12.31.2012

2012 WrapUp-Recap

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 And here we are- teetering just a few moments away from another new year with our backs turned on 2012's highs, lows, misfortunes, and thrilling moments. To be honest, I couldn't recall the year unless I scrolled through my photo stream to recap some of the moments over the past year. One thing is certain that school has definitely exhausted my free time but with only a few more months to go maybe you'll be seeing a little bit more of me {^_^}
Untitled Untitled Untitled As you can see, after reviewing the recaps of my outfits and hairstyles I must say that I am not very loyal to any looks in particular which is why I always embrace change openly. There really isn't a new years resolution that I would like to declare other than being a better wife, sister, friend, and citizen.

Below are outtakes with family and friends when I went out of town. Most of the time I was in a food coma {hence all of the food pics). Anyhoo...

Special thanks to my Hubster for taking all of my pics! And for all of your support towards the blog and the conversations surrounding my wardrobe and fashion career/style advice asked by my readers. Feel free to connect with me at any time, I look forward to developing new opportunities in 2013!

Take care everyone and be safe while bringing in the New Year!

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12.24.2012

Holiday Cheer!


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This morning I had a crazy dream that I was vacationing with Beyonce which was quite odd- not the vacationing part, but the fact that I was subconsciously dreaming about a celebrity. So weird since I'm pretty nonchalant when it comes to celebs (I never take pics or ask for autographs if I do run into one). The only connection I can make is that my cousin is coming home to visit which happened to be B's stylist for a few years...maybe I was subconsciously thinking of him. mental note: call David

Since the holidays are upon us, I have been steering clear of all retail stores (!!!) I am a complete scrooge when it comes to Christmas. It's so baddd! I think know it's because I use to work in retail doing visual display where profit was the bottom line and I saw many people spending money that they know they didn't have. I'm not going to go into a spiel about the real meaning of Christmas and about not spending at all but what I do plan on doing this year is to spend the money I would have spent on presents and use it towards some remarkable kids that I have been working with over the past few months. Whenever Christmas rolls around I think of the immense pressure for parents to buy gifts for the children and if there's anything that I can do to reduce the anxiety for parents I'm in. So I guess I'm not a such a scrooge after all. {^_^}

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

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F21 skirt
Nine West Shoes
Vintage Belt and Coat

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12.23.2012

Fab Frames: Retro Cat Eye Frame Review


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Andddddd welcome to another blog review of my Fab Frame finds product review! So far this is my third review of frames. The first was Warby Park review and the second included a pair of Clear Frames.

Here, I wanted to make a few comments in regard to these retro cat eye frames since I've received many compliments on them. To satisfy my frame fetish, I went with a different shape this time to accent my smaller face. I knew this shape would at least look half way decent since I purchased a pair of Guess tortoise frames with this very same shape in Toronto this past summer and they looked amazing with my box box braids. I figured I would take a risk and order them online from Style Vault.

The reason why I was particularly drawn to these frames is that they have a beautiful gradient which fades from black to clear on the bottom rim of the frame so they don't look too bold on my face. They're also small enough so that they don't engulf my face and add a cool retro vibe to the outfit that I am wearing for the day. I think I'm finally filling my fix for frames and can do without a few...for now {^_^}

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Fab Frames: Style Vault Clear Frame Review


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When it comes to glasses I'm pretty much the little kid who failed my eye exam on purpose just to get get a cool pair of frames. To me, glasses were always cool in the era of Sally Jesse Raphael and have recently been popular because of the variance in colour as an oversize accessory. So recently, I've been shopping around on the internet to find a few cute pairs and decided to review the purchases ever since I did my Warby Parker review and received some great feedback.

For almost a month, I've been looking for a pair of clear polycarbonate frames. I figured they would be really cute especially during the summer (yea I know it's winter now but I'm thinking for next year). So after feverishly looking in the stores in my area, I decided to purchase these last week from Style Vault. 

Here is my shortlist of pros and cons:

pros:
*super cute and lightweight
*fits virtually any face shape
*amazing look with clear and silver accessories

cons:
*slides down my face from time to time
*slightly too large for my face

The size of the glasses are as follows: width (5 1/2'') x height (1 7/8''). For starters my face is pretty small so frames that are this size will look huge on my face, which might I add, can be great when accessorizing an outfit in more casual attire. When I first tried them on I had a black blazer on and I was ready to take them back until I changed into something more comfortable.

The wayfarer shape is pretty standard across the board so if you know this shape compliments your face, you should have no problem. The other reason I really like clear frames is that it allows you to wear your the glasses without sacrificing the time and effort you put into your make-up. Overall I like these fames and will be used readily as much as anyone of my accessories. {^_^}

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Calvin Klein knit sweater
Nine West boots
Style Vault frames
Necklace from Macys

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11.29.2012

Autumnal Tones

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It’s almost December and I’m still rocking my autumnal colours like it’s early October. With the holidays rolling in, I’m sure that the snow will be eagerly awaiting in the near (near) future {^_^}
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Autumnal Tones Untitled Vintage leather shirt & belt 
Men's Watch: Target
H&M Denim 
Fossil Satchel 
Riding Boots

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11.27.2012

Target Tuesdays: The Sporty Look


A Pop of Neon

Dun, dun, dunnnnnnnn (ok that was the best movie voice that I could do). Every now and again there always seems to be that one person that brings everything back to reality again when I'm thigh deep in my studies. For me, it's my bestie Ashara and boy did she give me a tongue lashing via text when I said "WAIT, who?!" when she mentioned Isabel Marant's sneakers that spiked in popularity amongst celebs this past summer. So I had to back track a few months like where was I over the summer...Europe? Mission trip? In hiding? Well apparently I was in hiding beneath the grad work that fell on top of me and damaged my fashion intuition.

So when I found out that Isabel Marant's shoes were in Target, I just had to whip up an outfit while my sneakers are being shipped to me! Today's Target Tuesday outfit is unapologetic to the winter's mundane colours of dark and depressing hues. Nope, not this girl. I'm all about the pops of colour this time of year, especially since my wardrobe consists of more summer items than winter clothing (go figure, I live in NY and I'm not sure why).

These cute wedge sneakers go perfectly with this bright skirt with a faux leather jacket with knitted sleeves. Patterned tights are always a must with skirts during this time of year and serve as a cute accessory to pull the three knits together with the scarf. Infinity scarf. Layers of knitted scarves can be paired with any outerwear jacket and add an unpredictable element of chic because of the volume it creates around the neckline without worrying about adding a necklace which otherwise would be buried underneath your coat.

I'll be doing a follow up post once I get my new goods in the mail {^_^}


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11.22.2012

Back for the Holidays


IMG_1849ps plugps Let's just pretend that I didn't fall off the face of the blogosphere, shall we? I've missed this canvas so much...so many unpublished posts and mental photo shoots coupled with nonexistent DIYs that have been created all in my mind. Does it count that I have tons of unpublished photos on my laptop? Probably not huh? In other news, I'm about six months away from graduating with my masters and I couldn't be anymore excited to finish up my degree. A lot of great opportunities are in store I'm sure, and I'm enjoying every moment while living in the present.

Today, my hubster took a few pictures of me in our living room. The lighting and setting is so perfect that it looks like I'm on the set for some high end holiday shoot. I almost forgot how gifted he was as a photographer-love how he captures the best of me! Well I probably should be preparing for my family since dinner is our house but I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and I look forward to doing some more spontaneous blogging in the near future! {^_^}

IMG_1836ps copy IMG_1851ps IMG_1842ps These lovely earrings are from the JLC Women's collection! The girls of JLC were really kind enough to send me a few of their earrings! I'll be doing a give away for a pair of the earrings, so stay tuned! IMG_1856ps IMG_1853ps IMG_1863psNYC Plum Lip, Knit Sweater Macy's, Boots goJane

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9.09.2012

Envision Visuals: 9.9.12


So one of my graduate electives for this Fall includes the study of communication through visual aids with an emphasis on the delivery, style and interpretation of images to a given audience such as in an advertisement. Pretty cool huh? So why am I including this on my blog, you ask? (I’ll give you a minute to make the connection)……

Visual communication is driven by everything around us especially in the industry of fashion as marketers and advertisers try to appeal to our senses to evoke emotions for us to buy a particular product. As apart of the weekly assignment for this class, I have the chance to analyze an aspect of visual communication and share it in a public domain. And since my blog only has one person who edits, contributes, uploads and shares information on this canvas, it looks as though I’ll be painting my ideas on a weekly basis under ‘Envision Visuals’ for my assignments. It’s actually pretty nice that it guarantees me a topic per week to write about- so now I only have 6 other days to worry about (who am I kidding, at the max 3). So for all of you who merely skip to the pictures, you might want to stop reading now. All others who want to be intellectually stimulated, proceed.


After browsing the clothing brand’s lifestyle website, Sisley, I came across an advertisement that was provocative and controversial rolled into one graphic (perfect!) Under the United Colors of Benetton Group, Sisley has been known as the brand that consistently launches men and women’s clothing while staying on target with extremely up-to-date collections with an emphasis on uniqueness and innovation of the fashionable lifestyle. Most notably, their advertisements, geared towards a younger demographic, has continued to stay relative due to their controversial images that represent the company’s promotions. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when I came across their “Fashioin Junkie’ advertisement portraying two women as drug addicted models clad in fitted dresses with a fixated haze over their eyes. Connecting the dots I immediately knew what the company was aiming to communicate. The message that their brand was so addictive that even consumers would become obsess as well has ‘hooked’ on the brand. But did the company really think that they could get escape the criticism of this ad? Of course not, they knew it would drum up controversy on their end, but in my opinion it did more damage and harm to the industry as a whole. 

My initial impression of this ad wasn’t outrage as some would have felt it should have been. Like you, I am constantly marketed to through the use of overt and subliminal sex images in products from shampoos to fragrances. Because of this, we have become desensitized to everything as if we’ve seen, read and flipped through that ad already. But after viewing the minute details of the ad, I took another look to place the image in context to identify the subtle elements. The understated elements in the advertisement clued me in to the questions such as who was the intended audience and for what purpose. The women are seen here snorting an elegantly crafted white tank top in place of what should have been a drug, with remnants of the white powered substance on the credit card below. At first glance, you may not have noticed the exposed areola of the model to the left, implying that she doesn’t care who’s watching while concentrating on getting her fix. The word fashion is intentionally misspelled- ‘fashioin’- to make it rhyme a bit with heroine. By portraying and endorsing the women as addicted, the advertisement draws on the parallels of fashion-obsessed women with models addicted to cocaine. Furthermore, (yeah I completely not in blogging mode anymore, can you tell?) the age of the young models appeals to younger generation of fashionistas and more importantly an earlier period in the fashion industry when coke was used heavily by models in the 90’s to suppress appetite and to maintain adrenaline during busy modeling schedules. Yet the image Sisley portrayed seems to ‘undo’ the image that the fashion industry has tried to change and reintroduce cocaine on the catwalk once again. The text, language and societal elements within the advertisement conjure a certain lifestyle and set the precedence based on the interests of the intended audience.

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9.06.2012

Fab Frames: My Warby Parker Review


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The inner 5 year old inside of me has been begging my adult self to buy a pair of glasses for the 364days. But not just any glasses, some cool frames for these 20/20 bad boys on days when I want to look a little more studious in my grad classes or to be honest, to rock some cool frames just to have an excuse to not wear any eye make-up as a quick morning fix. I'm one of those people who does their make-up in the car so often that I know every bump and pothole on my route to work so that I don't gouge my eye out one day.  But the question still prevailed, Do I really need glasses? No. But do I want them is a different story.

If you’d like to continue reading be my guest….if you’re pressed for time and just want to see my Warby Parker review it kinda sucks to be you if you haven't the time *shrugs* graciously jump down to the first picture of me in the frames.

Now when I said earlier that I have 20/20 vision I kinda lied Opps because I totally blanked out on my former years during the Sally Jessy Raphael eyeglass movement. For some of you, the SJR reference completely sky-rocketed right over your head for all of you 90s *coughs* millennium babies. But for those of you who know what I'm talking about, you are well acquainted with those infamous red frames because they were ‘IT’ back in the day. So like I said, I lied but my vision wasn’t that bad at all. In fact, my prescription was about as strong as looking out of a glass window in your back room-I just used them occasionally for the board in school. I still don't know how I got glasses as a kid...maybe I lied a few times when the optometrist asked me to read line five of the eye chart...

Well overtime, chalk boards turned into projector screens which morphed into college power point slides where I really didn't need to focus on the stark contrast of white lettering on black boards anymore. Yup, technology was in technicolor and my eyes were loving it, so I didn't need the glasses as much. So what sparked my desire for wanting glasses again you didn’t ask? Well let me tell you.

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Last week, I was on vacation in an upscale mall when a pair of eyeglasses caught my eye in the suspended window display. I breezed by the greeter and immediately pushed my nose up to the coveted frames. They were simply beautiful. Two-toned bluish grey Cartier frames that faded into a nude color made me want to be four-eyed again. Yes, these are what I want. My Hubster, said ‘they look cute, get them’. And I agreed. When I looked down to see the $55 price tag I convinced myself that it was a no brainer-I definitely should have known better. I think I was drunk off the Aunt Anne’s pretzel that I ate beforehand. Because of this drunken carb state, I didn't realize that my thumb had inadvertently covered up the extra '0' that was lingering behind the double digits. Yikes. Suddenly, they didn’t look so hot. I could have bought them but the thought of wearing $600 worth on the bridge of nose was nerve racking, especially since I really didn't need them to begin with.

Returning back to our vacation villa, I threw down my awesome clothing purchases and buried my woes in my hubster’s iPad. I then remembered the genius online Warby Parker store with amazingly affordable frames. Through the ‘Home Try On’ option, customers have 5 days to try up to 5 pairs of eye or sunglasses for free- as in $0 for shipping including the free returns. Pretty good huh? I kinda like to call it the ‘Try and Buy’ program. So, I chose 5 pair to be shipped to my house, hoping it would be a nice gift upon my return home. And it was. These are the five that I settled on:
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So I decided to try them out over the next few days with my various looks. I mean as a blogger I need to be sure that these glasses are adaptable to meet my fashion standards and chameleon style. And clearly they were.  Here are the initial pictures of each of the frames:

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 Zagg

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 Roosevelt

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 Winston Brown fade

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 Winston Lunar fade

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Larkin 

All of the frames were incredibly light weight so I can imagine that the real ones that a customer orders is an even better fit and quality than the mail samples. I wore the glasses with the ultra chic white tank and jeans. The tussled hair gave the illusion I was coming right out of bed-def my grad student persona kicking in as if I had pulled an all nighter. Trying on the glasses accelerated the process of elimination: the Zagg frames didn’t quite do my face justice. Remember Marc Brown’s fictional character Arthur? Well I felt like his little sister DW in these glasses. nuff said. But I liked the trial and error process because without the liability of return fees or hidden costs, I could comfortably return them.

After looking at the self taken portraits I thought the frames looked pretty good but given the fact that a person won't be standing 3 inches from my face, I realized I needed to take a few more shots of these frames to see what I looked like far away. The results actually helped me in another round of frame elimination.
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Zagg


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Winston Brown fade
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Winston Lunar fade

After a few tries I settled on the two Winston styles and coincidently, so did the hubster. Amusingly enough, we swapped the Winston frames depending on what we were wearing for the weekend and it actually worked out nearly perfect. Here are the pics from our weekend as the 8-eyed perfectly vision impaired couple. Here are the glasses that I choose for both myself and the hubster (suddenly our 20/20ish vision needed some fab frames).

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I know that a fit model occupation exists because I use to be one, but is there such a thing as a face model?? There has to be right? I mean my face is not perfect by no means but because of my small head and less than oval face and symmetrical features, I'm kinda (and I use that word loosely) able to wear any pair of glasses that I so wish.  So in my little microcosm, it would make sense that I would be a 'face model' to test the fit and look of new frames as they are released.Wishful thinking...anyhoo.

I think we pulled it off quite nice. I’m actually still debating whether they engulf my face more than they should. But in the meantime, go forth and join the movement!  ^_^

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