Spring Summer 2012 Beauty
I was so incredibly impressed by the beauty trends of Spring/Summer 2012, I can’t hold it in!

As a former make-up artist, I can appreciate the creativity and effort that goes into the more extravagant beauty trends, but hate to see them ‘inspiring’ young girls into cake-facing themselves. Personal preference, of course, as I am a woman who rarely wears colour anywhere but the lips.

For that reason, I am going crazy over S/S 2012. With a plethora of fresh-faced looks that would be pretty easy to interpret from home, it fit into the ‘natural’ beauty ideals that I rave about without being boring. 9 out of 10 shows featured flawless enhancements of natural beauty – and I hope it catches on!

Which one of these looks would you like to see in a make-up tutorial? View Post

Street Style

Natalie Joos


Hold your tears, fashionistas. Though the Week/Month of Fashion has bid us adieu, I have the final edition of the Spring/Summer 2012’s Best Dressed here for you: Paris Fashion Week!

Plus, by the time we recover from the show schedules, champagne comas, and spiked platform t-strap stilettos, it will be Autumn/Winter 2012.

Time to get inspired! View Post

Louis Vuitton SS12
Louis Vuitton is the show that people will be talking about for years to come. Following an onslaught of rumours that Marc Jacobs would be jumping ship and heading to Christian Dior, the show seemed to act as a rebuttal in itself.

Pre-show, the runway area hid a circular structure by covering it in white curtain. When the show began, early (!!), the fashion crowd gasped in unison as the curtain dropped and revealed a full-size white carousel, where every model perched atop a horse.

One by one, each model hopped off the slow-turning carousel and walked the round runway in the sweetest of sixties-inspired styles; capped sleeves, full skirts, silk chambray, and an Easter Egg pastel palette. The embellishments were beautifully understated, with wishbones, feathers, daisies, and minute jingle bells with pearls inside.

In what is now a Marc Jacobs Trend, Kate Moss closed the show – sans cigarette and dominatrix garb of last season – wearing a white, sequined, feathered broderie anglaise dress.

When you put this much effort into a label, it is unlikely that you plan to leave it. Either that, or Jacobs is making one hell of a statement to prove his worth to new business partners. View Post

Paco Rabanne SS12
Paco Rabanne has not shown ready to wear since 2006. But damn, did those 5 years produce results.

As it was Manish Arora‘s first collection since taking over the brand, I will let him explain his Spring/Summer 2012 collection:

“The workmanship is similar [between my own work and Paco Rabanne’s work]. We like to work hard, we like to make dresses that take 25 people and 20 days to make and that’s the value of Paco Rabanne that I appreciate and that’s the common factor”.

While Manish has a real flair for sci-fi showmanship, he seemed to put his own agenda to the side and focus on the delicate relationship between revival and heritage. In homage to Paco Rabanne’s first collection in 1966 – “12 Unwearable Dresses” – Arora used the concept of dresses made from unconventional materials to show modern, bodycon, panelled chain mail dresses.

The show was fantastical. With models descending to the runway via escalator, the largest number of non-caucasian models in any Spring/Summer 2012 (a very welcome change) and a binge of innovation so turbulent you need a patch for it, Arora has hit yet another home run. View Post

Alexander McQueen SS12
In my head, where I have the design skills of a couturier and a fabric arsenal of my favourite stores in East London, I dream of collections like this.

Delivering demi-couture like only this label knows how, it was incredibly moving to – yet again – feel like Lee McQueen was holding the reigns of the design process. A testament to the absolute brilliance of Sarah Burton.

For her third solo collection for Alexander McQueen, the obsessive detailing was as powerful as ever. Breathtaking and haunting pieces (dresses, dresses everywhere) were modelled after the three G’s; Grès for the pleating and draping, Gaudí for the architecture, and Gaia for the oceanic infusion of shells and coral, in-garment.

That’s right, ma cherie, Burton was the translucent cherry on top in a fabulous run of oceanic collections for Spring/Summer 2012, aiming to have the MxQueen woman move “like a jellyfish moves in the sea”. I’ve been taken under. View Post