FW07 Trend: Ethnic-Looking Scarves

A large comfortable scarf has always been a staple to one's winter outfits. In the past few years, the trend seemed to be of plain, mono-coloured scarves. But ever since Balanciaga's FW07 show, ethnic-looking scarves have become more and more popular. Walk in to any high street store, Zara in particular, and you would notice that they have been selling a lot of Balenciaga-inspired scarves. Think tie-dyed, or coin/ round metal pieces-embellished scarves. I actaully bought a tie-dyed silk scarf from Zara when I was in a runway-fashion haze, but I returned it later becuase I decided it just wasn't practical. Speaking of Balenciaga, if you haven't seen one of the Balenciaga scarves in real life, go see it and feel it! Your brain might just irrationally equate the quality to the huge price tag.

Anyways, I usually buy myself one to two scarves per FW season. This season, one of my scarves is this green printed scarf. (Excuse the crappy styling and photography.) It's half silk and half wool, so it's not the thickest, warmest scarf around, but it's good for those not-too-chilly days. I especially like the purple and green blocks of colour at the ends of the scarf.

Did you buy an ethnic-looking scarf in the spirit of the FW07 season?

Image credit: www.style.com

Japanese Toilet TV

This is the kind of TV viewing you begin to get used to living in Japan.

While I have never been the victim of pranks like these I do feel I have encountered my fair share of toilet related traumas here. I can't imagine ever recovering fully from being pulled into water from a porta loo while squatting to let one out. I still have not recovered from my first encounter with an electronic toilet and it's tendency to spray water unnecessarily or a Shibuya train station squatter prior to last train.

A Random Black Friday Post

OK, so I don't celebrate Thanksgiving at all, but how I wish the UK did. I am extremely jealous of all the sales the Americans are enjoying over there, although I certainly don't envy the crowds and lines of crazy shoppers that I've read about in the news. Friday's a tiring day for me so this post is going to be a bunch of my completely random observations:

• In accounting class last week, I looked around. Three out of seven girls had earrings on. And out of those three, two pairs were Chanel costume jewelry. One pair's design was the big Chanel logo in silver with crystals, (which I thought the girl carried them on nicely); the other pair's design was a pink 'quilted' square that had a black logo on it, (which I thought was bulky and way too toy-like.)
• In an attempt to warm myself up and keep me awake during my two-hour Finance lecture, I stopped by Starbucks first. While attempting to walk to my lecture, the bubbles from the coffee kept coming oozing out from the little hole on top and the coffee kept threatening to spill out. I had to walk snail-pace and channel my inner princess (much like Anne Hathaway did in Princess Diaries). I never thought much about it before, but how does anyone walk around with a paper cup full of coffee in their hands?
• Apart from the fabulous sales, I am so jealous of the short trips people are on this Thanksgiving weekend. My sister is visiting relatives in San Francisco (mostly for good food I'm sure,) and Barneys Girl has left the windy city to visit friends in San Diego. As for me, I'll be hiding inside my flat from the low temperatures this weekend, maybe except for tomorrow, when I'll brave the cold for a Belgian-style dinner.

• If you're bored this long weekend (or you simply want to procrastinate from work), and you loved Sex & the City as much as I did, go read the original column, which is being republished each week over at the Observer. Remember the phrase, 'Welcome to the Age of Un-Innocence'?

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Tokyo

I love her but why does she have to be so cold?

Winter Getaway

Now that the weather is getting cold (its cold, windy and raining in Chicago today....) and the holiday season is officially upon us, its time to plan our winter getaway wardrobe! This holiday I am going to San Diego- I heard its not actually that warm over there, but I have my fingers crossed anyway!



Now for wardrobe ideas. The first thing that pops up in mind- DRESSES. Cute summery dresses! And lucky for us, this is also the season for the Resort Collections, so there are plenty out there. Here are a few that I wish I had:

Bold dresses by Catherine Maladrino. As the guy at Saks told me- Catherine is smokin' hot this season!

Bold PRINTED dresses. I love these ones from Karen Zambos (incidentally Karen Zambos seems to be the queen of winter getaway wear on shopbop- so check her out!).

Printed dresses by T Bag (i.e. above left). And to be VERY this season- ethnic inspired dresses like this one by Tibi (right).

Shiny dresses for the evenings. I am loving these two from Ingwa Melero (left) and Mara Hoffman (right). The colors are just so rich and bold and pretty!
Cropped jackets/cardis to keep warm. These two from Catherine Maladrino (left) and What comes around goes around (right) are so cute. The sparkly one is also great for adding a glam factor to your outfit.
Platform sandals to look pretty in and cute flats to walk around in. These two from Marc by Marc Jacobs (left) and Report Signature (right) are just the thing!

Have a nice holiday/thanksgiving everyone!

Image Source: Shop Bop

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Shake that Hooty!

The first reader submission! Woo hoo! Dan Golan has this gem done by Asi in Art Tattoo, Haifa, Israel.

NYC- Festive Displays

Another thing I love about NYC this time of the year is the window displays. They are just sooo classy, pretty and festive! None of those over the top multicolored flashing light bulbs in the shape on Santa pasted onto a building thing we see in some places....
Walking down midtown on Fifth Ave, there is this (recently lighted this weekend) star hanging in the middle of the street, which I thought was really really cool.
Right next to it, we have THE Tiffany store looking all pretty lighted up.
And my favourite- the Cartier store. Passing by, I initially thought it was under renovation with lights there to make it pretty. But looking at it from afar, I realized that it was in fact in the design of a gift. How cute! Oh and if you happen by at night (when there aren't hoards of people), take a picture under the arches in the lights. Its soo very very pretty.
Onto more subtle displays, we have these very abstract displays from Bendels (Oooo and Bendels reminds me of Gossip Girl!).
And these very artsy looking displays at Bergdorf Goodmans (these are one of my favourites). One would think Saks would be included, but I didn't find the recent displays very inspiring... maybe its not up yet?
And here is turkey made of utensils on display which I thought was really neat!
Onto Madison Avenue, I loved the Ralph Lauren display, its just soo......Ralph Lauren- which is perfect for the festive mood, with its all American family style.Not really festive, but just wanted to throw in the Issey Miyake display because I think that the leaves with the leafy looking costumes are just so neat.

Too bad the Christmas tree at Rockfeller was not up yet. I would've loved to see that. Thanksgiving I heard. Hmm... maybe that means I should go again! :P

What do you think of ASOS?

A few weeks ago, I had a party to go to and no new dress to wear. My friend told me to check out asos.com, which if you don't know, is a site famous for selling clothes that are 'in the style of x celebrity' and also clothes from a few UK high street brands (like Oasis, French Connection and Mina).

So after spending some time on it, I didn't know what to think about it. Because

a) ASOS has no physical store and you never know how the clothing item is like in real life until you've actually felt it.

b) The prices are high-street prices, meaning very affordable. This again, makes me very suspicious of how the clothes would look and fit.

c) I've heard mix reviews from friends. A few of my friends said the clothes were decent, and one wasn't a fan of the quality.

d) If I wanted to return the clothes, I would have to mail them back. Talk about inconvenient and the extra cost involved!

These two black dresses are classy and stylish. The quality looks decent too. I especially like the sequinned one.

The red dress is quite cute, and the silver, sequinned dress is perfect for this party season!

Now these are examples of what I think are poor quality and design. The black dress's material looks cheap and the gems a bit too plastic-y. OK, I know the dress doesn't actaully cost a lot (38 pounds), but I have no desire to wear that material. As for the cream-coloured sequined dress, the design is just not very flattering.

This is the dress that has got me seriously thinking to give ASOS a go. I really like this dress. It's stylish, pretty and very youthful.

And on a closer look, even the beads and sequins look ok in quality. So should I dive in and get this dress?

Another dress I'm liking is this waistcoat dress. It's cute and cool. It's made of all polyester though, so I'm not sure how it'll look in real life.

So I need your opinion: If you've ever bought anything (or seen your friend's purchases) from ASOS, let me know what you think of them! Oh, and what do you think of the last two dresses?

Image credits: www.asos.com

Apparently I misunderstood the rules of the Contest cause mine doesn't look like it fell in the dirt, then in glitter, then rubbed out with a worn eraser.

My submission

Mine aren't as good as Alex's and Joffrey's (if i had a vote i would've voted for one of theirs...), but they were a decent attempt anyway.

Season's Greetings...

...even though Thanksgiving is still a few days away. Here was my submission for THQ's Holiday Card Contest, and though I didn't win...it was still fun making it. Oh well, maybe next year.
-ACH

Design Festa Report

Imagine holding a party in a big open space surrounded by over 50 000 of your most amazing friends and acquaintances. That is the overwhelming feeling we had all weekend, our first time to have a TOKYOMADE booth at Design Festa.

We had been planning and preparing for this party for a long time and were excited when the morning finally arrived. Getting up early and braving the Tokyo chill, with bags in tow we headed out to the Tokyo Big Site.

The event began at 11am, we got there early although underestimated the time it would take to get everything ready,set, go! Lucky for us Kana, Chi and Ryo were there to help us. After fitting all the puzzle pieces together our booth was finally ready.



We are used to confined spaces in Tokyo but the Design Festa booth gave new meaning to teeny, tiny. Stepping outside of the box we let the stunning array of colorful accessories, art and fashion wow and amaze while we greeted friends and customers. Positioning ourselves out in the aisle amongst the human traffic it was like one big and constant street party. Great times!

We were lucky to be placed next to Sonja, designer and creator of Discrete Bags as well as divine handmade, original fashion pieces.

Many friends and TOKYOMADE designers stopped by over the course of the two days. We were on such a super high on the train ride home recalling all the fabulous people that came to lend a hand, a chocolate bar, a much needed coffee, a smile, a hug or a quick hello.



We were overjoyed with the amount of interest and curiosity expressed, it truly was a top opportunity for TOKYOMADE, all of the contributors and for us personally.
A huge thank you to you all for your coolness and support, will definitely be back next time bigger and better! See you there!





Special thanks
Thank you so much to Kana and Chi for all of your help setting up. It was really awesome to hang out with you this weekend, we look forward to doing it again soon. Thank you both for bringing along your new range of stunning creations.
A big thanks to Ryo Honda for bringing extra figurines and books especially for Design Festa. Thank you for supporting us all weekend and for helping to pack up.
Thank you a million to all of my friends at TKS for stopping in many times to say hi and give us lots of treats, hope you had a cool day. Thanks Mark, Nick, Erin, Lindsey, Ryan and Finntan was lovely having lunch with you.
Thank you to my fair lady Leila, looking forward to that lunch you promised. Thanks Julie, lulu and Alison for coming to give hugs and smiles, it was great to see you all looking so fabulous and ready for shopping action.
It was great to meet you Yuki and Lindsay.
Thank you to Bros Wear Designs, LADE and Pod Canvas for all of your help, we could not have done it without you.
Thank you to Pink Salon, BLITZ Kiss, Lissita and Tiny Azure. Yamaji San the onigiri were very delicious thank you.
Thanks to Jaimie a lurking blog fan who stopped in to say hi, you really made my month! Make sure to say hi and hope you can make it to a Dr Sketchy's or another event soon so we can catch up.
Thank you guys from ro ro design for stopping in.
Thanks to Shojono Tomo for your guidance and bringing intense funkiness to our booth while you were there. You are pure inspiration.
Thank you to the Spank! girls for your never ending cuteness.
Thanks to all of the boothers surrounding us your displays and friendliness added so much tot he weekend.
Thank you Daniela, James and Rita we treasure your warmth so much and the fudge was freakin amazing!
Thank you to Sidney Pink and April for your greatness. Congratulations April on your Design Festa success.
Thanks to Karryn and Rachel from Kyoto and Mie, you are seriously rad chicks and deserve way more than a medal for your mammoth effort.
Thanks to Muck and Chris, shall be sporting those bandanas with pride on the streets of Tokyo.
Thank you so much Sonja and Mina, your smiles, conversation and Pocky kept us going!
Thank you to all of the gorgeous shoppers, browsers and TOKYOMADE fans you are truly the ones who keep things ALIVE!
Thank you to the new friends and creators that we met we are really looking forward to meeting up with you soon!
Thank you Cometman for your generosity and kindness. Let's party soon!
Thank you to all of our friends that emailed in their support, it means a lot to us!
Have we forgotten you? No we haven't really it is just taking a while to process things in the calm after such a top weekend. Sending our thanks to you all a million times over!

Exhausted but happy, it is time for a good long sleep!
Oyasumi
xx

A Cute White Coat

Back in September, I was suddenly very determined to find a casual white coat to have fun with because I was bored of my other coats, which were all black. (Also I'm guessing it was a photo of Ashley Olsen in a white coat from around four years ago that triggered this sudden 'want'. Kind of strange right?)

When it comes to shopping under time constraint, I do target-shopping. Which meant that I headed straight to Zara, where I know would have somewhat stylish, basic and very affordable coats. Zara didn't let me down and I ended up buying this:
OK, so I have recently seen a LOT of girls in the streets here in London wearing basic coats from Zara, either exactly this one or similar ones. But since I get cold easily, I have already started wearing this in late September, so almost no one was wearing it yet. Oh, and I know the coat looks really not-pretty like that, but it looks really cool with the collar up and the top part wide open (the lapel part.)

Oops, rambling off my point. So the white coat did prove out to be really fun. It brightened up my casual outfits and I found it especially fun to wear it with dresses. Unfortunately, the white coat got dirty really easily. I stopped wearing it to lectures after only one lecture because my sitting around in random seats was just too much dirt for my coat to take.

My point is, while I wouldn't spend a huge amount of money on a white coat, I think it's worth trying out a white coat from affordable shops. Think of it as a youthful, cute thing to cheer you and your outfit up on those grey days!