The Beach Girls

Apparently all I need to smile again are a bit of warm air and a couple of sunny days...like the past two :-)
I'm pretty sure before evening winter will be back in force, but for now this is all I have in my mind








All these pictures are from myvintagevogue's photostream : amazing, mesmerizing, inspirational. Definitely my favorite on Flickr!

Health, Beauty And Awards

I'm recovering from a little laser surgery treatment, nothing major just an 80% cosmetic - 20% clinic thing and while I hope for a quick resolution and a "cute" scar on my shoulder, I'm spoiling myself with hours on the internet searching for new ideas for blog posts, fashion magazines and all sort of comfort food!

Today I received a gifts I was waiting for and a fantastic award from the lovely Mothersvea.

The gift is the Oral-B Professional Care Rechargeable Power Toothbrush , which is indeed really professional with all those brushheads and cleaners, the 2 minutes timer (this gives me anxiety, but luckily you could disactivate it!) and the pressure sensor which I'm loving cause I just discovered that I tend to be a "wild brusher" sometimes! I probably won't be able to use a manual toothbrush anymore, cause this one is definitely changing my dental perspectives!

Mothersvea actually awarded me last week, but as per usual I'm a little late in posting these things...sorry!


Isn't this pretty?

By the way here are the rules:

♥ Put logo on your blog or post.

♥ Nominate 10 blogs which you think are fabulous.

♥ Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.

♥ Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.

♥ Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

I'll pass it to:

MouseVox Vintage
Fashion Forestry
Flying Saucer
Sally Jane
The Apathist
Vain and Vapid
Zanita
Ambroisine
Fatal Attraction 2 Fashion
Wish Wish Wish

Thank you, you really make my day :-)

The Queens

There's something new in my favorite sites list! I first heard about Queens of Vintage through Rachel's blog: it sounded interesting, so I checked it and...it was, even more than expected!


Queens of Vintage is "a daily global glossy for vintage lovers", just launched but already full of amazing features and sections, like the Make&Mend one, with loads of ideas to turn your not-so-great thrift finds in fab pieces. Also, you can search for vintage by decade and have a look af their Top 100 Vintage Queens...lots of familiar fab girls out there...


Have a look!!

Let's Go On A Cruise

Is it time for Fall collections?? Really?? Already??
I'm definitely not in the mood for more winterish looks and this is that time of the year when I start praying for Spring to come soon! So instead of seeing what we should wear next year, I'm digging into that great idea cruise/resort/pre/however-you-call-them designer collections are. Maybe they're just another consumeristic thing in the fast&consumeristic fashion world, but if you just look without buying anything, well it's great and fully inspirational!

Plus, this season it seems I like resort collections more than the real SS2009 ones (though I have some favorites there too...more on them soon)!

I look at all of these fab pieces and I pretend it's Spring...may I have one of each?!

Bottega Veneta


Burberry Prorsum


Missoni


my beloved Moschino



and my biggest favorite...Marni, of course!




All images are from Style.com and Nymag.com.
Click on the pictures to enlarge.

American Graffiti

This is a tribute to Stephen Sprouse, key figure in the dynamic fusion of art, music and fashion.


He was born in 1953, started designing clothes at the age of 9 and at 14 he spent the summer sketching for Bill Blass. At 18 he was working for Halston.

He was one of the first designer to mix graffiti art, punk aestethic and fashion, creating a sort of "downtown suggestions meets haute couture". He captured the popular culture of two decades, 80s and 90s, like no one else.

He had a downstairs neighbor in the Bowery called Debbie Harry, for whom he created outfits to wear on stage...




Indubitably, he was a pioneer.

If you happen to be in New York before the end of February, you can visit Rock On Mars,


the retrospective exhibition of the work of Stephen Sprouse at the Deitch Project's gallery , featuring his pop paintings, videos , original fabrics, the furnitures made for Knoll and more than fifty fashion looks.

BUT if you can't be in NYC (and you're not as broke as I am!), you can still treat yourself with one of these bags, a new Marc Jacobs for Vuitton tribute


Inspired by Sprouse’s famous collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2001, the new limited edition Stephen Sprouse – Louis Vuitton collection is available since now in Louis Vuitton boutique in NYC and will be available in stores worldwide from Feb 2, along with a collection of fashion accessories, tees and... skateboards!

Big Bow For A Change

I want, want, want Aretha Franklin's hat!!!

Whodunit

I grew up in a family where everyone loved crime stories. My mother, my uncles and apparentely all of my relatives were addicted, so I'm not an exception.

After fairy tales, my first readings were crime and detective stories novels. I started with classics and when I was about 11-12 years old I stumbled upon Agatha Christie's world. It was love.
I can't remember, but I probably started with Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None) which totally captured me and then Murder On The Orient Express, from the Poirot series.
Though I've read some of Christie's books with Miss Marple and Tommy&Tuppence's investigations, my favorite detective has always been Poirot.

The character is so well defined and peculiar, the settings so various and rich, so well representative of the real Christie's life (she drew on real places when writing her novels).
Though these stories are set in a time between the two World Wars, the detailed tales of bored and decadent English mid and high society, where everyone could be a murder without caring so much about the historical happenings, are not troublesome at all. They're instead sort of "consolatory". That splendour, that magnificence are just the last moments of life before everything fall apart...

As you can read on Christie's official website:

"Her quintessential “English” characters offer a charming view of a bygone era when people sat down to tea in the afternoon, tended roses in their gardens and where village life provided all the scandal one could ever want to hear!"

All this long post, is just to introduce you to another one of my guilty pleasures and biggest ispirations...the British tv movies of the Agatha Christie's Poirot series, the ones with the impeccable David Suchet as Poirot.

Considering the series has aired since 1989, I have watched some of the episodes when I was just a child, but it was only in these last years that looking at them I found they're not only good adaptations of the novels (though the stories are sometimes slightly different from the original plots), but the costume department of the series is amazing and now I covet almost all of the ladies outfits! As much as Mad Men is a great visual source for late 50s/early 60s style, this series is perfect for the 20s/30s era.

All the movies are avaible on dvd and ENTIRELY available on You Tube, so I really suggest you to watch some of them. The videos below are the first parts (usually 1/10 for novel adaptations and 1/5 for the short stories) of four of my favorite productions: Death On The Nile, The Mistery of The Blue Train, The Third Floor Apartment and Five Little Pigs.

...Enjoy!