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Georgia May Jagger blooms for Mulberry

Published by Sam Growdon

Perhaps it’s because it’s mid-january and the sky couldn’t be more grey and I’m pining for colour, blossoms and the sweet scent of spring but this campaign has made my tuesday! Georgia May Jagger stars in the Spring Summer 2015 campaign for the iconic british brand Mulberry and the video is full of pink, purple and white british blooms immediately transporting you to a dreamy summer’s day. Complete with seventies rock soundtrack and big hair, erm… and the bags aren’t bad either!

The full print campaign lensed by renowned duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin can be seen at www.mulberry.com/collections/SS15.

What do you think? Leave a comment or share with your fashionista friends. XO

Shades of Blue

Published by Sam Growdon

Jardin des Tuileries, Paris / Tuileries Garden, Paris,
January 2015 – on an extremely cold day!

WEARING

Top by Les Petites Paris
Denims by Zara
Leather Jacket by Maje
Shoes by Jonak
Bag by Louis Vuitton
Watch and love bangle by Cartier

Photos By Jonathan Jones

Ciara Katzin’s Shanghai top five

Published by Sam Growdon

Ciara Katzin and have only ever spent a few days together, but our love for fashion, all things pretty and that we’re both mama’s have made us fast friends. Mom to Josh, 6 and Arabella 4, Ciara has a full life in Shanghai. Born in Ireland but raised in South Africa and after living in London for 14 years working in PR and more recently as a stylist, she and her husband, Brent, moved to Shanghai 3 and a half years ago. When Ciara isn’t being a super-mom and browsing the pages of fashion magazines, she’s working as a decor stylist in the swish interiors store, Chapin House. Here she advises expats on creating beautiful spaces to live their ‘temporary lives’ in the Pudong area of the city. With Chinese New Year around the corner on Feb 19th, I chatted to Ciara about the biggest holiday in Chinese Culture and her Shanghai Top Five …

What do you most like about CNY?
It is a tradition very similar to Christmas. It is all about giving, especially to old and young ones. We have only spent one CNY in Shanghai and the vibrancy is palpable – fireworks and firecrackers for days!

Which of the Chinese traditions do you most love?
I love that Chinese people treasure their children, there is nothing more important than their child. Grandparents migrate to cities just to take care of their grandchildren while their daughter or son goes to work. They believe that you work just to give to your children and to ensure that their future is better than their own. They sacrifice so much to give their children the best education that they can afford. I really admire this part of their culture.

Any hopes and dreams for you and your family for the upcoming year of the Goat?
Sadly none of us are ‘Goats’ which means we don’t get to wear red underwear all year! With two young children living the expat life in China, I hope and pray for good health, happy kids and lots of exotic travel!

Ciara’s Top Five

1. Best ‘Date Night’ resto?
Flair at the top of the Ritz Carlton in Pudong. It’s on the 58th floor and has amazing views of Shanghai. In winter you can cozy up with a glass of red and in summer you can take your bubbles and sushi on the terrace. Its the first place my hubbie took me when we arrived in Shanghai and we still love it.

2. Best store of yummy luxe goodies to browse and droll over?
There are so many super luxe malls in Shanghai, I personally love Lane Crawford on Huai Hai Lu for the drool factor, there is also the newly opened IPM mall which has every fashion house worth knowing!

3. The shop you dash to for a quick pick-me-up buy?
It has to be Zara for that fast fashion pick me up. Zara on Huai Hai Lu is my fave.

4. Best place to take the kids for a milkshake/snack/cake/ice cream?
It has to be Baker and Spice. They are dotted all around Shanghai and an easy breezy kid friendly place, where the kids can have a treat and the mums a well deserved coffee.

5. Best tourist attraction in Shanghai that you can’t get enough of?
The French concession. We love showing off the beautiful tree lined streets, the great restaurants, cafés and bars. It also has Fuxing Park where you can find a little snap shot of Shanghai life – old men playing Majong, grandparents walking their grandkids, ladies doing the tango. If you are having a Shang-low it is a real pick me up and reminder that there is a rich culture behind all the high rises.

Kendall Jenner’s sexy campaign for Estee Lauder

Published by Sam Growdon

She’s 19-years-old, has 18.1 million followers on Instagram, is the famous little sister of Kim Kardashian and has recently been made the face of Estee Lauder. Kendall Jenner is not only unstoppable but she’s sexy and sultry in the debut campaign video for Estee Lauder showing off the cosmetic house’s latest product, Little Black Primer – LBP, get it? The product is an eyelash primer that amplifies volume and length and judging by the close-ups of Kendall’s lashes, it works! The reality star turned fashion icon uploaded the video on her Instagram account and so far it has received 334 568 likes, so here it is …

What do you think? Leave a comment I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you liked the post, please share with your fashionista friends and follow me on Instagram and Facebook. XO

There’s a new age in summer ad campaigns

Published by Sam Growdon

I’m the first to admit that I love seeing beautifully sculptured young bodies in fashion campaigns or thin bronzed models walking down the catwalk and I’m fascinated by the younger, newer generation of models that designers are pandering too because of their followers – hello Cara Delevingne and Kendall Jenner. However saying this, I am enchanted by fashion houses and retailers using more mature women in campaigns. This season as all the new campaigns hit the shelves and sites we’re seeing style icon and literary legend Joan Didion for Celine, chic Italian grans holding Dolce &Gabbana purses and Singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent Paris – and it’s causing a lot of industry talk and discussion.

This has been going on a for a few seasons already, a few years ago I wrote a column for Grazia on the uprise of older women in ad campaigns accelerated by successful blogs such as Advanced Style run by Ari Cohen. This disruptive advertising had been adopted by a few luxury brands such as Lanvin who used Jacquie “Tajah” Murdock, an 82-year-old former Apollo dancer in their 2012 fall ad campaign. Vivienne Westwood showed Leslie Wiener, 60, in her SS14 campaign. More mainstream retailers such as JCrew, featured Lauren Hutton in 2010. Last year 64-year-old American Horror Story actress Jessica Lange was the first ever celebrity face for Marc Jacobs beauty and Monsieur Jacobs also featured Catherine Deneuve,70, in his final campaign for Louis Vuitton’s campaign.

The fact that we’re seeing older women is the inevitable backlash of the twitter-instagram-facebook-moulded model. We know and love these faces but I think we’re beginning to realise how interchangeable they are. With social media and YouTube we’re constantly exposed to this younger generation of models – what they eat, how they exercise, where they holiday, their boyfriends, likes, dislikes, dogs, cats, favourite shoes, places to hang, best friends, it goes on and on. There’s zero mystique and the lines between the model in the campaign and the person in real life have blurred. These models are chosen now, not just because of what they look like, but because of who they are and what they can bring to the party, their million plus followers and then some. Cara for burberry/DKNY/Chanel/ Fendi/Saint Laurent Paris/Mulberry, doesnt it all become so generic? It’s harder and harder to distinguish Tom Ford’s Cara from Yves Saint Laurent’s Cara (erm… other than Mr Ford’s would be naked!)

And so, in walks the antithesis of this over-exposed phenomenon. The mature women, who has a story and lived a million real-life experiences that haven’t been posted for the world to see. There’s a mystery and subtley. These women have their own style that hasn’t been bought by 100 brands. They’ve been married, divorced, married again, had kids, travelled the world, met amazing people and had grandkids – they would make awesome dinner guests. When I see these women it makes me believe that style really does transcend age, that there is a real value in ageing gracefully.

Of course there is certainly the shock value, that brands want to stand out and be disruptive, a quest to shake up the industry. No doubt these brands are also sick of having a handful of models to choose from, perhaps they too can’t tell the difference anymore? Personally I don’t think it’ll be a mass-trend that will last very long, for now these brands have got what they’ve wanted – everyone’s talking about the new Celine/Saint Laurent campaign and this season they do stand out from the others – so it’s clearly worked.

But even as a disruptive trend, I feel like I can identify with these women. One day I will be her (I mean, not literally Joni mitchell) but I’ll be older, have grey hair and lines on my face that map the memories I’ve had – but I’ll never be Cara or Kendall.

What do you think? Leave a comment I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you liked the post, please share with your fashionista friends and follow me on Instagram and Facebook. XO

Diving into art deco splendour

Published by Sam Growdon

Built in 1929 and situated in the prestigious 16^th arrondisement of Paris, this Olympic-sized swimming pool was THE place to be seen and had its fair share of glamour up until the 80’s. A place where the who’s who could dip their feet in one of two pools and cool off while watching fashion shows and theatrical performances. It was used for film shoots and it was here that Louis Réard, the automobile engineer turned fashion designer, unveiled the soon-to-be famous bikini in 1946. It is also after this Parisian icon that the hero of the 2001 novel “Life of Pi” was named.

Abandoned in 1989 this symbol of glamour became a dilapidated canvas for graffiti artists and was even the host of a rave in which 5 000 people attended. Now, in it’s new rebirth, the Piscine Molitor has been restored to much of it’s original splendor and now a 124-room MGallery hotel – excellent for a weekend stay-cation. Much of the original design, by Lucian Pollet, who’s vision was to create a ocean-liner like pool with port holes, deco stained glass and three level cabins surrounding the pool, has been kept. There is a club, restaurant, bar and Clarins Spa which is a must-visit. Spending at the Piscine Molitor transports you back to a slower life of art deco pleasure where you can hang by the pool in your robe with a G’nT in hand – I was almost expecting Leonardo Di Caprio to walk by!

Piscine Molitor, 13 rue Nungesser et Coli, 16^th, Paris.
www.mltr.fr/en

(This article was originally written for and published in Sawubona magazine)

Elle’s touching tribute

Published by Sam Growdon

When I was 21 years old I worked for Elle South Africa. I always knew I wanted to work for a magazine and from a young age I’ve had an interest in fashion so it was serendipitous that I was first hired as the magazine’s designer. I loved working for ELLE, I had amazing role models in women who were (and still are) intelligent, hard working, passionate and not only thought fashion was fabulous but that it was important to publish thought provoking articles on the world around us. It makes me extra proud that when I picked up the French edition of this week’s ELLE I can say that I was once part of this family.

Their beautifully illustrated cover, by well-known Soledad, that conveys the sentiment of what we all want – peace.

The magazine has run 13 pages on last week’s killings in a very profound and sensitive way. They list the names of all the people who were killed, commissioned young cartoonists to draw, published opinion pieces and articles from well-known actors and writers as well as quotes from young children on what they’ve heard and their thoughts on the tragedies. The quote above reads, “My mom said that we would have a minute of silence at school. It’s for the people who were killed yesterday at the newspaper “Charlie“. The silence, is for us to better hear the bad guys better and to catch them, right?” And, for me, the saddest and most profound piece is written by the massacred cartoonist Wolinski’s daughter, Elsa.

It’s awesome that a fashion magazine like ELLE, in amongst pages filled with fashion trends, shopping tips and make-up products, can run such a beautiful homage to an awful tragedy. I hope that wherever you are in the world your local ELLE edition will run the same content. Bravo ELLE!

The return of John Galliano

Published by Sam Growdon

With much of the fashion world talking about the return of John Galliano for Maison Martin Margiela after his four year “hiatus” following his scandalous anti-Semitic remarks it’s hard to ignore this as news (If you’re unfamiliar with the whole story then check it out here).

He pulled quite a crowd with big name FROW-ers such as Kate Moss, Manolo Blahnik as well as other industry big-wigs like Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz, Burberry’s Christopher Bailey and designer Jasper Conran. For me, as expected the collection was a little “weird”, while I applause creativity I’m not sure how any of these runway looks would quite work in my wardrobe and they remind me of some of the designs that come out of Project Runway!

As Vogue UK Editor-in-chief Alexandra Shulman wrote, “The restrained number of outfits played with deconstruction and the tenets of tailoring, salvage and restitution, luxe and tatters. A breastplate of shells might have adorned a trash-can Boadicea, a dress of carved black leather ribbons fell away into a tattered train. While a Principal Boy opened the show in Harlequin leggings of black and flesh it was closed by a ghostly empress, veiled and silenced by a pearl and bronze mouthguard.”

Whoa! Sounds trés confusing and little all-over-the-show. However, I’m sure that Galliano will find the balance between his own loud creative flair for the dramatics and Martin Margiela’s more calm, quiet, practical and serious aesthetic. After pouring over the images this morning, I’m not crazy about the dramatic, circus-like pieces – most of it looks like a cut-and-paste-art-and-craft project from my four-year-olds kindergarten class, however I am glad to see red back in the mix and hope that this will inspire a string of high-street brands to brighten up collections for next winter.

For more images and Suzy Menkes’ amazing voice … http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2015/01/12/suzy-menkes-galliano-margiela

Oh how they twinkled on the Golden Globes red carpet

Published by Sam Growdon

Not only does the Golden Globes kick off the most glam season in Tinseltown but it’s my favourite awards show. Perhaps it’s because it’s the first – there’s no red-carpet fatigue yet – and I love it because it’s more like a super-chic runway show. Celebs showing off the best dress, jewels, heels, make-up, hair… the list of inspiration is endless! Never mind all the PR that designers get at this time of year too, yes they might sink hundreds of thousands into their runways shows twice a year but this is when they really get noticed.

Here are my favourites of the 72nd Golden Globes which took place on Sunday night – and they just happen to be hard working fabulous moms too!

Reese Witherspoon in her long strapless and ultra-sparkley Calvin Klein dress took my breath away, it took 80 hours to make and came with this personal note from Mr Klein (see below)! It’s the simplicity if the gown that makes it so elegant, the perfect balance between simple and sparkle.

And how cute it the message from Reese’s mom that she posted on her Instagram account? LOVE! Reese posted the screen grab along with the comment “Aww thanks Mom for all the words of encouragement. ❤️ Congrats to all the #GoldenGlobe winners last night! What a fun celebration of movies this year….and thank you to all the amazing fans who have supported#WILDmovie. 🙌”

Another of my super faves of the night has to be superwoman Heidi Klum, she totally nailed-it in a sexy long Versace fire-engin red gown – this woman doesn’t stop! If she’s not running after four kids, then she’s exercising, chanting “Auf Wiedersehen” on Project Runway or looking sensational on the red carpet.

Some of my other favourites were Julianne Moore in a metallic Givenchy Haute Couture Silver gown lines with feathers on the bottom. Ms Miller in Mui Mui, Sienna look gorgeous in the cream colour and her chic bob finished the look of perfectly. Naomi Watts in yellow, a hard colour to pull off but the Gucci strapless gown worked beautifully teamed with a diamond Bulgari snake neckpiece. Homeland star (Btw totally obsessed with this show!) Claire Danes wore an elaborately embellished Valentino number, she told E! Entertainment’s Ryan Seacrest, “They’re actual feathers — I could fly away!”
And finally my last hot mama has to be Katie Holmes, wow! In a deep aubergine coloured Marchesa dress, her side-parted hair and pint-tail cascading down her left shoulder, simple, classic with a touch of vixen… Suri Cruise has one awesome style role model.

Role on the SAG’s on Jan 25th and the Oscars on Feb 27th – there’s so much to look forward too!

Want a glimpse of what an HBO after party looks like? Find it here.

Images : Via @nbctv / Jason Merritt/Getty Images / Instagram accounts as indicated above.

Kate Moss sans make-up for Vogue Italy

Published by Sam Growdon

As the weekend approaches and we’re hitting some “off-duty” time, I thought I’d share Kate Moss without make-up shot by Peter Lindberg for Vogue Italia‘s January 2015 edition. I found the images refreshing after all the high-gloss, flawless, perfectly shot and retouched campaign images that we always see her in. It’s lovely to see the the real 40-year-old mom with a few freckles and sun spots, a wrinkle here and there and not-so-perky perfect boobs – she does look a little depressed about it though! (giggle)

Have a happy make-up free weekend!