Shopping Post : RAOUL

 By: Unknown    23:25  No comments

Who is RAOUL?

RAOUL, from the house of F J Benjamin is one of those brands that is currently enjoying a wave of popularity. Douglas and Odile Benjamin are the husband and wife power couple behind this Singapore - based brand. The new collection. Has just arrived to Malta, at Rebelli so I thought I'd stop by and have a look. I love the feminine, powerful cuts, the graphical prints and the combination of different fabrics. There's a lot of versatility in the range even as to which occasion to wear the pieces too - there are long, beautiful dresses, midi skirts, tailored shorts and kimonos.

See what caught my eye

And for the slideshow

Read More

Shopping : Party-tastic at LULU

 By: Unknown    04:30  No comments

Some time ago I wrote a post about a shop I'd visited that's a little bit out of the normal shopping route - Lulu Boutique. I know that quite a few of you popped by and visited the shop and loved how quaint it is. A lot of you also sent me messages inquiring about 'formal or special' dresses for weddings and parties. 

It's not really a shop I'd send people to that are looking for a special dress to wear to a wedding but there are some lovely dresses that are great for parties and can easily be dressed up with some accessories and made to look a bit more fabulous. I know a lot of you would prefer seeing some more photos before making the trip so I stopped by the store again and took a few more stock photos, focusing mainly on those dresses that are a bit more 'party-tastic'.

P.S - the all-cream/ white ones are NOT good for weddings :)

And here's a slideshow with many more party dress options

A couple of photos of the lovely place - because it needs to be snapped on each visit

And for those not interested in party dresses - I spotted some other items around the shop that are very interesting

Read More

Outfit Post : Food, Metallics and Birkenstocks

 By: Unknown    22:21  No comments

What do you get when you mix a trip to Buskett, a burger t-shirt, a hungry, funny, hubby photographer and shoes with pink soles? Well, a bundle of laughter and a lot of fun.

I don't always enjoy shooting my outfit posts. I especially hate it at events, when there are so many people around and of course they all have to watch. Also, I'm a stylist - I'm used to being behind the camera, making sure all the clothes look good, when I'm being shot, I can't stop fussing about whether or not everything looks right.

However, sometimes there are exceptions, times when I really enjoy it and have a whale of a time. This shoot was one of those and everything about it simply made me smile.

I decided to wear my new Burger T-shirt - I talked about this here - after launching in Paris and Italy, McDonald's have launched their new food-inspired apparel line in Malta. I'm also sporting a brand new haircut - it's back to the curls for summer and my shoes have pink soles - enough said.

Outfit Details

Skirt: Zara
T-Shirt: McDonalds
Necklace: ASOS
Shoes: Birkenstock at Stivaletti
Bag: Slon Torbalski
Hair: Toni&Guy

All Photos by KURT PARIS

Read More

Outfit : Once Upon A Dress

 By: Unknown    12:02  No comments

If you're a regular reader, you must know I love wearing yellow - I've only mentioned it like a zillion times. I wore this lovely outfit to the LIST ROMA and Luisa Spagnoli fashion show last week - it's one of my favourite recent outfits. I love it because one it's yellow, two because it's such a beautiful dress and three, because I felt the jacket gave the dress a bit of a different look, made it look a bit different to the way others would wear it perhaps. Both the jacket and dress are from LIST ROMA so I was perfectly in theme for the occasion.

I also asked for my hair to be styled a bit differently that night too, I felt that a bit of volume would lend itself better to the outfit, the fact that it was also a very windy night helped to ensure the volume stayed put.

 It really was a very cold night so the jacket didn't stay off for very long

Outfit Details

Dress, Jacket: LIST ROMA
Shoes: Miss Selfridge
Bag: ETRO Vintage

Nails: Femme Beauty Attard
Hair: Toni&Guy Hilton

All Photos by KURT PARIS

Read More

Beauty : Olaplex Treatment

 By: Unknown    23:31  1 comment

In the land of hair styling and in particular hair colouring, there's a new product in town that everyone is talking about - Olaplex. According to the gabber, Olaplex, it seems, has managed to do what hair stylists have always dreamt about - repair hair. The word is that this is not just a temporary superficial repair of split ends that ends with your next wash - no, an actual, permanent repair of the bonds. 

From the website " this dream team invented a single ingredient chemistry, that is free of silicone or oils, that links broken bonds in the hair during and after chemical services making them stronger than they were before. "

Now why did I mention hair colouring? This product is mainly designed with the intention of being used during hair colouring processes, especially chemical bleaching. The idea is, that you can chemically bleach, re-bleach and re-bleach, as long as Olaplex is used within the bleaching process, there will be no damage to the hair.

After listening to about 4 different hair stylists glorify this product, I wanted to try it out but I don't bleach my hair. I checked and found out that there's also an in-salon stand-alone Olaplex treatment, designed to simply repair the hair. After all the hairstyling I had done over the last few months, my hair was looking rather damaged and unhappy - check out pic below - mega split ends. The top most pic is the end result after the treatment.

The standalone treatment is called a Reparative Treatment. First my hair was washed, then Olaplex Bond Multiplier was applied combed through, my hair was wrapped in clingfilm and it was left on for about 15 minutes. Next, the Olaplex Bond Perfector was applied and left on for another 10 minutes, then my hair was washed again. I was quite impressed by the difference in my hair texture after, my hair looked shinier, healthier and the split ends were gone. To finish off, here is the 'after' pic again.

Read More

Outfit : FitFlopping Away

 By: Unknown    01:00  No comments

The first day of Malta Fashion Week was a loooong one. I was working from early morning, helping to plan and sort out all the clothes, with Marisa Grima for the Point Fashion Show. The smart person that I am decided that that day would be a perfect day to try out a new pair of FitFlops I had just got. 

Fit flops are marketed as caffeine for your feet - they are extremely comfortable once broken in, but they come with a warning to wear progressively to avoid muscle soreness. Their micro wobble technology basically promotes the right leg and bum muscles into working more which in turn leads to better posture and toned muscles. I don't really know if they're actually toning my bum or not, a bit hard to tell since I also work out - who knows which is doing what. On that day though, what with all the walking up and down stairs and endless walking around whilst wearing these fit flops - my quads and calves were on fire. By the evening, it felt like I had just done two gym workouts back-to-back.

Onto the rest of the outfit and my dress is from that shop I told you about some time ago Lulu Boutique, a few people have come to tell me that they visited the store after reading my post and loved it so if you missed that one - read about LULU here.

And now for the hair - I had those braids done the previous day for the fashion week launch party. I love braids, they're so much fun and they were absolutely perfect for ensuring my hair stayed in place for the entire day throughout all the hectic activity. If you're curious as to what I wore that evening - you can check it out right here.

All Photos by KURT PARIS

Outfit Details

Dress: LULU Boutique

Shoes: Fit Flops at Stivaletti

Bangle : Miss Sixty

Hair: Toni&Guy Hilton

Nails: Femme Beauty Attard

Some Shopping Picks to Inspire You

Read More

STREET STYLE IN MALTA Vol 2 - Fashion Week Edition

 By: Unknown    04:10  No comments

Although Malta’s fashion week might not be the huge worldwide phenomena and street style stage such as the ones in London or Milan, our local fashionistas certainly know a thing or two about attending in style. The great thing about fashion weeks, in general, is that they seem to unleash a certain measure of style creativity and extract more willingness to step away from the little black dress and experiment a little bit.

I was especially pleased to see a lot of bright colours around and even some pattern mixing. Some key trends and looks which I spotted were: shorts and blazers / jackets for the guys - Malta’s climate doesn’t provide a great platform for this look so I get quite excited when I see it. 

Statement jewellery - although delicate jewellery has made a recent return to the fashion world, statement jewellery is still going strong especially when it comes to necklaces. Monochrome is extremely popular again this season, my preference for summer is when a little bit of colour is injected. I also noticed a lot of T-Bar sandals cladding many feet as well as a some sneakers and interesting brogues (both male and female). Some statement and quirky bags also played guests at various events.

ALL PHOTOS BY KURT PARIS

For more street style shots follow KURT PARIS ON INSTAGRAM @PARIS_KURT

Read More

Shopping : Summer at F&F

 By: Unknown    00:00  No comments

Today's shopping post revisits F&F at Daniel's - if you're still unsure what shop this is - it's the line from Tesco that opened late 2014. Summer stock is now fully stocked at F&F and there's quite a selection of bright, colourful clothing and interesting swimwear styles. 

Since it's impossible for me to update you on what's in stock in each and every shop in Malta, what I'm attempting, is a mix of budget and high-end shops, as well as those that are a bit 'newsworthy' ie. either not really well known or recently opened. F&F falls into both the budget and recently opened categories, so I decided it should make my list again this season.

AWithin minutes of walking into the store, a couple of things had already caught my eyes. First of all, there's a whole lot of yellow and by now you should all know how I feel about yellow - basically, it's not just for Tweety. There's also quite a large selection of swimwear and a couple of interesting accessories including bags and hats.

Let's go back to the 'yellow' - they've inserted the colour into the collection paired up with blue and the combo works quite nicely. Yellow is a major trend this summer and at F&F they've got blazers, a-line skirts, trousers, tops - basically, any clothing-item-type you might want to wear. Honestly, they're really leaving no excuse to not buy into the whole 'I will be wearing yellow this summer'. 

If you still think yellow is not for humans, we should sit down and have a chat together, at which I will, of course, wear the brightest shade of yellow known to fabric and attempt to dazzle you into agreeing with me.

 

Of course there's also denim in the store - we haven't left this denim-obsessed century

Now for the swimwear - the selection really is very large, there are cleavage-enhancing bikinis, one-piece suits with magic support, tankinis and lots more. Flick through the slideshow below to get an idea



Menswear is quite well stocked too at F&F, so I thought I'd snap some pics this time round as I'm generally accused by the hubby of neglecting 'his kind' completely.



Last but not least, there are also some really great female accessories.




Happy Shopping !!!

Read More

Shopping : V73 Bags

 By: Unknown    10:03  No comments

Some time ago, I wore a new bag by an Italian brand V73. Quite a few of you messaged me asking me for more info about this brand, so I've dedicated a whole shopping post to the brand and this season's styles.

Elisabetta Armellin is the person behind this brand. She was born in Treviso and studied in Venice The name V73 stands for "V" as Venice, "73" as her date of birth. Venice has always been one of her main sources of inspiration. The first V73 boutique was opened in Venice and the second one has recently been launched in Miami. This brand is stocked at Rebelli in Malta. 

The first thing that caught my eye when I first learnt about these bags, is the bright colours. There are some truly gorgeous vivid, colourful options. The second thing was the details - the gold hardware is top notch quality and I'm in love with the bamboo handles on some of them. Since this is me writing, the leather piping and full leather styles (like the top pic) were another plus.

Some more in the slideshow below

Read More

Outfit Post : A little bit less Feminine

 By: Unknown    04:20  1 comment

For the last night at Malta Fashion Week, I decided to do something a bit different. This look is much less feminine than some of my usual looks involving dresses or skirts and nipped in waists, this is a bit more menswear-inspired. I also decided that an undone, vintage cravat would complete the 'borrowed from the men' idea.

To complete the look, I left my makeup a bit neutral, just a hint of dark eyes and my hair quite fuss-free - flat and straight.

Outfit Details

Tuxedo Jacket: Alexander McQueen
Cravat: Vintage
Trousers: Gianfranco Ferre
Shoes: Buffalo
Bag: Marc Jacobs
Shirt: Zara
Hair: Toni&Guy

All Photos by KURT PARIS

Some similar inspiration / shopping ideas to dream about or buy

Read More