&Follow SJoin OnSugar

Subscribe

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Connect With Chic & Untroubled

vBulletin statistic

Email |
|
June 20, 2011

Three E-Commerce Sites Offer Personalized Experiences for Budget Fashionistas

In a perfect world, we would wake-up to meticulously crafted ensembles laid out for our choosing by an uber-stylist like Edward Enninful or Katie Grand. Since most of us aren‘t society girls with lush bank accounts and zip codes to match, we‘ve become our own power stylists. But with affordable personalized e-commerce sites popping up left and right, things are beginning to change for budget conscious fashionistas.

There are three e-commerce sites garnering the most attention among fashion consumers.

JewelMint: Launched by Santa Monica-based company BeachMint Inc,. JewelMint is a jewelry-of-the-month club created in partnership with actress Kate Bosworth and her stylist, Cher Coulter. After completing a style quiz, JewelMint will recommend personalized baubles based on the results of your quiz. Each piece costs $29.99. Even cooler, you won’t be charged until you purchase your first piece of jewelry. Also, you can skip any month, with free shipping and “simple returns.”

StyleMint: StyleMint, the second enterprise by BeachMint Inc., is a new online venture by style icons Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Launching July 6th, StyleMint will offer customers a personalized e-commerce experience with the added value of social media, allowing you to link to Facebook and Twitter to garner the opinions of your friends and family. Initially, the site will offer eight t-shirts designed by the power sisters. Much like JewelMint, the items will cost $29.99/month and you have the option to opt out.

SendtheTrend: SendtheTrend is the brainchild of Project Runway winner Christian Siriano, Mariah Chase and Divya Gugnani. In the vain of the two previous sites, SendtheTrend asks the customers to take a style survey. Once your fashion personality has been identified, the e-commerce site will put together a collection of personalized accessories to choose from each month. Again, the service costs $29.99/month and you have the option to opt out.

When you do the numbers, an annual subscription to one of the e-commerce sites will set you back a cool $359.88. So, I ask you dear reader: are these e-commerce sites, fashion’s answer to wine-of-the-months clubs, worth their price tag?

Image Source: JewelMint Facebook Page

Email |
|
June 06, 2011

A Lesson in Branding with Rebecca Minkoff

Can you believe it's June already? I'm not sure where the time went but designer Rebecca Minkoff is at it again with these fun desktop wallpaper calendars. They're free; they come in two cool colorways and can be downloaded at minkette.com, which brings me to a larger point I've been wanting to make about Minkoff: she's great with social media.

The new mother respects the fashion blogging community and has incorporated young bloggers into her brand (guest posts on minkette) without isolating a more mature consumer. She's on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and actively engages her fans with giveaways and product sneak peaks. Plus, she's clever enough to give away free branded items like these calenders that don't feel like ads for her downtown chic products.

What other designers are using social media in new and interesting ways?

Email |
|
May 03, 2011

Top 5 Tweets from the 2011 Met Ball

Image Source: Style.comDid you you attend the Met Ball last night? If not, don't fret! I made it a point to stay glued to my time line, watching intently as instagram pictures of Gisele and Naomi came fast and quick. Here are few of the highlights of the lavish fete (or at least the red carpet) as told through tweets:

"Lauren Santo Domingo may have given birth like 20 minutes ago, but she IS at the " - {@TheCut}

"The is seriously better material than the Oscars. Like....FREIDA PINTO, WHY? " -  {@fuggirls}

"Beyonce tries her hardest not to fall over in her SUPER tight gown:

Rosie Huntington Whiteley. What's scarier- runway or acting? Depends what she's wearing

"Gisele and Naomi admire each other's Alexander McQueen " - {@WorldMcQuuen}

Image Source: Style.com

Email |
|
August 10, 2010

Will Stefano Tonchi’s W also feature more diversity?

After months of hype and speculation, Stefano Tonchi has finally given us a look of the revamped W magazine, which he now helms. Speaking with WWD, the editor-in-chief discusses the tome’s new September issue, typeface (Benton, just in case you were wondering), structure, and tagline:

We are going to run with the three covers — it’s a triple gatefold, which they’d never done. And then it is a new logo, as much as it looks like the old one, in a new typeface [called] Benton. It’s kind of skinny, it’s very vertical. It’s very elegant and it is italic, with a sense of movement, evolution. Then there is a tag line — that was never a part of W — which I think defines what W stands for. It’s not just women’s fashion, but the world of style and, more exactly, our five Ws: the who, the what, the where, the when and the why in the world of style. And with the main headline, “Great Expectations,” I wanted to have some self-irony, because there are so many expectations about what this W will be, so it refers to these eight great new girls, but also to the pressure that we feel to satisfy the expectations that people have for the magazine. And we put “By Lynn Hirschberg” because I want to put writers’ names on the cover. The content — the writers — are going to have a strong place in the magazine.

Even more interesting, though, would be W’s choice of September cover girls, which include actresses Kat Dennings, Jessica Chastain, Yaya DaCosta, Greta Gerwig, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Roberts, and Zoë Kravitz.

Continue Reading >>

Email |
|
August 17, 2009

A Series of Unfortunate Balmain Knock-Offs: Part 1

Listen, I get it. Everyone from Beyonce to Rihanna has been seen sporting Christophe Decarnin's skin-tight mini dresses, broad-shouldered blazers, embellished jeans, and sexy sky-high footwear. And, much like that other fashion house (cough *Balenciaga* cough) whose pricey duds usually spawn a million more affordable knock-offs, Balmain look-a-likes can pretty much be found at every fast fashion hot spot nowadays for little to nothing.

So, imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this bedazzled mini on Bebe's e-store. I don't shop at Bebe but its merchandise can be summed up in one word: over-priced. It's one of those labels who aspires to be like a Max Azira but falls totally short instead. Nonetheless, someone inside their bran trust decided to create a replica of a dress from Balmain's Fall '08 collection.

It doesn't look too bad, but it's definitely not worth its $115 price tag. At all. The polyester just simply isn't cutting it and, well, it just looks kind of awful. This just goes to show that not everything in life that is Balmain inspired, relatively cheap, and accessible is good for your wardrobe or skin because I know this piece has to be very itchy. Here's to just hoping Balmain decides to bless us semi-broke fools with a limited edition capsule collection that won't scare my wallet.

If Karl Lagerfeld, Rodarte, and Stella McCartney can, why can't you Mr. Decarnin? Please! Le sigh.

Email |
|
August 17, 2009

How much is too much for ripped denim?

After being bombarded with pictures of Anja Rubik sporting Gap's new 1969 denim, I gave in and went with my mother to the mall on Friday to secure my pair of ripped skinny-leg jeans. Because, you know, at certain angles and under certain inconspicuous lights I pretty much look exactly like the blonde supermodel. Syke!

Anyways, there were still a few pairs hanging on the racks when we got there. Even better though, the fit was perfect (mother approved!) and all 1969 denim was being sold with $20 knocked-off its original sale price. So again, awesome.

Indeed, everything was going good until my mother saw the $49.99 sale price pop up on the monitor. No, she wasn't expecting them to be cheaper or felt it was too much. In fact, the price in and of itself wasn't the issue. What she couldn't wrap her mind around and what would later baffle my lovable but non fashion curious father was the notion that anyone -- rich, poor, young, old -- would actually pay for someone to rip their jeans for them. And since there weren't that many holes in the jeans, it made my purchase of them ever more bizarre to my mom.

I say this because upon leaving the store she spent the next fifteen minutes lamenting on her ripped jean days -- a time when the only way to get that perfectly tattered slit above the knee was to find a pair of really sharp scissors and go to work. No paying anyone to customize your shit. No Gap 1969 premium "destroyed" jeans. No Shopbop model to sew lace on one of your pant legs. It was all you -- no guts, no glory.

Unless I hit the lottery like, say, tomorrow, the liklihood that i'll be sporting ripped denim pants that cost over $100 is very, very low because, like my mother, I have my limits, too. But for reasonably pieces like those from the Gap, well, I don't see what's wrong with indulging yourself a little bit.

So, I want to throw to you dear reader: How much is too much for ripped denim?

 

Filed in: Fashion | Tagged with: Gap, jeans, denim, Ripped, destroyed, 1969 premium
Email |
|
May 04, 2009

Marc & Lorenzo are in Love; Tyra Talks Animals

Yesterday, the Times Talks discussion with the likes of Marc Jacobs, Tyra Banks, Narciso Rodriguez, just to name a few, took place. When asked about his relationship with Brazilian businessman Lorenzo Martone, Jacobs couldn't stop himself from gushing. "My boyfriend/fiancé Lorenzo and I are buying a house together and we would like to have children and all this." Not to be outdone in regards of best quote of the night though, Tyra Banks lamented on her awkward appearance as a teen model. “
I used to kind of look like one 
of those antelopes you see with one eye on each side of its face.”

Email |
|
April 20, 2009

Interview May 2009 : Emma Watson by Nick Knight

It's uncertain if Emma Watson will attend Yale next fall, but the UK "it" girl has most certainly said 'yes' to M/M over at Interview. The actress graces the May issue of the financially strapped magazine. Surrounded by kisses and lace, Emma's cover was shot by none other than Nick Knight.

Honestly, I like the new look of the magazine. What ever direction the new art directors are taking the tome, one thing is for certain: it's decidedly more youth-oriented (Zac Efron graced the April issue). Or at least it is at the moment. However, that may have more to do with the recession and wanting to sell mags than Mathais and Michael being obsessed with all things Disney (Hello, Glamour!).

Meanwhile, Emma graces Interview because she's promoting her new flick Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which is set to roll into American theaters on July 15th. Check out the trailer under the hood. Warning: the clip has very creepy moments, namely when the little brown-haired girl flies into the air a la Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

{Continue Reading} Trailer: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Email |
|
April 16, 2009

Tara Subkoff Talks Grey Gardens With HBO's Costume Designer

In anticipation of HBO's take on the lives eccentric mother/daughter duo "Big" and "Little" Eddie, Interview managed to contain its excitement long enough to get designer Tara Subkoff to chat with Grey Garden's costume designer, Catherine Thomas. In their conversation about the two women and their fabled journey from high society queens to secluded maidens, Thomas discusses how Little Eddie took her hair loss in stride and created an iconic look in the process. "Yes, the turbans! Really, she handles her hair loss in such a progressive, positive way. She makes it her own. It was so essential to reach beyond the years of the documentary. We start in the 1930s—even the white satin hooded gown that Little Edie wears to the bohemian party is a beautiful metaphor for what's going to happen later to her, covering up her head. Obviously, we compiled a lot of research. Surprisingly there were more photos of Little Edie than of Big Edie. For the 1930s, Big Edie was really what we imagined her to be like."

Email |
|
April 16, 2009

Tara Subkoff Talks Grey Gardens With HBO's Costume Designer

In anticipation of HBO's take on the lives eccentric mother/daughter duo "Big" and "Little" Eddie, Interview managed to contain its excitement long enough to get designer Tara Subkoff to chat with Grey Garden's costume designer, Catherine Thomas. In their conversation about the two women and their fabled journey from high society queens to secluded maidens, Thomas discusses how Little Eddie took her hair loss in stride and created an iconic look in the process. "Yes, the turbans! Really, she handles her hair loss in such a progressive, positive way. She makes it her own. It was so essential to reach beyond the years of the documentary. We start in the 1930s—even the white satin hooded gown that Little Edie wears to the bohemian party is a beautiful metaphor for what's going to happen later to her, covering up her head. Obviously, we compiled a lot of research. Surprisingly there were more photos of Little Edie than of Big Edie. For the 1930s, Big Edie was really what we imagined her to be like."