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

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Fashion Week: February 11-18

Paris 68

had some really innovative looks this in its Fall 2010 collection. Although the label recycled a lot of trends that we've seen recently (black on black, sequins, metallic), most of the pieces have kind of whimsical, 90s inspired silhouettes that are very wearable and will sell to a wide range of consumers.

Derek Lam

If I had three wishes one of them would be to wake up, open my closet, and have Derek Lam's entire Fall collection in front of me. Very edgy yet classy, functional, and would translate well from day to night. I think a huge, albeit unavoidable, problem with high fashion today is that is has become more of a business and less of an art. But I think this collection does really well to bridge that gap. And, I love all the leather.

Marc by Marc

This is one of my favorite labels in general, but I have to say I was really disappointed with the collection this year. The first of these pictures is strikingly similar to a look featured in Vogue Paris this winter, and the plaid dress with zippers reminds me of something you might find on the sale rack at Hot Topic.

Marc by Marc Jacobs - F2010

Vogue Paris - W2010

But, just to break up the hating a little, I really liked this dress below. And their models are always the prettiest.

Reading about fashion week has been possibly the only thing lifting my spirits the last few weeks. The weather in Austin has been absolutely terrible! I'm ready for springtime and to have an excuse to wear more color. Thanks to the rain, however, I did get my picture in the local paper :D Front page of Metro and State...I am so totally famous now.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/weather/entries/2010/02/10/rain_and_sleet.html

HAPPY VALENTINE'S!

Amour,

Colleen + Maggie

La Mort De l'Enfant Terrible

It seems as if all of my favorite icons have been passing away recently! First JD Salinger, and now one of my favorite designers, Alexander McQueen.

Alexander McQueen designed the costumes for Les Nuits de Fourvière, a ballet featuring Sylvie Guillem, which I saw last summer in Lyon, France. Both the ballet and the clothes were absolutely magnificent -- by far the best ballet I've ever seen. I thought I would post some pictures from it as a tribute. The pieces are so beautiful, they make me want to cry.

http://www.nuits-de-fourviere.org

I also thought this article from style.com was very well-written and touching.

Repose en paix, L'enfant Terrible.

Looks Nouveaux

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! School, work, etc. has left me pretty busy this past week, and my discovery of Lookbook.nu has been consuming most of my free time. Lookbook is a site that allows users worldwide to post pictures of outfits they themselves have created or looks that inspire them. I like how you can view user pictures by category, which allows you to see looks from specific geographic areas like Sweden and Iceland (two of my favorites.)

Here's one of my picks from Paris:

And one from Slovakia:

I feel like kind of a creep, but when I was looking at the Sweden page, I really fell in love with this one girl's style. And I found out that she has her own blog (in Swedish, translated into English), which I discovered via stockholmstreetstyle. Here is Frida J from Kungälv!