3BM's Top 5 Men's Christmas Gifts...

I always think girls are so easy to buy presents for, there are so many things in life that we need, want and wish for, that it would be humanly impossible to buy it all... Therefore, that leaves a constant rolling gift list for anyone who wishes to spoil us! 

Men on the other hand are a totally different kettle of fish! Simply because if they want something they buy it...meaning their wish list is near non-existent! They're generally not nearly as obsessed by fashion magazines, blogs, online shopping or celebrities and therefore rarely seem to experience that feeling of all consuming want, need and I HAVE TO HAVE THAT IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW! I can safely say us Mice feel this every week, if not every day!

The last few weeks have been filled with ticking off our present list for our friends and sisters and leaving the best til last...Daddy Mouse! The one male in the world that is very hard to please with a present, when he says 'I would prefer it if you didn't get me anything,' he probably means it and to be honest it would be way easier if we just listened to him! But it's Christmas, we can't just leave him off the present list no matter how Scrooge-like he's being! So every year we strive to find that one thing that he really, really wants but doesn't yet know it! 

Surprisingly, we're still searching....! 

However during our all-consuming quest for the perfect Daddy Mouse gift, we've come across a few gems which we thought were perfect presents...just not for him!

See below our top five 2013 Christmas Gifts for Grandpas, Dads, Boyfriends, Brothers etc etc...

iKettle, £99.99

He can boil the kettle from anywhere in your house at the click of a button from his iPhone! When his alarm goes off in the morning his phone will immediately ask if he would like to boil the kettle and similarly as he arrives home from a hard day at work!! No more missing vital moments of the match whilst waiting for the kettle to boil, no more coming in from the garden before your cuppa's ready...it's all about the iKettle!!

Nike FuelBand, £129

 

Any fitness conscious boy (or girl for that matter) will love this little gadget, in fact it may also be just the thing to kick start a new year fitness obsession in those less fitness driven as well! This little band monitors and measures all your movements - it counts your steps, measures the intensity of your workouts and even lets you track your sleep patterns. You can link this up to your phone and get real time progress updates at any time!

 

 

Tom Ford Noir, £80

 

You can't beat an expensive, luxurious aftershave and Tom Ford always does them best! You definitely can't skimp on fragrance - chuck that Old Spice away NOW, and you even get an after shave balm with this set from Selfridges! Win, win!

Sonos Wireless Music System, from £169

A concept that every guy will instantly get and love (while us less tech-savy Mice will scratch our heads over but still very much enjoy...)! In a nutshell, it's a way to play your digital music collection in every room from any device. Think iTunes, Spotify, radio stations etc and stream all your favourite music across these from one platform. You can control this on any device - your phone, tablet or computer and manage the music each room is playing at the click of a button! Get it?! Probably not but I can guarantee he'll love it...check out the video here which explains it all much better!!

Whiskey Ice Ball Moulds, £14.45

The perfect gift for any Whiskey lover, the round ice ball melts much slower than smaller square cubes resulting in a less diluted drink. Claims to make the last sip taste just as good as the first. We'll drink to that...

Met Gala 2013: Planet Fashion Gets Punk'd

Parties with themed dress codes can be a bit of a nightmare...

If it says 'Studio 54' on the invitation, do you go all out, don your silver flares, mirrorball earrings and a faceful of glitter or should you just give the theme a gentle nod and wear something suitably Bianca Jagger-esque? Does 'Pirate Chic' call for full on Jack Sparrow, peg leg and hook or are we talking a few stripes and an oversized pair of gold hoop earrings?

There's a fine line between themed and fancy dress, but not making an effort at all can make you look just as ridiculous, especially when everyone else has really gone to town...

So, we can only imagine the fashion dilemmas that fashion's A-List have faced since the Met Gala invitations landed on their doormats earlier this year bearing the dress code: 'Punk'.

Did this call for a sprinkle of studs and a couple of safety pins, or was this more of a mohawk and dog collar affair? The Met Gala is by far our favourite red carpet fashion parade of the year because the slew of fashionistas, models and all round beautiful people on the invite list always use it as an opportunity to completely push fashion boundaries to the max. But does that really extend to pink hair and PVC bondage trousers?  And quite aside from all that, what does 'punk' as a theme even mean anyway...?

We like to think that had we been running this dress code gauntlet, we'd have been attempting to channel the spirit of Greenday's Billie Joe Armstrong's definition of punk:

"A guy walks up to me and asks ‘What’s Punk?’ So I kick over a garbage can and say ‘That’s punk!’ So he kicks over a garbage can and says ‘That’s punk?’ and I say ‘No, that’s trendy!”

We're thinking, being Punk at the Met Gala is less about spikes and leather harnesses, and more about doing something free, naughty and a little bit out there. It's a dress code that calls for a look that draws a triple take and raises an eyebrow; something that unashamedly goes against the grain and sticks its middle finger up at any protest about it...

But, we also recognise the desire to remain flashbulb friendly and we can definitely understand J-Lo, Gwyneth & co shying away from anything that would  be likely to make Harper Beckham cry... anti-establishment with a glossy edge - there's absolutely not denying that it's a tough one.

But then there's also the rather clever argument that the ultimate punk rebellion is to dress for a punk themed event in pretty, pastel-hued florals... in which case, we suppose we'll have to concede that la Wintour in Chanel Couture nailed it. As always.

But what about the rest of them? We give you the 3BM take on who punk rocked the red carpet and who just looked a bit Johnny Rotten...

The Fancy Messes

Miley Cyrus in Marc Jacobs
A fishnet body stocking is always going to hover on the edges of fetish wear so with the right styling Miley's dress could actually be the perfect punky statement to cause a stir amongst the buttoned-up Waspy socialites. But, add in the spiked up crop and you topple straight into campy punk - a theme taken far too literally.

Madonna in Givenchy

Studs? check! Spikes? check! Ripped fishnets and tartan? check! Lourdes cowering in the corner, rocking gently with her hands over her eyes? Just out of shot...

Kim Kardashian in Givenchy
Kim's certainly made an effort in the fancy dress stakes we're just not sure what she came as, or why she thought dressing a burgeoning bump and ballooning bosom in polo-necked, posy print was going to do her any favours. The matching shoes are pretty horrific too and don't even get us started on the camouflage glove-sleeve...

Sienna Miller in Burberry
There's no denying that Sienna got the punk memo and that jacket is pretty awesome, but we can't help thinking that she looks a little as though she's recycled Olivia Newton John's Grease finale costume and got lost on her way to an Avril Lavigne convention...

Ivanka Trump in Juan Carlos Obando
Props to the Trumpette for those lethal looking spikes and the emerald streaked hair but the very blah outfit's just a little Soccer Mom not to mention massively unflattering.

Sarah Jessica Parker in Giles Deacon & Philip Treacy
We genuinely wavered over whether this was fugly or fabulous. Each and every item of SJP's look in isolation are jaw-droppingly incredible, but together, all at once, even Carrie Bradshaw can't quite ace it... Though we're still a little head over those thigh-high tartan Louboutin heels...

The Dress Code? What Dress Codes?

Heidi Klum in Marchesa
Perfectly pretty but not at all punky, from the woman who spends months creating the world's most elaborate Halloween costumes, we really expected more.

Kate Upton in Diane Von Furstenberg
We get shunning a theme if you have something so stupendously awesome to wear that you'll bedazzle everyone into forgetting that there ever was a theme in the first place. This though, is just stupendously awful. We have serious concerns that Kate can't actually read and just believed the other green-eyed glamour models when they read the invite to her, telling her the dress code was peas.

Gwyneth Paltrow in Valentino
It seems that Gwyneth got her dates muddled and turned up in last year's outfit... It's perfectly acceptable (although perhaps a little unimaginative) to wear Schiaparelli pink when the exhibition is Schiaparelli themed; it's totally baffling when the theme's punk.

Naomie Harris in Donna Karan Atelier
Meanwhile Naomie hadn't got her years muddled but was heavily channeling two of last year's star gowns. Taking inspiration from girls whose style you covet is all well and good, but coming over single white female and completely ripping off both Beyonce and Diane Kruger's dresses from 2012's Met Ball is a little too much...

Uma Thurman in Zac Posen
This isn't punk and it isn't pretty. We suspect that Uma, who'd lost her invite, was super relieved to bump into Kate Upton last week, who happily passed along the dress code...

Mary-Kate Olsen in Vintage Chanel Haute Couture & Vintage Balmain
A little bit Great Gatsby, a little bit Grandma's dressing gown all topped off with hobo hair. It's actually pretty bonkers brilliant but it's definitely not even verging on punk.

The Punk Princesses

Anne Hathaway in vintage Givenchy
Hathahaters be silenced, this girl knows her punk. The marabou and glitter sound cabaret carcrash on paper but it just the right combination of deadly delicious in real life. We're also loving the peroxide crop - Debbie Harry eat your heart out.

Katy Perry in Dolce & Gabbana
While some people have shunned Katie's D&G as too costumey and camp, we couldn't agree less. We're having serious palpitations over the detail in that dress and we adore the matchy matchy earrings and crown. Plus, what's more punk and iconoclastic than making satanic hand signs while wearing a cathedral inspired dress... On a more Perez Hilton-esque note, Putting this fashion genius in the same frame as Upton's pea sack is cruelly comical.

Kate Bosworth in Balmain
OK, it's more glam rock than punk rock but, as always, Ms Bosworth completely knocks it out of the park. Short, sharp and mouth-wateringly besequinned, we particularly love that the hair and make-up is so laidback it's virtually snoozing.

Cameron Diaz in Stella McCartney
We're really not sure about this look from the neck up. Cameron needs roots or darker eye make-up to prevent the slightly terrifying Lord Voldemort face, but neck down this is sheer perfection. That colour, that back to front cape, that belt - we love...

Doutzen Kroes in Theykens' Theory
She's the sort of girl who's constantly told that she'd look good in a bin bag and it looks as though she's decided to test the theory out. The result? Well what a surprise... she looks a thousand percent kickass amazing. It's black but not boring with just the right amount of punky, look at me rebellion.

Aubrey Plaza in Marios Schwab

So, we have a slight cape obsession. We've no idea who Aubrey Plaza is, but she's caped up in the Marios Schwab dress that we've been drooling over since Fashion Week. The grungey hair and smudgy, morning-after eye make-up just lifts our levels of style crush to even loftier heights.

Cara Delevingne in Burberry

We're not going to lie, we sort of wish that Kate Upton had got to Cara before she left the house and showed the rest of the amateurs how punk's really done (quite apart from anything else we're sure that baby Delevingne would have an incredible pea onesie...). Studded and slashed to the navel - this fierce slice of Burberry amazingness is taken stellar with the undone hair, kohled lids and edgy ear cuff. Sigh.

  

3BM get colourful with Tatty Devine...

When it comes to feeling liberated everyone has a wild aspiration, whether that be throwing yourself mindlessly out of a plane skydiving, experiencing the most famous light show on earth AKA the Northern Lights or revving up a supercar engine and speeding around a race track Lewis Hammy style! Mine doesn't follow such an extreme route but instead a childish and rather messy one... yep, you've guessed it, paint throwing! Last week my dream came true when I was invited to Tatty Devine's 'I Heart Holi' party inspired by the Indian Holi festival which took place on the very same day. The Holi festival or as some call it festival of colours is thrown to mark the start of the spring season which ties in perfectly to Tatty's reason for throwing the party in the first place ... to celebrate the brand's new colour-popping Spring Summer 2013 jewellery collection. I can't think of an occasion more fitting for a brand with as much flair as Tatty Devine. To me Tatty is all about fun, playfulness and embracing the art of experimentation and having a blast with colour ticks all of these boxes in my book.

To give you a flavour and set the scene check out how this holiday is celebrated around the world in pictures...

Image via www.justthetravel.com

Image via en.paperblog.com

Image via www.blogs.sacbee.com

The Tatty extravaganza took place in a studio based in Bermondsey in London, the perfect blank canvas featuring tonnes of white everywhere. The only instructions given were to turn up before 9pm and in as much white as humanly possible with the expectation of having a wildly colourful evening - done & done! I opted for a white top and jeans as did my good friend Anna (my plus 1 for the evening) but upon arrival we were also gifted a pair of whiter than white converse high tops to complete our stark looks. So far so good! The colour-tastic theme was a common thread running through the event with rainbow cocktails made up using the very green Midori Melon liqueur (who sponsored the event) and Illamasqua neon-ispired makeovers for all guests.

Our first port of call was checking out the Tatty pop-up shop and cooing over the bold and beautiful jewellery designs. A few of my particular favourites include...

Goddess Arm Ultra Necklace, £295

Lotus Flower Celebration Necklace, £90

Geometric Necklace, £135

Next up, tummies rumbling, it was time to hunt out the food! With street food being particularly on trend right now, Tatty had of course wheeled in Kolkata Street Food who were busy treating guests to spicy Indian snacks - yummy! Once sufficiently fed and watered it was time for a little rainbow-hued regression so we grabbed ourselves a paper bag full to the brim of powder paint fun... 

...dressed up in appropriate attire...

...and joined in with the much anticipated countdown ...3, 2, 1 - GOOOOOO!! We were in prime position, right in the thick of the colour explosion action, which seemed like a super plan until we were coughing and spluttering taking in gulp after gulp of powder paint - our lungs were having a colour party of their own! All in the name of fun eh?! This was the messy outcome... 

Rainbow shambles but AMAZING fun! From now on every year for the rest of my hopefully long-legged life, I'll definitely be indulging in a little Holi festival fun - seriously the best party act ever. Everyone needs a bit of colourful paint throwing in their life - thanks Tatty Devine for the intro!

Check out the brand new Tatty Devine Spring Summer 2013 collection here and enter the following exclusive 3BM code to receive a 20% discount at checkout - 3BADMICE20 - happy shopping! 

Hello 2013!

Happy New Year!

Image via: www.pinterest.com

We're back after a lovely long Christmas break which we've mostly spent snuggled on the sofa in our onesies, eating, drinking and internet sales shopping... The perfect end to a pretty amazing 2012. 

To ring in a brand new year we hopped across the Channel to Paris for four days of eating, drinking and sales shopping (this time we were wearing proper clothes and shopping in real life shops...). More to come on out little Parisian adventure very soon. 

In the meantime, we thought we'd kick off 2013 by sharing our New Year's Resolutions... 

HK Mouse
I've just lugged back to Hong Kong two bulging bags stuffed full to bursting with amazing Christmas presents and beautiful sales bargains. The only slight issue is that my wardrobe is already ridiculously overcrowded. So, my first New Year's Resolution is to finally get round to something I've been meaning to do for months and months... wardrobe rehab. I'm going to set aside a whole day and spend it going through all my clothes, shoes and accessories sorting them into keep, tailor, charity and chuck piles. I'm then going to neatly arrange everything I'm left with so that I have a perfect neat. tidy, colour co-ordinated wardrobe...

 Image via: www.pinterest.com

My second resolution is to get back to my Bikinifit regime. After almost a month off, I'm strangely really looking forward to getting back to eating healthily and early morning work-outs. Roll on broccoli and boxing; protein shakes and press-ups - by the end of 2013 I'm hoping to be a smaller, healthier more toned version of me...

Image via: www.pinterest.com

Middle Mouse
I'm always late for very important dates actually, I'm always late for any kind of date...! Work's the only exception thanks to Mini Mouse dragging my tired self out of bed on a daily basis - thank God one of us is a morning mouse! Last year there was one occasion where I was so embarrassingly late I had to buy an apology present en route (which made me even later) to soften the blow! This year I intend to arrive at least five minutes early everywhere that I go to avoid those panicky, edge of my tube seat moments and arriving looking like a disheveled sweaty mess! Tick tock tick tock...

Image via: www.pinterest.com

Next up on the resolution list is to bag myself a hot husband! A Ryan Gosling type would do - chiseled, charming and charismatic! Someone who will buy me Miu Miu shoes when I've had a bad day and keep our champagne fridge stocked up all year round! I don't think that's asking too much do you?!

Image via: www.pinterest.com

Mini Mouse
I love living in East London with Middle Mouse but I'm now ready to own a house with real character and charm. My dream would be a cosy home with white-washed floor boards, exposed brick walls, candles littering every surface, clean white background crammed full of knick knacks and pictures! So my first New Year's resolution is to get on the hunt for my perfect mousey abode, something a bit like this would be perfection.....

Images via: http://decordots.com/tag/raw/

Next up, my second resolution - to stop buying so much from the high street and instead invest in a few designer wardrobe staples...by 31st December 2013 I hope to own some Acne pieces and my first ever pair of Christian Louboutins...

Image via: http://nathaliamoggia.com/english/portfolio/illustration.html

We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and an even better start to 2013. Here's to a year full of love, laughter and amazing adventures... 

Image via: www.pinterest.com