Stylish Diva Studio

Summer is always exciting because we are so sick of the snow here in Toronto. We always wanted a little tan and something new for the season, doesn’t matter if it’s clothing, sandals, makeup of fragrance, we just want them all.

In cosmetics, this summer is all about the blues for eye shadows. But wait…not everyone can pull off the blues, I normally couldn’t, so what’s so different about the blues this year? They all have a gold undertone, so it’s not really a cool blue, they are more like goldish turquoise blue, which looked quite amazing. I worked on the event with Laura Mercier at the beginning of May and I just loved the new blue. I also had the Summer Look event with YSL and the new blue cream shadow is equally amazing, so let’s take a look at the Summer Blues of the season.

We have been talking a lot about shoes for Fall 2009, I’m not sure if you’re tired of seeing shoes on our blog yet, but our designers are certainly not tired about them, there are actually more interesting designs this year than ever.  This year is all about making a statement, you either go crazy with your neck line, your high shoulder pads, like the ones from Balmain, Distress Jeans, and of course, the crazy shoes designs.

We’ve talked about shoe collections from Barbara Bui, Christian Louboutin, and Yves Saint Laurent; now let’s take a look at Balmain, DSQUARED2 and Alexander Wang’s Fall 2009 shoe collection.

Dior Fall 2009 Campaigne

I’m talking about violet eyeshadow, not UV.

This fall is all about violet and purple eyeshadow, and it has to be vibrant!  Personally, I think violet works very well with studs, which is going to be huge this fall, because violet has a cool tone in it and it has a sexy wild effect.  Open up any magazine of your choice and it’s all about being rough this season, so as the make-up.  I don’t mean the application, just the use of colours.

There are runway fashion for both men and women for each season.  However, the industry seemed to be dominated by ladies wear nowadays.  The general public seems to pay more attention on what’s in for the season and designers’ Haute Couture collection for women.  Just look at the magazines on the market, fashion magazines always target on fashion for women.

Here are some of the reasons:

1. women tends to be more fashionable then men (at least this is the case among my friends)

2. the wrong impression of “the qualities of a man (i.e. smart & intelligent) is more important than his look”

I love chunky jewelries, especially the ones with rock style.  I think they are very versatile, you can dress then up or dress them down, they also catch everyone’s attention very easily.  This year, big chunky necklaces is one of the hottest trend in the accessories sector.  Designers like Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Kenneth Jay Lane, Erickson Beamon had all came out with heavy duty necklaces in Fall/Winter 2009/10.

Vera Wang Collection (Please move the cursor to the picture for details, click the picture to purchase it if you are interested)

Ranjana Khan Collection

You see, I like shoes, but I’m crazy about bags. So to me, anything higher than 4″ in heels, it’s useless. Or if they cost more than $300 a pair, I’d rather spend that on a bag. Until I saw this:

Christian Louboutin Nitoinimoi Bandage Ankle Boots

Fashion and beauty always comes in a package.  Each year, make-up is always part of the focus for premium designers runway show, and there is no surprise that the whatever make-up style appears on these shows will become the trend of the season.  Yves Saint Laurent did the Black Lips at their Fall/Winter collection 2008/2009, and then the black lip-gloss came out in a limited availability during their fall 2008 beauté collection.  For Fall/Winter 2009/2010, Dolce & Gabbana runway show is celebrating the artistic wave of 1920s, and there are a couple of pieces printed with Marilyn Monroe, which is also the inspiration of their newly introduced cosmetic line – Dolce & Gabbana Beauty.

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.”