugee. There is an immediate powerful attraction and she decides to shelter Stravinsky, offering him her villa ‘Bel Respiro’ as a sanctuary for his composing, as Chanel herself begins creating the revolutionary iconic perfume No.5. Stravinsky moves in straight away, with his children and consumptive wife. And so a passionate, fiery love affair between two creative giants commence…

I felt the script and dialogue was very well considered and composed, they were short but full of psychological tricks. Here’re a few moments I’ve memorized and would like to share.

Moment 1:

After Coco and Igor re-met each other 7 years later, she made an appointment with him to meet in a museum and of course she was fashionably late… (don’t know how long) However, she walked in and laid her steady eye-attention on him. Nothing apologetic, she simply said ‘I Am Late’.

Moment 2:

She walked downstairs in the middle of night in a gorgeous silk night gown, floor length, embellished, with tiny button fastening around neck. She stared into Igor’s eyes quietly and unbuttoned gracefully and stood naked in front him…(only physical dialogue)

Moment 3:

Igor was playing piano in a ground-floor room and Chanel returned. She sat on him with her back against piano. Her skirt was lifted up showing white crochet stockings. The poor wife sitting in bed upstairs clearly noticed the piano has stopped, but could not come down to stop anything. I felt her pain, because she couldn’t do anything there. It would be even more painful situation if she physically saw. (again…only physical dialogue.)

Moment 4:

The poor wife decided to leave Igor and took all 4 children with her. At the door step of Chanel’s villa, her last word to Igor was ‘I love you’. The man didn’t return any word.

Moment 5:

After the wife’s departure, Igor saw Chanel in the garden and followed her into the woods. He wanted to kiss her and she pushed her out, once and twice…She had to refuse it. I know the woman must feel that she could predict everything from Igor and he became less interesting. He had eventually finished a masterpiece and felt exhausted and fell in bed in his dirty clothes. It was Chanel who called him up and put him into bath and later left a kiss on his forehead. I know, by that time, all Chanel could feel for Igor was caring and understanding. However the passion of love has not only slowly disappearing but also had to be forced to burry down after she read the last letter left on her bed by the wife. By this stage, it was actually the quiet wife who was seemingly weak and depended and a character completely opposite of Chanel, has finally won this moral fight. Yes, she is weak, ugly and unattractive and depended, but it somehow reminds me of a famous saying—-sometimes, the weakest power could be the strongest.

If Audrey Tautou has successfully portrayed a younger Chanel from beginning of her grand career, Anna Mouglalis  in the movie, has completely sculpted up a closest image of Chanel from later stage—–who is confident, cold, passionate and graceful. She has got a most smokey French voice. Mads Mikkelsen as Igor was also a very strong character. I’ve always loved him ever since the Bond Movie ‘Casino Royale’.

Overall, it’s a very artistic movie which has a perfect flow on language using. It has started in English but slowly changed into French and Russion with english subtitle. However you could barely feel tiring from reading the lines, because as I said above, all dialogue are considerably short and well composed. I couldn’t help but put a short a comments on Facebook that night—–a very French movie, lots of shagging and little conversation.

Tags: Anna Mouglalis, Audrey Tautou, Chanel, Coco & Igor, Mads Mikkelsen

“I love you back” 11: Dark Angel

I know London weather has been amazingly hot recently, so it’s natual to see all colours are popping around. But this weekend with dark clouds slowly covering up, it’s somehow quite a suitable feeling when a dark angel dropped on earth.

She’s in a light weight tailored mini cape with constructed should detail, long tube maxi skirt, Givenchy Pandora bag is super lush.

Then when I was at Bourough Market I saw this girl’s amazing heavy studded shoulder tote by Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please.

Tags: Givenchy, Issey Miyake, Pleats Please

Cover clash of the titans

Ever gone to a party only to discover that someone else there is wearing the exact same outfit as you? Something of those sorts has happened in the world of fashion glossies recently.

A few days ago The Guardian wrote about how the August editions of arch rivals British Vogue and Elle UK both feature variations of “the same dress” from Miu Miu (it’s not actually the same, just two very similar styles from the same collection). To make matters worse, “the same dress” was also featured on the cover of the July* edition of W magazine.

Several bloggers and newspapers have picked up the story. Today, however, I stumbled upon this blog entry on Stylebrity and guess what dress is featured on the August cover of Elle Sweden…

The August cover of Swedish Elle, featuring Mona Johannesson, photographed by Jimmy Backius

*I think the article in the Guardian says the August issue of W, but it’s actually the July issue.

Photo source: tFS and Fashionising

Tags: ELLE, Eva Mendes, Freja Beha Erichsen, Lily Allen, Mona Johannesson, Vogue, W

“I love you back” 10: Memories from the riviera

A slightly different edition of “I love you back” this time, since the person on the picture is a friend and not a random stranger on the street. The tunica my friend Melissa is wearing is made from 100 percent silk and was bought on one of her many holidays to southern Europe.

Melissa says that what she likes the best about this top are all the memories attached to it. Holidays in different countries around the Mediterrainian sea and trips filled with memories of sunshine and laughter. What I like the best about this garment is the strong, bold and vibrant colours. I also like the more subtle design details such as the straps at the back of the neck and the drawstring that allows the wearer to adjust the waistline and change the silhouette.

“I love you back” 9: At Margiela

I went to the Margiela Exhibition at Somerset House on past Saturday and I got to say it’s probably the best fashion exhibition I’ve ever been to. The exhibition breaks the normal rules for a fashion exhibition by using lots of mirrors, lightings and multi-media. I will blog about it in another entry with detailed photos.

And naturally there’re a bunch of well-dressed people there. And here I want to show you…well naturally…their backs.

Tags: Maison Martin Margiela, Somerset House, street style

Ready to be Beige for AW10?

Actually it seems like the word ‘beige’ is being completely avoided in the entire magazine world. Instead they are using the word ‘caramel’ to describe one of the hottest trends for AW2010.

Coat by Oasis…on UK Vogue August…

Wool Cardigan by Surface to Air in UK Vogue August…

Akris campaign for AW2010…UK Vogue August…

And here comes some images from my vintage magazine collection…

absolutely loving her long limps…black body-con hot-pants makes this ‘Caramel’ long-line Chanel cardigan so young and energetic! And this image is from Elle 1995, more than a decade agao!!

Then here is the gorgeous Lavin caramel man suit mixing with leopard print velvet trousers.

and love the red lipstick and car with caramel…

Tags: Akris, Chanel, Lavin, Oasis, UK Vogue

“Move over Imelda” – The quest continues…

I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty.

Imelda Marcos

So, the quest continues. Here’s a couple of recent additions to the ever-expanding collection.

Grey suede lace-ups from Hugo Boss

» Read the full post

Tags: Hugo Boss, Paul Smith

“I love you back” 8: blue + tan

It’s very refreshing to see a girl working out an unusual colour palatte for a roasting summer day instead of having normal bright summer dips.

Fantastic electric blue with tan accessories! My gf and I had to follow her for 2 blocks to take a clear photo to show the amazing back strap detail of the dress. (difficult coz hair always in the way) But thank god she was towards the same cocktail bar we heading to. Otherwise she might freak out ha?!

Tags: street style

Rebirth of Topshop.com

When I logged on Topshop this morning, I suddenly realised that they had a new website?!! One of the most bizarre things though was that my other colleagues still had the old one displayed on their screens. It created a big hoohaa amongst our IT people as they tried to get to the bottom of this and find out why this was happening, without results. It was only later when I was discussing the issue with a fellow blogger friend that I found out that Topshop is trialing their new website. The site has been rolled out to about 20% of their users for now. So you might get lucky and get the new site up today, and tomorrow it might revert to the old one again. I guess I was one of the lucky ones since I was a birthday girl!

The new website layout is very handy and the look has improved a lot, the new site looks more mature and chic. It’s reminiscent of other shopping sites such as ASOS.com and net-a-porter.com with a super handy drop-down menu selection.

Also, super good news is they are shipping to around 30 countries now, including China. The postage isn’t much either, only £10.50 to China. Basically the postage rate to European countries is  £5.00 and to oriental countries it’s £10.50. I know there’re quite a lot of services on the Chinese eBay-equivalent sites for buying Topshop merchandise and  having it shipped to China. With this new service, Topshop.com has really opened another door. I guess the next thing they should do is launch a Chinese website. That would be, I guess, quite revolutionary!!

Tags: Topshop