Vertu

There is a "luxury" version of everything, from luxury towels to luxury bags. When it comes to luxury mobile phones, Vertu phones are definitely on the top of the list.

Made of 69.25 carat pure scratch-resistant sapphire crystal, hard wearing ceramic fit for space shuttles, jewelled ruby bearing to support each key and around the clock/world concierge service, each phone costs a whooping $20000!! Roughly that is- and no I did not accidently typed in an extra zero.

And for the Paris Hilton's of the world, they even made a limited edition 2005 one in pink, with soft pink backlighting and hand embossed pink leather!

But for those who are not mega rich, Nokia (who also owns Vertu) created the Nokia 8800 series based on Vertu phones. It has an impressive 5 megapixel camera, scratch-resistant glass screen, high quality stainless steel body, stunning color display and a very cool and fun to play with sliding design. Plus the price is only $1000, 1/20 of Vertu's price. So I guess this is the not-so-luxurious luxury phone?

Stylish Evites

I'm sure a lot of you have been inspired to follow Harrod Girl's example and have a "Gilmore Girl Style" dinner party of your own. I'm no expert at party organising (that's Harrod Girl's forte), but let me get you started with the invitations! Handwritten invitations of course is all very good for super formal events, but for small personal dinner parties that might be slightly over the top and a waste of paper. The word of the mouth is too casual and unreliable. So naturally sending out evites is the best option. Afterall, what girl in this day and age doesn't check their emails at least once a day?

This very stylish evite from www.stilacosmetics.com is what we all recieved from Harrod's Girl for her nice little gilmore girls dinner party. Isn't it super cute? Although the trouble with this evite is that one can easily mistaken it for junk mail. . . like I did.

But this evite, from www.evite.com is by far the most stylish evite I've recieved. Naturally being "evite".com they are the professionals. Not only do they have the most stylish graphics, but the best layouts. Because apart from the evite, you can also keep track of whose invited, whose coming and whose not. No RSVP emails needed!

But if your not holding a private party, but an all out everyone-whose-anyone-should-come party and your brilliant with html and website making, then the above invitation/website is very cool indeed. Great publicity, great graphics, great party. See you there girls!

Sienna Miller, post Jude Law

You know how magazines always go on and on about how wonderful Sienna Miller's outfits are, and you think you're not really impressed? Well, before Sienna got engaged, her outfits were pretty inspiring, but after her engagement, her outfits just looked downright sloppy. However, has anyone noticed that ever since Jude *coughthatbastardcough* cheated on her, she has been looking more stunning than she has for ages!

After dining at celebrity dining hot spot, The Ivy. The mix of style is really stylish, and those shoes/boots really add character!

She's wearing such a cute doll-like top! The photos aren't great, but you can see that there is actually a lot of details to this casual top.

Sienna finishes dining at The Ivy with one of Jude's co-stars. Isn't this simple white dress so gorgeous? The fitting is amazing for such a casual dress, and the sandals match so well.

Here, Sienna is attending the Cartier International Polo Event, (and it's the same event which she supposedly flirted with Orlando Bloom!) This is one of my favourite Sienna outfits. The simple black dress, well-matched gold necklaces and a lovely cardigan, and of course, her signature golden locks. It is absolutely amazing -I can't stop gushing over it!

This photo is of the same event, her with Mathew Williamson, (for those who don't know, he's a recent famous British designer and Sienna's good friends.) With those sunglasses, she'e the definition of cool -what better way to say "I'm so over you!"

You go girl!

Barneys Girl's Intership III: The Models

Apart from being exposed to the fashion designing industry, I also came into contact with another very exciting part of fashion-the modelling industry! Having been a dresser for the models during presentations, I was cooped up with many of them in the dressing room for hours on end. And I found out loads about the modelling life as a result. So here are a few interesting insider facts:

• Contrary to common belief, they are not very up themselves at all. In fact, they're all such darlings!! We had such fun girly chats together in the dressing room. Afterall they are all about 15-20 years old, what else do 15-20 yr old girls do? LOL
• Modelling cards (sheets of cards with a selection of thier best pictures on it along with their measurements etc) are not only very pretty but also very useful. And not just in the work sense either. They can also be used to get into exclusive VIP list only clubs and allow you to do things for free there.
• They all started modelling when they were really young and come from all over the world from Estonia to Brazil. (Incidently the girl from Estonia was very impressed that I've actually heard of and know where Estonia is-apparently not many people do)Their modelling agencies fly them around the fashion capitals of the world 3 months at a time. And no they don't get to do it for free. no. The cost of their living and air ticket are taken out of thier pay from the work they do in that country.
• They get paid almost nothing for magazine shots or runway shows, because of the added public exposure they get from it. And shoots takes all day, because it takes hours to get the make up and hair just right, and another hour or two to change the look if its not "right". And no, they rarely get to keep the clothes they model.
• Suprisingly, they get paid most for doing catalogs and internal presentations (like the one they were doing for our company). Although it IS actually quite physically straining to be constantly changing outfits for 3-4 hours at a time-and be quick about it too!
• Everyone in the fashion industry absolutely LOVES Mac, because of its huge array of colors. And how Dermatologica is reputedly very good for the skin (according to a French model).
• Make-up and lighting makes a LOT of difference. I was looking at their portfolio and I swear if I didn't know, I wouldn't have recognized it was them! There is this picture where this completely fair girl is like 10 shades darker! This makes me finally see why models like Gemma Ward and Lily Cole are so successful-

For one thing, I can actually differentiate them from the sea of models on the runway. And I think that I would actually recognize them on the street if I ever see them (although this may also be due to Harrods Girl's influence. . ).

Yup, talking and working with these girls was definitely the highlight of my internship! Ok, I know, I've been going on and on about my internship all week now. Sorry if I've bored you guys. I promise will stop talking about it and go get a life now!! ;)

Madagascar

What do you do when your very good friend, who you will not see for at least another year, asks you (and your group of friends) to watch a farewell movie before she leaves, and the only movie available at the time is *faints in horror* Madagascar? You simply have to sit through it and try to not feel guilty about wasting the money (which could have been better spent on beautiful clothes.)

So much to the displeasure of Barneys Girl and I, we got stuck watching a stupid zebra wishing to live in the oh-so-lovely wilderness *sarcastic*, and decides to actually run away. Then the zebra's three best friends decide to try to save him, but they all end up on an island that is very in the middle of no where. Of course, the story proceeds that the animals freak out, have fun, get over any evil and problems, and live happily ever after. Don't I just sound so excited?

If you're wondering what we were like during the movie, here it is:
- After getting over the zebra's idiocy of running away from the lovely New York Central Park Zoo, where he gets fed for free everyday, I slowly drifted into a state of half asleep halfway through the movie.
- When the animals start starving, Barneys Girl whispers to me "That lion is so right; what was the zebra thinking?" I agree with the most enthusiasm I have shown throughout the movie.
- Barneys Girl and I very much sympathise the poor, traumatised lion in such a lost situation.
- Two of our friends enjoyed and laughed through the movie, (they even sort of danced with the overly joyful music,) while our other friend kind of nodded numbly through it. Talk about different reactions.

And yes, the penguins are my favourite character. They were most definately the smartest. Not to mention that black and white is going to be so popular this coming season!

So the conclusion is, don't watch Madagascar unless you're under the age of 5. (What were they thinking? There wasn't even any romance throughout the whole cartoon!)

Barneys Girl's Internship II

And here are a few more interesting tidbits that I've gathered about the fashion designing industry this month:

• It is NEVER just yellow. No. There are about a million shades of yellow, so much in fact that they don't even have a name, but a number instead! I'm really well acquainted with this, having spent hours trying to find a yellow that matches this piece of cloth and sorting through fabric trying to MAKE a colorbook!
• Designers have weird habits (like eating only banana and chocolate for snacks) and are extremely moody and temperamental people and are feared by the rest of the staff.
• Everyone in the industry are perfectionists, down to the type (wooden), direction (curved inwards) and way (facing inwards) the hanger is hung.
• Even though designers know thier stuff and can match seemingly mismatched clothes wonderfully, they do not neccessarily represent the height of fashion and style themselves. In fact, nor do the staff of the design develpoment team.
• Fashion stops in August when all the fashion houses and even fabric companies go on holiday for a month.
• Everyone working in the fashion industry (who counts) has made a dress from scratch at some point in their lives.
• French is a very useful language to know in this industry. I was so impressed when my department head and the Parisian designer started gibbering in french!!

All in all, as much as I love fashion, I don't think the fashion designing business of it is my forte afterall. And on a side note, I would like to express my new found respect for the working gals!Juggling work, fashion, family, friends, guys and beauty all at once is NOT easy. You go girls!

Barneys Girl's Internship I

Phew~ I'm back from a weekend of fun fun fun!! And now I can finally look back at my internship with fondness and fun. So I worked at the design development department of a local fashion brand, which also have stores across Asia and in Europe. In fact, I do believe they plan to be opening a counter at Harrods near Whistle's soo. So a really exciting place indeed!

And I've learnt SO much about the fashion designing industry too! Who'd have thought that making clothes is such a looooong and tiresome process??? The start of a season takes place a year ahead. Right now, fashion houses would be working on the fall/winter 06 collections, just when we're stepping into the FW 05 collections. And to keep ahead of time, there would be fashion "add ons" closer to the season to incorporate latest trends. So first, designers and their team go to fabric shows in Italy and France, like MODA IN and Premier Vision in September, to collect samples to be considered for their future collections. They then decide what fabrics they want to use and draw designs using them. These designs are then carefully considered and the selected few would go on to be made into "prototypes" (or the first version of the product), a few yards of that fabric would be ordered for this purpose. Once the prototypes are made, models then present it to the designers and future buyers. In these presentations, buyers would select items they would buy and how much they would buy. The clothes selected are then further developed by the designers through many, many rounds of fitting and adjusting (the prototypes are far from being perfect). And usually 3 more versions of the prototype would be needed before the final product is ready for mass production. And every little detail needs to be perfect, down to the size of the button!!

So yes. This really makes one appreciate the effort and vision (I would never be able to imagine the clothes a piece of fabric can be without seeing the clothes first) it takes to actually make all the clothes we see in the stores!