Remembering An Icon: Coco Chanel...

130 years ago today, Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel arrived into the world. Little did anyone know back then the revolutionary impact she would have on fashion around the world and the incredible legacy she would leave behind. 

An icon for many reasons - her brunette bob and cherry red lips, the LBD, tweed twin sets, two-toned ballet pumps, oversized costume pearls, outspoken manner, quilted chained bag, Chanel No. 5 - the list is fabulously endless.

Bring out your inner Coco today by casting an eye over our favourite Chanel quotes and some beautiful photographs of the woman who perfectly encapsulated stylish elegance - long live Chanel...

 

"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."

- Coco Chanel

"A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future."

- Coco Chanel

"Fashion is not simply a matter of clothes. Fashion is in the air, born upon the wind. One intuits it. It is in the sky and on the road."

- Coco Chanel

"Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman."

- Coco Chanel

"In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different." 

- Coco Chanel

"Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity."

- Coco Chanel

"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve." 

- Coco Chanel

"All men are children, and if you understand that, a woman understands everything."

- Coco Chanel

"I don't care what you think about me. I don't think about you at all."

- Coco Chanel

Printstagram Your Life...

Instagram is a recent obsession of mine, yeah yeah yeah some may say 'get with the programme' or you are 'late to the party' - agreed, in this case I have unarguably taken my good old sweet time in appreciating the snap happy craze. Regardless - I love it now.

YES taking photos with your eyes would be pretty awesome but not something that's likely to be possible in my lifetime SO for the time being I have to work with what I've got... It's not practical to always have my chunky DSLR handy to freeze beautiful moments so I rely day-to-day on my trusty Smartphone camera. After taking a shot I instinctively select a filter or a creative effect to make my picture look the best it can. It's second nature now and one that has been made easier with the invention of photography aps like Instagram. You can capture, stylise and share seamlessly in a few seconds flat.

All Instagram enthusiasts reading this will agree when I say there's nothing quite like that proud and glorious moment when you take a picture, transform it in Instragram, share it with the world and seconds later are rewarded with a flurry of likes and congratulatory comments from fellow followers ... 'wow what a shot' ... 'amazing picture' ... 'quite the photographer aren't we' ... If only that online minute of Instagram fame could live on in reality and be displayed for all to swoon over for ever more! Well I'm happy to say it can! Last week I read about the new Printstagr.am service which gives you the option of turning your Instagram masterpieces into a range of printed products. Tear-off calendars, posters, stickers and even coffee table books - neat huh?!

Images via www.printstagr.am

To mark this inspired idea, I have scoured the web and collected some of my all time favourite shots so sit back and check out my cream of the Instagram crop below... 

Images via www.pinterest.com

Trend Alert: Trash The Dress...

Wedding season - somehow it's already upon us. 

Hands up who hasn't had a recent slew of relationship statuses changing from 'in a relationship' to 'engaged' everytime that they log onto Facebook? Any day now the thick white envelopes will start dropping through your letterbox and the Hen planning emails will takeover your inbox...

And what's the key topic dominating all conversations with your newly engaged girls? The dress of course. Even before their husband-to-be has got up from proffering the ring on  bended-knee, every bride I've ever known has been visualising the dress. 

They've barely finished saying 'yes' before they're leafing through bridal magazines weighing up dresses, surfing Pinterest wedding boards for inspiration and dreaming of all things white and floaty. Post-proposal I've accompanied lots of friends on dress shopping trips where we've spent hours in changing rooms agonising over gown after gown and then agonised again while looking through the photos of the shopping trip over a post-shopping bottle of wine. 

Dress finally settled upon, the bride inevitably ends up spending twice her planned budget on her dream dress before moving onto the equally difficult decisions of choosing shoes, underwear, a veil and jewellery... All this time, effort and huge expense is justified on the basis that it's her big day. 

But once that big day has come and gone, the dress is zipped up in its safe house bag never to walk down an aisle again, the tiara's laid carefully in a safe place never to sparkle again and the shoes are tucked away in their tissue-lined shoe box never to dance again. It's a sad, sad tale. Particularly when you consider that that one dress is probably without question the most expensive garment hanging in the bride's wardrobe... While the majority of brides are content and perfectly satisfied with their wedding photos as a lasting memory of the day that they wore their dream dress, there seems to be a growing trend for other brides not being able to leave it at that and wanting just a little bit more...

'More' comes in the form of trashing the dress of their dreams all in the name of art! 

Believe it or not, this fad is being embraced by more and more women worldwide because it offers an unconventional element to their perfect, shiny wedding albums. The general thinking behind the crazy ritual is that following the momentous day, the bride gets to wear her princess dress one more time for a final farewell photoshoot. While the wedding day pictures serve the purpose of capturing the beauty and purity of the dress and everything it stands for on that special day, they may fail to bring to life anything honest about the bride herself. Which is where Trash The Dress comes in - giving brides the opportunity to have fun in their dresses and express themselves freely in a way that they maybe couldn't on their wedding days. The aim of the game is to swap those pastel-hued, romantic backdrops and dreamy fixed expressions for happy-go-lucky, bold stances and disruptive actions. 

Over on the other less cheerful side, the other camp of dress trashers are the girls whose happily ever after endings didn't quite work out. Divorce just through, white dress taunting you every time you open your wardrobe? What better final parting image for your ex-husband than the dress you said 'I do' in completely destroyed? Hmmmm... perhaps a little bit mental, but potentially lots of fun!

I personally don't get it, but i'm not sure that I'm meant to! It's either for you or it's not. That doesn't mean to say however that I'm not awfully intrigued by the whole thing. 

Check out some of my favourites including the tasteful...

Image via Pinterest.com

Image via Pinterest.com

Image via Pinterest.com

AND the downright awful/ terrifying...

 Image via fastflowers.com.au

 Image via theweddingshoppe.net

Image via lovetripper.com

 Image via filmphoto.wordpress.com

Image via photography-on-the.net

Husbands, High Heels & Chanel No. 5: Marilyn Monroe

Today, exactly fifty years to the day after her death, Marilyn Monroe still has the world spellbound.

In celebration of her life, we bring you our favourite Marilyn Monroe photos and quotes (from and about her). May we all borrow a little bit of her sparkle today and always...

"When you speak of the American way of life, everybody thinks of chewing gum, Coca-Cola and Marilyn Monroe."

Russian Magazine, Nedvela

"A girl doesn't need anyone that doesn't need her"
Marilyn Monroe

"I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night - there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest"

Marilyn Monroe

"I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful."

Marilyn Monroe

"It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on."
Marilyn Monroe

"I don't know who invented high heels, but women owe him a lot"

Marilyn Monroe

"She looked like, if you bit her, milk and honey would flow from her."

Franz Kline

"Is not Monroe the image par excellence of this New Woman? She is voluptuous, but she admires Dostoyevsky."

Maurice Zolotow

"It's better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring"

Marilyn Monroe

"What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course."
Marilyn Monroe

"A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left."
Marilyn Monroe

"I never wear stockings or underclothes because I think it is important to breathe freely"
Marilyn Monroe

"Marilyn is a dreamy girl. She's the kind who's liable to show up with one red shoe and one black shoe."
Jane Russell

"I used to say to myself, 'What the devil have you got to be proud about, Marilyn Monroe?' And I'd answer, 'Everything, everything,' and I'd walk slowly and turn my head slowly as if I were a queen."
Marilyn Monroe

"It's no fun being married to an electric light"
Joe DiMaggio

"He wouldn't have married me if I had been nothing but a dumb blonde"
Marilyn Monroe (about Arthur Miller)

"Look at that face - she could be five years old"
Laurence Olivier

"I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so you can appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself. And sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together." 

Marilyn Monroe

 

"I am invariably late for appointments - sometimes as much as two hours. I've tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing"
Marilyn Monroe

"Miss Marilyn Monroe calls to mind the bouquet of a fireworks display"
Cecil Beaton

Images via: www.pinterest.com