Saturday, May 31, 2008

What makes you special?



eLiberatica 2008 ended an hour ago, that's a picture with me right before leaving, near a nice IBM banner.



* Morgan suit (i think all my suits are from Morgan, they have such girlish versions to an otherwise borring piece of clothe)
* Olivia Morris ballerinas
* Mango blouse
* ACME made laptop bag

eLiberatica's Social Dinner

That's the first picture in our newly renovated office, as i was getting ready to go to the Social Dinner from eLiberatica event. You can notice that not everything is ready (cables everywhere), but still you can see the new red desks from Ikea, with the interesting peanut shape.



* Osman Yousefada for Mango dress
* Miu Miu red shoes

Friday, May 30, 2008

Outfit for today: Conference



I am at an IT (programming opensource) conference - eLiberatica 2008 (Yup! Besides egirl.ro & shopaholic.ro, that's my main occupation ) and i fell like Legally Blonde.



* pink suit Morgan
* pink slide shoes, Manolo Blahnik
* white shirt Naf Naf
* Bally bag
* gold leaf pendant

Sarah Jesssica Parker, Sex and the City Premiere



*dress by Nina Ricci->simply gorgeous

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Lookbook egirl.ro - new prizes

>Lookbook has now prizes for LookoftheWeek, chosen by one of the egirl team.

Every week, the most interesting look is chosen to be featured on egirl.ro main page. And the author will receive a nice prize too. Just add your look (actually, not one, but as many as you want and feel) and you can be that winner!

Prize for the month of June: a set consisting of a necklace, a bracelet and a pair of earrings, by interesart.ro.



Enjoy!

Hard decision!

What shoes should i bring with me in Mexico? Would i wear hills? Or just comfy flats? Do i need pink, camel, white and gold shoes? Or some other colors as well?


5XMarc Jacobs, 2xMango, some Versace, Gucci, Chanel


Or maybe i should let Yuki decide for me?

Outfit for today: Blue and yellow



* Marimekko skirt (not from H&M collection, obvious)
* Irina Schrotter yellow blouse
* Marc Jacobs sandals

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

A Nike jacket

As yuki, my little dog, already told (in Romanian, on his blog, maybe he should learn English as well :) ), this weekend we were in Pitesti (my hb home town), and then in Sinaia, in the mountains.

Sinaia is already an important point on my shopping map, part because of the clothes fair organized here twice a year, and part because you can find here some nice little shops with interesting clothes.





That's why i could not resist to take a look in some of them, and i was attracted by a somehow unusual Nike jacket with a price rather high. Because i don't often wear sport clothes, i could not see any reason to buy yet another sporty jacket, but somehow i did buy it, and right the day after a great occasion came to wear it: The Champions Night, a game between an all-time Romanian football team (like Hagi and Lucescu) and world stars like Figo or Raul.



If you want to see more pictures from the game, you can find here an entire gallery on egirl.ro.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Beauty review: Clarins 'Expertise 3P' Screen Mist

Two weeks ago i entered Sephora just because i had some time to kill, and i was attracted by the new Clarins 'Expertise 3P' Screen Mist. It is basically a spray, that contains protective sheer Screen Mist, against Artificial Electromagnetic Waves (emitted by mobile phones, laptops, etc), which visibly age the skin.



Since i am working minimum 8 hours a day in front of a computer, i talk considerably at my mobile, and back home i always have my laptop in my lap, i am probably the target for this new beauty product.

So i included this new thing into my morning beauty ritual, and although i can't say that i noticed some results, it become quite addictive. I spray my face and my neck to times each (left and right), after hydrating my skin, and the liquid gives me an instant freshness. I wait two minutes to dry, and then i apply makeup. And that's it!

Outfit for today



* pink striped Escada blazer
* Zara jeans skirt
* Bally bag
* Olivia Morris ballerinas

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Zuhair Murad

Zuhair Murad is a young and ambitious Lebanese designer, well established in his own country, that recently begun to penetrate the international market, at the beginning in Dubai and France.

Its perpetual collaboration with Mango can't but help him to become an international recognized designer, but i don't know for what reasons (maybe because of his pregnant Arabic influence), his limited collections are sold only in countries like Dubai, Turkey etc, and never to Romania. The long lacey dresses, over decorated skirts or tops are definitely not my taste, but i find his accessories quite charming, and it is frustrating to not be able to get my hands on them.



But while in Turkey, at the biggest outlet center there is, a Mango outlet store had some items from a previous Zuhair Murad collection. Among some bags and a few pair of shoes, i spotted those gold gladiator-like sandals, embellished with huge flowers. I don't know yet how to wear them, but i couldn't pass this occasion, could I?



Order!

My closet is about to explode, and in the last months i begun every morning in a desperate search of clothes. Either i managed to find the blouse i wanted, but the skirt seemed to disappear, or the opposite, i got tired to this endless search, so till we will finally move into our new (and bigger) apartment, i got myself a portable rack, to keep at least a part of my dresses and skirts.



The rack is about 1.5 m long, and i stuffed on it as many dresses/skirts (and some of my hb shirts) as i could (not to mention i built it myself, and after two days it quietly felt down, surrendering to the extreme weight i put on it -- don't worry though, now it is safe, as my hb rebuilt it with much more skill than me!). But even though i put loads of clothes on it, the tragic thing is my closet still sits on the edge of exploding, and apart from dresses, i still can't find anything anywhere...

Outfit for today: Wrap DVF dress

Today i went to a "perfume launch", that turns out to be not exactly what it seems like, but instead a campaign to use deodorant daily, sponsored by Rexona.



My outfit:
* wrap dress by Diane von Furstenberg, layered over a black top (because otherwise it shows way to much skin)
* Gucci black slides
* Bally cream bag

Gold plated leaf

You can't go any more natural-inspired jewels then gold plating real leaves of different kind of trees or plants, am i right?

While in Sighisoara, i discovered in a little shop a treasure of a pendant: a small, irregular leaf, dipped in white gold, that soon became my favorite jewelry.



It is somehow transparent, but my initial fear of being quite fragile is not true, the golded leaf is sturdy and seems it will not break easily. The transparency, the white gold and the natural form of the leaf give delicacy to the pendant, while the its size (aprox 3-4cm) makes it the perfect statement accessory.

Delicate and bold alike, feminine and different, my little white gold leaf seems to suit all my outfits lately.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Lookbook egirl.ro

egirl.ro has a new feature!

Entitled lookbook, it allows the users to upload pictures with outfits, clothes or accessories and to talk about them and exchange opinions.



It is as simple as ABC: you simply choose the picture, write a small text about it (where did you bought the clothes, where do you intend to dress like this, or what designer created the entire thing), hit the upload button, and voila! All your friends from egirl.ro can see in an instant your favorite clothes, your new purchases, or the bag you lust after!

Click here to check lookbook egirl.ro!

Outfit to meet a dino

Yesterday we went to see an interesting exposition held at Antipa Museum, here in Bucharest (Museum of natural sciences). It is a display of dinosaurs from Argentina, called The Giants of Patagonia, that contains several skulls reconstructed of some of the biggest species.

We could also see baby dinosaurs and eggs, and also in premiere an Buitreraptor gonzalensis, a small bird-dinosaur discovered recently in South America.



The expo is a multimedia one, several TVs presenting interesting aspects from the dinosaurs time, and also some toys allow you to see things from a dinosaur perspective (lateral eyes in herbivore ones, to spot quicker a predator etc).



* Day Birger and Mikkelsen skirt
* Gold by Giles Deacon for New Look grey and pink top
* Musette navy peep-toe ballerinas
* Bally bag

Book review: Remember me?

The greatest quality of Sophie's Kinsella books is humor. Her characters are funny and witty, a little bit clumsy sometimes, but all in all adorable.

This time the main character is no longer the famous shopaholic Becky, but Lexi, who, after a night in club with her friends slips off on a wet street and...wakes up 3 years later in a hospital bed. Everything in wrong, but it seems that in a good way. Her old Accessories bag transformed into a chic Louis Vuitton, her hair is now smooth and shinny and her teethes as white as you can get. Plus, a gorgeous husband that she cannot remember sits beside her, and she soon realize that she is the hospital for a completely different accident, a car one, that erased her entire last 3 years memory.



While she struggles with her new boss responsibilities, and she is horrified to find out that she is now the boss from hell, nicknamed by her former friends (now employees that hate her) Cobra, she finds out the truth about her marriage and re finds true love.

PS: That was another book (along A place called Here) i bought to keep me company in my Holiday in Mexico (3 weeks till then, can't wait), that i could not resist to read immediately.

Kylie Minogue in Bucharest



Kylie Minogue concerted last Saturday in Bucharest, a concert meant to promote her new album KYLIEX2008. She sang the pieces from the new album, but also some old ones, including my favorites that usually are featuring Robbie Williams.



We stayed some place away from the scene, so we did not exactly feel the "vibe", and i am not what you would call Kylie's biggest fan, but it was still a nice concert.





Kylie's fashion sense (remember her collaboration with H&M last summer?) was pregnant in this show. Her designer was no-one other than Jean Paul Gaultier, who created for her 7 gorgeous outfits.



The show started with her in a long purple dress, an adaptation after a 2006 haute-couture creation, then she changed into a cheerleader outfit. 2 other great dresses were kept for the final: one deep red and one blue (the so called Virgin dress). My favorite one was the sailor outfit, that i find quite wearable even outside the scene.





Pictures: kylie.com, my pictures are extremely low quality, i was not allowed to enter the stadion with my professional camera

Some more pictures here on egirl.ro

Book review: A place called Here

Along with Sophie Kinsella, Cecelia Ahern might be one of my favorite romantic writers. Her books are delicate, romantic and extremely sensible.

The first book I've read (PS: I Love You - now a movie) was extremely heart-touching, and it almost made me cry. The next book translated into Romanian was If You Could See Me Now (review in Romanian available here on egirl.ro), and it was charming, a little bit fantastic and a great read.



Sadly, those are the only two books translated so far into Romanian, so i decided to order the entire lot from Amazon, to build my summer read list. The first one to arrive was "A place called Here", and i couldn't wait for the Mexican sun in June to start reading it.

Like the previous book, a spark of magic keeps the story at the limit of a fairy tale, but the bittersweet tone and the complex psychological problems the characters have to deal with keep it contemporary.

Sandy Shortt is an extremely tall girl with black hair (hence her continuous life irony) who is extremely affected by a colleague's mysterious disappearing with no trace when they were 10 years old. Since then Sandy becomes obsessed with missing things, and eventually becomes a Garda, and then a private missing persons investigators.
But when she finds herself missing, stuck in an unbelievable place where all the missing things and persons arrive, she should definitely do something to escape.

A piece of fashion history: Turkish old costumes

Visiting the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, we've discovered an entire section dedicated to Turkish costumes. There were displayed ceremonial sultan's robes, women's outfits and cute children clothes.

It was not allowed to take pictures (i honestly don't understand why, everywhere else in the palace you were allowed), but me and my hb managed to take one picture each.



The first one (above) seems to me a little bit similar to Chinese kimonos (because of the front stitches), but the second one is made of a gorgeous coral silk.

A trip to Istanbul

As i was getting ready to go to Istanbul, i must've been extremely confused, because all i could think about was that Turkey is an extremely warm country, so i should pack sandals and tops.

But i couldn't be more wrong, it was freezing cold in Istanbul at the beginning of May, and it was just my luck that right before leaving the apartment i grabbed a light jacked and stuffed it into the luggage.



The first day we visited around, Aya Sofia and Topkapi Palace (the sultan's palace) being our main interest, beautiful places with lots of history hidden between those walls. I could not miss Grand Bazaar, were you can negotiate the prices and you can find great bargains (especially in gold jewelry) - but also a lot of fakes bags and t-shirts (there were shops literally with hundreds of Prada bags, or maybe Gucci or D&G - apparently the favorite brands here). Or a funny thing: some shops had on display exactly the same t-shirt, in several versions, only the brand being different (Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, Lacoste etc). Also a nice place was the Olivium Shopping Outlet Center, the biggest outlet in Turkey, were i did bought some things.



The reason why we went to Istanbul was actually the F1 Grand Prix, that took place that weekend. It was still freezing cold, although sunny, so i bought my self a nice warm Ferrari hood that was my uniform for the 2 days race, till the Brazilian Massa won it.



On a side note, i simply loved the Turkish cuisine. I personally recomend you, if you ever go to Istanbul, to eat dinner at Feriye LokantasI, a great elegant place near Bosfor or at 360, that's a hip hot restaurant/bar, located at the last floor of an old building, with a superb panorama over the city.

A piece of fashion history: 19th century shoes

A little museum in Sighisoara featured some clothes from 18Th and 19Th centuries.

That's a gorgeous display from a very old hat maker shop. Cute men and women's hats are hand all around, and notice also some boots.



Formal shoes and leather boots from the beginning of the 19Th century. Any resemblance between the last fall ankle boots and white shoes in the picture?

A trip to Sighisoara

Two weeks ago we spent a charming weekend at Sighisoara, the most famous Medieval City, still inhabited, in Romania.
We were lucky to find rooms exactly in the middle of the citadel, in the main square, where everything interesting was max 5 minutes away.



Sighisoara itself is a gem of interesting buildings and historical grounds, Dracula itself lived here, and you can eat a delicious meal in its very own house.
We've visited all the museums, climbed in the Clock tower and up to the Church on the Hill. Yes, those are the exact names of the places, everything here has a practical name. You can walk around School street, eat at the Restaurant Bellow the Citadel and so on.



Then we went outside Sighisoara to a horse farm, wanting to ride along the beautiful lands of Ardeal. But we were out of luck, everything was fully booked, so we just walk around the place a little bit, promising to return someday soon.



* Escada pink vest
* Paul & Shark white sweater
* Bershka off white pants
* Disney belt

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Liz Hurley's bikini for Mango

Remember when i asked why is Liz's name featured in a Mango window display in Wien?
Well, it turns out the 42 years old actress designed a special swimwear line for the Spanish chain for this summer, available now in stores.



The Hugh Grant's ex looks astonishing in the entire campaign, although some controversies arised when she declared she wasn't oppose to airbrushing. "I like a certain amount of retouching, like anybody," she admitted.





The swimsuits are simple, feminine, with a certain '60s influence. One-piece or two-pieces, all of them are monochrome, in tones like orange, bright pink or chocolate brown. Although the cute pink two-pieces one in bright pink caught my eye (hey! i am a pink girl, that's what i am) i managed to resist, considering that i bought a similar shade one-piece from DKNY this beginning of the year sale's period.



But the above mentioned swimsuit works wonderfully with the bright colored beach tunic, also available in the capsule collection, so that i was not able to resist to buy...



The collection contains as well some accessories: a sarong, some matching scarfs, a couple of gold bangles for a glamorous look, two pink beach bags (not that big enough though for all my beach needs) and some sandals (i did not see them in shop).

I have to mention here also the cute halter pink dress Liz featured in her Madrid official launch of the collection. Simply gorgeous!