This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

We don't know about you but, we've got...

We know that there're a few more hours to go before we can pack up our satchels and head off for two full days of cocktails and lazy lie-ins, but we're here to help you while those last few deskbound hours away with a round-up of all that's new and notable in Miceland. So, without further waffle, this week the Mice have mostly been...

Getting hyper over Instagram's genius new time lapse video app, Hyperlapse. While previously creating a time lapse video required expensive kit and lots of time and patience, now we can all create high speed shorts armed just with our iPhones. If you haven't seen it yet, take a peek at the Instagram promo vid to see what all the fuss is about...

We've been madly filming anything and everything ever since we downloaded the app. We've still got some practice to get promo video pro, but here's a little Hong Kong Hyperlapse (with music courtesy of another great app, Lomotif) that we made earlier...

Taking our make-up bags to the next level with a hefty dose of Tom Ford amazingness. We'll happily admit that we're out and out beauty junkies each with bathroom cupboards overflowing with a myriad of eyeshadows, blushers, foundations and lipglosses. So quite how it's taken us this long to invest in a slice of Tom Ford Beauty is a little beyond us. But now that we have, my God are we hooked!

It may be at the higher end of pricey but the quality's incredible and the packaging is so luxe that we want to constantly whip out our TF booty for public touch-ups. 

So far we've snapped up the Eye Colour Quad in Cognac Sable - four gorgeous bronzy browns that go on in a perfect buttery smudge, last all day and amp blue eyes up like no other colours we've ever tried.

And we couldn't resist another lipstick to add to our ever growing collections - hello queen of the nudes - Lip Color in Vanilla Suede.

Something tells us these aren't going to be our last Tom Ford purchases... Poor old credit cards!

Waiting with baited breath to see what we'll be wearing next spring as New York Fashion Week kicks off. For the next month we'll be poring over Style on a daily basis, swooning over all the pre-show street style and pinning all our SS'15 inspiration. 

In celebration of the start of fashion month, we thought we'd share our current sartorial obsession - our top fashion illustration Instagram accounts. Get following these paintbrush wizards immediately and prepare to see your feed flooded with fashion illustration deliciousness. In no particular order...

Donald Drawbertson
Head of Creative Development at Bobbi Brown by day, illustrator extraordinaire by night, Donald Robertson who's adopted the very apt Insta-moniker, Drawbertson, is an absolute must follow.

StudioDore
When you're one half of a fashion blogging power couple, your Instagram feed is bound to be pretty fabulous. Add in a dash of Parisian chic and a wicked way with a fine-liner and you have Garance Doré's swoonworthy account. 

Blairz
The perfectly imperfect pouty girls that Blairz (AKA Blair Breitenstein) sketches are exactly who we'd like to wake-up as this fashion week. In the meantime, we'll just have to make do with wearing one of her beyond awesome Lips & Lashes Tees.

And that's that for another week, so...

Lots of love

x

The Mice

So Long Heels...

Last week I read an article with perhaps the saddest fashion announcement since that of the arrival of the clear bra straps craze...the heel is dead! 

Yes, heels can be so uncomfortable that you'd rather stick pins in your eyes than cram your toes into a pair... It's true, a night of stiletto strutting can end in that burning feeling in the balls of your feet that still pounds as you lay in bed hours after kicking them to the corner of your room...But, a great pair of heels flatter legs beyond belief, make any outfit miles more chic and most importantly instantly ignite that feeling of femininity, confidence and class. Something that I'm pretty sure a pair of brogues or slippers can't muster!

Having said that, after doing some research for inspirational images, I started to think that maybe the flats brigade are onto something...

 

See, maybe not quite so scary after all! 

As my research progressed I found that the death of heels was littered all over the AW14 catwalks at Milan Fashion Week, leaving it very hard to ignore! Take D&G's amazing enchanted forest themed collection showcasing a whole host of flats...there literally wasn't a heel in sight! 

However these weren't your average ballet pumps or brogues, these had of course been sprinkled with a hearty dose of D&G pizazz! There were pixie boots, t-bar sandals, knee high boots and open toe pumps encrusted to the max with reams of sequins, jewels & glitter, not forgetting the array of metallic hues, animal prints and multi textures adding an extra layer of fabulousness!! If that wasn't enough, they were all paired with super short shorts, heavily textured dresses, bejewelled playsuits and billowing fairytale maxis...this is how you do it girls!

As ever, us Mice are keen to embrace the trends and won't ever dismiss one until we've at least given it a crack! Plus there are definitely a fair few upsides to not having your foot wedged at a 180 degree angle for hours on end...so on that note here are 3BM's top pick of flats which should be worn with pride and confidence (but most probably along side a few small sniffles of mourning for that fabulous heel!!)

Splurge...

Valentino Lace Pumps, £425

 

Free People Mesh Espadrilles, £100

 

Charlotte Olympia Kitty Slippers, £465

Ted Baker Multi Texture Pumps, £100

Rochas Metallic Embellished Flats, £510

J Crew Suede Pointy Toes, £230

Free People Laser Cut Slippers, £128

Valentino Rockstud Flats, £745 

Zara Metallic Sandals, £29.99

 

From Catwalk to Sidewalk: Ballerina Shoes

As much as we love fashion month and spending endless hours on Style pouring over every minute detail of all the runway shows, it does often make us wish we could just fast forward six months to the day that the collections actually hit stores (or the day that Zara is stocked with homages to the collections that us Mice can actually afford...). This year though we've been looking at the catwalks through new eyes. Thank to fashion DIY superstars who showcase their creations on their blogs (we're thinking A Pair & A Spare, Honestly WTF and Stripes & Sequins) we've got to thinking that with a needle and thread and a little time and patience, not only can we save a few pennies, but we can also have catwalk fresh trends right now... win win!

We're working up to projects involving sewing and cutting things but we spied one trend that involves nothing more than a bit of tying... be-ribboned ballerina-esque shoes.

There were dainty criss-crosses at Marchesa...

...and Marissa Webb.

But the ones we're really obsessing over and luckily for us, the far easier ones to DIY, were the proper ballet ribbons at Lanvin...

...and Alberta Ferretti.

We're totally head over ballerina heels!

Images via: www.style.com

Gif via: www.sonnyphotos.com

So I had a little go at DIYing and this really couldn't be simpler... Take one pair of courts and two lengths of ribbon or two skinny scarves. Loop the ribbon/ scarf under the heel and wrap round your ankle before tying it in a bow. Et Voila, an Alberta Ferretti/ Lanvin-esque be-ribbonned, ballerina shoe! Taking photos of your own feet is notoriously tricky, especially with an iPhone so this isn't the best shot, but it gives you the idea...

Now I just need to buy ribbons and scarfs to match all my shoes...

This Week The Mice Have Mostly Been...

It's Friday!

Another week has zoomed on by and now we're just a few short hours from the weekend! To help while away the rest of the work-bound day, we bring you a brisk jog through this week in Mice world... This week the Mice have mostly been...

Devouring the last few pages of our beach reads! What with one thing and another, reading seems to be a luxury we now only really have time for on holiday. So when we get a nice big chunk of time to laze in a hammock with no bigger decisions to make than magazine or Kindle, we make sure that we have some juicy reading material all lined up and ready to go... For me, this holiday's literature list was a mixed bag of escapist trash and a couple of books I've had on my must-read radar for a while, here's my round-up.

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

Bought on a dash through an airport Smiths last year, I've been meaning to read this book for months and have heard anyone and everyone raving about it. With good cause it turns out... Whimsical, magical and incredibly evocative, The Night Circus tells the tale of a pair of duelling magicians who create the ultimate circus which arrives without warning, opens each evening as the night draws in and disappears without a trace as stealthily as it arrived. It's the kind of beautiful book that you can get completely lost in and feel very incredibly sad when you've finished - top of my best reads of 2013 so far.

The Strip - J.J. Salem
Out and out trash but lots of fun! I raced through J.J. Salem's debut novel, Tanlines, a couple of years ago and have been waiting for the follow-up ever since. This is a glamourous bonkbuster with a little light murder mystery, not as compulsively readable as Tanlines, but still a pretty good way to while away a few hours on your sunlounger.

The Afterparty - Leo Benedictus
I read a review on this novel a couple of years ago and intrigued, I put it straight on my Amazon wishlist, where it's somehow languished until our Sri Lanka trip... The Afterparty is a satire on celebrity, a book within a book which is based on a true story (well, a true story in the book), confused yet? Don't be, the writing's face-paced, funny and is guaranteed to have you awake at 1am unravelling the mysteries of what happened one evening after a High Grant-esque celebrity's Birthday party... 

Stuffing our faces with all you can eat deliciousness at the the relaunched Lily & Bloom brunch. Eggs, Bloody Marys and a good gossip about the antics of the night before, who doesn't love brunch?! But make that a free-flow, all you can eat brunch and we suddenly have a new found enthusiasm for dragging ourselves out of bed pre-noon on a Sunday... So it was with great greedy excitement that we piled into a brand new gem on the Hong Kong brunch scene that we happened to stumble across on a wander around Central last Sunday.

Image via: www.lily-bloom.com

Having spent many a tipsy, cocktail-fuelled evening in Lily upstairs, we're not quite sure how we'd never discovered the delights of downstairs restaurant Bloom before. But thankfully last weekend after working up a good appetite with a jaunt out to Chai Wan, we decided to give Bloom a go for brunch. And what a discovery! Bloom's interior is art deco Brasserie meets gentleman's club with a gritty NY twist - lots of leather banquettes, exposed brick walls and a huge swirling chandelier. We perched at the bar right next to the raw bar and ordered in our first round of bellinis. Discovering that bellinis were free flow (add an extra HK$100 to the brunch package and you get free flow bellinis or Bloody Marys), we gulped the first down and placed our orders for round two... 

While we waited for our next champagne hit we decided to hit the buffet. Bloom's brunch kicks off and ends with buffet courses - think antipasti and seafood to start and ice your own cupcakes and a chocolate fountain to finish - with a never ending procession of family style main dishes brought round in between. Maincourses vary from week to week but we tucked into a mouthwatering array of Mediterranean flavours from lamb koftas to rabbit risotto. Oh and did we mention the egg station?! Our absolute favourite part of the whole brunch was the chef standing by to whip up the most delicious omelettes that you've ever tasted. With a selection of eggs from duck to quail and a variety of unusual ingredients to add to your eggs, I'm still dreaming of the incredible bone marrow and rosemary omelette that I devoured seconds after it left the pan! At just HK$400, brunch is also much better value than a lot of its other all you can eat stable mates, next time we'll be arriving at dot on 11am to make the very most of it... 

Lily & Bloom

5/F LKF Tower, 33 Wyndham Street, Hong Kong

+852 2810 6166

www.lily-bloom.com

Brunch every Sunday from 11am - 4pm 

Three course brunch with dessert HK$400 + free flow Bellini/ Bloody Mary HK$100

Mourning the end of fashion month as Paris Fashion Week draws to a close. After four weeks of fashion fabness, we're very sad to wave adieu to our daily Style.com sessions and manic A/W 13 Inspiration pinning. But Paris brought the month to a close with a bang. From a 50ft high revolving globe at Chanel to Alexander Wang's stellar debut for Balenciaga. From Marc Jacobs' Hitchcock-esque, sleepover chic for Luis Vuitton to puritanical verging on Amish simplicity at Valentino with a bit of McQueen bonkers in between, we've loved every last second. 

Chanel   

Balenciaga

Louis Vuitton

Valentino

Alexander McQueen

Images via: www.style.com

Roll on September and our next fashion month fix...

That's all for this week!

Happy Weekend!
x 
The Mice

Image via: www.kensiekate.com

3BM Best Bits: NYFW SS 13

One down another three to go. 

As London Fashion Week kicks off, we round up our best bits from NYFW which wrapped up, across the pond, on Thursday.

Christian Grey Turns Muse

In a most un-springlike twist, the New York catwalks were awash with leather, harnesses and black lace - do we detect a little Fifty Shades inspiration?! From harnesses at BCBG Max Azria to leather and lace at Jason Wu, Christian and Ana were clearly mood board staples...

Images via: www.style.com

Catwalk Catfights at Zac Posen

Emotions clearly run high during fashion week when the world's fashionistas are dashing around from show to show existing on coffee, cigarettes and three hours' sleep. Irrespective of that, we weren't quite expecting slapping at Zac Posen but slapping's what we got...

When fire marshals made last minute adjustments to the seating arrangements at the Zac Posen show, sixty seats were unexpectedly scrapped leading to one very angry French fashion journo and one very slapped American PR. Jalouse Editor, Jennifer Eymere, apparently followed the slap up with the utterance "Don't f*** with the French".

Seems that maybe the PR's having the last laugh though having just sued Eymere for US$1million for assault, battery, emotional distress, slander and libel...

Image via: www.graziadaily.co.uk

From Dawson's Creek to Fashion Week
It seems it's a year of firsts for Katie Holmes. First divorce, first time taking Suri in a cab and now first time showing at NYFW. Choosing not to stage a catwalk show but rather to keep it low key with an intimate presentation of fifteen looks to just 150 people, Katie seemed to be shying away from making this yet another media circus. We were particularly taken with the button-fronted black maxi dress and long-line tuxedo jacket and the ruby red short shorts and buttery camel-coloured suede cape. Well played Katie! 

Image via: www.latimes.com

Images via: www.style.com

Surprise Catwalk Guests

Naomi Campbell at Zac Posen and Liberty Ross at Alexander Wang, it was a week of unexpected catwalk appearances. Campbell who also joined Twitter on the day of the show (and to date already has almost 20,000 followers...), drew gasps of excitement when she stormed down the runway.

Image via: www.style.com

Liberty Ross walked for Alexander Wang, her first appearance since Kristen-gate broke seven weeks ago. Looking beautiful but fierce in a white outfit with cut-outs, Ross definitely sent out the message that she was back in business. 

Image via: www.style.com

Harper Made her Catwalk Debut
While it wasn't her first time sitting front row (it was her third time nach...), Harper Beckham made her catwalk debut last week at the tender age of just fourteen months...

We predict that it won't be long before she's strutting out in front of Anna Wintour & co...Looking chic and perfectly put together, Harper accompanied her Dad to the Victoria by Victoria Beckham show and then perched on her Mum's lap while she sat transfixed by the models stalking the runway. We've said it before and we're sure to say it again, what would we give to be Harper?! Sigh...

Images via: www.harperbeckhamfashion.blogspot.com

Indian Princess Met Daisy Buchanan at Marchesa

Always a show we look forward to with baited breath, Marchesa was our absolute stand out collection of NYFW this year. Complete over the top escapism, these were red carpet gowns heavily inspired by India but with a light sprinkling of Great Gatsby-esque chic. Rich jewel tones and intricate gold embroidery pervaded but our favourite pieces were those embellished with fringing and cast in twenties silhouettes. Breathtakingly stunning, we can't wait to see Hollywood's elite parading them down a red carpet in the very near future.

Images via: www.style.com

ADR got Snappy & had a Fashion Shower

It's just a matter of weeks until we can finally get our mitts on what promises to be the best H&M collaboration for a while (and based on our previous H&M collaboration excitement, that's clearly saying something...). Anna Dello Russo for H&M looks to be a mind-bendingly amazing menagerie of uber-fab accessories. In New York last week, ADR rocked a pair of crocodile sunnies and blingtastic A earrings from the collection sending our accessories lust into overdrive. 

Image via: www.harpersbazaar.com

And as if that wasn't enough, ADR has also released a video celebrating the launch of the collaboration where she models the collection while singing about her ten fashion rules. We have this on a loop over at Mouse Towers... PURE GENIUS!

London, you have a LOT to live up to!