We loved Dionne Bromfield’s berry festive dress, while Peaches Geldof looked good in a black bandage classic. Personally I’m not a huge body-con dress fan and as a pear-shaped girl opt for A-line dresses every time but I am loving cherry and berry-hued dressed for Christmas.
Everywhere you look there is a metallic party dress and the trend for metallics in less brash finishes is set to be strong in SS12…thank you Giles Deacon, Christopher Kane, Chanel, Versace et al.
Here are 7 heavenly pieces to get you through the party season (including a couple of ‘I wish’ purchases).
Stunning sequinned skirt £39.99 from Zara
Seriously spacey structured dress spotted in Cos (also has great perspex jewellery)
Pretty in pink lace metallic sleeveless top £28 from River Island
Ultimate golden party dress? Herve Leger embellished houndstooth bandage dress £4,230
For cool party girls - love these rock + roll £25.99 sequinned shorts from TRF @ Zara
Fun for Xmas - ASOS Metallic Coated SkinnyJeans £50
V fashionable work of art: Marc Jacobs Iridescent paillette skirt £7,365
Optical Illusions are having (another) fashion moment. Stella McCartney’s ‘Illusion’ dress has been a huge hit with celebrities and spawned a hundred high street copy-cat designs, that enhance women’s curves in the most flattering way.
Penelope Cruz wears McCartney Illusion in a more unusual blue
Reminds us of...
Curve-friendly
Alexander McQueen has previously played with optical illusion dresses back in 2009, producing the hypnotic moiré-print dress. Herve Leger also went optical trickery crazy at around the same time with a super flattering banded body-con dress (of course).
I LOVE this McQueen dress on Victoria Beckham - genius.
Get waisted with Herve Leger's banded dress
Now it seems that beauty is getting in on the Op-Art action. This Optical Bronzer by Mac includes blush too and promises a super flattering shade for most skin tones…and it’s pretty! We’re keen to give it a go for £34.95, especially as it reminds us of super Brit artist Bridget Riley’s work which is a tad pricier.
Was Bridget Riley Mac's inspiration?
I always feel guilty about using such beautiful cosmetics!
If Mac could re-create this Riley for us as another blush that would be great, thanks x
Do you want to see more of this Op Art trend in beauty and on the catwalk or is it just us?
We’re a huge fan of The Coveteur (if you haven’t discovered this blog yet, it’s like fashionable Through the Keyhole) and love seeing people’s collections of clothes and accessories – we’re just nosy.
While The Coveteur doesn’t ‘do’ the UK (yet) Closer magazine [via The DM] has got a peek inside Tamara Ecclestone’s wardrobe and it’s slightly mindboggling in terms of quantity, labels and shoe organisation.
Next time someone tells me to reduce my shoe collection I'm showing them this!
Most of us have a bit of a ‘thing’ for shoes or handbags but due to space and budget constraints draw the line somewhere under around £100k’s worth of handbags- which is what TE is estimated to have stashed in her walk in wardrobe (let’s just call it blinged Narnia).
The model/TV presenter/reality star (let’s be honest now, Bernie Eccleston the £2.5bn F1 mogul’s little girl) is thought to have around 100 pairs of Louboutins, 15 pairs of Uggs plus plenty of Ginas and Jimmy Choos and handbag-wise TE told the magazine she probably has 20 Hermes Birkin bags but ‘has lost count’ and her bag collection tops around £100k.
Excessive or excellent?
TE also claims to only wear clothes once and her mum, former Armani model reportedly gives unwanted clothing to charity shops and family in Croatia – we have visions of a village all decked out in body-con dresses and diamontes.
We’ll be honest- TE’s style is not our cup-of-tea but it’s intriguing all the same. Do you love peeking inside other people’s wardrobes as much as us?!
We’ve been intrigued for a while to see Kanye West’s fashion collection but was it worth the wait? One fashion editor described the collection as Herve Leger meets Donald Trump and we’re not entirely sure we disagree!
There are of course some excellent examples of celebrities turned fashion designers – Victoria Beckham, Alexa Chung for Madewell, The Olsens’ The Row…but there are some real turkeys too! We don’t want to completely write off Kanye’s efforts but well, we weren’t blown away and particularly did not like the heavily Herve Leger inspired bandage dress with so many slashes it looked like it was coming undone. Rapper-style ultra tight metallic trous and shaggy fur coats were just a little too much for us, but the show certainly sported an impressive frow (including Anna Wintour, Leigh Lezark, Lindsay Lohan and The Olsen’s) if not a mind-blowing collection.
Should Kanye stick to the day job or are you impressed?
This is a bit of an obsession of mine. Despite knowing they would be painful I have lusted after a pair of YSL Tribute platform pumps for ages (I think Kate Moss rocks them best) so I was a tiny bit distressed when I saw The Saturdays’ Vanessa almost lost one getting into a taxi. (Oh I would take such better care of you beautiful shoe!)
Nooo! Poor shoe!
Poor Vanessa seemed a little worse for wears after a night out and the shoe was gallantly rescued by a member of JLS – a modern boozy Cinderella story?!
We've all been there (p.s. drink responsibly blah)
Meanwhile, Rochelle rocked a Herve Leger bandage dress. (Just a bit of light relief for you in between NYFW studies!)
It’s all about the red carpet and metallic show-stopping dresses. Oscar hopefuls and A-listers keen to rock some seriously glamorous looks on the red carpet will no doubt be keeping Rodarte, Herve Leger, Marchesa and Oscar de la Renta’s opulent and super luxe collections in mind.
Marchesa (with a front row stuffed full of starlets) debuted some seriously sparkly dresses. Our favourite was a gold fringed number that looked a little flapper-esque. The shape of the gowns was more daring than a Disney princess look with ripples and embellishments plus clever sheer panelling. We predict we’ll see some of these incredible creations gracing a red carpet or
two soon.
Rodarte channelled Van Gogh’s sunflowers to create a super sunny collection incorporating printed shiny fabrics and metallic accessories (love those shoes). There is usually a dark twist when it comes to Rodarte’s designs which almost always have a fairy tale element. The shapes of the gowns were toughened up princess shapes but the palette of gold, turquoise and deep blues were not in the least but sinister- think Van Gogh’s Starry Nights painting instead.
WAG favourite Herve Leger of the bandage dress fame produced an equally glam collection of body con metallics drawing strong influence from his previous collections. Indeed the bandage-like construction of dresses was still seen but with shots of metallics and interesting frills and knots, all in a nude and black palette. To be seen on XFactor soon?!
And you thought the bandage dress was unforgiving...
Oscar de la Renta opted for several floor-skimming dresses in metallic mustard taffeta. The black lace, incredible jewelled shoes and sheer luxurious volume of the dress is a definite red carpet win, although we love his slightly more understated blush feather flapper dress just as much.
For a seriously easy way to wear metallic’s from NYFW, check out Bobbi Brown’s ‘rose gold’ video from backstage of Rachel Roy’s collection, where she created a “rosy nude face!” According to Bobbi, “rose gold works for every skin tone,” yay!
