Busy Barcelona week #2 review...

Jill Stuart FW 2012. campaign 

With all eyes on next weeks fashion festivities in NYC and one foot out of the door I am reviewing busy last week in Barcelona, this was my first work week after vacation so I was working 9-7ish every day trying to catch up on last weeks emails. Instead of going to lunch I was taking  short swim-lunch breaks every day noonish to take advantage of what is left of Summer sunny weather at our little pool.

 Since my boyfriend was away in training camp for a week so I did a lot of house cleaning, ironing, laundry washing all while watching Spanish TV channels and trying to pick up as much as I can of the language (I really hope I will be able to speak it properly one day since most of Spanish people here do not speak any English).

After house choirs I decided to get back to my workout regime and I started bodyrocking again (I tried it before based on my best friends Anita reco and gave up quickly) this time I am sticking to it. The trainers name is Zuzana and only thing you really need is to be motivated enough and to have a little pink timer for the exercises, I just ordered mine. Can't wait to see the first results, after one week I already can feel muscle pain and my body getting tighter.

Bellow you can find a list of my last weeks posts mostly related to us moving out of the hotel and moving in our new Barcelona apartment {lines of life} with first photos of our apartment. I also wrote a post about one of this FW 2012. season most noticeable trends - sweaters {lines of passion for fashion}.I am particularly opinionated about picking a comfy sweater, so check out my selection!

Goodbye Princesa Sofia!
Moving in Barcelona apartment
The Sweater

You can also check out my Tumblr blog for some inspirational quotes from leading ladies of fashion industry as well as some gorgeous September issue editorials and inspirational photos.

There were some trends you particularly liked on my Facebook page as well:

Lovely NYC inspired cocktail dress.

Adriana Lima quote.

Lovely sparkly look for Fall parties

Next week is gonna be huge for fashion so I will be posting daily! I am particularly looking forward to: IFB conference in NYC, NYFW kicking of with fashion nights out and shows from 9th - 16th of September, then also Madrid fashion nights out sales on 6th and 7th of September....and then, my birthday few weeks after on September 19th!

Have a great weekend lovelies!

The sweater.

Jil Sander Picasso sweater - Harper's Bazaar Russia 

Good evening ladies! As all of you passionate fashionistas might have noticed  from browsing the videos, pics and editorials of FW 2012. collection designers worldwide want us to wear more sweaters this fall and winter.

Well, I happen to be quite opinionated when it comes to sweaters, just like my sister happens to be quite opinionated about shirts ever since she managed to dress herself or scream in rebellion, her rules are: no collar, no buttons. With that being said, my two main rules for sweaters are: no itchy no stretchy.

It took me quite a few years to get over the horror and trauma of mums and grandmas organic wool, polar-winter ready homemade snow flake and reindeer sweaters. I didn't just jump in the trend, I tested it slowly, gently and pricey with Ralph Lauren soft cashmere open back cardigan (RIP) - which my mum washed two years ago with regular laundry and shrunk it to barbie size.

 Last year (you were all my witness) got myself a really comfy and warm Bershka cotton mix. as my boyfriend calls is - "Heidi sweater". I wore it a lot actually but after couple of washes it started breaking my rule #2, it started stretching in width and shriking in lenght.

However! I still didn't gave up on wearing sweaters so I have made myself a wishlist of FW 2012. sweaters which might adhere to both of my rules. How do you like them?

Peter Jensen / La Garconne Moderne / Phillip Lim / Rag & Bone / Alexander Wang

Acne (both)

Marcus Lupfer / Phillip Lim

Aubin & Wils / Miss Selfridge

Mary Katrantzou / Sonia by Sonia Rykiel 

Collette by Collette Dinnigan / H&M

If you know of any better please do share links, I am on a hunt for my new sweater collection.

Moving in Barcelona apartment.

As announced in my last post my boyfriend and I found a lovely furnished apartment in Barcelona to move into and we finally moved out of the hotel. After his practice game last Saturday at noon we moved in and since apartment is huge and we didn't have a lot of stuff we just dropped our stuff talked to the cleaning lady and ran to Ikea and food store to get some basics for first week or so.

Although the apartment was more or less clean when we entered it, like any other women I could find stuff I would clean and arrange differently so I spent most of first couple of weeks rearranging,cleaning and beautifying things around the house. Saturday night we returned from shopping around midnight, I made chicken fajitas and we past out in bed, dead tired from running around all day.

Monday (yesterday) was also my first work day so I had to do all of the laundry and pack my boyfriend for his short preseason trip before Monday morning "first day after vacation" craziness. 

Bellow you can see a number of photos I managed to take in my breaks last couple of days, it is weird how in conversation our pronouns are changing more and more daily...we are having more and more "we's" and a bit less "I's".

Ufff..just looking at these photos makes me realize how fast last 2 weeks went through. Feels like a completely new chapter in both of our lives. I would be happy to hear from you ladies who also had an experience of moving to another country.

Goodbye Princesa Sofia!

This has been a long vacation week for my boyfriend and I in Barcelona - well vacation for me and painful pre-seasons work our week for him. We have been living in lovely Gran Hotel Princesa Sofia which is really a great and luxurious hotel but we couldn't wait to finally stop living out of our suitcases and start settling in an amazing apartment which we chose.

Seems like the move is happening tonight as they told us apartment should be ready for us later today. Obviously, it's his apartment, I was just helping him pick one and we will try to clean it and decorate it through next couple of days to make it a home for him and I when I visit each month.

Since we are just moving in later this evening, I will be posting photos of our progress with settling in during next week, make sure you stop by to see the walk-in closet photos which I am particularly excited about.

With this post I am reminding you on the series of post I wrote since I arrived in Barcelona, most of them experiential "Lines of life" , some useful tips for fashion travelers but also a lovely post from "Lines of passion for fashion" category about pants trend for upcoming Fall season, check them out if you haven't already, I would love to read your comments and thoughts on them.

• Embalaje para Espana: 5 traveling tips.
• Getting lost in Barcelona.
• What would you do for love? 
• She wears pants this season! 
• Don't you know who I am? 

You can also check out my Weekend Stylebook suggestion for this weekend which I am posting every Friday on Femina.hr  lifestyle portal.

Hastaluego with this njumy desert lovelies! Stay tuned for lovely photos, reports from Barcelona & finally a cool Spanish giveaway I will be doing prior to my trip back to Croatia!

Don't you know who I am?

This morning I walked down to the Gran hotel Princesa Sofia café to try to wake up and work on a business plan for a new project I am fantasizing about with my boyfriend and would be very much excited to bring to life one day. I guess this is what happens when one is on vacation longer then couple of days. Your mind clears from daily work stress, you finally get some much needed sleep and your mind starts to function with its full creative capacity.

While sipping on my coffee and trying to focus on what I am about to write, I started people watching since I could feel a dose of nervousness and anticipation in the air. Then, I remembered that my boyfriend told me about and got tickets for today’s big euro football game: Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. He also told me that Madrid team is staying in our hotel. I guess this is what all of this fuss is about.

On the table next to me there is a husband, wife and a young boy with photo signature cards of Real Madrid players. There are also a couple of older guys around me, sitting alone, dressed in sports clothes with that “I know everything about sports”attitude, glasses on top of their noses, a notepad and a pan in their hands – I think these might be old school sports journalists.

There are also a whole lot of a Muslim ladies who are waiting for their husbands to check them in the hotel dressed in gorgeous designer pieces from latest collections like Chanel, McQueen and Balmain which only a true fashionista can recognize as they are barely peeking under their long hijabs. Their husbands are wearing RL polo shirts with collars up and aviator glasses which they never take off.

Hotel staff is running around nervously and they are extra helpful and smiley today (if that can be possible since they are annoyingly super nice anyways everyday – from mine, Croatian skeptical person POV ). At the same time, in front of the hotel there are more and more people waiting in anticipation, mostly kids dressed in their football idols jerseys, couple of creepy looking fans and players entourage making a “grand” entrance one by one (friends of players who act like superstars and are very demanding, abusing hotel staff and living on the expense of their football player friends).

Tatler magazine August, 2011.

While observing all that I couldn’t help but wonder why do people idolize and spend so much time and effort trying to get close and in touch for a moment with a celebrity person be it athlete, singer, actor? They are just regular people under all of this glitz anyways. Not all of them are nice and kind, not all of them are happy.

 I understand that one would enjoy watch them play if they play well, but why do they have a need to come close to them, touch them, take photos, get their signatures or get to know them personally? Are these usually very young athletes really ready and able to be a true role models for kids? Is this culture of idolizing the character, profession and lifestyle of famous person healthy for upcoming generations? I don't really think so.

She wears the pants this season!

As a girl who prefers dresses and skirts to pants, heels to flats and painfully fabulous rather then comfortably chic, I surprised myself with how thrilled I became with upcoming Fall season pants selection.

Be it military print, graphic track silk, cotton, linen or metallic denim pants or wide legged pants paired with my selection of fabulous Fall heels will color the city in fabulosity! Bellow you can see my favorite low end to high end pieces and where to get them before they are gone!

Recently I got a great tip from one of my blogs lovely Facebook followers Nevena that Zara has a great pair of military print pants in their fall collection. She purchased them and saids that the fabric is thick, they are quite tight but elastic, she saids they are similar tailoring like majority of Zara pants. I personally love most of their pants design but tailoring doesn't suit me, they are always to low rise for me.

Zara 

More pants selection from Zara 2012. 

 Zara dress pants 

Zara waxed, camouflage and coated red zipper pocket jeans  

Zara printed pants

Moving to some high end designers I have picked couple of my favorites as well. I know, most of these are way to high up there with prices but girl can dream and get inspired right? :)

Balenciaga Fall 2012.

Balenciaga / Hermes / Calvin Klein collection - all Fall 2012.

Stella McCartney Fall 2012.

Derek Lam PreFall 2012.

How do you fell about wearing any of these pants lovelies? Would you wear them or are you more of a skirt and dress kind of gal? :)

What would you do for love?

Somewhat rhetorical and somewhat shabby question now isn’t it? Just like the claim: “I would never do …. this or that”and then you end up doing just that ad remember the exact moment when you said you would never.

The fact is, you just don’t know, but after you liked someone a lot or even loved (or you thought you did), you gain a certain experience and knowledge of yourself, not the other person, not the “love” as a romanticized can’t live without feeling, but you - you as a person, your own morals, your own limits and your own ability to forgive or not to forgive.

The other day, I got hurt, a lot a whole lot. I was sitting in a hotel room in a foreign country, staying in a city I don’t know with a person who I thought I knew and I was falling apart into pieces, one by one... I felt that catastrophically overwhelming pain all over my body. I was hyperventilating, my heart was beating as if it will explode any second, I was crying and shaking at the same time and I couldn’t take a deep breath from the pain in my chest. I felt as if I will faint in any second and die. In that moment it felt like dying would be a relief. This day, at that very moment, I felt like my whole world fell apart and I felt extremely lonely.

I called the same two people I always call when I feel like the only person in the whole wide world…my mum and my best friend Anita. Why them? Because my mum has experienced the world enough to know it is gray and not black or white, she has the patience, love and wisdom to advise me without imposing her own opinion or final solution for my problem.    

 While Anita is probably the most realistic and blunt person on the face of the earth who ALWAYS saids it how it is no matter how much it hurts. Also, she knows what I did before, what I will probably do and knows what to say to control my drama. Anita advised me to write down how I feel today and how much it hurts to serve me as a reminder for the future, so I did…

After couple of hours of drama, screaming, yelling, throwing stuff, crying and talking, the same question kept running through my head: “What would I do for love?” then I rewind my love life backwards trying to remember big things which I did but don’t regret doing…

-  I worked 40 hours a week for a month and saved every cent eating from vending machine to buy my first boyfriend brand new palm pilot for his graduation
- I quit my dream job in fashion and flew overseas without a plan to try to save my relationship
-  I am flying every month to stay for a week in another country to keep my long distance relationship going
-  I forgave and gave him a second chance?????

I got stuck with the last one thinking what it would take for me to do it: I would need to swallow my pride, turn the other cheek, continue to love, forgive, take a risk to fall apart again…be a bigger person then him – trust again. Since this is a new experience for me I am still not sure of what I will do and I feel like a hypocrite when I pray in these kind of situations but I did, I prayed yesterday, because I felt like no human can be so unselfish to give me an advice which will be – forgive, give a second chance.

“Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.”

 Heath L. Buckmaster, Box of Hair: A Fairy Tale