Development by Erica Davies

Since I ordered a black tulip Development skirt at Net-A-Porter's sale, I wasn't aware of the L.A. Based Label "Development". Since I received the skirt and viewed the whole Spring 2008 collection afterwards, I am exited about it.

The Designer:
Erica Davies is welsh and graduated from prestigious St. Martins College. She worked for different designers including Marc Jacobs, Max Azria and Max Mara afterwards. In 1997, Richard Tyler selected Erica for a collaboration and over the next three years he became her mentor. In 2002 Tyler asked her to come to Los Angeles to work on his new collection, which was heavily influenced by Erica's personnel style and a big success. In 2003 she launched her new collection of dresses under her own name. This collection continues today while she maintains her passion for design of the development collection.

The Design:
Most of the pieces are classic, made with an eye for detail and love for a cut matching which matches with a women's body. I appreciate that they are easy to wear and combine. Her collection leaves room for accessoires and especially for yourself. It is nothing worsed than being stashed away by your own clothes.

Online:

www.developmentclothing.com

Online Shops:

Shopbop.com & Net-a-Porter

Retailers in Europe:
Matches (London)
Mimi (London)
Selfridges (London)
Septieme Etage (Geneva)

Development Spring 2008 Favorites:
In this special case it is a pity I live in Paris because her collection is not available here. It was even hard for me to pick favorites because I love her work in total. I rarely have this kind of appreciation.

Jalousie...A Story In Buenos Aires (Source V Magazine)

Are you jealous? I am not afraid to say that I am a jealous girl when it comes to real love. I wonder if real love can even exist without jealousie...The following artistic LOVE/HATE photo story published in V Mag shot by young argentine filmmaker SEBASTIAN FAENA. Actually, I did not know that jealousie could be that glamorous.

SUDDENLY BUENOS AIRES

International superstar Angela arrives in town for her Blonde Venus world tour.

And to be with her man, a local bolero singer.

One night Angela watches Dolores perform.

Dolores had always been the other woman.

Until now.

Angela was suddenly abandoned.

And there could be no more self-deception.

All she wanted now was solitude in her despair.

And revenge.

The world wanted her and her alone, so none of the rest would ever matter

Photography: Sebastian Faena

Styling: Sofia Achaval

Fashion editor: Brian Molloy

Makeup: Sebastián Correa for Helena Rubenstein

Hair: Jeff Francis (The Wall Group)

Director of photography: Paola Rizzi A.D.F

Assistant director: Cecilia Glick

Stylist assistant: Grace Kapin

I am curious to see what comes next from Sébastian Faena born in 1980 in Buenos Aires. He is originally a film maker and seems to become a rising star on the fashion photographer's sky. This is worth to follow up on.

Hair Comes First

Style.com always provides a comprehensive coverage of the collections shown during fashion weeks. A first must-do after my vacation was having a look. I am always facinated by Karl Lagerfeld's work for Chanel, always timeless, classy and fresh at the same time(which is hard to do). But is of course out of question that I blah and judge about Karl Lagerfeld works. The main subject of this post is another.

It is about hair. The models walking the runway showed updo hairstyle decorated either with huge bejeweled hairgrips or hair bands made of see slugs. Let's wait and see if they will be available in the boutique and furthermore, if they are availble, will they be affordable? Please!

Photos: Daniele Oberrauch for style.com (details)

Back In Fashion

Coming back from vacation is not easy, especially when you felt like being the only human creature on one green island for one week. You just listen to the waves, the wind and sometimes to i tunes. To spend some time at the sea again was wonderful. I love the colours of the blue sky the freestones and the various turquoise nuances of the water shimmering in the sun. I was lucky to enjoy these images all day long and lived in a beautiful picture with the perfect man, the perfect cappucino in the mornings and the perfect wine in the evenings. Having missed the glamorous drive of Paris Fashion week, I was curious to come back and read the other bloggers posts about it.

My enthusiasm decreased when waiting at passport control for half an hour because they only opened two counters. I advised my impatient baby to make use of the situation by practising himself in patience. After 45 minutes, we finally went out the airport and the shuttle departed in front of our eyes so that we had to wait one half an hour more. Finally we managed to enter Paris and I saw the wonderful cover of February's Numéro Issue:

Catherine McNeill by Greg Kadel

It makes me look forward to summer, flirty dresses and sun. After one week being really unfashionable this was exactly what I needed. When we stepped out of the bus at Invalides the Eiffel tower started twinkling. Welcome back I thought to myself.

Paris Vintage

Illustration by Hildur Björk Yeoman (discovered though a lovely post by Susie Bubble)

I live in Paris now for one year. Since then I created a bulky list of vintage shops I would once like to see. Keeping the list only for me would be useless.

See what I have to share:

1st Arrondissement:

Rag 81
rue Saint-Honoré
Tel +33 (0)1 40 28 48 44
M°Tuilleries

Iglaine
12 rue de la Grande Truanderie
M°Étienne Marcel

2nd Arrondissement:
Kiliwatch
64 rue Tiquetonne
Tel +33 (0)1 42 21 17 37
M°Étienne Marcel

Sztark.Vintage
4, rue d’Uzès
M°Grands Boulevards

3rd Arrondissement:

http://www.quidam-de-revel.com/
24-26 rue Poitou
By appt. only. 01.42.71.37.07.
M°St-Sébastien - Froissart

www.lyellnyc.com/
1 rue Charles François Dupuis
Tel: 01.48.04.83.88.
M°Temple

4th Arrondissement
FREE P'STAR
8 rue Ste Croix la Bretonnerie
M°Hôtel de Ville.
Tel: 01.42.76.03.72.
Noon-11pm Mon-Sat; 2-10pm Sun.

www.mamzelleswing.fr
35, rue du Roi de Sicile
M°Hôtel de Ville.
01.48.87.04.06.
Mon-Sat, 2-7pm.

6th Arrondissement
Les 3 Marches de Catherine B
1, rue Guisarde 75006 Paris
Tél. : + 33 [0]1 43 54 74 18 ou au + 33 [0]6 80 58 73 25
M°St. Sulpice
9th Arrondissement:
Chez Mamie
73, rue de Rochechouart
Tel: 01 42 82 09 98
M°Abbesses

www.menage-a-trois.fr/
rue Clauzel,
M°St-Georges.
Tel: 01.48.78.44.80

11th Arrondissement:

www.vintageclothingparis.com
10 Rue Crussol,
M°Oberkampf
+33 1 48 07 16 40

Come on Eileen
16 rue des Taillandiers
Paris 11e
M°Ledru-Rollin
Tel +33 (0)1 43 38 12 11

EN VILLE
13 rue Paul Bert
M°Faidherbe – Chaligny
Tue-Sat 12.30-8pm.

Puttin' on the Ritz

There are moments which need to be experienced when living in Paris. One of these moments is and now was a cocktail at the Hemingway Bar in the Ritz. After having read so many positive articles (my favorite by Jefferson Hack) about it, my baby had the brilliant idea of having cocktails at the most glamorous bar in the world (this is at least what it used to be).

I was in pleasant anticipation....it might be like: Forget the picture. I made a total different experience.

When we arrived everything was great. A classy decorated bar with classy waiters and extraordinary cocktails. With the first sips we enjoyed the last romantic minutes at this place. The ambiance was gone when two young men with sprinting shoes and jeans entered, ordering cocktails and talking disturblingly loud. I don't want to be discriminating so I leave out telling where they came from.

We tried to arrange with the noise when suddenly two big, and I mean really big women, mother and daughter, entered. They got seated at the table beside us and everything needed to be rearranged in order to get adapted to their body size. They were dressed dobious with mini dressed (the most mini mini-dresses I have seen so far) and started their conversation cursing loudly "Merde, putain..." and other words you should not adopt when you learn french. This procedure was followed by showing each other different ring tones on their cell phones and it was time for us to leave. Cetait vraiment désagréable! I told the waiter, he excused and made us pay.

To have at least a little fun at the Ritz, we went to the elevator to stroll around the corridors and see if everything is allright. This was fun and interesting. We greeted some of the guests chummily and went down again. To be clear, we did not steal something or spend some illegal fun time in one of their rooms. No, nothing at all plus I am sure the older guests enjoy to have some charming young couple around. When we came down one of the security persons stopped us and called us "respectless" and "misbehaving". Dazed by the alcohol I did not really listen to him but as far as we know it was an invitation to leave.

Where has all the glamour gone? These days you find restrictions everywhere. It is forbidden to smoke in bars (although it did not affect anyone for years), you are not allowed to wander around in the Ritz without being a guest - but you are allowed to enter a bar inappropriatelly dressed, talking as you were alone, eating and drinking without manners if you are willing to pay. Now I ask myself who is really respectless and misbehaving?

Hôtel Ritz
Place Vendôme

F-75001 Paris

+33 1 43 16 30 30

Costes Cover Lover

Did you ever love a CD just for its cover? I do! http://www.myspace.com/djstephanepompougnac (Stephane Pompougnac mixing for Hotel Costes)
I would be curious to know who shot the cover

The Story Of Victoria And Marc

When rumours started about Victoria Beckham starring in this season's Marc Jacob's advertisement, a lively discussion arised. How can he, why did he, what does that mean and how would photographer Juergen Teller feel about his decision. Finally the big project is finalized and first photos are available on WWD.

"There was a lot of discussion about Victoria being in our ads and tons of blogs on the Internet about 'Should she or shouldn't she?,' 'What's going on with Marc Jacobs?,' and 'Has he lost his mind?'," Jacobs explained. "We thought the funniest thing would be to show the Victoria Beckham ads that don't show Victoria Beckham, but just to see those legs coming out of the bag."
This is really funny and even Victoria isn't insulted, no, she is amused because Marc is amused and she proofed once more nothing is impossible - sophistication means nothing.

Not only Victoria's legs will be starring. There are already photos with the whole product shown on their way of being published in February's Vogue.

When Marc was asked how he could choose especially her, a woman which appears worst-dressed-list year by year, he argued "Getting attention for being well-dressed or poorly dressed is great, because it is attention."

Indeed, and this is what Victoria and this campaign is all about. It will attract attention. For sure..

Glamorous Couples

Since I was 15 years I have mixed emotions observing other couples. When I was younger it was afflicted with more negative emotions than today, though. As a 16 year old I always thaught it must be quite boring to be with the same person everyday. In the flirting phase you are physically addicted then you start to fall in love having a balanced sexual life you and then you are getting lazy and common life consists of food and DVD's. I also have the openion that more than 50 % of couples stay in a "lala" relationship which means they are only together because the don't want to be alone. I changed my mind regarding my own situation, meeting my great love 7 years ago. If the relationship is "right" you will feel alright and slightly be bored of anything referring to your love.

Having said that, I have to admit that this was not what I originally wanted to talk about. This post should be a post about the contrary, meaning charming and glamorous couples that you could observe for others talking, being in silent or doing no matter what. One of these couples are austrian actress Romy Schneider and french actor Alain Delon. He is probably the most beautiful men I have ever seen and she is one of the most inspiring, headstrong and stylish women that ever lived. Browsing through photos of her (I love her harmonic way of of dressing in sync with her body), I found out that photos of both are rare. The ones I found, apart from the cinema poster, are stunning. There is so much love and understanding visible without appearing as kitsch. Photos are not made for a newspaper, they seem authentic.
Romy and Alain met in 1958 when they were starring together in "Christine". They became engaged in 1959 and separated again in 1960. It is being said that Alain was her great love. He made her come to France and so she became a french icon. They stayed in contact until Romy died tired of the pains of live in 1982. What is still remaining from their love is Alain's farewell letter which has been curiously printed for http://www.parismatch.com/.