Tuesday, January 31, 2017

carine roitfeld for uniqlo 2016

(photos from all over the net via google)

A little background on the one responsible for this immaculately good collection in collaboration with Uniqlo before anything else: Carine Roitfeld. Carine, for about a decade from 2001-2011, was Vogue Paris' editor-in-chief. Upon Carine's resignation being put into effect in 2011, the equally timelessly stylish Emanuelle Alt has since succeeded her. Carine's reason for retiring from her post from the iconic French fashion magazine---some of its older issues I'm currently coveting because...I don't know...I think I'm perpetually stuck in its 2007-2009 aesthetic era much like I am stuck perpetually on everything about the 90s---was to focus on her personal projects. Since her retirement from the French Vogue, she has released a book, Irreverent; launched her own fashion and style inspiration magazine, CR Fashion Book; and then this collection with fast fashion establishment, Uniqlo. I'm sure there are a few others she's done since I've missed but I haven't really looked into that, that much. I'm still learning and discovering more of the past, recent past and even the present things we can aptly tag 'iconic' on everything French (and American and Japanese---because my aesthetics revolve around those three in reality and as what is being painted on this blog as time passes) fashion day by day

This collection was released last year. Since the nearest Uniqlo branch in this part of South East Asia is an overnight's worth of trip on a ship in Cebu City from Cagayan de Oro City, it explains how I missed it. Cagayan de Oro City is perpetually late on everything fashion granted we just got our H&M tail-end of last year.

Carine Roitfeld for Uniqlo, from the campaign photos alone, exudes everything Carine from the model representing it on print media and the physical presentation itself. The model for its print media promotion for one looks to me like a very young Carine who was herself, at the time, a model, from the hair to the smoky eye make-up and of course the styling. This collaboration between the French fashionista and Uniqlo is one of those that reminds me of the gaping holes (missing pieces) from my own wardrobe that I ended up looking into pieces from it on ebay and promptly fell in love with the leather/moto jacket that showed up on my search. It really doesn't help that I've been searching high and low for the right leopard print scarf to brighten up, rather glamourize a pretty monotonic look I'm known for putting up on numerous posts on this space of the blogosphere. Notable things that I really like from this collection are the patterned tights, of course the leather (or it may have been faux leather...I'm not sure) jacket, the well structured coats and blazers (all black, yuum! and one coat in faux fur to boot!), the white t with a caricature of Carine in it, and the leopard print faux fur coat. Now can Uniqlo please, like, open up here soon...?! And thanks! 

I did go to a Uniqlo in Metro Manila last year with people (dad and a couple of aunts, the family friends kind) but I don't really recall this collection being displayed way back when. Maybe it was just being put together back then, being prepared for the worldwide launch. Hmn...


....and here's Carine herself modeling her t-shirt for this Uniqlo collection and styling its presentation...


randomly untitled because i couldn't think of anything haha

 cardigan and bag, vintage; racerback tank, bench; shorts, tally weijl; wedges, CLN; leaf necklace, forever21; necklaces and rings, aizilim; tights, robinson's department store

Tuesday: completely air dried hair and a mix of...well...stuff.

Friday, January 27, 2017

not really office friendly but close

 blazer, bag and shoes - all vintage; dress from hongkong (z.ro brand); rings and necklaces - aizlim and forever21; bracelet, LC Lauren Conrad

Office wear styling is not really a strong forte of mine given I like to mess up what seems to be one with vintage combat, laced-up ankle boots or some similar toughie footwear.  

I'm pretty sure you've seen this dress floating around on this blog numerous times but probably not this clearly. A little backstory on this piece, though: mum and I procured it at the brand's warehouse store during the city tour of Hongkong at half the price...? I don't really remember anymore. But it was pretty affordable. I guess the better approximation of how it cost back when we got it was that it was at warehouse sale/bulk price. I was then only in 5th grade, if memory serves me right. More than a decade or so later, this remains one of the most versatile things in my wardrobe as I haven't taken this thing out regularly...for whatever occasion. I'm currently making up for it at this time. 

The blazer is going to the ebay shop in a bit. The pretty gold leaf print/embossing on the mostly black buttons is why I've actually bought it from a local thrift shop eons ago. 

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

back to the white t

 h&m t; levis cutoffs; vintage belt; gifted bag (it used to be gold colored, now it's rusty-ish close to black); rubi/cotton on via zalora boots (phs 1-2); zalora birkenstock-like flats (ph3); aizilim necklaces and rings; forever21, souvenir shop, kristine's in limketkai center/mall bangles/bracelets; dad's sunglasses

It's been hot and then a bit colder with cloudy skies in the late afternoon recently. Spring-like weather slash temperatures from nations nearest the equator, I guess? ....and this is why I am officially back to the white t and denim shorts, short skirts/dresses train again...I guess. It certainly hasn't been raining much. Ugh. Finally. 

Hmn...you'll probably be seeing a lot of variations of this more often now...on the way to my favorite season that's summer.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

makeshift silky wrap

 vintage maje dress, jessica simpson straw fedora, burlington (via robinson's department store) socks, CLN wedges, forever21 filigree cuff/bracelet, aizilim necklaces, smashbox netted choker 

The dress is originally knee-length. After knotting together a large portion of the satiny fabric up front and now it looks like a fairly-like wrap dress. The dress, due to the silkiness, has a luxurious feel to it when worn that it can be a piece to go on a night out in or even stay in on some weekends if one likes to. ...and I figured brown and navy blue would look pretty good together.

01-23-2017 ebay listings


A couple auctions and one Human Heart Nature item is up live on my ebay right here from tonight for Philippine residents/locals. Click on the items for sale's links for more information. Feel free to email me on inquiries. 

More listings/auctions to come in the next few days. 

Sunday, January 22, 2017

saturday nights are for chilling and getting down to deep house/tropical house music

 secondhand hot topic t, zalora sporty skirt (phs 1, 2), zara super skinny jeans, vintage belt (not pictured but used in ph 3), forever21 ankle boots (phs 1, 2), CLN wedges (ph3), bag is a gift from an aunt (random, unknown brand), mix of forever21 vintage and souvenir shop shell (from Dumaguete City) bangles/bracelets, aizilim rings

Chilling to and getting down to deep house/tropical house tonight. It's Saturday here, so... Back on topic: CREAM's Summer Mix 2014 is the record to put on loop with a ton of gems from STAY to Wonderland to Whatever feat. WISE & Tarantula (Spontania) [Unedited Version] to Forever Young to #nofilter. There are a few other tracks I deliberately avoided mentioning back there but these are what make this record for me. I love a sampler or especially full record that you can actually dance the night away in, in your room or in a deserted beach strip. This is something difficult to find along with records that makes the listener (me) feel. Ah yes, more chill dance music to make me miss the summer even more and wish it to come on here and hurry up quick. 

....and something totally random: to give you an idea of what a playlist for most nights and some days to me looks like, I was looking around youtube earlier tonight to new music from the Chainsmokers (is it just me or are they seriously transitioning to a more Filous-y, Kygo-y style of music with Paris from the edgy, dark-ish drops-heavy debut track, Roses? I'd like it if they stayed experimental house/edm, though. The Chainsmokers are pretty good at experimenting with everything edm. If you can't follow my train of thought here, try their older EP, Bouquet and then get back at me to convince me otherwise...), old stuff from Shura, Tove Lo, Da-iCE, FEMM, FAMM'IN and a few others more. And now I'm listening to the 'deep, tropical house' playlist---comprising of about 30 to 40 highly varied house tracks (stuff from Filous, Alex Schulz, Ben Phipps, Instant Karma, Lost Frequencies and more) found from all over youtube---I have on windows media player. This playlist grows by the by as I go to my favorite youtube channel source for feel good music like the playlist's contents at least once every 2 weeks or so. I listen to a healthy mix of indie and mainstream pop stuff, actually. I like variety in the different kinds of music I listen to since mood dictates what music I listen to as much as it does how I dress/clothe myself. But, as of late, I've been more on deep house/tropical house than regular pop and my usual dose of alternative (pop-)rock (usually the euro/brit kind). This is the kind of music I can even sleep to...who says EDM has to be all techno, heavy, loud music that's highly distracting? Chill ambient deep house and/or tropical house is where it's at, yo. It's so mind-numbingly good it's great for trying to shake away the stresses and strains that life brings on a daily basis. It's highly effective in blanking my mind to the state of near-meditation. If you get what I mean as I am rambling more here now... Anyway, since I went this way middle of last year in music preference direction...I haven't the heart to come back to real world pop music except maybe to check if my other favorite pop and pop-rock musicians have released new stuff from time to time. And to conclude this pretty long, somewhat incoherent? rambling, let me just reveal that: to this day, I'm still dreaming of owning a CD/record collection so varied but mostly pop, mainstream and indie that transcends language barriers, culture divides and more...that and possibly dj-ing (and possibly music producing) since I'm so into house music nowadays. I'm currently trying to scheme ways to actually learn how to dj, remix tracks (edm/house remixing/mixing is becoming an obsession for me somehow) and fix a good, pretty original pop tune...and practice it. That's the dream anyway.

At some point in their lives, I think that people who have been classically trained (from late grade school to college, I've been dabbling in guitar - self-taught and classical singing and piano [via known, local reputable music school with an amazing teacher to boot...RIP since she's passed away eons ago, I miss her /sad]) in music who also dabble a bit on pop music would end up getting drawn hopelessly to the magic that is house music or edm (techno-altered music). I went there and am here, a house music obsessed someone... I mean, we do have people like Zedd and Kygo among a few others and to my knowledge, Zedd did classical piano before moving to and staying put indefinitely with techno edm/house stuff...so...yeah. Well...I could go on and on discussing house music/edm and pop music and then bore y'readers...if you find pop and house music/edm talk boring (as I don't...really...so...it's pretty interesting a subject to let go of...sort of---confusing, I know, I usually am a bumbling overthinking mess...usually...) so I'll end this one here and save the rest for later. Much, much later. I just felt like laying a lot of this on here so much tonight somehow...and yeah...I don't really know much why I'm like this tonight either...

***
Music talk came first before outfit talk...hmn... This is a first. Life came down to photos 1-2 today on my way to the local Humanheartnature branch only to find that they've postponed the magalogue turnover and moved it to the 28th. Swapped the skirt for these zara jeans I'd bought two seasons or so ago with a few others still tagged, for a quick trip out later in the early evening. I think I mentioned this eons ago before but I have the habit of waiting for the right occasion to wear things from certain purchases. Well, it's pretty old news from my end.  

Life is coming down to sleeping to the deep house, tropical house wmp playlist in 3...2...

Friday, January 20, 2017

denim on lace on vertical stripes on velvety fabric

  denim top/dress and bag - vintage; knee-high boots and tights - forever21; shorts, tally weijl; bracelet/cuff, rings and necklaces - aizilim and kristine's boutique at limketkai center/mall

 close-up on outfit details

aizilim rings and bracelet/gartered cuff; vintage bag; iphone 4s; coach iphone/android case/pouch; hello kitty earphones from Daiso; peppermint humanheartnature lipbalm (click here for Philippine locals) and color creme lipstick (click here for Philippine locals)in coral charm (nude shade); watsons retractable lip brush

Today's details include denim, lace, gray vertical stripes, and velvety and suede-like fabric on the knee high boots along with specks of gold by and silvers and black and shades of brown. I'm also putting the denim top/dress on sale on my ebay in a bit, yes, definitely this month. And...finally...hallelujah! No rain today but the skies were a bit cloudy. Hopefully this means that we're well on our way to sunny, cheery summer!

Tomorrow is Humanheartnature's magalogue turnover here. Every branch of the company's store is holding said event all over the islands nation. I haven't rsvp-ed as I don't have a facebook account therefore I can't follow them there but I'm definitely going there around 10 in the morning to check out what new stuff they're offering.

In case you're wondering about the earphones from Daiso and them being Hello Kitty to boot...I've been using them with the iPhone whenever I watch the anime, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo (english trans: The File of Young Kindaichi) on Kissasian...when I can't be bothered with watching on the laptop (especially when my hair is wet from the bath which makes using my favorite headphones difficult for some reason) which is most of the time.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

taking the gloom out of a dreary thursday

 target maxi henley tank dress, vintage open knit sweater, forever21 leopard headband, ninewest clutch, zalora (rubi/cotton on) boots, aizilim rings and necklace

Second day hair, pop of red and leopard, all black...exactly what today warrants granted it's been raining on and off for three days of the week now. Classes and work have been cancelled here in anticipation of flooded streets and rising water levels of rivers, streams and the likes. Dreary day, drama-less clothes. Well, there's the weekend to look forward to although I'm only looking to download the next episode to Kamen Rider Ex-Aid later...it would be fun to do a movie marathon of some sort...we'll see.

I have weird vintage stuff in the wardrobe for some reason but it's fun to play with them with like color-ed basics. The photos here do not show it but I had to bunch together and tie the middle part of the dress and the lower part of the sweater with a black hair tie to keep the foot of the dress from hitting the floor. Definitely taking note of this just so I can do the same when I get to take this maxi number out in the sun...or under cloudy skies. Doing so, I find, keeps me from agonizing over having to laundry or wash the thing's muddy parts. Of course wearing heeled footwear would keep something as long as this from getting mud, water, dust and stuff on it, too. I avoid long stuff for this very reason that, I guess, you could aptly term clothing preservation.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

95% black

 dress and belt, vintage; forever21 leggings; heels, zalora; scarf, a gift; bag, a gift from an aunt (bought from either khol's or marshalls); rings, aizilim; necklace, random boutique in limketkai center/mall (lkkc); bracelet, LC Lauren Conrad (Khol's)

I think this works better without the scarf or with the scarf and then a hooded coat or cardigan. I'd grab onto the latter to go out in this and swap the heels with a pair of ankle boots as it's raining a bit hard again outside early this Wednesday evening. I was going to shoot this outside with the CLN wedges that I thought would look better with this as it's a lighter brown or tan/beige in shade then it rained so there goes the going out plans again. It's been a thing the past couple of weeks into January 2017 so far. Wedges, chunky heeled sandals aren't really advisable to wear out much this season---unless you'd want to see them ruined by the puddles of water and even rainwater---seeing as it's cloudy one part of the day, usually in the morning until noon, and then raining the rest of it until early evening or so.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

rained in on a monday

 What A Girl Wants altered/shortened dress, forever21 top, zalora (by rubi) ankle boots, aizilim rings and necklace, smashbox choker

 with vintage/secondhand parka

What I was sporting early afternoon yesterday for warmth. I swapped it later for a cozier oversized sweater to sleep in. I'd've worn the parka over this ensemble to go out if I had to yesterday but...heavy rain was had at around 2 or so in the afternoon that lasted until around 8 in the evening. Going out around that time to do whatever was thrown out the window...well, not that I really had any plans to or needed to. Everyone else around the city was rained in too and opted to stay where they are, especially if they were around schools, universities, hospitals and other business establishment buildings to keep warm and safe. Streets were flooded in the aftermath. It felt like it rained a week's worth of precipitation much like the tragedy due to storm/typhoon Sendong a few years ago. Luckily, this one happened in the middle of the afternoon so likely, there isn't much mortality rate recorded. This is likely my way of saying 'Cagayan de Oro City is still fine, everyone!' because, well, it is and we managed to weather through whatever yesterday brought in. It's still cloudy today but there's rays of sunshine so hopefully there won't be any rain later as it might worsen the flooding that's still likely upon us in some low-lying areas of the city. I'll keep watch over whatever the local meteorological group, PAGASA, has to say on twitter re: predicting today's weather (whether there'll be rains or what) just to be aware and ready of anything should something worse come along. Hopefully there won't be any however as a lot of places in and out of the city are still trying to recover from some flashfloods and flooding.

....and if you notice that the top is also something I have in the cream/white version here...it's really because I got it in both colors. 9.something USD for each was something I didn't want to pass off of when I'd seen something as versatile as this piece. I was studying it online beforehand and decided to pounce when I spotted it on the racks of Forever21's branch on Fashion Island in SoCal about a year or two ago.   

Saturday, January 14, 2017

fuzzy white

 vintage fuzzy sweater dress/one piece, Robinsons department store tights, zalora ankle boots, aizilim rings, verano via zalora tri-strand ribbon choker in pink

I'm quite positive I'm the exception to the rule of asian people being dressed quite colorfully on a daily basis. The vibrant cities of Asia are colorful...true. Unfortunately, when it comes to wardrobe color schemes, I don't really contribute to that multitude of color in the streets. I'm mostly monotonic when it comes to dressing up on a daily basis and thrive mostly on comfort and textures despite often being seen in black, white, navy, and gray. I guess I'm more attuned to the simple western style of dressing than the frivolous typical asian girl daily dressing.

....and this is totally that vintage dress I was talking about in the previous post being the one of about two fuzzy, furry things I own.  

These are couple of things that get me through the colder days and nights in the tropics. That Humanheartnature's citronella oil-based bug shield is available in oil form is a blessing as I can use it in two ways: with the clay tea-light essential oil diffuser and as a regular body oil insect repellant. Rainy season does mean more mosquitoes and the likes so one might as well stock on this one...oil or lotion form.