My Day of Holding an Oversized Clutch

Oversized clutches are all the rage this season. If you haven't 'tried out' this trend yet, imagine holding onto a bag with your hands the whole time you're walking around and trying to rush to your next destination.

So last summer, I had plans to have lunch with a friend of my mum's at a fancy restaurant. It was a rare occassion for me since I usually don't spend more than a sandwich's worth of money on lunch, or actually get up early enough to have lunch out (-hey, it was the summer holidays!) The thought of a fancy lunch put me in a weird, cheerful mood, which prompted me to only carry a large clutch. I was probably imagining myself to be a Hollywood girl about to be photographed by the paparazzis. Like I said, my brain was clearly not awake yet. So I painfully transferred most things from my normal, larger hangbag into a smaller, oversized clutch. My clutch is basically a larger version of this Marni clutch. It's very simple and made of patent leather.

Here's how my day went: I felt very glamorous at first, clutching onto my shiny clutch and rushing to lunch. But as the day went on, I had to go to a few places to run errands and let me tell you, it is very inconvenient to have to hold onto a clutch while carrying other paperbags, listening to your iPod and trying to dig out your wallet for the underground ticket/card. The novelty quickly wore off. The said clutch is now more of a dinner-out-only clutch. As for daytime, I will stick to bags that have handles or straps attached.

Have you tried carrying an oversized clutch for daytime yet?

Image Credit: www.net-a-porter.com

Happy St Patrick's Day

Happy (early!)St Patrick's Day everyone! It took me a while, but I think I finally figured out what this day is all about: getting drunk on beer and looking green. Since I'm not a fan of beer nor of getting drunk, I think I'll focus on the latter: looking green- stylishly of course. Getting into the spirit of spring, I'm loving these cheerful looking dresses from Tibi (left) and See by Chloe (right).

Since it is not quite warm yet, I think this green coat from FCUK (left) is awesome, the model looks so cool and this season. On the other side of the temperature scale, this paisley dress from J Crew (right) is just the thing for a beach holiday.
And for the night, we have this green Raphael dress, which is my absolute favourite! I love how the gold prints line the dress in absolutely the most flattering way. And for something simpler, we have this plainer, but still very stylishly cut with cute bubble sleeves, dress from 3.1 Phillip Lim (right).
Green eye shadows are also quite the thing this season and are everywhere. This Ponder Four Piece (left) from Bare Escentuals is to-die-for! And for something with a bit more variety, DuWop also has this lovely green eye palette (right), though I'm not so sure exactly how green it really is from this picture.
For more subtle hints of green (or if you're just looking for something to match your green outfits), these green Mawi teardrop earrings are PERFECT. I love them. Its so elegant and sophisticated. For something more casual for the day time, there is this Monica Vinader Luna cluster necklace. Doesn't quite compare to the teardrops, but they'll do for the day.

The great thing about everything on this list is of course that they are all perfectly wearable outside of St. Patrick's day!

Image Source: Sephora, Shopbop, Net a Porter, FCUK and J Crew

S/S08 Trend: Jumpsuits Continued

Last June, I blogged about how I didn't particularly like jumpsuits. And after looking through the S/S08 collections on style.com, I thought jumpsuits have become a thing of 2007. But it seems like my brain was so desperate for this trend to be over that it just missed the jumpsuits in the S/S collections. Vogue.co.uk identifies them:

Stella McCartney designed a few printed, light-weight, long-sleeved jumpsuits. They look like they're for people who are bumming around the countryside, and the one in the middle looks like PJs.
Bottega Veneta and Moschino both had tailored, summery-looking jumpsuits.

Many highstreet retailers have jumped on board and are now selling them:
Urban Outfitters (US) has a few styles. These are very casual and relaxed looking. These are way too casual and PJ-looking for me, but believe me, the models in these jumpsuits look very cool in UO's Spring catalogue images!
Even Lacoste (left) came out with a preppy version of jumpsuit. And the blue jumpsuit on the left (from UO) looks very LA-style.
Jumpsuits like this red, camisole version by Top Shop is one big reason why I don't like this trend. Seriously, does anyone actually just wear this and walk around the streets? Talk about cheap-looking and skimpy!
Although to be fair, Top Shop is also selling these two cute versions. (To my horror,) I actually really like the flower-printed jumpsuit on the left. It probably wouldn't suit me and I certainly won't dish out 45 pounds for something I won't wear often, but I can image it would look cool on certain people (like the people in Nylon magazine and Top Shop ads.)

2 months back, Vogue UK had a page or two featuring around 4 people photographed in different style of jumpsuits. They all looked fantastic of course and there were quotes from them proclaiming their love for jumpsuits. In the following few weeks, a couple of UK newspapers' websites also sang their praises for jumpsuits. But at the end of day, I just don't 'get' jumpsuits. I really don't think jumpsuits are versatile at all. I mean, wouldn't having the pants/shorts and tees/tops seperate be much more versatile to mix-and-match? Oh well, I suspect I'm just very biased towards disliking the fashion from the time period when jumpsuits were popular (-the 80's right?) Let's hope we'll stop seeing jumpsuits around next S/S!

Image Credits: http://www.vogue.co.uk/, http://www.topshop.com/, http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/