This morning I recieved some lovely Saturday morning junk mail offering me a free cremation. Don't believe me?
Accompanying that piece of morbid (but lets face it - "deal-iscious") mail was something that actually brightened my day rather than placed a dark cloud over it - the new J.Crew catalogue!
Oohing and ahh-ing over the pastels and neons and perfectly preppy goodness, I started snapping away with my iPhone for a good old Twitter share - that was until I realised I'd taken about a dozen pictures and I may as well make this a blog post.
I WANT EVERYTHING. Thanks J.Crew for ruining my bank balance.
A few weeks ago I was able to spend an ever so pleasant evening with my fellow bloggers perusing the newest Quiksilver collection and chatting to their head designer John Moore. We were also treated to a sneak peek of the new Water Dancer video - a series created by Quiksilver featuring their ambassador, world champion surfer, Stephanie Gilmore - which I've posted about. The determination and passion of both women featured is inspiring.
Quiksilver will always have a soft spot in my heart - I grew up in town that was sartorially inspired by surf culture. If you didn't have a Quiksilver messenger bag at my high school, you were a nobody. I love over the past ten years how the brand has evolved into a great fashion brand.
The collection was really quite gorgeous - my favourite piece, held in the photograph above by the designer himself, John Moore, is a silk dress featuring cattle skulls, aptly named "Austin Dream". The collection also includes (and man I love a good story like this) Bermuda shorts featuring a print from Hoffman California Fabrics, who were responsible for some of the original Quiksilver board shorts prints in the mid Seventies - how cool is that?
Another highlight of the evening was meeting the lovely Roxy McKnight. Yup. That's the Roxy, of Quiksilver Roxy, and daughter of company head Bob McKnight! (My sister - who is still an actual surfer - as opposed to me who just wore surfer clothes for a time... is going to probably squeal upon reading that fact - hi Josie ;)
Anyhow, I'm so pleased, that thanks to Quiksilver, I can merge my teenage surfed up fashion memories with my adult style inclinations!
I spent the past weekend in rainy San Francisco, those who have been reading this blog for awhile may know that I adore San Francisco, it was the very first place I ever visited in the US - so will always hold a special place in my heart.
On this particular trip we didn't have much time for sightseeing (or shopping - one of my fave things to do in SF) as we were there for a plethora of reasons, meetings, the lovely Gina Blancarte's wedding and to host a blogger event - all in under three days - crazy times.
I'll have more posts upcoming, but thought we'd start off with an outfit post - it feels like it's been awhile - and I really loved dressing for the cold. This cute plaid dress was a Fancy Treehouse purchase - you can't see too well, but it has a great velvet collar and cute velvet bows. The tights are from Target, the trench coat is Calvin Klein (via TJ Maxx) and the loafers are from Topshop - and completely my new favourites.
I got absolutely soaked on this excursion, through my own doing, after my meeting I went in search of a taxi to head back to the hotel. As I started walking I realised how much I was enjoying doing so, in a city designed for it, and just carried on, meandering my way through the rainy downtown San Francisco night. I even stumbled across an Occupy Wall Street march and enjoyed walking alongside them, in the rain, watching democracy in action.
All together it was quite a magical 40 mins but I'm the kind of person who likes to "get lost" once in a while ;)
