NEW YORK FASHION WEEK SPRING 2014: TADASHI SHOJI

I have profound respect for designer who take a niche market and fully commit to it. Tadashi Shoji, Japan born and bred, is one of those designers. Troubled by the fact that women had few options for special occasion dresses in the contemporary market, Tadashi identified a niche and set out on his own.

In 1982, Tadashi launched his own collection, Tadashi Shoji, in Los Angeles, California. Tadashi Shoji has become widely recognized for its original designs and innovative collections. The company has seen steady growth since its inception and is carried in more than 4,000 major department and specialty store doors worldwide, including: Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, and Lord & Taylor. Internationally, the brand is available at high-end retailers such as: Vakko, Harvey Nichols Dubai, and Rustan’s.

In 2007, Tadashi launched the Tadashi Shoji Runway Collection for Fall 2007 during New York Fashion Week to rave reviews. By featuring the utmost in luxury and elegance, the much-anticipated collection continues to elevate and hone the brand’s image in the marketplace. His designs have won a loyal following with well-dressed women worldwide, including a wide range of celebrities such as: Octavia Spencer, Kate Beckinsale, Dita Von Teese, Florence Welch, Mo’Nique, Katy Perry, to name a few

In the Spring 2014 collection there are a few dresses that I loved more so the ones with almost an ethereal feel to them a theme that was evident in the Spring 2013 collection which had more pieces that I loved. 

Let's look at the Spring 2014 pieces:

This was my favourite piece, you can tell the designer understand's women's bodies.  There is both a dreamy feel and luxury.

I absolutely love the colour and fit of this dress. It's those dressy outfits which leave you feeling all dressed up while allowing you free movement

The fit of this dress is amazing! The colour balances out the texture created by the scale like pattern. I call these dresses grown sexy dresses.

This dress may be controversial due to how see through it is but I love the detail that has gone into it! I think it can be a bridal piece for a very BOLD bride

Let us now go back a year to look at the Spring 2013 pieces:

Tadashi Shoji Spring 2013

Tadashi Shoji Spring 2013

Tadashi Shoji Spring 2013

Tadashi Shoji Spring 2013. This dress would look stunning on a curvy person.

Tadashi Shoji Spring 2013. I want this dress!

Tadashi Shoji Spring 2013. Love the dropped waist, bateau neckline and  deep blue tulle skirt

NEW YORK FASHION WEEK SPRING 2014: BCBGMAXAZRIA

BCBGMAXAZRIA was founded in 1989 by Designer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Max Azria. In 1991, Azria’s wife and muse, Lubov, joined BCBGMAXAZRIA as Creative Director. Named for the French phrase bon chic, bon genre, a Parisian slang meaning “good style, good attitude,” the brand embodies a true combination of European sophistication and American spirit.

Azria broke new ground when he launched BCBGMAXAZRIA, redefining the designer category by offering innovative, high-quality clothing at contemporary price points. With the overwhelming success of his women’s ready-to-wear line, Azria ultimately evolved BCBGMAXAZRIA into a complete lifestyle brand for women, with evening dresses, swimwear, footwear, handbags, small leather goods, eyewear, watches and more.

This is another collection that invariably makes me yearn for the previous year's spring collection. The Spring 2014 collection  has an equal number of hits as it has misses. The 2013 spring collection made me want to grab almost every piece of outfit that was showcased and I do admit that is a very high standard to measure consequent collections

We will look at a few of the pieces in the 2014 spring collection that were hits in my opinion then look at the awesome 2013 spring collection pieces which make BCBG a favourite of so many Hollywood stars.

CURRENT: Spring 2014

This dress is the epitome of expensive simplicity. It is not fussy and a woman would be comfortable and sexy in it. This was my favourite piece in the collection. Spring 2014. BCBG

The design of this outfit is what i call intelligent. It makes me want to figure it out like a puzzle and not end up saying ;what a mess! I like the asymmetrical dropped waist and the peekaboo sheer detail on the thigh  with the flower print being on the minimum. BCBG Spring 2014

I picked this dress selfishly for two reasons: my friend and former housemate Viv would like it or so I assume :) and the other reason is how that colour looks fab on dark skin like mine. BCBG Spring 2014

This was my second favourite piece in the whole collection. It reminds me of DVF designs.  I keep staring at it and wanting to touch it and of course wear it. This is another uncomplicated outfit which will make a woman look and feel sexy. BCBG Spring 2014

I find this outfit interesting. I am sure some will hate it but i like contrast and this is an equivalent to a an art piece at the dinner table which is a conversation starter. Some will only like the blazer while others the dress/skirt? BCBG Spring 2014

SPRING 2013:

This dress remind me of Donna in 'suits'! I really want this dress. Perhaps because in a few weeks i turn 29 but I'm now drawn to such dresses. Grown up sexy. BCBG Spring 2013

This was another piece that stole my heart. It would be perfect for my slender body! I love the colour, the mix of different textures and the cut! More that that the model has been styled so well. I love this look. BCBG Spring 2013

This is a jumpsuit I would definitely wear! It is classy, elegant and so cool. It is doing good things to her body unlike most jumpsuits. The top has some body armour feel to it yet she still looks feminine. BCBG OUTDID themselves Spring 2013

I think offices should allow women to wear such outfits to work and more people would be less miserable at work. I love it. The harness brings  just a hint of naughtiness but it is not crossing the line. The white shoes work really well with the print of the dress. BCBG  Spring 2013

No one is messing with you when you wear this outfit! I love it!

This dress is exquisite! The cut, the colour, how it flows! BCBG Spring 2013

NEW YORK FASHION WEEK SPRING 2014: Nicholas K

New York Fashion week is back and I purposed that I would get some reviews out of the way. I really like some designers like South African David Tlale but nothing in his spring collection stood out for me so sadly no reviews from me :-(

Nicholas K's  Spring 2014 collection caught my eye mostly due to the attitude of the clothes.  That may sound weird to some but clothes to convey a certain attitude and I totally liked a few of the pieces. I wouldn't wear them with the whole feathers angle but I get the red Indian/Bedouin mix they were going for on the runway. Their 2013 spring collection in my opinion was far much better, the luxurious fabrics used and the bright colours just made that collection so eye catching. I will include a few of those outfits here as we look at the current collection

2013 Spring collection

2013 Spring collection

2013 Spring collection

CURRENT: 2014 Spring Collection

I love how this outfit hangs on her body. I love how the colour is muted yet strong. The shoes just makes it all cool while the metal bracelet adds the glam factor. Spring 2014 collection

I'm a huge fan of prints like this one. It's what my friend Stella would call 'quietly majestic' hahaha I like the balance of the bulky top while the bottom allows her to show her legs with cool open toed booties

My kind of dress! Effortless yet oh still so pretty. This dress can be dressed up or down. Not a huge fan of the footwear or hairband but I would definitely go for this dress.

This whole ensemble screams ATTITUDE! The design, the colour, the styling, even the model! I totally heart it! One of my favourite from this collection

This dour faced model almost...ALMOST manages to kill this outfit but its too cool for that! I do think this is a really funky outfit!

DESIGNER;

Nicholas K is a New York based design company, founded in January of 2003 by siblings Nicholas and Christopher Kunz. Nicholas K was conceptualized with the intent of providing sophisticated customers with modern classics to become wardrobe staples.

For more information on the designers check them out here

Slim/Skinny/Slender?......whichever my style take

So it's taken me forever to come to terms that I'm officially a slender/skinny/slim girl. Sorry to all who will be offended but will use skinny as right now that is how I see myself and this will definitely be such a personal post. Something has awoken in me and it takes me back to days when my writing was very personal and vulnerable but very much authentic.
I have been from birth a slim girl till about age 13 when i don't know if adolescence alone could be blamed or the combination of anti-depressants and adolescence, but suddenly I was chubby and for the next 4 years I was fat, progressively so. It all happened so fast, or so it seemed to me but for some reason there's a group of people who decided those four years were the true reflection of what my size should be.  When i look back, I wasn't obese or anything, I do agree that before i was this tall , gawky and very active kid into almost every kind of sport which could be found both  at home and  in school. By the time i was joining high school, sport was a foreign language! My body was like some huge obstacle i could barely move and the comments from people around me made me feel i was this ginormous mass! I learnt from a very early age to front. For survival sake, i had to do that as I liked playing with boys and they can be mean especially when young; these fronting skills came in handy when people close to me made very hurtful and disparaging remarks forgetting I was a teenager already dealing with what seemed like a nuclear war! I defiantly presented a face that seemed to be all proud of my big body and accepted the fact that it would always be so. For some reason my weight gain really bugged my father and it was a puzzle he was determined to solve. We had always been close and so he could not understand what had happened. To cut a long story short I stopped taking the anti-depressants, school got more busy and I started losing weight FAST! I was too busy trying to read and pass exams to notice but my father took it all in and much later gave me this whole analysis of how he believed that the anti-depressants were responsible for my weight gain. At that point I didn't care but by my final year in high school I was an average size 12/14 and loving it. I promised myself i would maintain it! I was petrified of going back to that world where at that time i felt and believed my outfit options were limited and people's tolerance even much more limited. That was eleven years ago and that is the biggest size I ever was in all the years to follow. I did not diet or even exercise in any profound ways other than occasionally cycling, walking and running but that came much later. In university, I did like two concurrent courses which were both demanding ; a professional and academic! Trust me that is all the dieting you need. Everyone would comment how I skinny I looked and I would never take them seriously because in my behaved i was the fat girl I had seen in the mirror in those four years and the experiences that attached to that. I recall this one Saturday, I wore a spaghetti sleeve dress and my mum asked me if I was leaving the house without a scarf as my clavicles were really pronounced! I really laughed and said she was worrying for nothing. The following Monday I took a school ID photo and when I saw it, my word, i was shocked! I looked emaciated! I was sooo shocked! I had been eating, though my appetite had really become an issue starting from my last year in high school, half the time i went to bed too exhausted to eat and soon my body adjusted to that such that if i ate more I had tummy aches like really bad ones. My mother was like a guard police during Uni making sure that I would eat even if i got home at ten pm all worn out so it was not a case of not eating but rather my metabolism rate was high and i was under a lot of pressure. So I was around a size 8 and so underweight without realizing it. Another random Saturday we were walking with a friend of mine when we saw this blood drive tent so I was like lets go and give blood since I've never. They weighed me and I was so underweight they couldn't take my blood! I was so shocked! AGAIN! I was weighing 52kgs and I'm 5'5 in height! They also informed me I was slightly anaemic something i would hear time and time again  at the doctors when my blood would be drawn. It made me self conscious and it didn't help when a few months later  two aunts who I can only describe as horrid decided to inform me that they always believed that I took dieting pills to lose weight! I was utterly dumbfounded! I wouldn't even know where to get diet pills! I was 22 years old at that time and trust me very much sheltered and naive. At almost 29 I still don't know where I would get diet pills! When my dad heard that story he got sooo furious he made those two women leave! In any case as I joined the workforce, as inevitably predicted by many, i added a bit of weight to go from a size 8 to a size 12 , It did not bug me much at first as I was curvy yet still 'small' as some would say but women have some self disgust button that at some point you will have issues with your body so I started working out but nothing happened. Then I had this bad breakup so i started running in the morning just to keep sane and wala! The weight dropped! Soon I also started going to the gym and I recall I was 58kgs and felt I needed to be 55kgs as an ideal weight! madness! In anycase  i kept fluctuating between 56kg and 58kgs. I stopped caring.  This long tale brings me to the present like two or three years later. I quit work and soon started my own fashion business which included personal shopping which unknown to me is a very physically involving job. I would get so held up and forget a meal or two meanwhile walking so many miles and carrying so much and soon without my noticing I was slowly losing weight and back to a size 8 which is not my optimal size. My healthy, looking good  and alive size is a ten. I love oversize clothes and I don't mean baggy and shapeless ones; like sailor shirts about size 14 hang really well on my frame, same with oversize shift dresses and knit wear so at times it takes a while for me to realize I've lost weight and photos are like the best way for me to have a wake up call. i don't trust people when it comes to my body. Even if they are friends, no matter how close, people have their won agenda, so I'd rather deduce for myself when there's anything to be done or to be concerned about. So photos and my clothes tell me when I've added weight and lost it. So last year December we went for a friend's wedding and I wore this black dress and later looking at the photos,can you guess? i was shocked at how skinny i looked especially my arms! This will offend some but I looked like those kids on CNN famished and all! I don't think i wore a dress after that for close to a month. In any case it made me stop my workouts as my job was already a workout in itself and make note to eat all my meals. I doubled my portions and went against ,my rule to only eat when hungry! I was on a mission to gain weight. i had lost all my curves and looked like what we stereotype white girls! At first it did not work! No surprise there seeing as my body doesn't respond to pressure but once i stopped fretting i started adding weight slowly. I rarely weigh myself but i do have a tummy bump and some curves. The skinny jeans look anbit filled in though my non existent boobs at times worry me when wearing halter tops and plunging necklines. I got rid of all those and bought new bras that give my girls the extra oomph they need. I still feel i could use a bit more curves but I love being small due to the versatility it allows me to wear so many things especially short stuff which I love. My legs are one of my best assets. This may all seem a downer on slender girls but at times we forget they also have their own body image issues. So after the long tale below are a few looks that I have tried, tested and approved as looking good on a slim body. You know I'm not a rule follower but if any idea catches your eye, feel free to appropriate

See how the animal print looks fab on her and no focus on small bust? High necklines work so well and a reasonable sized print does wonders. the flare of the skirt of the dress gives an illusion of volume on the hips

I have a black dress with the same exact slit!

I love silk chiffon tops especially a size or two bigger! Goes with shorts, pants and skirts! And The shorts show off the long legs!

Contrary to popular but rubbish advice, skinny pants are awesome for skinny girls and the best part? You can do skinny  pants  in prints and loud colours without worrying that you will look vulgar. The scooped neck vest is a staple, for those with small rack the v neck may be problematic on tops making you look even more flat chested than you wish

Love this look and for those not as daring perhaps swap the bralet with a fitted corset in a bold colour! Maxi skirts look fab on a slim body and the cropped denim jacket just pulls it together to create such a street chic look

I love this tribal bandage skirt! I have a similar skirt in blue and black but never been able to get a tribal print. My birthday is this month so Y'all! hahaha. In any case being slender means you look fab tucking in your shirts and tops! More so into miniskirts and bandage skirts. this particular look is so balanced with the top more formal. 

A perk of being small? being able to wear leggings without your donk being all up in everyone's face! The sweater just adds class to this look and snoodies look absolutely amazing on slim girls!Same goes for woolen or knitted scarves

High-low tops which allow a peek at the tummy are another perk that slim girls have. I love this look because it has sexy, sporty, playful and glam all rolled into one look. Notice how the cropped pants look so fab on her? I have been doing a bit more of the peek-a- boo tops look with cropped pants and I must say we are bringing sexy back! Who says boobs are the only sexy body parts?

This is one of my go to looks. I love contrasts. The formal blazer with the informal mini skirt and the heels just add the sass to the look. Blazers and boyfriend jackets work so well as they hang on well on a small frame. Further to that the silk top is a bit oversize but also hangs well on her to balance the short skirt

I have this dress in so many colours! I ABSOLUTELY ADORE SHIFT DRESSES! they can be even 3 sizes bigger but as shown above a belt works wonders on that and I always go for a inches above the knee. This look works so well on a slender body

Slinky maxi dresses. how I love thee and of course the leather jacket just adds on the cool factor

The short flared skirt works so well and horizontal stripes are a yes yes!

BOLD COLOURS WORK! Colour blocking anyone?

In lust with this bikini and yes I would wear it!

Stanford Row- Accessories-Women

So I was to do a whole different post but somehow was feeling quite uninspired but I knew I need to start doing reviews on Stanford Row products so here goes a few stuff that caught my eye. Perhaps head on over there, order if you agree, cool? Cheers

Stanford Row link http://www.stanfordrow.com/items/Women/accessories

Leather Metallic Isis Clutch/iPad Bag

I want these now! So practical yet oh so stylish! These longer length leather fingerless gloves are perfect for any occasion. They are timeless pieces that complement any outfit to give a stylish and personal finishing touch

These fabulous little fingerless gloves are a real favourite and are featured in the BBC drama 'Ripper Street

This STEAMPUNK charm necklace is so my kind of jewellery! Obviously minus the tacky boob show but I think it's cool

Love the attitude of this shot and it would make me buy this Chicago bowlers hat

Love these MIMI thigh high stockings with holes! Perhaps its the stylist in me but the whole shot is amazing from her pose, the background and outfit styling.

Another Martina Bohn Chicago Bowler hat...and I'm absolutely lusting after that corset!

I love this head piece from kokoberi by designer Matilda. It has sass!

Every lady's wardrobe must have! Made to order elasticated wide lace waist belts/ bandeau tops/ boob tubes, in high quality vintage style stretchy lace, available in beautiful rich colours: Rosehip, Teal, Burgundy and Black. Fasten at front or back with four hook and eye fastenings. Very versatile pieces, can transform any outfit, and dress up a plain dress, for casual or smart, day or evening, great for Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter

Love the gold and pearl mixture in this piece.

There were quite a few accessories for those inclined towards BDSM but i liked this one :-) It's a double suspender belt

I guess toned down BDSM? Nway it's a lasso and Lousie Mckay is the designer

I'm not a fan of linen but this bag makes me smile and so handy for different stuff.