Happy 2012!

One of my favorite things to do during New Years is buying calendars! It has become quite the tradition for me to hop over to Barnes & Noble for their 50% off calendars. This year, my pick is the Charley Harper mini wall calendar. Bought mine today for discounted $3.99. Those who know me, know I'm not a major fanatic of animals, but ironically, I do love cute animal drawings, especially birds. These are going to make me smile throughout the year :)

Coniferous Cardinal

Indigo Bunting

Hummingbird Homemaker

Zoo Babies

Limp on a Limb

What kind of calendars do you buy?

My faux Chanel

All the love of Chanel in the blogosphere has now got to me. There's something about the style that is distinctly feminine yet strong, professional, and timeless. There is no way I can ever afford any real Chanel, so I'm satisfied with searching for inspired things, especially the famous tweed jacket.  After searching pages and pages all over the net for a Chanel'esque jacket, I finally found one on Ebay that fits all my criteria! Ivory, collarless, cropped, black or dark blue details, cheap (won for $10), and fits.

Plastic Island jacket size XS (made in Korea)

It even has some fun sparkly threads woven into the ivory tweed (or is it boucle?....unsure of the correct term for this type of material). I plan to dazzle in this jacket! More outfit pictures to come.

In the meantime, here's some of my scrapbook pictures for Chanel jackets:

ASOS addiction wishlist

If only I had extra funds, I'll be picking these up:

ASOS Premium Cotton And Lace Trim Jacket  (sale $32.72)

 

ASOS Retro Coat With Stand Collar (sale $86.36)

 ASOS MINDY Leather Loafer Shoes with Contrast Sole ($63.63)

I'm falling for whimsical shapes and spring colors!

Love for hats

When my mom was hospital-bound during the pregnancy of my baby brother (in the early 90's), a nice nurse gave her stacks of these Victoria Magazines during her long stay to rid of the time. My mom wasn't much of a magazine reader, but she joyfully accepted the offer and would give them to me instead to read. This was how I came to love Victorian and vintage styles.

Thus, I'm excited about my new book purchase, that has been sitting in my Amazon wishlist forever:

Victoria, the Romance of Hats

($3.74, used)

The book is smaller than I expected (~1/2"x 6"x8").

Photographs are exactly like those seen in Victoria Magazines from the 90's (since it was published in 1994).

It also has some wonderful prints of famous paintings, which I love!

Even though this book is outdated, I'm still inspired by the hats!

The book covers some historical hats and milliners, but is mostly full of flowery quotes to elaborate how wonderful hats are: "However exciting, however many people may be there, an occasion is less an occasion without a hat."

Hats are awesome! Here's my own:

 Happy Holidays everyone! 

Target maxi coat review

Adi Designs Juniors Full-length Wool coat sz XS at Target

Likes: The shoulders fit, and the torso and sleeves are slim. I'm surprised back-view nips in at the waist  (instead of the boxy-look as with most maxi coats). Price at around $60-70 for a full-length, fully-lined, wool blend coat is the lowest I've seen so far. The length touches my ankles, which is what I was looking for to keep bare legs warm when wearing a short dress. The best part is that this coat is not bulky and can be rolled up in a nice compact ball (great for traveling).

Dislikes: Sleeves are a bit long (but an easy alteration since there are no sleeve buttons), wool material sort of sheds (or maybe I'm being picky, don't most wool shed a bit?)  I'm unsure about the black color. Is it too boring or witchy? (It also comes in brown or charcoal at Target.) I'm also having second thoughts about the length, perhaps it can go a bit shorter?

Even though this is only the second maxi coat I've tried, I think this is probably the best fit I can find at an affordable price, so I'm leaning towards keeping it for those emergency cold days when I have to wear a fancy dress with bare legs.  Do you think this is a keeper?

Luxury Stores book review

I have been saving all my favorite books, or books I want to own, in my Amazon wish list since 2001. It's now 2011 and I finally made my first purchase off the list! I've been hesitant in buying books in the past, because I had quite the vagabond lifestyle. Trust me, lugging around heavy books is the worst thing when the time comes to pack-up and move. Now that I finally found my nesting ground (I'll be living here as long as I have my job and mortgages to pay), I feel somewhat safe to start a book collection!

Since I'm needing inspiration to decorate my new "boutique-theme" bedroom, I decided to order this first:

Luxury Stores Top of the World 

(bought on sale ~$26)

I learned about this from one of those Vogue or Bazaar fashion magazine book recommendations back in 2009. At the time, I think this was selling for almost $100! It dipped to $60 range last few years I checked, and finally it reached the $20-30's range this winter.What great timing for me! And they only have a handful left in stock too. I'm very happy to get a hold of this book. I was a bit bummed that the outer box shell arrived a bit torn and rumpled, but luckily the inside was still sealed freshly in plastic wrap.

This book is chock-full of beautiful photographs. In fact, it's mostly all pictures (my kind of books, haha). At first glance, I started freaking out that the texts were all in French or something, but later realized that it does have English text and includes French, Spanish, German maybe?, and some other language translations for all the captions.

I can probably spend days in this book. If you are a window-shopper or a design-junkie, you'll definitely love this! This book is super heavy though, heavier than any school reference books I used in the past. The weight is due to the 396 pages of thick paper (not the flimsy stuff that tears easily). I haven't gone through the entire book, but so far, my favorite photo is actually the back cover, which is the perfect color scheme/idea for my new bedroom!

Amethyst crystal chandelier- how amazing is that!

(this photo is from Apropos-The Concept Store, Dusseldorf) 

I absolutely love this book! BTW, this will make a great X-mas gift for anyone who loves fashion, shopping, decor and design!

Yes or no for Maxi length coats?

A few weeks ago, I arrived fashionably late to a friend's wedding reception, which lead to an undesirable faraway parking spot and freezing bare legs. Although I had on my toasty J.Crew double-cloth thinsulate lady day coat covering my short dress, it only gave warmth from knee up. I never wear tights with my cocktail dresses because the colored ones seem to make my legs look shorter and more crooked. As for pantyhose, I've never found one that matched my skin tone. Thus, nothing covered my naked legs and they were painfully cold! I wished and I wished that my coat was longer to cover all. Thus begins the search for a Maxi Coat!

ASOS Belted Midi Coat (bought on sale with discounts ~$122)

Most maxi-length coats I browsed online were at least 50+ inches in length, which seems too long for my 5'1" petite frame, so I tried to be clever in ordering a "midi" length coat in hopes that it turns out to be the right ankle length for me. 

This ASOS coat is actually a pretty soft, somewhat plushy wool. As with most wool (even my J.Crew metro coat), it's a bit itchy on bare skin, but not too bothersome I had worse itchy wool. On a scale of 0-5 for itchiness, I would probably rate this a 2. Because of the length and material, it's also heavier than most coats I own. I thought the batwing-like armholes were interesting...better ventilation and comfort for the pits. Overall fit is loose. I sort of feel like I'm wearing a house robe.

Do you think this coat is too big? Are you a fan of Maxi-length coats? Should I continue the search?