Feels Like Summer!

I know that I haven’t been blogging as frequently, in fact I haven’t posted anything in a while. There is a very good reason for this though. It’s almost the end of the semester, so I have heaps of work to get done. Another thing is that I’ve joined a gym. I never thought it would be possible, but I did. So those are the factors in my life that are taking away from my blogging time. I am not giving up though, I’m going to try and make some time from now on.

Whether the weather likes it or not, summer is here. Everyone is tanned again, and Riviera is back to its old self: filled with oiled up university students standing in the pool with a drink in hand, while slightly moving to the music. As summer so obviously comes with beach time, I’ve decided to dedicate this post to summer 2010’s swimsuit trends.

Cutaway Monokinis

Gottex

Max Azria

Max Azria

Note: if you’re a tanning junkie, these swimsuits are NOT for you! Cutaway “monokinis” are for those who like to go to the beach in style. They’re really funky, and can give off a very sexy vibe. You have to be careful picking yours out though, because a little extra flesh exposed can turn that sexy look into a skanky one.

One-shoulder bikinis

Marios Schwab

Victoria's Secret

I personally love the “off the shoulder” look when it comes to clothes, and now we can get this look with swimwear. These one-shoulder bikinis are very cute, and come in a number of different styles. The only thing I would worry about is how supportive that one strap is, as I have a very bad history with bikini tops slipping off. If I can find a way to secure that this style of swimwear will stay on me at all times, I am definitely buying myself one!

Colours, colours, colours!

Ed Hardy

Forever 21

Forget that simple black bikini, this summer it’s all about standing out in vibrant colours. I don’t know how well that’s going to work with me, since I’m someone who is very dedicated to black, but I’m willing to give it a shot because the colourful bikinis that I’ve been seeing at the beach are too cute for words.

Plunging necklines

Hurley

Jessica Simpson Swimwear

Poko Pano

They were in for a while, and now they’re back. Again, this is not the best choice for sun soaking girls, as it will leave you with a very awkward tan line. However, these will d great for beach parties, which come pouring in with the summer heat. There are many different styles and these are often accessorized, making them not so practical for swimming, yet perfect for partying.

Vests?

True Religion

I’m unsure about this trend. I’m actually leaning heavily towards disliking this trend, but I night grow into it. For now, all I’m going to say is: it looks like it would be quite hard trying to swim in a vest. What do you guys think about this trend?

Stay tuned, as I will be searching the streets of Beirut (and possibly beyond) throughout the week for stores that hold all of these very in and very stylish swimsuits!!

And finally, check me out on Chanty's Blog. And definitely check out Beirut Beauty, the other blog mentioned with mine!!

Sources:

Fashionising.com

About.com: Petite Fashion

Seven Carats - All That Shimmers

Seven Carats is an online store, founded by Layal Chemaitelly. She is also the designer of all Seven Carats items, and they are all her original ideas. Shipping will not be a problem for anyone, as Seven Carats ships all over the world via DHL. You must now be thinking, "that's great and all, but what is Seven Carats?"

My cousin told me about SC very briefly, and I decided to go online and check it out myself. When I did, I have to say I was extremely impressed. It is an online accessory store! Not only are the designs breathtaking (not to mention hand-made), but there is also an enormous variety of items that SC offers. Here is a list of items that can be found at SC:

Divine Scripture Covers – These are covers for Holy Books, customized to suit almost any personality!

Mobiles/Laptops/iPods/Cameras/Cars/Keys/Lighters – SC crystallizes all mentioned items with your choice of colour and design, and in the case that you don’t really know what you’re looking for, they are willing to discuss some ideas with you until you are satisfied with a design.

Other – There is even a crystallized “argeeleh” available online, it’s just too cute!

All crystals are guaranteed Swarovski crystals, and the items and designs vary between different styles and budgets. Definitely check out the site as there are a number of great pieces up for grabs.

Something I’d like everyone to notice is the extra tab at the bottom of the website which reads “Give Back to the World”; this takes you to a page with a form to fill out in order to make donations to the needy. I think that it is absolutely great that people are still taking the initiative to raise awareness about those who are in need.

In conclusion: Ms Layal Chemaitelly is an amazingly creative designer, an impressive businesswoman, and someone with a big heart. Additionally, everyone should visit the site because trust me you will find at least one thing that you'll really like.

Due to my lack of inspiration yesterday, I do not have an outfit shot, but I did learn one thing: You can make ripped jeans and a white tank top look good by simply over-accessorizing, so stock up on that jewelry!

Also, the blogs that I spoke about yesterday are available on my sidebar under "Blogs I Follow", look out for more to be added soon.

"A fashion that does not reach the streets

 is not a fashion." - Coco Chanel

(Note: All pictures obtained from Sevencarats.com, and are copyrighted by Seven Carats)

Fashion Bloggers to Follow!

I personally enjoy reading a lot of fashion blogs, and that's the reason that I'm currently following 20+ of them. I use Bloglovin to stay up to date with all the blogs that I follow, and with Bloglovin, you see the title of the blog and then the beginning of the post. I will click on a post judging by how interesting it looked at first glance. So, over the past few days, I've been keeping track of all the posts that I've read and which blog they belong to, and I've constructed a list of must-read blogs!

So, if you enjoy reading fashion blogs, here are some that I recommend you check out (Click the titles for links!) :

Beauty and the Budget

I fell in love with this blog. It was one of my favorites from when I first started to discover different fashion bloggers. The thing that I love about it is that it targets high school and college girls (therefore making sure to stick to a reasonable budget when talking about fashion) yet does not let the money-factor affect how great the items being shown look!

Tweet

In all honesty, the reason I first took a look at this blog was its name “Tweet”. It put a smile on my face. My smile then grew when I started to go through the blog. It is generally very image heavy, but not in the bad sense where the pictures look like they’re there just to fill up some empty spots. The pictures are not only relevant, but inspiring and very pretty to just look at. It’s a great blog to follow, you won’t be disappointed!

The Clothes Horse

This blog is definitely inspiring. The outfit shots are brilliant and even a lot of the other pictures posted up there will trigger some sort of fashion inspiration from within. It’s a great place to get ideas of what to wear, and generally a good way to put you in a cheerful mood!

Cakes and Lace

Just the name of this blog excites me, come on now… cakes and lace! This blog is the perfect place to check out all of the new, strange, and funky aspects of the fashion world. I am about a million percent sure that if you’re into haute couture, you are going to love this blog.

Not only do these girls have great blogs, but I contacted them and they are lovely people. Usually when I read blogs that are out of this world, the bloggers seem intimidating, but they really are sweethearts.

Sneak Peek for tomorrow: I will be devoting my entire blog post to a certain company that I stumbled across yesterday. All I am going to say is this: if you like adding "bling" to just about everything you own, and love unique pieces of jewelry, you should check out tomorrow's post!

Once again, here's my outfit from yesterday:

Top: Zara

Vest: Topshop

Pants: River Island

Necklace: Forever 21

Bangles: Forever 21/H&M

"I think fashion is about suspense and surprise and fantasy.

It's not about rules." - Wolfgang Joop

Crown Outlets, Alexander McQueen and Wikifashion

What is the greatest find for those who are looking to buy more for less? Any store or event that includes the word “outlet”! Luckily, Crowne Plaza in Hamra (the hotel that Roadsters is in) is giving us just that, for 3 days.

The clothes that are going to be available are from the spring summer collections, and include brands like:

•          Bebe
•         Fred Perry
•          Hollister-California
•          Juicy Couture
•          Ed Hardy
•          Christian Audigier
•          Abercrombie & Fitch
•          True Religion

They guarantee prices of at least 50% less than the original price. The open house will be taking place in Crowne Plaza Hotel (1^st floor) on Friday 30^th April (11am – 10pm), Saturday 1^st May (11am – 10pm), and Sunday 2^nd May (11am – 7pm).

Remember, this is an open house event, not a store. So if anyone is interested, make sure you catch it on any of the three dates. I think it would be interesting to look around and see. The beauty of shopping is that even in a sea of clothes that could never be worn there will always be that one piece that fits you perfectly. So go check it out!

I have 2 news items before I end. The first is a sneak peek at Alexander McQueen’s Fall 2010 shoes, only 3 of them are being shown, but they are definitely worth the look. As usual his genius came into play when designing these shoes, it’s so sad to know that his designs came to an end so soon. Here are the shoes. (Thank you for bringing this to my attention, you know who you are!)

The other piece of news is this: Wikifashion.

I’m sure just about everybody in the world is familiar with Wikipedia. Well, now we have something called Wikifashion! To quote the main page would be the perfect way to explain what this site is here for:

“Wikifashion is a project created for and by the fashion community. It is where you can find and catalogue anything fashion related, such as blogs, style icons, brands, and magazines. You can start contributing or editing existing articles by creating an account.”

So, to all the other fashion bloggers or fashion followers, if you would like to see this unlimited supply of fashion resources, sign up and contribute a little. A little bit from everyone will eventually build one of the best fashion encyclopedias online!

And finally, here is yesterday’s outfit!

Sweater: Warehouse

Top: Topshop

Pants: Dorothy Perkins

Shoes: Sport et Loisir

Watch: Toy Watch

Bracelet: Cream

"Fashion is never in crisis because 

clothes are always necessary." 

- Achille Maramotti

New Wardrobe Arrived!

After a long, long wait, my clothes have finally arrived!
Despite the fact that not everything I specifically ordered was available, I trusted my mother's taste in clothes and was right to do so. I fell in love with every single piece.
Also, along with my clothes came my camera charger which I forgot back home in February. So now, there will be a lot more pictures to go along with all the writing.

Here is my new wardrobe

Top: Topshop

Shorts: H&M

Dress: Topshop

Overall Dress: River Island

Top: Zara

Shorts: Miss Selfridge

Top: Zara

Vest: Topshop

Pants: Topshop

Dress: Xanaka

Necklace: Freedom at Topshop

Bracelet: Diva at Miss Selfridge

(I'm not sure where this piece is from, but will update when I do!)

Sunglasses: Mirror Lens from Ray Ban

I hope you enjoyed that just as much as I did !!

"The only rule is don't be boring 

and dress cute wherever you go. 

Life is too short to blend in." - Paris Hilton

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D&G : Beirut Souks

A lot of new stores are opening up in Beirut Souqs, Downtown – Lebanon. It is probably one of my preferred places to go shopping here in Lebanon at the moment. Not only are there a number of new stores setting base there, but the collections are finally in sync with the collections being launched worldwide. So, what exactly does this mean? It means that we are finally receiving what the rest of the world is receiving on time!!!

No more of the late season collections, no more looking for items online and not finding them in the stores in Lebanon. Now, more and more things are available, and I absolutely love it. In honor of these up to date stores, I’m going to dedicate this post to D&G by Dolce and Gabbana.

While Dolce and Gabbana is a more high end designer label, D&G focuses on the more casual aspect of fashion. D&G allows us to buy great pieces designed by Dolce and Gabbana, yet are wearable in everyday life, unlike the more formal and couture items found at Dolce and Gabbana.

Here are some of my favorite D&G pieces

I really like the shade of green here, it's very bright and fresh. The black straps are interesting as well, they give the dress a unique look.

This is just adorable. It's very feminine and I'm loving the ivory colour. This is a skirt that can be dressed up or dressed down, very practical!

I love blazers, and I love bows. I own blazers, bows, and blazers with bows on them. So it's no surprise that this piece caught my eye. I like contrast of the pastel colour and the solid black bow.

This is a very cute, very fun dress. It's something to wear when you have a formal event on a sunny day. It screams "spring is here!".

This might look like an odd choice, but I absolutely love this shirt. It's an over-sized, lace up shirt. It reminds me of pirates, which made it all the more interesting to me. I would love to match a shirt like this with a pair of 

 denim high waist shorts.

Spring: A Tragedy for Party People and an Invasion of Floral Print

I have spent most of the past 2 days in stores and shopping malls, on a mission to find a dress for my friend to wear on her 21st birthday. It must have been the most frustrating time I have ever gone shopping. She wasn't the one who was frustrating me though, it was actually all the stores.

I love shopping, and I'm a firm believer of retail therapy, but this week's incident is making me reconsider the joys of shopping, or  rather the joys of shopping for party dresses. I am used to seeing 2 sections in stores, one would carry casual wear and the other would carry the more formal wear. This spring all I saw was this: all the stores were under occupation of floral print, with a few party dresses taken hostage.

I was very excited about nude colours being very in, but I barely saw items in those colours. I was literally stuck in what seemed like a massive, overgrown garden. We found 2 dresses at the most, in each store, that would be seen as acceptable to be worn to an evening event. It seemed like the designers of those stores had completely given up on their partying customers. Store after store we went looking for the perfect dress, and all we found were explosions of flowers on garments.

I don't mind trying new things, and am very open to trying out floral prints, but the amount of floral was ridiculous. I didn't see anything that I would personally pick up and try on. Most of the items looked like something you would buy while farming, so that you don't get your good clothes dirty.

This is my first fashion rant, and I'm hoping that as the season progresses, the collections will get better. But until then, I am going to boycott floral prints (until I finally give in and buy something floral).

Really though, to all the stores around Beirut: more nudes, more formal dresses, and a little less floral print. You know what they say, "less is more".

Grey Is For The Young...?

While checking out the latest news on Style.com, I noticed a new trend that I’m not at all excited about. In fact, I think this will actually be the only trend that I absolutely refuse to get into. For some strange reason, a number of celebrities have decided to get some grey (or silver) dyed into their hair. Some designers even got their models to walk the runway with grey tints in their hair. I don’t understand this, because the last I checked a lot of women were getting their hair dyed to get rid of grey and silver streaks. Now, women who don’t need to worry about grey hairs are encouraging it! Here are a couple of pictures, so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about.

Kate Moss

Pink

Pixie Geldof

Kate Lanphear

Daphne Guiness

What do you all think about it? I personally will never understand the need to dye my hair a colour that it will inevitably turn the older I get. I don’t mind the platinum white on short hair, I think it works… but grey? It’s like encouraging wrinkles to appear prematurely.