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Hot Colors for Dreary Winter Days

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Bright-color-trend-2011

Winter’s palette tends toward dreary: Outside, the sky is grey, the trees are bare and nothing grows. When the world around you is cold, dark and damp, a little pop of color can enhance your mood, giving you that little lift that helps get you through the day.

Warm Colors That Work for Winter

Chartreuse adds a hint of unexpected color that’s more chic than sunshine or butter yellows. This acid yellow green color works best in small doses, so rather than go full-on chartreuse, try it in an accessory or layer a chartreuse tank under your basic black blazer for a cheery pop of color.

On the yellow spectrum, lemon is also in. This shade’s a little less wild, so you can really show some color. Try fun winter wellies in lemon yellow, wear a lemon-colored dress to a nighttime event or include yellow in a separates look.

Neon pink turns up the dial on a classic feminine color, giving it the necessary oomph to add flair to your winter wardrobe. Look for flaming flamingo, magenta, fuchsia or hot pink. For a sophisticated work outfit, pair a neon pink or even fuchsia shirt with a black or charcoal pencil skirt for a pop of color that doesn’t lack in sophistication. Or try a neon pink statement necklace, winter scarf or beanie.

Orange is still in, so extend the life on some of those orange shirts, sweaters, earrings and scarves you may have picked up for fall trends. Orange can be tricky to pull off in a head-to-toe style and may look too Halloween-y if you match it with black, so try pairing this hue with camel and beige neutrals for a classy take on pumpkin colors.

Cooling it Down a Notch

Not every woman’s a warm color fan, especially when it comes to the brighter shades. If you prefer blues and purples, these are still great accent colors to wear in winter.

Emerald green is bright yet classy and was just named Pantone’s color of the year for 2013. Rich greens like this evoke the coming days of spring, helping you remember that you can get through winter! This shade works equally well for daytime events and nighttime ones; Angelina Jolie wore an emerald dress to the 2011 Golden Globes, for example.

Teal also works well as an accent color for winter. Teal and its cousin turquoise pair well with hot reds and pinks, yet work equally well with sophisticated blacks. Try a teal skirt with a cozy black sweater, or wear teal tights or legwarmers to give your legs some love on a dreary day.

If you’re not much for bold colors, start with a hue like teal to build some confidence. After you’ve put a few looks together, work in some of the bolder hues. You don’t have to go head-to-toe to give your wardrobe some much-needed color in the depths of winter. Even a splash of color will lift tired spirits.

Australian Fashion Show Opens with a Pop

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The Australian Fashion Week has officially started and all we can say is that the first show sure opened with a huge bang, or pop to be more accurate.

The show that designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales put together for Romance Was Born had Marvel stamped all over it, opening with the coolest pop-up backdrop that set the entire tone of the show. This is not surprising since the show was done in partnership with Marvel, which might be confusing as the company has nothing to do with fashion, except perhaps for the great looking costumes their superheroes and villains wear.

The Romance Was Born collection features a lot of clashing prints reminiscent of novel graphics’ stylistic art. The prints came both in black and white and huge color pops, with the genius of the print choices being in that the clashing prints somehow came together.

Aside from Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, the first day of the Fashion Week also featured shows from Kirrily Johnston
Gail Sorronda. Gail Sorronda seeked to set her show apart by opting not to go with a runway show and doing an installation instead with guests able to cozy up close to her models standing on small white platforms with a short movie playing at the background. It’s safe to say that this change got more attention than her actual collection.

Kirrily Johnston, on the other hand, did a really nice runway show with no prints in sight but showcasing lots of simple dresses that were cut to perfection. Of course, the nun-themed dresses drew the eyes.

We can be sure that there’ll be more stellar shows as the week goes on. Whose show will be the showstopper this Fashion Week is something we’ll just have to wait for.

Image via NewsWhip

Stylish TV Viewing with Designer Boxes from Sky+

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Whoever said that fashion is limited to your clothes and accessories? A true fashionista appreciates style in everything, even in cable TV boxes!

Earlier this month, Sky+ decided to celebrate their 10th year anniversary by offering a really unique, and very stylish, collection of limited-edition Sky+ HD 1TB boxes. The collection consists of 10 boxes, all beautifully designed by big-name artists and fashion designers including British luxury lingerie retailer, Agent Provocateur, and fashion illustrator and artist, Julie Verhoeven.

The designer boxes are available for sale to all Sky customers for £249 (new and existing), with a whopping £200 discount, with each box priced at only £49, given to existing Sky customers that will upgrade to the HD pack. Existing HD pack customers also enjoy a discount, though not as big as that of customers who will be upgrading their packages. Price of the designer boxes for the HD pack customers is £149 each. Oh, and a free matching remote control comes with each box.

Check out some of the designer boxes. I picked these out not because they are my personal favourites, but because they pretty much cover the whole spectrum of pretty varied box collection.

 

Box by Celia Britwell

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Box by JayJay Burridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Box by Roksanda Illincic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Box by Solange Azagury-Partridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos courtesy of Sky

Greenlandic Fashion: Ethically Harvested Sealskin

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Ethical fashion does not necessarily mean goodbye to animal skin and fur. It does mean though that you have to be discriminating in choosing the clothes that you buy to ensure that none of the animal skin and fur used to trim the clothing come from poached animals.

One way you can fuse your love for fashion and exotic sealskin is by buying your clothes directly from Greenland. While there is a ban on the use of sealskin all over Europe, you can shop to your heart’s content for clothes that use sealskin in Greenland without any guilt since the ban does not include Greenlandic sealskin.

Using Greenlandic sealskin is ethically acceptable because none of the seals that provide the skin were killed for the purpose of harvesting the skins itself. The seals are captured and shot in the wild for food, with the harvest of their skin considered only as a secondary reason, after all why waste perfectly good skin?

Two of the rather popular designers in Greenland are the mother and daughter team of Rita and Nickie Isaksen of Isaksen Design. Proud of their heritage, they always manage to incorporate their culture into their designs, not just through their choice of colors, but also with the use of ethically harvested sealskins. Their use of the sealskins is also very smart, using them mostly as accents to make an otherwise plain piece pop. Their Autum/Winter 2011 collection focuses on comfort and functionality using muted grays, blacks, browns, with white and red accents.


Image Courtesy of Isaksen Design Autumn/Winter 2011 Collection

Gucci? Pucci? Dukki?

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The decision between buying an original and a fake implies that one actually has the power or financial clout to buy a designer handbag if they wish. There are some times during the year when this is true. In the January sales quite a few designer bags are reduced to the price of ordinary top-end, high-quality non-designer handbags and so are affordable. There is also birthday time when payouts from various relatives mean a big cash injection that one can blow on a designer bag. In these circumstances (because they occur so infrequently) one can be forgiven for having that ‘must get’ attitude.

Splashing out on a signature designer handbag is a good feeling. Especially as it’s been a year since you bought your last one. This bag will help define your fashion year and has the power of making you look like your worth a few bob. Carrying round a £1000 Gucci bag gives one an air of respect and perhaps an illusion of financial security to others at the office, on the train or even at the dentist’s. In short, for a women, it is the secret to happiness…..

Fake handbags do not quite carry that same air. If they are obvious fakes, they make the owner look like someone who does not care for accuracy or proper fashion accessories. This is in varying degrees depending on the age of the owner. For a teenager, one can be proud that they are aware of the importance of good-looking handbags at such an early age, despite having a small budget.

For grown women, fake handbags are simply unattractive. Carrying round a Pucci handbag or worse Dukki handbag (as I saw yesterday on the bus) does not look good. Save up and spend or stretch the budget to a better looking fake. Better still, buy a non-branded handbag.