Cheap Chic

So Payless shoes have been getting a lot cuter lately (I'm a poor college student, so it's my way of spending less but still looking fab), but the most recent developments brewing with this discount dealer is blowing my mind. Flipping through the first two hundred pages of the September Vogue, I found nestled ads for Payless with, to my pleasant surprise, designs by Abaete and Lela Rose will be sold nationwide. Now, Abaete and Lela Rose have all collaborated with Payless in the (recent) past, and not with out some cute pairs, but also a few duds. I must say, however that I love, love, LOVE the Abaete and Lela Rose shoes that were in the ads. These are a few pics of the new collections for Payless Shoe Source.

Abaete

Lela Rose

Mineral Madness

As long as there are new and exciting trends in makeup, there will be crazed addicts following them. The bandwagon that drugstore brands are finally jumping on is the mineral powder obsession. I have yet to try any of the products (partly because I'm happy with my own makeup regime, and partially because until Maybelline and Cover Girl, mineral makeup has been pretty pricey), but I'm going to look through the websites and try to decipher between the hype and the best buy.

Bare Escentuals, which is available online, Sephora and probably the TV, too has a really nice start-up package. For something like $60, you get nine products (four brushes, five powders), however you don't get the same deal when you need to replace one of the nine. I've had roommates who swear by bare minerals and the initial price tag seems alluring, but I think I'd need to test it out myself to decide whether the price tag is worth it (maybe another trip to Sephora...).

Bare Minerals

Sheer Cover gave Leeza Gibbons a makeup pedestal during infomercials. That's about the only good thing I can say. The website really has nothing to say about the product, unless you watch the videos, which mimic the infomercials. I don't see prices, unless you count the 60-day guarantee that is plastered all over the website. In addition, there are no pictures of the product, just lots of Leeza Gibbons.

Sheer Cover

Cover Girl has four mineral makeup products, and it's part of the already-established TruBlend collection. If that weren't enough to show that CG may not be ready for minerals, the mineral foundation is a pressed powder, however the bronzer and blush are both loose powders. The online reviews of the foundation are not great, and the vague mineral "powder" doesn't have many great reviews either. The blush had fantastic reviews while the bronzer had mixed reviews. If you do choose to buy into CG's mineral makeup, use your own brush. I think I'll wait to see how the labs at CG improve the product before I invest. (Though all of the products are economical and fit into CG's established price range).

Cover Girl

Maybelline is another drugstore brand to try its hand at minerals. It seems as though Maybelline is the brand with the most diversity in products. If you like liquid concealer and foundation, they have it. If you like powder (which is what I generally think of when I imagine mineral makeup), this one has better credentials than CG's, and has a better applicator. This powder foundation has won awards and been recognized by Oprah. And it comes in at about $10; I may make a trip to Walgreens soon. The finishing veil that Maybelline retails is a pressed powder - they also have a bronzing veil, but I think in the future they may come out with a loose powder veil. Even the mineral blush has racked some awards, and it comes in more shades than CG's two.

Maybelline

I'll go out an try some of the Maybelline mineral makeup. It fits my budge the best (you can get all of the products for roughly the same price as the Bare Escentuals starter kit, and they are much cheaper to replace) and honestly seems like it's the best buy all around with the awards it's won.

Interior design is fashion, too!

Many regrets for not posting in about a week. I blame the Olympics, and getting things ready to move into my apartment, which brings me to the topic of this post.

Pretty much every year of a student's academic career comes with new and exciting things. Senior year and prom, freshman year of college and dorm stuff. I come to the sophomore year of college and shopping for apartment wares. And if target didn't already have enough fabulousness to offer (hello, the GO International collection, Isaac Mizrahi, and others), Sami Hayek has a small, but really exciting line from lamps to linens to picture frames and shelves. I indulged in a few (like some shelves and a lamp - nothing terribly exciting, but a notch above practical).

I also channeled Martha Stewart when I made my own picture frames to decorate my walls. Plain, solid colored frames in a variety of sizes are two for some really low price, you feel like you should be casing the place. But with a bunch of extra sorority car decals, the frames were decorated to match other aspects of the room.

The point of all of this is, that even with something as mundane as dolling up an apartment, it can be made to fit an individual style. Sort of like DIY jeans and cardigans, but for your space. It's nice, and works just as well as retail therapy.

Wild Kingdom

Is it just me or will this fall's offbeat, last season comeback be animal prints? Clicking through style.com and flipping through the magazines out on the racks - whose ads for many designers show and extreme amount of leopard and cheetah prints - it's clear that the African savannah is here to stay (and I'm not just saying that because we're having a slew of 100+ degree days here in North Texas).

Take for instance Ralph Lauren. His collection was covered in spots, from the shoes, to the bags, to the hats, to dresses and jackets. When you look at the detail shots all you see is close up after close up of leopard print on everything. He focused on other strong patterns too, but in this photo, on the two models you see hats, bag and shoes in animal print!

A/W runway

When I flip through this month's Vogue, Roberto Cavalli has an animal print inspired gown in an ad and throughout his fall show, there were garments with animal print trim. I think Cavalli was more inspired with the prints than Ralph Lauren because he was more inventive. With Ralph Lauren it was the same print over and over, no variation. Cavalli, on the other hand used variation and didn't show the same print in the same way twice I would love to flounce around in one of Cavalli's pieces.

A/W runway


ad campaign

Ralph Lauren and Roberto Cavalli were not the only two to feature animal prints, several other designers had a skirt here, a vest there and some other variations on animal print trim up their sleeves. It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the next few months.

Plaids are another underdog trend that may pop a little this season. Ralph Lauren and House of Holland had plaid all over their collections for fall. I'll maybe comment more on that later.

The Return of Pat Field

The ABC show, Ugly Betty, with its third season starting this fall returns to its pilot filming digs – NYC, well Brooklyn to be exact. For the world of fashion, this move means something big, because, also for the first time since the pilot, Pat Field will be styling for the show. I think my heart stopped when I heard the news, or rather when I read the news. The August 2008 issue of BlackBook Magazine (ok, so I don’t keep name dropping the home of my first internship for any other reason than it pertains to my posts – no monetary gain on my part for giving it the little publicity it receives here on my burgeoning blog) revealed this fact and several others about and surrounding cover-girl America Ferrera – pick up a copy to read all about it (and see the spreads I assisted in styling, but that’s beside the point). One among them is the prized tidbit that Pat Field will return to Ugly Betty. We all know and love her for her work with SJP and SATC, but now the world will be waiting with breath that is baited to see what she does for another show about what it’s like to be fashionable – or in this case, not fashionable. But my guesses are, even with the ever fashion-don’t Betty, Pat Field will make her stylish in her own right. Now, with the show claiming Ms. Field, I will be more inclined to watch, so long as my studies permit it.

A happy ending

Happy 30th Betsey Johnson!

Last night, to conclude my internship, I was my editor's "plus one" for the Betsey Johnson 30th Anniversary Party at her Soho boutique. It was awesome, really, the best way I could have imagined to end my summer in the city. While I couldn't get a pic with Betsey herself, I did get two feet from her and some shots of her mingling. She was so cool, however due to the space being packed from the dressing rooms to the flower-wallpapered walls, there were no cartwheels. Even without her cartwheels, the party was fun. Everything was pink; from the cocktails (cosmos, pink champagne, you name it, it was pink!), the cupcakes, twizzlers, m&ms, etc. And everyone was hot (ok, so maybe it was due to limited space and overcrowding, but all of the people were pretty, seriously, not a single ugly human anywhere). The cocktail waiters were all models, my editor even recognized a few from past shoots. All in all it was a really fun event.



And just like the Oscars, there was a goodie bag! It was really exciting, kind of like Christmas. I went home with a watch (one that I'd actually been oogling on her website!), some perfume, some makeup, a bracelet and a thong. Ok, so I'm done talking about me and my time, I want to take a stroll down memory lane with some of my favorite (recent) Betsey looks.

The Fall 2008 RTW collection had some really fun pieces, but I absolutely loved look 27, with the feminine overalls and floral blouse underneath. It's so Betsey, I absolutely love it! This look epitomizes what I think is her eccentric, feminine aesthetic, but all the while completely wearable. She amazes me every time, and this is definitely something I hope to see girls wearing in a few months.


Her prom-themed Spring 2008 RTW blew me away, it really did. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it on style.com. She was adorable at the end when she and her granddaughter wore the same dress - precious! But of the collection I thought 21 had something special to it. With the quirky glasses, the corsage and the tiara, this looks like it really could have been a girl at prom - it's totally relatable, but still fashion.


The Fall 2007 RTW collection (other than being her most dated on style.com) is one of her more sophisticated, rather than being fanciful. I love, though, that even in such a sophisticated collection, she was able to introduce a little bit of girlish flair. Look 49 is fanciful and feminine, really sophisticated, and a little French looking. It's a fantastic garment, and it's one I wish I could have hanging in my closet.