Seriously, stop it! As I have already said in this post, there is one it piece every season that makes its way into every editorial, red carpet and celebrity closet on earth and there is no doubt that this season it is the SS13 Louis Vuitton checkered dress. It is almost ridiculous how overexposed it has become in the past few weeks. There are hardly any magazines at the moment that don’t feature the boxy 60s inspired dress in an editorial and in some extreme cases it even appears on their covers *cough*Glamour*cough*.

But it doesn’t stop at editorials, no, this dress has been worn by dozens of celebrities this award season, to name a few: Miranda Kerr, Jessica Alba, Kristen Stewart etc. Yes, they’ve worn different colors, but that doesn’t make it any better.

I just don’t understand why this dress had to become the it piece of the season. I find it boring and not flattering at all on most people. There is nothing interesting about it, it doesn’t photograph well and I’m feeling rather dizzy after looking at so many squares for a while.

The point I am trying to make is: Let’s move on, please! I am sure even Marc Jacobs would be bored to death by the overexposure of his dress by now. There are so many other beautiful dresses in the SS13 collections, time to let them shine. Enough of the squares.

The return of me blogging shall begin with the return of the sweatshirt! Don’t you just feel great when there’s a trend that you like AND it’s a comfortable one? Well, I do. To be fair, the sweatshirt trend started quite long ago with some of the first collections of Alexander Wang, but only in the past few months have sweatshirts become socially acceptable, i.e. they can be worn casually just as well as dressed up. The bottom line is, despite their name, they have nothing to do with sweating anymore and are not limited to your workout wardrobe.

Ever since Balenciaga sold thousands of sweatshirts with galaxy prints last season, other designers have quickly picked up on the trend, like Phillip Lim. His latest collection is a-ma-zing, inspired by bikers and of course includes some fabulous sweatshirts (see center picture above). Since I am not a millionaire, I will have to make peace with the high street retail knock-offs, but to be honest, they aren’t bad at all. I included some of my favorites above, starting in the top left corner and going clockwise they’re from Sportsgirl, Topshop, H&M, and again, Topshop. I tried on the white one a few days ago and let me tell you, the fabric is so soft, you will feel like hugging a golden retriever puppy all day.

As you can tell, I love the sweatshirt trend. What do you think about it?

pictures: Sportsgirl, TOPSHOP, H&M, style.com

I have been obsessed with the galaxy trend lately. I don’t know what it is about those starry night/ outer space pictures, but I really like it. The color scheme plays a big part, all those beautiful shades of blue and purple mixed with a bit of white. The crystal necklace has been my daily companion for months now, I got it at Urban Outfitters and I love how it goes with almost every outfit. The top is from Cotton On and perfect for a night out. I think I’ll be hooked on this for quite a while…

I am not a huge hanger-on when it comes to all those social media sites. If you read blogs nowadays and look at their sidebars, you often see this overload of other sites that the blogger uses. There’s of course facebook, which I use too but only for personal contacts (and I would like to keep it that way), but then there are about a billion other things like twitter, tumblr, skype, youtube, myspace, google+ ect…. I find it way too time consuming to use all of this, but last week I decided to jump on the bandwagon of one of the latest hyped sites in the world wide web, Pinterest. I chose to because a) I was bored and b) because I love the idea of collecting pictures that inspire you.

So now, my dear readers, you can follow me on Pinterest if you care. The link is in the sidebar.

While I was browsing through hundreds of pictures on Pinterest, I stumbled upon this one showing Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta (try to ignore his hideous hair) walking through a park sometime in the 70s. I just could not help but notice how absolutely timeless Olivia’s outfit was. If Natasha Poly walked around the streets of New York in this today, no one would say she looks weird or dated. Black jeans, a loose white T-Shirt, a golden watch and nerd glasses paired with minimal make up and a casual ponytail. Fashion hasn’t changed that much after all, has it?

She is on a roll at the moment. Alessandra Ambrosio has two beautiful children, gets to wear the million dollar fantasy bra at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2012, and also manages to look incredibly stylish every day. Lately there have been tons of paparazzi pictures of Ale and it always amazes me how effortlessly cool she looks. While getting Starbucks yesterday, Ale wore a mint coloured Tee and a matching watch and sunglasses. So simple, yet so important for a good outfit. I’m also in love with her jean jacket with leather sleeves and her always shiny long hair. Can this woman look bad? I doubt it. Note to myself: Don’t limit colour matching to clothing, include accessories!

Pictures: zimbio

Yesss! I finally live in a city that has a TOPSHOP! The Sydney store on George street opened four days ago and has been packed to the max ever since. I went on a TOPSHOP spree yesterday and was quite impressed by the four level store. It has everything you can imagine… fab clothes, make up, jewellery, bags, lingerie, and some really friendly staff.

There must have been nearly a thousand customers in there but thanks to a lot of staff members, the wait in line at the changing rooms was only ten minutes (I’m used to way worse scenarios at Primark in Frankfurt… 30 minutes is normal there). Of course I ended up purchasing a lot and the 10% student discount is only encouraging my shopaholic behaviour.

I bought summery white studded canvas loafers that are just perfect for nearly every outfit, a burgundy super soft high waisted skirt, a tribal pattern body con dress, freaky green/blue nail polish and a spiky bracelet. The prices are similar to Zara, typical high end street. I know I’ll be back soon!

So New York Fashion Week is on at the moment and I have to admit that I am only following parts of it from the other end of the world. Being in Sydney does indeed make me feel like I’m on this huge island far, far away from the rest of the world and the 11 hour time difference to New York doesn’t help either. But I couldn’t help but notice the wonderful collection of Tadashi Shoji. The Japanese designer made an entire collection focused on lace dresses.

I have a soft spot for lace; it always reminds me of the elegance of Grace Kelly and naturally, I am also in love with the latest Valentino collections. Tadashi Shoji’s dresses look so very light and delicate. I believe they transform you into a graceful, slowly moving princess when trying them on. I certainly would love to wear the blue floor length gown with the amazing collar details around the neck. It looks simply divine!

There are knee length and mini dresses, too, so something for every age, have a look…

Photos by Ming Han Chung

Yesterday, at Sydney’s Vogue Fashion’s Night Out, I got to meet Miranda Kerr. If you’ve read my blog in the past, you now that I am a big fan of hers pretty much ever since I first saw her in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2006. So when I read that Miranda would be at FNO to promote her KORA Organics line, I didn’t hesitate to get there early, line up for 45 min, spend a small fortune on her products (review will follow) and then…. finally meeting her and getting our picture taken.

I’m afraid there’s nothing surprising to say about her. She’s gorgeous, she’s very friendly, she’s patient and very professional. It seems like Miranda has it all. Her mum was there too and I could definitely see where Miranda got her good looks from. 2012 seems to be a good year for me for meeting supermodels. After KK in January, Miranda was the icing on the cake.

Besides my fan-experience there, FNO was a whole lot of fun. My friends and I took tons of funny pictures, drank heaps of free drinks and in between all the craziness and thousands of people, we even managed to shop a little. The warm night with temperatures around 20 degrees made it even more pleasant to walk around Pitt Street and Martin Place.

While holding all the goodie bags, drinks, and polaroids, it was hard to take my own pictures, but I managed to get a few snaps:

On friday, I had the pleasure of meeting Whitney Port at the Pitt Street Sportsgirl store in Sydney where she launched her collection for the Australian fashion chain. As a teenager, I watched Whitney work her way up in the fashion industry in the reality TV show “The Hills” and later on in her own show “The City”. I’ve always adored her long healthy blonde hair and her down to earth personality, so meeting her and seeing what she was really like was a cool experience for me.

Taking into consideration that Whitney had travelled a lot during the days before the event and that she was probably very jet lagged, I can’t blame her for seeming a little tired and not very smiley. She was there for about half an hour and presented her favorite Sportsgirl looks, which included lots of floral prints, cropped blouses, and shorts. There was really nothing ground breaking about the outfits, but Whitney repeatedly said that she wants her fashion to be accessible and wearable and that she is inspired by girls like you and me that she sees on the street everyday. Well, let’s just say that she definitely achieved the “wearable” in her collection, I just wish it had been a little more edgy, but then again it needs to sell so it can’t be.

Whitney answered lots of questions from the audience and what surprised me most, was her answer to the question ‘What was it like to work with Lauren Conrad?’. Besides the fact that she is probably quite sick of questions about her reality TV shows, Whitney said that it was fun, but at the same time, it was never planned that she would be part of “The Hills”. Lauren and the camera crew just walked into the Teen Vogue office where Whitney coincidentally started her internship the same day as Lauren (You can actually see the scene in one of the first episodes). So before Whitney knew it, she was part of the show and that’s where the snowball effect started and Whitney ended up with her own show and now, her own fashion line. Just another example of how life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.

Overall, the event was really well organised by the Sportsgirl staff who handed out goodie bags and supplied drinks and snacks for everyone. So even though Whitney’s appearance was rather short, it was a really nice evening. Thanks Sportsgirl!

Take a look at the pictures I took and see for yourself if you like her collection…

4 weeks no post! Wow, I myself am shocked about this, but at least I got a good excuse. I moved to the other end of the world, Sydney. And since something like that requires nerves of steel, a lot of time and patience, I just couldn’t get around to blogging. Sorry about that, but from now on there should be regular updates again.

Of course one of the first things I did after arriving was exploring the Australian fashion scene. The interesting thing about Australia is, when it comes to brands, they aren’t as globalized as other countries yet, meaning, huge brands like H&M, Urban Outfitters, or Forever 21 haven’t found their way over the ocean yet so consequently, there are lots of Aussie brands that dominate the shopping streets.

Examples for Australian clothing chains are Forever New, Portmans, Sportsgirl, and Cotton On. The prices are without a doubt higher than H&M, more like Topshop and the style is very trendy, hip, and bold. I enjoy the selection very much, but at the same time I have to admit to myself that I just can’t buy a new dress every week (like I sometimes used to in Germany), because it’s just too damn expensive.

Anyways, of course I did buy stuff already and what exactly, I’ll show you in a later post.