Magazine Madness: Kauneus Trendit March 2013

Trendi Finland March 2013

Trendi March 2013 is exactly very spring and capturing. The Tiffany blue front cover not only seizes my gazes from shelves but also reminds me that my first Finnish fashion magazine is kyllä, Trendi. Being as neither Hearst nor Vogue group, this Finnish local reading provides more Nordic-chic news and views.

Without household celebrities as cover girls, less than 135 pages and even nor written in globally strong language, how Trendi taps the trend totally??? The mix of fonts on typography (at least 3: Georgia, Times New Roman and handwriting), the use of colours on beauty issues, the monthly Finnish bloggers’ style columns, the detailed descriptions on models and contributors, and fresh faces on nearly street-snap-like fashion campaign pages are the keys to the competitive fashion media industry. Readers can enjoy from the visual that this small design team is having a lot of fun on every page turn.

Oye, Harper’s Bazaar and Anna Wintour, do you realise that Trendi does not have yawn-worthy covers, nor lasts over 70% part of advertisements featuring overpriced items, even without ‘continued on p.300’ in order to disturb readers’ reading moods, yet still has its very own voice?? The mix-and-match of high-low fashion along with price captions shows that Trendi doesn’t only succumb to haute couture, but more an affordable attitude to relish everyday wears.

Bold but not bland boring or bloody pricy, that’s what we call trendy.

Photography and info:

http://www.trendi.fi/

Helsinki Late Night Shopping Event March 21, 2013: IVANAhelsinki

Helsinki Late Night Shopping Event March 21, 2013: IVANAhelsinki  

Haloo Spring!!! The boutiques/galleries/café of Design District in Helsinki central open longer than usually during Late Night Shopping event, and Ivana Helsinki is with no doubt my choice to visit after 18:00: Taking IVANAhelsinki designed cup drinking welcome sparkling wine, shortly after, wiping both hands with IVANAhelsinki napkins, chatting with friendly and cute store assistant, viewing the S/S 2013 collections around the store, and enjoying Kling’s Swing Duon (Venla Kling, vocalist, and Juho Hynynen, guitarist) blue Jazz solo. While Venla wearing IVANAhelsinki maroon dress and humming, it’s surely the beautiful moment of the boutique event.

Though I would like to collect A/W 2003 Maatuska & Bauhaus napkins, I still choose ViTALiS savior lip balm to survive this chilly windy spring.

More info about Late Night Shopping event and IVANAhelsinki, please visit:

http://www.designdistrict.fi/events

http://www.ivanahelsinki.com/

Photography: IVANAhelsinki/Mindy Yuan 

Art Attack: Ivana Helsinki Coming Home at Design Museo

Coming Home Exhibition: February 1-April 7, 2013, Helsinki 

Visiting Design Museum Suomi, and you will meet Ivana Helsinki. The Nordic young designer Paola Ivana Suhonen founded the brand together with her sister Pirjo Suhonen, and launched its first collection in August 1998.

Tales, poems and the overall feeling are quite essential for Paola Suhonen’s design. “The Finnish identity includes a beautiful melancholy undercurrent. Its elements are a close connection with nature and the contrasts of the changing seasons”. From the exhibition gallery of Design Museum, visitors can view from 1999 Ivana Finlandia to 2013 Rotterdam, the patterns have been transforming from a mere dark blue tan top to a colourful drapable mid-length dress. Ivana Helsinki Coming Home also features nostalgic photographs and visual short films of fashion shows. My personal favourites are A/W 2005 Rouva and A/W 2009 Starrain, for combining the detailed draftsmanship and the white fabric as background, which reflecting it’s very ‘melancholy and pensiveness with a clear cut Scandinavian mood’. Ivana Helsinki now has 2 boutique shops, in Helsinki and New York, where often held many small and warm parties to greet those who love fashion, art and photography.

Before taking the stairs up, please take some original hand-printed postcards as Ivana Helsinki Exhibition souvenir. By presenting the ‘Ivan J. Paolovski matchfactory’ card (Ivana Helsinki fabric collections are produced here), shoppers can get 10% discount from Ivana Helsinki flagship store. On March 21 (Thur), 2013, for Late Night Shopping events in Helsinki, Ivana Helsinki store will provide appetizers and wine, and of course, during 18:00~21:00, all the items at store will be 10% reduction!

Photography: Mindy Yuan, IvanaHelsinki 

More info please go to:

http://www.designmuseum.fi

http://www.ivanahelsinki.com/

Design Museo

Korkeavuorenkatu 23

00130, Helsinki

Magazine Madness: Allure with Angela Levin March 2013

allure March 2013

March 2013 allure doubles up the cover girl (Yes! Mila Kunis!!) fashion campaign pages, bloggers’ personal styles, uurgg, advertisements and hooray!!! Behind the scenes of makeup artist Angela Levin at the Oscars!! While media inevitably over-compliment actresses and presenters’ defined looks at award events, those artists who work almost ‘silently labouriously’ deserve more interviews and applauses.

The secret of the preparation is 25: First-aid kit, Chanel makeups (mascara, body excellence firming and rejuvenating cream, soleil tan, sublimage la crème, aqua ultra-light skin), lip colours, neck pillow, brow pencils, Jan Marini primer, blushes, makeup remover, collagen pads, makeup brushes(“I have over 100 total”), false lashes, toothpicks, body powder, concealers, contouring products, earphones, mini powder puffs, Matte Anti shine, a flask of brandy(“To calm the nerves”), snacks(“They fill you up and don’t bloat you”) and straws(“so girls don’t mess it up｛with the lipsticks on｝)!!!

For way too many female fashion magazines, that the major zoom is focusing on celebrities’ beauty products, their essentials, their tips and their careers; regardless there are quite some respectful actresses still(such as Marion Cotillard, one of Levin’s Oscar-winning clients), but it’s a thankful relief that allure presenting a professional’s clinical experiences and thoughtful ideas for readers to consult. Angela Levin’s intelligent conversations already conceal somewhat-not-so photogenic silhouette, with my satisfaction of peeping curiosity, perhaps more a modest attitude that I look up upon.

Works Cited and Photography:

Panych, Sophia. “At the Oscars.” allure March 2013. New York: Condé Nast Entertainment, 2013. pp. 158-164.

www.allure.com

Magazine Madness: Flat is InStyle, Flat is not Frail-UK February 2013

InStyle UK February 2013

Buying several pairs of fabulous priced of shoes is almost undoubtedly, a universally girly dream. The question is, how many pairs of them are suitable, comfortable as well as loveable enough to power up our walking steps in daily life?? InStyle UK columnist Victoria Moss at February 2013 issue looks back her shoe stack and eyes up the brogues and flats.

Without S/S 2013 designers’ choices, I doubt if Moss would finally realise that the power of flats does not only ‘fashion up any ensemble’, or just make her ‘bus commute a while lot sexier’ (Moss, 2013, p.41). Among approximately 1110-word article, there is ZERO adjective putting ‘healthy’ or ‘comfort’ as target discussion toward her ballerina flats. Between the lines, of course, Moss mentions that flats so freeing, still, she appreciates those heels for ‘standing up to tall boys, stomping through a sample sale queue, strutting into the Dean Street Townhouse’ (p. 41); perhaps more an inferiority complex of not being alluring symbol of chastity and male ownership, therefore, her ‘liberation propaganda’ is just yet another flashy fashion fat lie.

On visual instinct, bloody high heels indeed lengthen the percent of legs, perhaps lighten up the evening gowns for hours, but for our confidences, which cannot be given by any others, I truly wonder if a wobbling shambles with squeezing bleeding toes would perform any gracefully confident attitude.

I once tried on the 2 inches stiletto sandals to go on a hot pot party with my colleagues, and it turned out that within 4 hours, my both insteps were in peeling and soles in unknown pains. Thereafter, flip flops, loafers, Oxfords and Dr. Martens are my regulars, and I always would like to collect a pair of black Repetto. For friends’ weddings or official ceremonies, there are always pleasing wedge soles to choose from, and a pair of foldable flat is carried in my bag. Going shopping or strolling around is a not a self-torture; wearing high-heel pumps to be smug or slim, is not a feminine power, quite on the contrary, an alternative way of foot binding; which is, a post-modern forced violence in order to gain gazers’ attentions. Paying a great fortune to limit the mobility and to summon skin infections, Hallux Valgus or hip joints problems is surely a foolish suicide.

Embracing the low-key flats or low-heel mules/boots/trainers (less than 2.5 inches/6.4 cm)daily, not due to the trend of Hollywood celebrities or fashion magazines, but for our feet and mind freedom, because flat is not frail.

Works Cited:

Moss, Victoria. “The Power Flat”. InStyle UK, Vol.144, February 2013. London: IPC Media, 2013.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_binding

Photography: InStyle UK