How to become Paris' BFF

When I heard about Paris Hilton's genius of an idea of looking for a new pal for a reality TV show, I thought what a ludicrous joke it was. But apparently it's true. My favorite Toronto Star columnist Vinay Menon came up with a simple 10-point guide to succeeding as Paris Hilton's BFF that had me laughing my head off. Here's some mid-workday humor for you :)

1. STAYING IN TOUCH

Parties, club openings, photo-ops ... Paris is a busy gal. So electronic communication will be vital. When chatting on the cell, keep sentences short and on-point. When texting or emailing, don't scrimp on exclamation points, cattiness or emoticons. Example: "U won't believe!!! Saw Nicole @ Madeo!!! Still eatin' for 2 ;)"

2. UNDERSTANDING YOUR PLACE

Friendship is co-equal and steeped in mutual respect. Whatever! You are a sidekick. So if Paris decides it's time to dance on tables and you don't feel like dancing on tables, too bad, you're dancing on tables. (See also: "I don't feel like ... making special brownies/getting a Brazilian/partying at Villa/telling whatshisface it's over/holding the video camera while you two do it/posting bail/accessorizing Tinkerbell.")

3. THE LOOK

Wake up. Brush veneers. Straighten dyed hair. Apply multiple coats of makeup. Squeeze into revealing outfit. Affix oversized sunglasses to skull. Light cigarette. Exit house.

4. SOOTHING THE PRINCESS

To comfort Paris, simply ridicule her enemies: "Honey, who cares if you own 17 dogs and the Humane Society is pissed? Those people are fat slobs!" "Sweetie, did you see what Perez wrote about Lindsay this morning? What a skanky bitch!" "That exec said what about your new album? Please, he's a disgusting pig!"

5. YOUR NEW DIET

Cristal. Kobe beef. Hennessy. Oysters. Grey Goose. Sushi. Jell-O shooters. Animal crackers. (Repeat daily.)

6. WHAT'S YOURS IS HERS

So there you are inside a thumping L.A. hotspot when Paris suddenly decides she loves your skirt. Your response? Take it off and give it to her. After this happens two or three times, you'll hardly remember what it was like to party fully dressed. Other items that are no longer really yours: jewellery, old love letters, purses, drug test results, ex-boyfriends, cars, throw pillows and, should she ever need a transplant, internal organs.

7. KEEPING QUIET

Everybody wants to know what Paris is really like. Your answer: "Paris is really cool. She's just Paris." (There will be time for lucrative tell-alls when you're no longer best friends. See No. 10.)

8. LEARNING THE WALK

When out in public, pretend you're in a movie and the director has asked you to ambulate in slow motion with excessive side-to-side head movements that suggest you're watching a tennis match in zero gravity.

9. GETTING ALONG WITH HER (OTHER) FRIENDS

Phoniness is the key. Air kisses are mandatory. When listening to conversations, smile or snicker where appropriate.

Should you be asked a direct question, always answer with: "Let's go to Fred Segal!"

10. PREPARING FOR THE INEVITABLE

Here's the last thing to remember: this new friendship will probably only last until the season finale (or six months, whichever comes first). Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Then go find an agent.

(Source: thestar.com)

Betsey's pink home

Look how fabulously pink Betsey Johnson's home is. Love it! She's such a girl's girl, wouldn't you just want to go over there and play? This just might give me some ideas for decorating my own place.

(Source: Elle Decoration UK, fashionweekdaily.com)

Not your usual fashion guide

I was laughing out loud when I was reading The Guardian's Hadley Freeman's guide on Looking Good. It's definitely not your average run of the mills fashion guide. She covers things from boots, cleavages, sunglasses, to various overly-used cliched fashion phrases like "homage", "inspiration", and "experimentation is key". Whether you agree with her or not, it is a hilarious piece of reading.

Fashion that girls get and boys don't

The prime example of this is patterns. You see a patterned dress and think, golly, isn't that summer dress with an old Liberty print rather fabulously kitsch, with its connotations of England of yore? He thinks, how about that? I never noticed how much she resembles my grandmother's sofa. Ditto with wedges: you're thinking, kinda cool in a 50s pin-up kinda way; he's thinking, hmmm, orthopaedic shoes. Prom skirts - how fun and they make my legs look thin, versus why is she dressed like the mother in Back To The Future? And so the list goes on: tunic dresses, empire lines, cocoon and egg-shaped skirts and dresses, anything with superfluous buckles and bows, handbags the size of TV sets.

...

Trenchcoats

The trenchcoat, like the pencil skirt, little black dress and "a proper handbag", is one of those items fashion magazines always say one simply has to own as part of one's grown-up, basic wardrobe, but actually just makes you feel as if you're trying to pretend you're in some terrible French film. The fact is, like the pencil skirt, the trenchcoat doesn't suit all that many women. It's a coat - but not very warm. It's for outdoor wear - but shows up dirt like billyo. It's a similar colour to a lot of women's skin tone - which will just make you look jaundiced. And yet, on it lingers, haunting the pages of fashion magazines like an old smell of cabbage in a dead relative's flat.

...

Fashion speak

· Homage is a conveniently trussed-up word for 'blatant copy' and can be used without the niggling fear of litigation. It has a soothing sheen of intellectualism, as though one is suggesting the designer in question spent long, noble hours in some dusty library.

· Inspiration, often used to denote the desperate recourse of a designer who has still not come up with any ideas two weeks before the collection is due. Off they hie to their teenage music obsession, a cinematic hero of old currently enjoying a bit of a renaissance or painting in some heavily publicised exhibition - and copy the bejesus out of it.

· Invest gives an aura of gravity to an undeniably frivolous pursuit, implying, say, that getting another Whistles party dress is on a par with prudently buying stocks.

· This season's essential or must have is the baseline of fashion writing. And, really, one's response can only be, bossy, bossy, bossy! Fashion people love a good imperative; it helps trample over any bleating objections to a...#8239;£1,500 handbag with a handle made from the bone of a woolly mammoth and stitching from the hair of an albino virgin.


Continue reading

Style-world's new power elite

This picture can't be real. Radar magazine thinks "Teen Vogue intern Lauren should be fetching coffee. Instead, the reality starlet is a budding designer with her eye on Anna Wintour's job." If you were asked who would have the audacity/ability to take AW's job, Lauren Conrad would be the last one on anyone's mind. But apparently L.C. has a lot more power in fashion than we thought. Radar ranks her number one in its Fashion's New Power Posse list.

"We really do get the icons we deserve. In 1968, it was Jackie Kennedy. Fast-forward to 2008 and our aspirational logic has imploded, thanks to a 22-year-old former surf groupie whose mind-numbingly banal—and yet, strangely fascinating!—life as a Teen Vogue intern is cataloged on The Hills, MTV's most lucrative invention since the music video. Through the power of basic cable, the coffee-fetching ingenue has been catapulted to instafame. Rumor has it that LC so upstaged her bosses that they're trying to stuff the front-row genie back in the bottle, severing their ties with the reality series. But Conrad, said to be landing at a new glossy this year, is unstoppable. Millions of tweens believe passionately in her fairy tale, and they all get allowances. The Lauren Conrad Collection launched in September 2007, featuring a 10-piece line of camera-ready dresses best accessorized with a caramel tan and a blank stare. Roll your eyes, but Conrad, in her pearls, headbands, and empire-waisted floaty dresses, is the mild-mannered muse of the moment."

Read who else is on the list here

Looking like a lady

NY Times thinks judging from the recent pre-fall shows, the direction that fashion's taking is The Newly Uptight, conservative and good tailoring. Michael Kors and Marc Jacobs are among the designers going that way. "In collections for fall that American designers plan to present starting on Friday, when another Fashion Week begins in New York, many will jettison the baby-doll dresses, the thigh-high skirts and the disco boots of the spirited Warhol years — touchstones of recent seasons — in favor of a meticulously tailored look that evokes the White House years of Jacqueline Kennedy.

“That moment resonates with a lot of people and how they want to live,” said Michael Kors, whose runway show on Wednesday will cater to the fantasy. “There is not a minidress to be found, not a platform shoe in sight. And ‘suit’ is not going to be a dirty word.”

His show and others’ are expected to pay homage to a period, the late ’50s and early ’60s, that was, in retrospect, an interlude of prosperity and stability, one enriched by material comforts as substantial as a Steuben crystal cocktail shaker."

I personally love this look. As I'm becoming more mature (*chuckles*), I would like to dress more like a lady than a girl. I'm working on that.

Mrs. Loel Guinness and Mrs. Winston Guest upheld the proprieties of the 1950s with rigorously simple sheaths.

A RETREAT Period echoes have resurfaced in recent seasons, and will most likely make an impact in the fall. Poised for a comeback are skirt suits, bouffant skirts and sheaths like those in “Mad Men.”

An advertisement from the 1950s.

Vogue.

Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton.

Michael Kors.

(Source: nytimes.com)

Costello Tagliapietra - their meaty paws and delicate dresses

If you haven't heard of a designer duo Robert Tagliapietra and Jeffrey Costello and their label Costello Tagliapietra, don't be surprised. I didn't either until I read about them in this article in NY Post. They don't look like fashion designers, do they? It's funny how we always have pre-conceived images in our minds how fashion designers should look when in truth that has no bearing in their ability to make beautiful clothes. Costello Tagliapietra's dresses are truly exquisite and elegant, and they are made by two guys who look like lumberjacks. Even Costello says, "I still don't understand how we do these delicate dresses with such meaty paws." The writer of the article and various fashion insiders wonder why they aren't more famous, after all they were disvered by Vogue, beloved by Madonna, displayed at the Met. The boys themselves don't know why. However, I'm sure their huge success will soon arrive.

"Their current intern - coincidentally, they say - looks exactly like they do: a burly, bearded young man in jeans, a flannel shirt and suspenders, more rustic lumberjack than refined couturier." Don't you just love that?

(Source: nypost.com)

Kate Bosworth makes a good model

I love this photo of Kate Bosworth in the utterly gorgeous 3.1 Phillip Lim Grecian dress in this month's Vogue. Reminds me of the Lanvin ad campaign. Very haute. And it's nice to have the designer Phillip Lim, who's a cutie, in the photo.


And this one with designer Doo-Ri Chung.

(Source: http://www.style.com/vogue)

£15 suit - the world's possibly cheapest suit

(Robert Colvile test drives the new £15 suit by Asda)

I was so amused by this article, A suit for £15? What would they say in Savile Row? in which Robert Colvile of Telegraph ventures into the most stylish part of London in possibly the cheapest item of clothing he has ever owned, a £15 suit by Asda. The suit is made of 100% polyester (no big surprise here, £15 ain't going to get you wool or cashmere). While the polyester made the men turn their noses up at it, "my colleagues are quite impressed with the line and cut - until they get close. Close up, 100 per cent polyester material is slightly sticky to the touch, and glistens oddly. Five individuals warn me to steer clear of open flames." Lol. And at the upscale Savile Row, a gentleman said "Oh, I wouldn't polish my car with it…" Hilarious! The conclusion was it is "a suit for those who don't wear suits. With repeated use, it would wear quickly, and in hot weather it would roast you alive. But for a university interview - or, echoing comments made in 2001 by Topman's David Shepherd, "first court case" - it would do fine. In fact, the feeling is that it would be a good deal at twice the £25 price." And it's all polyester so it's machine-washable, which will save tons on dry-cleaning bills. So this cheapie suit has its place in the world.

So would you buy your man this suit?

Rachel Zoe put to the test

I'm currently reading Rachel Zoe's Style A to Zoe: The Art of Fashion, Beauty, & Everything Glamour, which was on my wish list of books for Christmas. If you ask anybody who has an opinion on the stylist, you'll probably get "oh I hate her." But I bet secretly they love her! The book's actually quite good. She mostly talks about having confidence and feeling fabulous about yourself, and dressing according to your own body type and size rather than following trends, and she's a big advocate of wearing "wow" accessories, which I love. But since she styles only the super skinny Hollywood stars, I guess people are still skeptical about her and giving her flack for promoting an unhealthy aesthetic. Marie Claire puts her to the test on styling a robust size 12 woman. How do you think she did?


SO NOT ME!
We both agreed that this fun, kitschy find, very London '79, had a Cabbage Patch-doll fussiness on me.


THIS COULD WORK ...
Surprise! This floaty, batlike silhouette is more slimming than the cinched, tight look I usually wear to accentuate my waist.


TOO MUCH?
Zoe breaks the 30-and-over rule that keeps me in pencil skirts: "Let's show those legs."


WHO KNEW?
This structured, stylish cocoon made instant impact. Zoe raves: "I love this poncho more than life itself."


"Success! Zoe goes for bold color statements and surprising accessories. In this outfit, I could see why." —Cleo Glyde


RACHEL'S RULES

1. Go for big-impact accessories rather than fiddly jewelry.

2. Don't blindly follow trends.

3. Buy vintage pieces to make your wardrobe more unique.

(Source: marieclaire.com)

Maxim's Fashion Trends for Idiots - suits with shorts

(Junya Watanabe Spring 2008)

You gotta love it when Maxim magazine takes a stab at fashion trends that your regular guys just cannot understand. I'd say listen to them or your friends will make fun of you. This month's Fashion Trends for Idiots is on suits with shorts:

If watching your local UPS guy wear shorts to work isn't enough to make you shudder, let this photo complete the job. Several designers are debuting suits with shorts as one of the big fashion trends to watch in 2008. Another big trend: ridiculing anyone who wear shorts with a suit who doesn't play guitar for AC/DC.

And on that note, cropped tuxedo jacket on skirt is unacceptable too. This one is practically scandalous.
(Jean Paul Gaultier Spring 2008)

Tinz TV? I hope it's true!

Anyone who cares about or follows the society world of NYC knows Tinsley Mortimer is the IT girl on the scene. She gets a lot of flack for being a social climber and appearing in the media non-stop. True or not, I still quite like her style. I love her perfect blond hair, doesn't she look adorable? I read in The New York Observer that she might get her own TV series. Well, I hope it's true! She admits that she's "never done effortless chic well. I do better looking very feminine with everything tucked into its place", which works for her I think. She sticks to her own style even though some people criticize her.
And I like the look of her Samantha Thavasa bags judging from the party pictures she's in carrying them. They seem hip, bold, and trendy, which definitely has a place in a girl's wardrobe. I hope she does do a TV show, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Renaissance woman

You are going to have some fun reading British Vogue's 2008 style predictions. The actress to watch for, the all-rounder...Renaissance woman, caught my eyes especially. A journalist, model, and musician at the age of 26. Talk about your beautiful, intelligent, talented and accomplished wonder girl. Doesn't she make you feel envious? I absolutely covet her red coat, too.

Being "accomplished" used to mean excelling at the piano, speaking French and having good teeth. These days the stakes are somewhat higher, as up-and-coming screen beauty Clemency Burton-Hill proves. At 26, Clemency's life already makes for awe-inspiring reading. She was a violin scholar at the Royal College of Music, secured a double first from Cambridge and a Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard, and, after a stint in the Vogue features department, has become a respected journalist, a model and a musician - in addition to her burgeoning acting career, of course. She hit the public eye earlier this year for her role in political drama series Party Animals, and will soon appear in hard-hitting film Shoot On Sight, which deals with terrorism in Britain. Other projects include The Phoenix with Peter O'Toole, The Wreck with Jean Simmons, and an ITV drama series The Palace.

(source: vogue.co.uk)

An insider's guide to surviving the party season

I hope everybody's getting their LBDs/sequin dresses/red hot Louboutins' worth with all the parties! Here's another great article that has some really smart tips on coming out of all the parties unscathed, An insider's guide to surviving the party season, from somebody who actually goes to parties for a living. I love her tips on networking.

There is nothing shameful about arriving alone at a party. I do it most nights. Walk confidently to the bar and banter with the barman over your first drink until someone talks to you. If nobody does, join a friendly eyed clique until you see someone you know. Don't play with your phone - you may as well wear a vest with "I'm a neurotic wreck" emblazoned across the front.

Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair, says the key to good conversation lies in candour. "I don't consider any topic off-limits," she says, "not even religion. Instead of pretending to understand more than you do about something, pose simple questions.

When I first sat next to Alan Greenspan, for example, I started off by saying, 'I have no idea what you do all day. How does it work?'?"

If you're being greeted with a recognition you don't share, grab the nearest person you know and effect "the demi-intro": "How rude of me - this is my friend Peter." The forgotten person will then introduce themselves and put you both out of your misery.


(Source: http://telegraph.co.uk)

The shopping bag Bag

(Retailers are giving shopping bags a makeover, turning consumers into walking ads. At left, Lord & Taylor bags; center, a bag from Lululemon Athletica; at right, the Scoop bag.)

Do you save and reuse the shopping bags if they are particularly nice and durable? Do you actually covet ones from upscale retailers and tote them proudly like a second purse?

Once a flimsy afterthought in American retailing — used to lug a purchase home from the store, then tossed into the trash — the lowly, free store bag is undergoing a luxurious makeover.

From upscale emporiums to midprice chains, retailers are engaged in a heated competition to make the most durable, fashionable shopping bags. They are investing millions of dollars in new flourishes like plastic-coated paper (Macy’s and Juicy Couture) and heavy fabric cord handles (Abercrombie & Fitch and Scoop).

Behind the battle of the bags is a significant shift in behavior that has turned consumers into walking billboards for stores. In cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, customers have begun treating shopping bags as disposable purses that can be reused for weeks, if not months, to carry laundry to the cleaners, books to the beach or lunch to the office.

Lord & Taylor’s bags threaten to upstage those of its glossier rivals, like the ultrachic Bergdorf Goodman, whose traditional lavender bags, emblazoned with the image of well-dressed Park Avenue ladies, are thin and frail by comparison. Its handles, for example, are taped on, rather than threaded through the bag and tied into a knot, as they are at Lord & Taylor.

Not to be outdone, Bergdorf has spent nearly a year secretly redesigning its bags, which will be introduced to consumers in fall 2008. Its goal? “Something with greater longevity than the existing bag — a keep-me quality that does not feel disposable,” said Aidan Kemp, vice president for advertising at Bergdorf.

Read the rest of the article Never Mind What’s in Them, Bags Are the Fashion.

(Source: nytimes.com)

Office Party - a chance to let loose or work in disguise?

So everybody has office parties to go to right? (Not for me this year.) Do you enjoy them? Do your co-workers get out of control at these parties? Do you have horror stories to tell? Our company Christmas parties were always very enjoyable (I hope they resume giving them next year). I get to dress up and put on make up and feel all pretty and lady-like. And I love chatting with other girls about our dresses, shoes, bags and jewelry. That's my favorite part. It's also amusing to see people act unlike their normal selves after a few glasses of wine. Last year this girl from my floor who I always thought was demure and professional got really drunk, she was dancing with a wine bottle in her hand and her false eyelashes were dangling from the corners of her eyes! I think you should definitely enjoy the party, otherwise people will say you are a standoffish snob that doesn't know how to have fun, but probably shouldn't get drunk and spill wine on your boss. Even if you don't remember what happened the next day, your boss and co-workers will! This article says people should definitely follow some office party rules. And I want to know if you agree with them.

"This is not about getting together with friends to relax and revel in holiday spirit," said Liz Ryan, a human resources manager for 20 years and now CEO of WorldWIT, an online network for professional women based in Boulder, Colo. "This is a forced, artificial situation of good cheer," Ryan said. "You're at work with work people. Getting loose, getting real, don't apply."

Ryan, who has hosted "a zillion of these," encourages attendees who wish to survive them to focus more on "office" and less on "party."

"What you really want to display is your good breeding," she said. This means, among other helpful gems, "don't have sex in the coat room and don't throw up." In fact, Ryan thinks the best idea is to not drink at all. "Come looking professional, chit-chat with the higher-ups, sidle up to the CFO and say, 'Boy, it's really impressive what you guys are doing with receivables, and by the way my name is (blank) and I work in (blank).'

Eat, but not too much. Most office holiday parties include alcohol, so you'll want to eat something to soak it up. But don't hog the food table.

If you choose to drink, limit your intake. If you don't, your company will likely do it for you. "In our mail slots on Monday morning," said House, witness to the Husbands Behaving Badly disaster, "were typewritten apologies addressed to all staff from each of the culprits," she said. "Our two co-workers were understandably humiliated and hid in their offices all day amidst much whispering and conjecturing."

But making a fool of yourself might actually be the best thing that happens if you drink too much.

Getting in your car and driving, or leaping into a hotel pool, could be deadly for you or someone else, and could cause heartache and liability for your company.

Dress appropriately. If you're coming from work, business attire is fine. If coming from home, don't confuse "festive" with flesh-tive. Avoid spaghetti-strap dresses and minis, unbuttoned shirts, and other clubbing attire. Ask yourself: Would I wear this to work? If not, don't wear it to an office party.

Ask if spouses and kids are invited. You don't want to be the only one showing up with a tired toddler, and your spouse sure doesn't want to be the only nonemployee.

Don't hog the boss. Yes, you're fascinating, and you are going to save the company, and your boss needs to know it, but a few minutes of captivating small talk can speak volumes.

Be discreet if the party will continue elsewhere. For younger employees especially, work is a semi-social environment with lots of hooking up happening.

"But if you get to the party and it appears you're going to leave with someone," Ryan pleads, "can you please do it discreetly?"

Finally, thank the host. This will definitely set you apart from the crowd.

Long or short evening dress?

So I'm really curious...what's everybody wearing to your more glamorous Holiday parties, be it from work or from your social network? Since my company isn't doing a christmas party this year, which usually is my most dressed-up party of the year, I don't exactly have to go all out to my other less dressy parties. But it seems that more and more women are opting for the floor-length gown instead of short cocktail dresses this year according to Toronto Star, Grand slam glam makes comeback! Women are returning to dressing up. And for the party season, they've tucked that little black dress at the back of the closet and are opting to leave the house in an elegant long evening gown. Some credit the sizzling social scene for the need for dressed-up, grown-up attire. Others cite the celebrity factor for driving women to add glamour to their lives. I think whatever the reason is, it's just so exciting to see ladies not afraid of getting more glamorous! Opting for full-length evening dresses raises the bar, not only in sophistication and glamour, but also the attention that will have to be paid to the details – hair, makeup and accessories. To get the full Cinderella effect, you have to go all the way, from head to toe. And that allure will pay off. "Wearing a gown will definitely get you noticed. It's also a chance to experience a new look. When you get that invitation and an opportunity to shine – go for long. You'll be the one that will be photographed and talked about the next day!" So go for it, darlings, put on your sweeping gown and make a grand entrance. Me...I wonder if I can get away with a long dress to my family's turkey dinner on Christmas Day, teehee.

I absolutely love this Notte by Marchesa cream gown. The lines of the neck and shoulders are divine.

Notte by Marchesa Full length chiffon dress $990.


You know this Diane von Furstenberg piece will never date. So classic and regal.
Diane von Furstenberg Tull floor length chiffon gown $950

And don't you just love this season's gorgeous jewel toned gowns?
David Meister Drape Silk Gown $488.

Laundry by Design Rosette Trim Silk Gown $365

JS Boutique Square Neck Stretch Satin Dress $130

Sean Collection Stretch Satin Halter Gown with Brooch $258

And of course white is always striking.

ABS by Allen Schwartz Bead Empire Gown $348

Calvin Klein Pleat Satin Gown $228

Mary L Couture Halter Jersey Gown $186