Stylish Diva Studio

I remember when I was in junior high-school, wearing a pair of black Dr. Martens to school always seems quite luxurious to me.  In fact, a pair of plain classic black Docs is quite expensive compare to other black shoes in those days (we’re not talking about designer lines here, just school footwear), they could be ranged from USD$100 to $250.

10 years later, a pair of Docs still cost the same while everything else has becoming much more expensive, but with a lot more variety.  Recently, when I walked by a shoe store on Queen St. in Toronto Downtown, I discovered the new seasonal collection. 

Most of us can’t go out without wearing mascara, same here!!  But I always have a hard time trying to find a mascara that really works and think this happens to a lot of you, especially Asians.  Not only that we have short and straight lashes, the lashes are lack of volume, and mascara smudges all the time.  Of course, a quick alternative would be put on a pair of natural looking false lashes; however, the downside is that they irritate your eyes and they feel very heavy, unless you are at a wedding/party, or if you get used to them everyday.

From a make-up artist point of view, the packaging of product doesn’t help to make someone prettier, good products with good application do.  However, from a consumer’s perspective, packaging makes a huge difference, they actually got us quite addicted in collecting them.  Simply looking at Anna Sui and Paul & Joe cosmetics, both of these lines are very successful in packaging their products, their make-up accessories have also becoming very popular in the past couple of years.  Notice that these cosmetic lines were inspired by their own clothing line, so as Jill Stuart Beauty.  Jill started the beauty line licensing with Kosé Corporation, a Japanese cosmetic company and launched in 2005.  Since then it has becoming extremely popular in Japan because of its “princess crowned jewel packaging”, and promoting as “innocent, sexy, elegant, fun and savvy.”

I remember when I was in university, blazers would only appeared to be at the presentations.  They looked very formal, fitted,  and somewhat uncomfortable because of the shoulder pads.  They got wrinkly very easily when I had my shoulder bag on with all the reading material in it; and the worst of all, boring black shoes that goes with it.  I think didn’t wear them very often after I graduated unless I have meetings or job interviews.  To me, it was just an office wear.

Kris Van Assche

I’m totally up for it when it comes to new computer technologies, browsing new laptops is almost like my weekly activities.  Recently, I’ve discover alot of laptops (moreover, Netbooks) that are very stylish, I fall in love with them instantly just by looking at them.  I chose to introduce 2 of them for my divas.

Japanese fashion has always known to be inspiring and influential in the worldwide fashion industry, quite a few of Japanese designers earned the tickets to the grand stage fashion shows in New York, London and Milan.  However, not everyone of us could afford to buy Comme des Garçon or Yamamoto Yohji, so I always search for the alternative.  I usually go for more affordable lines, with good designs, just like H&M and designer crossover.

H&M has become amazingly successful in the past couple of years, given the fact that they have great designs and amazing prices.  Each year, H&M partnered up with a celebrity designer for each of us who loved but couldn’t afford the million dollar designer clothing.  Following the prodigy of Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld, Roberto Cavalli and Rei Kawabuko – Comme des Garçon; this year, Matthew Williamson, an English designer took over the H&M and designer crossover.

Whether you like to have a cup once in a while, or can’t live without one, you should try DavidsTea. Upon finding out I love tea just as much as them, my friends and I spent a sunny afternoon on their Queen St. location (attached to Le Chateau) yesterday and was delighted to see their amazing collection of tea, as well as their friendly and well trained staff. They’ve got over 115 different kinds of tea, including white, green, black, organic, herbal, oolong, and maté (which is not exactly your traditional tea, it’s mixed with nuts and coffeebeans to give you the extra kick in the morning). There’s a special tea they feature everyday and anyone in the shop can have a sample, an excellent way to attract customers.

As I was editing our contributors’ info, we had this question about “What’s one little thing you did for the environment?”, which I think is quite important nowadays when everyone is talking about being environmentally friendly.

Black WARHOL

Recently, I bought a bag from this line called Matt & Nat at Mendocino, that was made out of eco-fabric.   I didn’t know at first because it has this fun patent-like look and I felt in love with it instantly.  I was checking the bag and make sure everything was OK before I purchase it, and then I found out that there are little words printed inside the bag “lining made with 100% recycle plastic bottle”.

About 2 weeks ago Amélie and I went to the Betsey Johnson fashion show for the spring 2009 collection.  The show was running in a night club on King St. in the Toronto downtown area, and we thought that there was going to be a line-up so we went earlier at around 10p.m..  Thankfully the line-up was not as bad as we thought, and we came back with some great pictures.