La (deuxième) ville des lumières

Two posts in two days! Not having any assignments due for another week or so is extra sweet. Et maintenant, j'ai assez de temps to post a recount of my trip to Las Vegas (or, as I like to call it, The Vegas) for my boyfriend's 21st anniversaire. Happy birthday, Jason!

Vegas tends to earn a kind of cheesy reputation, but I actually thought some of the design details used in the hotels and stores were kind of neat; I really liked the uncommon mixture of patterns and texture and the metalwork in the newer hotels. You just have to embrace the faux-ness of the city and think of it as a Disney Land for adults. Here are some things I noticed over the weekend.

Door handles at a store (I forget which one :(( ) in Caesar's Palace

Café in the Venetian

Café in the Venetian

Hallway of the Wynn

Perhaps my favorite part of the trip was the buffet at the Aria Hotel on Sunday morning. Rest assured, though, that brunch on this morning did not consist of "a little bit of the yellow stuff and some of the blue." I think I ate all of my favorite foods in one sitting: crab legs, sushi, two kinds of mac and cheese, espresso shooters, and more! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, but here is a picture from the Aria website. The light fixtures were so neat!

And here is an iPhone photo of my tiny caesar salad. I wasn't even hungry anymore, but I had to pick it out because of its cute little glass. Wasteful? Hardly. Afterall, wastefulness is the beauty of a buffet.

Spring Awakening

Happy (belated) Holi, tout le monde! Yesterday marked the day of Holi, the festival of colors celebrated mostly by Hindus and Sikhs. I'm kind of unsure as to the exact history behind Holi (I wikipedia-ed it, and it seems a little complicated), but basically, people who participate in Holi throw colored powder at each other to mark the beginning of spring. Here are some of my photos from the Holi celebration at UT.

The colors at Holi remind me of runway make-up for this season and in history:

Metallic body paint: maybe the most daring trend of all time?

Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger, 1964

Dior 2010

My hair/scalp kind of looked like this (except green!) just after Holi

Chanel 2010

Gaspard Yurkievich 2010

That's all for now, bébés. This week, look out for posts on my trip to Vegas and the recent Wilhelmina-Brown launch party in Austin.

Black + brown is the new black

Happy spring break 2010, everyone! Midterms have rendered me totally unable to update in the past 1-2 weeks, but I’m finally on vacation and catching up on fashion week news, SXSW events in Austin, and spending some much needed time with Maggie cat.

Look at her working that pose! She clearly wants to be a model. And at 6.5 pounds, I think she has a good chance of making it. She vaguely reminds me of the new Marc Jacobs Daisy campaign.

I’m so glad that spring is finally here and that we’re seeing little bursts of color on the runway.

Diane Von Furstenberg S10

But as much as I love a bit of color, and even though Vogue Paris claims “Jade is the new black,” I must pay homage to the fact that black is always in style. Moreover, I love seeing black and brown together. This is obviously the biggest fashion “faux pas“ of all time, but I think that to believe and abide by this rule is to have no sense of adventure. As far as I’m concerned, as long as you’re wearing something that fits well and can wear it with confidence, there is virtually no such thing as a fashion faux pas. That being said, here’s my ode to black and brown.

In recent history

Uma Thurman popularized Chanel Vamp: a mixture of brown, red, and black flecks, sold in nail polish and lipstick.

In shoes

Guiseppe Zanotti S10

At Fashion Week

Marni S10

En Vogue

Vogue: Turkey Launch Party 2010

In Pedderzine Magazine

Pedderzine 2008

Stay tuned for more updates this week. I’m hoping to check out some SXSW events here in Austin this week before I head to Las Vegas on Thursday. Just thinking of the trend watching gets me all worked up :D

Marzo

Inspiration board:

Nói

Sugarette

Effy

Halstead Co-op

Daria Werbowy