A cup of fashion

It’s been a while since I went to "Moda sa šlagom" / "Fashion with cream" - a gathering of young designers in an improvised showroom in a regular café on a Saturday morning. I used the opportunity to go this past weekend with my friend Armina from Sarajevo who is a passionate fashionista as well, so I knew she would appreciate it as much as I do.

These creative cafe showroom sales have been going on for two years now in Zagreb and have also expended and evolved internationally recently. 

So this past Saturday in an old school movie theatre an improvised showroom display has been put together by 15 designers from Croatia and Bosnia displaying and selling their reasonably priced clothing and accessories.

These kinds of gatherings help young designer to experience a competitive selling environment, to learn how to present their work and most importantly how to price it according to the demand and perceived value. Other than that, it is a great opportunity for networking with extremely creative and inspiring young people.

My favorites were Mica Torbica bags and purses - I have found an amazing bag which is 3 in 1 - purse and a double face bag. 

I also fell in love in gorgeous ethno looking braided necklace by Little Wonder - which Armina got me as a "visiting present", she bought the matching earrings so we can swap. :)

There were also many interesting technology inspired jewelry pieces by various designers.

Is anything similar going on in your city? Let me know! Would love to hear about it! :)

Saturday night fever!

Long sleave dress and red belt by Lei.Lou (Alex Dojčinović)

"Live life fully while you’re here. 

Experience everything. 

Take care of yourself and your friends. 

Have fun, be crazy, be weird. 

Go out and screw up! 

You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. 

Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. 

Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human."

~Anthony Robbins~

Cannes goes vintage

So, other than fast cars, easy women in expensive designer clothes holding hands with tanned older guys in polo shirts with bad hairdos - Cannes has an awesome vintage market on Sunday mornings.

Awesome - meaning that you can find vintage pieces of real value, well preserved but the prices are extremely high! (Guess they are going for above mentioned clientele).

Vintage purses and designer costume jewelry were my favorite finds.

Bellow you can see the photos of the most interesting pieces I found.

Uu...I also visited the perfume museum in Grasse – take a look at the Marie Antoinette cosmetic cases bellow! Can you say DIVAAA! :) 

Enjoy lovelies! 

p.s. Next time - I am taking orders and keeping the commission - hehe :)

For Japan with love

Help here if you can.

Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does.  

~William James~

P.S. Yu, Suzuyo - I am thinking about you every day! Hang in there ladies!

Xoxo,

Za za zoom - Diva's in the room!

Rushing after work yesterday to touch up on my fab before Friday fun day party night in my brand new Lei Lou dress, and to get a hairdo at my favorite hairstylists (which never happened) I ran into numerous opticals: I ripped my pantyhose with the fabulous Lei Lou ring, hit some ladies car exiting the parking lot and now need to pay a pair of shoes worth of repair on her car, I forgot to close all of the windows in my apartment and broke a nail.

After seeing one piece from new Lei Lou collection few weeks ago at her showroom I was super excited to see the whole story on the runway. Everything was perfect: hair, makeup, girls attitudes and of course - the looks Alex put together.

Last night Lei Lou girl was a rockish lady, confident but gentle and feminine business women rushing from work to Friday fun day, sexy librarian, gentle ballerina and a classy socialite all in one. Her look demanded attention; her look was confident yet mysterious and vintage yet modern. 

Bravo Alex!
You did it again!

Zagreb's first fashion trade show: Fashion.hr Industrija

Long time no blog lovelies. I got to admit I have totally reasonable excuse. I am working on a new project - which is related to fashion and to my creative outlet - my blog. So I did fail to put it all in a blog post form. I will try to catch up fast. 

So, yesterday I skimmed through Fashion.hr Industrija as I went to pick up my gorgeous new dress from Lei Lou booth.

 Fashion.hr Industrija is a local designer trade exhibition, organized first time around this year in Zagreb with intention to give local designer the opportunity to showcase their collections to international buyers. However - there were not many buyers in attendance if any.

The venue itself looked absolutely fabulous, however there were more sponsored booths than designers, many designers were not personally at their booths and those that did showcase, mostly do have their own shops or showrooms, so I did not see much added value for them for being there as there were very little visitors the first day and I don't see how they can financially get to positive zero having to rent the booth space and merchandise it as well as to make a collection for the actual fashion show.

Another setback and potential reason for lack of visitors yesterday was that there was a charge to get in which I think is not wise to do first time around. 

On the other hand, I was quite impressed with the amount of effort and creativity the organizing team put behind the organization. The venue is quit big so I am sure it was hard to merchandise it properly, but they still succeeded in making it quit chic with right dose of technology, fashion, entertainment and designer presentation. 

Secondly, my conclusion exiting the venue on a day one was that the organization team is in terms of capability running far ahead of the local designer’s capacities and kind of educating them as they go forward. 

In ideal world, if there were enough business interest and clear business ethics with common vision among three event organizers, we would see designers from all three events showing their collections on this kind of small local trade show as this would provide more realistic, and more rich picture of local industry - with consequently showing more concrete financial results for all parties involved. Just a thought to ponder upon.

“From small beginnings come great things.”

I SPY: Cannes.

Last week was quit hectic for me - just how I like it! :) My journey started in Budapest working and finished 6 days later in Cannes, France. Lead by my life strategy: Work is fun and fun is fun, I met some amazing and very inspiring people from all over the Europe like Marie Claire editor in chief and Glamour magazine beauty editor from Hungary and collected wonderful experiences I can share with you in next couple of post. Ouu, yea, and I got sick, but by now you know my hyper nature so you know that a fever can't hold me down. :)

We stayed at amazing historic Carlton hotel, located on the famous Croisette Avenue, close to the Cannes Palais des Festivals. This hotel is visited by numerous celebs during the film festival, some of which have their own Suites. Many have left thank you notes to thank the Carlton on hospitality. :)

I've noticed some cool rides...(none noticed in pink so not to impressive).

As you already know, Cannes is a home of a famous film festival; so naturally, many fabulous fashion brands have their stores there. I loved Hermes and Chanel accessories window merchandising for upcoming season.

What really gives me a feel of the city is the street art, being spoiled with what I was seeing in the City daily, I was not hoping for much, but in Cannes - the city which lives and breads film art - street artists displayed nothing else but the pulse od the Cannes glamorous heart. :)

Lastly....I visited a perfume museum nearby surrounded with wonderful orange tree garden story of which I will tell you in my next post...

"Security is mostly a superstition. 

It does not exist in nature.

 Life is either a grand adventure or nothing ...." 

Helen Keller