Cozy Coats

Ideally I would be wearing something as stylish and slimming as the coats below, from Anthropologie and BCBG, to keep me warm in the winter.

However, as a girl used to subtropical winters, where winter is more of a change of wardrobe than weather, I fear that such thin looking coats will just not be enough to keep me warm under the onslaught of a Chicago winter.

As a result, I find myself turning to puffy down coats, like these two from Polo Sports, to keep me warm. And so far, they've sufficiently kept me warm on most winter days.

For the more extreme days of winter, I have in reserve a long poofy jacket that looks remarkably like this one here from North Face, except mine isn't from Northface and my hood has fur on it. And I'm happy to report that I haven't used this yet after one winter and a half, although I was tempted to today under the attack of wind and freezing ice/rain pouring on us.

But really, as practical as these poofy down jackets are, they're not exactly very flattering. So what I'm wondering is, for those of you who live in extremely cold climates, how do you keep stylishly warm in winter?

SS06 Fashion Don't: Bling Bling

I have been brainstorming for ages of what to write as a fashion "don't". The problem with living in London is that everyone is so well dressed I can't get inspired by people in the streets. Then finally it hit me, I HATE bling!

Bling is something I have hated every since well, forever. For those who aren't completely sure what bling is, it's basically draping yourself in huge, obnonxious, overbearing jewelry. Bling is pretty much an essential in the culture of hip hip. The whole trend of hip hop was brought to a high a few years ago when performers thought it was just oh-so-attractive to wear eye-catching jewelry, whether male or female. And of course, since singers decided it was cool to wear bling, their fans thought it might be cool to imitate them too. This fugly fashion of bling also extends to styles such as wearing sportswear with bling jewelry and encrusting diamonds onto all your accessories etc.

Yuck yuck yuck! I esp hated those huge gold necklaces with the dollar sign. Talk about poor taste.

Now in 2006, we are all about the sophistication, new minimalism and quality luxuries. So unless you're a serious hip-hopper, here's the message just in case you still don't get it: Stop wearing bling!

tokodoki for Lesportsac

Ever since LAMB collaborated with LeSportsac, we have taken an interest in their special collections each season. LeSportsac makes some of the most practical bags -I love how I can squish the my weightless LAMB hobo bag into my suitcase when traveling. For Spring 06, LeSportsac once again collaborates with outside artists and presents tokodoki for LeSportsac. When I first saw the designs, I was like woah, this is so Marukami for Louis Vuitton. But after looking through the site properly, I think it's fair to say this collection is not a total copy of LV.

tokodoki (which means 'sometimes') is a new brand by Italian artist Simone Legno and his partners, Pooneh Mohajer Arnold and Ivan Arnold. I totally expected at least one of the artists to be Japanese, but it seems that they are only 'inspired' by the Japanese culture. One praise I can sing about this collection is that they did make an effort to make the bags relatively Japanese and not some sorry crossover between American and Japanese -you can tell because the shapes of bags are all very Japanese. By this I mean if you walk on the streets of Japan, you'll see people holding bags of similar shapes instead of other more Westernised shapes such as hobos.

To be honest, I generally can't take LeSportsac's overly color & little pictures-bombarded prints on big bags. It just feels tacky to carry a huge childish-looking bag around. The little cosmetic pouches on the other hand can be considered as cute. The other thing I don't like about the bags are the color chains. I mean, the chains work for some of the designs but not so much for others. Anyways, here are a few designs from the tokodoki collection:
This is my favourite bag in the tokodoki print. The bag is small enough for the color prints not to be tacky., the chains def work here and the shape is quite cute!
I like the design of this bag, esp the contrast between the black fabric and the color zippers. The only thing is the shape doesn't seem all that practical.

Oooh, this thing is sooo adorable! I just have no idea what you use it for......

This tote bag is extremely practical. LeSportsac bags in general are pretty sturdy so this bag will be great for carrying stuff like school books. The black makes it so easy to match with outfits, but that green chain thingy has got to go!

Ahh yes, this collection of bags also comes with these little thingys calles Qees. These ones are the cheap US$18 ones.

And this one is the shockingly US$150 8 Inch tokodoki Qee! Unless you're a super fan, I don't know who else will pay for it.