Santa, what about an Amrita Singh necklace for Christmas ?

By creating settings on Polyvore I’ve discovered an amazing necklace. It’s designed by Amrita Singh and it’s called the Magda Necklace.

My style usually conists of variations on basic colours such as white, black and gray so this would match perfectly. What segregates me from this necklace, however, is its price. Would you give a $150 for a piece of jewellery ?

Multi-strand black necklace with cross pendant.

It’s not silver and it has no rocks so I don’t realise the exageration of the price. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely gorgeous. However, I don’t like materialism or paying for the brand. Guess I’ll be wearing the necklace on Polyvore only ha.

Talking about Polyvore, if you want to check mine, you can do it here. Don’t judge though, I’m still trying to get a hold of things and realise how is it set there. I used to be on another site, called trendme. 

I never cared much about the art of arranging these items. However, you can see I’m starting to do that on Polyvore. There are many contests you can join wherever you are from and win various gifts so I want to give my best. :)

The artist must say it without saying it

And indeed Karl did.

The Chanel Spring 2011 RTW fashion show was amazing. Just the show alone was enough to make a serious impact on you whether you watched it on internet, or were lucky enough to actually participate in this fairytale.

Karl does wonders. Last year he built an ICEBERG and we thought that that was the limit, when this year - he surprised us again. To be thorough, by words of Tim Blanks here is what the setting looked like:

“…a breathtakingly surreal setting: a monochrome ornamental garden, complete with fountains, which mirrored one of the film’s most famous scenes. A full orchestra of 80 musicians sawed through romantic arrangements of Björk, the Verve, and John “007” Barry to soundtrack the 18-minute show (positively epic by today’s ADD standards).”

Karl said that the set was based on the classic 1961 film Last Year at Marienbad.

The classic runways in Karl’s mind are long gone. This is what I call art. He told a story with this show, he turned it into a movie that you wish never to end. Here is what Keira Knightley said:

“He’s like a director, or writer. I don’t know. He’s writing stories with his clothes. There is so much fantasy within them, I wanted to be those girls.”

When people on the show wish to be a part of your dream, you know you have succeeded.

Concerning the colors, Karl stayed true to his basic ones - black, gray, delicate rose pink and pastel yellow even though the prevailing Spring 2011 color pallette was hot pink and orange. He said :

“I really don’t think women want to go around looking like a Saint Laurent shopping bag.”

However, he did surprise me with a few very-close-to-colorful creations.

Here are my two favorite ones out of those:

They are amazing and wearable. I love how you can imagine it being drawn and thought thoroughly. Also, this one is worn by Julia Saner, she’s a gorgeous model that I have just discovered recently. She’s only 18 years old.

This, on the other hand, is something I wouldn’t link directly to Chanel when I’d see it:

On the first glance, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but just by looking at the colors you get drawn into it. It can make you look lively in a second.

Feels like Karl added a modern touch to this collection. Not just by these colors but the first few outfits were actually riddled with holes.

“After the show, the designer said new fabrics were one of his touchstones for the collection, but he distressed them with selvedge, ragged edges, and a lattice of perforations.”

Not long after this some-would-say-shock, Samantha Gradovil came on the runway wearing a gorgeous classic piece that showed the Chanel consistence and could do nothing but amaze you.

Samantha looks divine here. This is exactly something Coco would like, and I feel as if Karl designed it thinking of her. 

Nonetheless, there were many more amazing pieces, suits to be exact. All of them however, had a modern twist once again.

“The classic suit was reconfigured as a swingy A-line jacket with three-quarter sleeves and shorts as often as skirts.”

I love how the design of this jacket reminds me of Tokyo or Japan, the street style combined with the couture.

Speaking of couture, Karl amazed most people with this feathery dress that I in particular, cannot say I like.

Probably due to the fact that I do not approve of feathers as in my opinion they cannot look well in any combination. 

Most of the dresses had feathers, and were black. Karl said that the feathers have replaced fake fur for spring.

However, there were a few dresses that managed to amaze me as well. This one in particular:

The shape is so different than the usual and it instantly presents a challenge to the designer, or a risk because in my opinion it rarely turns out to be a good different but in this creation it turned out being perfect.

Menswear in this collection wasn’t satisfying. There were only three pieces and I didn’t like neither one of them. Two of them were worn by Baptiste Giabiconi and he looked as if he came out of The Sleeping Beauty.

He was the prince ofcourse. 

One, was worn by model Brad Koenig who walked the runway with his two year old son Hudson.  Toy dinosaurs were actually set up backstage so Hudson wouldn’t get bored.

Hudson looks adorable wearing this. Brad, on the other hand not so much. Jeans on jeans still doesn’t work for me.

One of the best creations of this collection is the hat looking umbrella.

Who wouldn’t want this ? Amazing.

“It’s romantic and glamorous, like a dream.”

The whole collection actually had this Chinese touch, present in this umbrella and the dresses, ornamental to be exact - that is the connection with the setting.

As for the accessories, the bags were Chanel-ish. Consistent at last.

This book-looking-bag is gorgeous, if that’s not art what is ?

What I did not like were the shoes. Most of them were wooden platforms with a few strings that hold the leg.

Not at all classy or pretty. This is the second time in a row that Karl has dissapointed me with the shoe design. 

What was quite surprising about this show was that Ines de la Fressange, the Chanel house model in the 80s and Stella Tenant, who represented the 90s walked the runway.

Ines wore a complex black dress:

while Stella was the first one to walk the runway wearing one of the “scissor-cut” creations.

The model pick for this show was magnificant.

From Karolina Kurkova, Lily Donaldson, Coco Rocha, Sasha Pivovarova to the 18 year old ones Julia Staner, Emily DiDonato and a 17 year old Frida Gustavsson.

“There were more than 80 models in the show, and each outfit created a character so individual that the clothes truly held their own against the majestic backdrop.”

All I can say about this show is that it was truly magical. 

“His creativity and imagination knows no bounds.”

Cast me if you can

I shall start by writing a piece about my experience of being a part of the casting for the biggest fashion event in a little country in Europe. I had just started modelling and one day my agent texted me saying:

“Casting ***-*-******. Saturday, September 18th in the theatre at 10 a.m. No make-up, wear your hair down, be dressed in a way that they can see the body lines.”

That text message surprised me because I, logically had no experience nor did I ever think I would be a part of everything I have ever dreamed of. Therefore, I took the message pretty serious, read it a few times and followed the instructions thoroughly. The day of the casting, I woke up at 7 a.m so I could have enough time to get ready. I had planned a few outfits in my head the day before so I didn’t have much trouble picking the outfit. I also did hear the agent’s voice in my head telling me that I should never stand out in the casting, neither with the clothes nor the hairstyle. So, instructions were pretty clear ; be simple. I got ready, washed my hair, straightened it and got dressed.

Here is what I wore :

-Dorothy Perkins grey jeggins

-H&M white/gray striped longish very tight t-shirt with puffy sleeves

-Black vintage Mary Janes with a heel of 9 cm (according to the converter-3.5 inches)

-Guess watch

-Zara black/gray baseball jacket

-Topshop “wannabe Chanel 2.55” bag

The combination was simple and you could definitely see the line of my body perfectly which made me satisfied with the choice. Of all of the make-up all I put was a bit of concealer just so I look a bit rested then I actually was. After that, I was completely prepared so I checked the weather outside and realised its POURING. The rain was just what I didn’t want after straightening my hair but nonetheless, I took the umbrella and walked out of my 2nd floor apartment. My sister and her boyfriend were waiting for me downstairs with a car so I wouldn’t look like a complete wet mouse ; or mess, there.

I got there around 9:55 and entered the lobby full of girls. Skinny, dressed up, pretty girls - from now on referring to as MODELS. Not all of them were girls though, there were a couple of male models - an estimated amount of 6. Therefore, 6 male models against 60 female ones. What’s going on with the boys in the fashion world, when did that become such a tabu ? Are perhaps men such as Valentino or Karl responsible for the bed rep ? Guess that should be a topic in one of my next posts. 

Anyways, to return to the point. I got there earlier and sat in bar in the lobby for a cup of coffee. I had NO idea what to do or where to go so I just sat and observed around me to see when will all the other models start walking somewhere. I observed and realised that all these girls were dressed up, they all stood out - had some makeup, wore their hair up, had accessories and dresses and skirts. Who was wrong here ? I dressed in a way not to stand out and then I actually failed at it. After a half an hour, I got the courage to ask a girl at the table next to me something like 

“Hey, do you know if we should sign up somewhere, or we just wait here ?”

Pretty stupid line there, but hey, I was new. She was around my age, but more dressed up and had a hair bun. (Also, she wisely brought her heels in a bag and came in Chucks.) A friend of hers, looked at me pretty viciously but the BunGirl was polite and just said that we wait here until everyone came.Somewhere in the middle of all the waiting, I saw this woman.

I actually know her from before when she told me I was too short to model (referring to my height of the poor 173 cm) but nonetheless; imagine a very cold woman with blonde hair in the late 50’s with the plainest outfits walking around the room all pretentiously as if her last name was Wintour and not *****. She is actually an agent, an owner of one of the two biggest modelling agencies in my country. I will call her TheGrannyAgent from now on.

So, when the granny agent came in the room, the organisator of this fashion show appeared as well. What a coincidence… I guess it was another coincidence that they saluted eachother so affectionately and that the models from her agency were invited to come in first. At this point, after casting a judgemental glance at them, I stood up and decided to move deeper in the lobby and wait in line by the stairs. While awkwardly standing in this line, at one point I swallowed the last bit of my gut and asked the girl next to me if she knows what we had to do when we walk in there. This is what she answered:

“Oh, I have no idea. I’m here for the first time, I don’t even have an agency. I don’t know if I should be here. Do you think they will mind that I don’t have heels?”

Great. I asked a girl who came in UGGS to a casting of what I should do. I can never fail in suprising myself. 

I decided to discard all my curiousness and just go with the flow. Following the crowd in front of me in this very occasion turned out great. We had to take off our jackets, leave the bags and everything we had with us on the table in the middle of the stairs and then proceed to the floor beyond. When I came close enough to see the action going on over there, my heart started racing. The room was filled with all of the finest designers and agents from my country, (i hope there were no foreigners) who were seated next to each other in moon shape across the room.

The procedure was this:

You are supposed to walk this imaginary line which you have to memorise when you see the girl before you walking. It’s pretty simple. Though, when the girl before you starts walking you have to whisper your name and the name of your agency in the ear of this guy standing there by the stairs, who, when you come up, will shout out what you told him. It reminded me much of debutant balls which I have seen in the movies, pretty hysterical scene. Also, very inappropriate and unorganised in my opinion. How will they exactly memorise so many models if they don’t even have our names written nor our pictures taken. There was, however, a guy (the organiser) who took a picture of you after the walking part. I realised he didn’t take a picture of every girl though.

My turn: After hearing the awkward scream of my name, I start walking. My legs fill heavy and my 3.5 inch heels suddenly seem pretty high. I have only made a few steps so far when I see my favorite designer at my left. This was not helpful at all. All the effort I should have put into the walking part so I don’t look like I have a jury leg, I have put in following the imaginary line. A stupid move if you ask me. When I came to the furthest point of the line and the closest to the designers, one of them smiled to me. I don’t know the reason behind this smile but I guess that at this point I figured out all the hype about smiling. What can your accidental smile might mean to someone ? That woman probably doesn’t remember me but I can still see her face. I have no idea who she is though - a slap to my proudly considered well fashion knowledge. Walking the line lasted for about 45 seconds. I don’t know if all the experience was worth this 45 seconds though. I am still not sure if I felt relieved or sad when the organisator didn’t take my picture. After finishing the line, I actually forgot to stop by the steps to see if he wants to take my picture, I just went down. I came back up just after two steps and silently asked if they have to take my picture and he just said:

“No.”

I guess he would have stopped me if he wanted to. I don’t know what or who I should blame for not getting hired. I mean there are a million choices:

The granny agent and her connections, my wooden legs or my infantile clumsiness, not picking the right shoes or outfit, not having my hair in the pony tail, the agent who didn’t give me the right instructions or the fact that this wasn’t as serious or fair as I thought it would be.

But at the end of the day there is no one to blame. My agent told me that I will probably not get hired at the first 10 castings and then I’ll get the 11th one. It’s not literal but I get this. The fashion world is so complicated that you can NEVER take anything personal. There are a billion of connections and a billion of tastes. You cannot please everyone nor everyone can like you. As they say, 

“De gustibus non est disputandum.”

At every casting they search for a particular type. This type always changes, as with the castings, so with the years. I don’t think this type of girls with skeletonish faces will always be IN. I mean, where are the beautiful faces and girls that you can admire when they wear a piece of clothes ? I think a model should be both skinny and pretty. But anyways, with this casting I have learnt A LOT. I don’t regret anything because now I know what to do with the alert of the new text message from my agent…