Beach fashion

These past days I've been enjoying the sun, the water and the sand, but my eyes stood still many times because of some weird beach styles... What's your take on beach fashion? Are you a leather bag - platform shoes or more of a flip-flop - beach bag person?

I personally find it weird seeing people with Chanel or Louis Vuitton leather bags on the beach... or with platform sandals barely managing to walk in the sand and clinging to the arm of a friend or companion! But hey, some people just wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of flip-flops... (even though all big fashion houses also make them) If they don't mind why should I?

Top 3 weirdest styles:

1. Chanel 2.55 flap bag on the shoulder while walking through the sand in a bikini...

2. The Neverfull GM or various forms of Keepalls from LV spreading each day farther and farther...

3. Huge platform sandals. Or high-heeled clogs. Or summer boots. In the sand.

What could a fashion addict do if she can't bear parting with her designer bag? Well she could at least try to get a beach bag, as most of the designers also have such items. I spotted yesterday a Louis Vuitton amber cruise tote and a raffia bag from Juicy Couture and they were just perfect for a day on the beach!

White Week-end I

I told you a few days ago that I was really excited because I was headed to the seaside for the White Week-end in Mamaia. Untill now everything was really great - Thursday evening Vozianov fashion show and yesterday private Paula Seling jazz concert... Tonight I'm going to skip the closing dinner of the week-end in favour of a more entertaining option: a Mika concert on the beach. I can't say I'm a great fan, but hey... it's free and it's on the beach!

At the fashion show I took pictures with another camera and I forgot my card reader at home, so you'll have to wait for that until Monday or Tuesday when my vacation is over ;) so for now you'll be hearing about the concert.

For those of you who don't know who Paula Seling is, she is a Romanian singer and songwriter, as well as a DJ. She released so far 13 pop music albums and won several trophies in Romania. What brought her into the international limelight was her participation at this year's Eurovision Song Contest representing Romania, where came in 3rd. She has a smooth voice and yesterday's concert was in a very intimate jazzy atmosphere. There were only about 20 people attending the concert which was really cool, I don't know what the other guests of the hotel were doing in the meantime...

Dont forget about the story behind the Vozianov fashion show in a few days! Have a great week-end!

Dress to impress fair @ Villa Rodizio

I'm on my way to the seaside for the White Week-end in Mamaia. I'm so excited to leave the city, but also a bit sad to miss an important event - the vintage, handmade and designer fair at Villa Rodizio in Bucharest this Saturday and Sunday.

The last fair was really interesting and it also featured a fashion show, so for those of you who read my blog from time to time, you already know how cool it is. The location is great within a XIXth century villa in the centre of Bucharest near Gradina Icoanei, the perfect atmosphere for this kind of event. Apparently this time there will be even more treats for the visitors - a Macarons tasting from Madame Lucie. If you happen to pass by, tell me how good they are!

Enjoy the fair!

Style Profile: Carine Roitfeld

Carine Roitfeld has been editor-in-chief of French Vogue since 2001. If that doesn't say it all, maybe the nomination amongst Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2008 or her being featured in Vanity Fair's Top 10 best dressed women that same year will. She is the very definition of Parisian chic, having been brought up in a "very bourgeois" atmosphere in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, as she says. She has very interesting origins - her father was a Russian film director and her mother "a classical Parisian woman".

Defining traits: straight falling hair, heavy eyebrows and smoky eyes; style-wise: she adores black, she always wears high heels and almost never a bag, she doesn't like bags. Browsing through the next pictures you will see she isn't snobbish about what she wears, she finds new ways of mixing her clothes and giving them a new flair. You will also see that she apparently has a favourite pair of Louboutin shoes that she wears on many occasions... Who wouldn't? Hahaha.

She is a former model and consultant for some big fashion houses like Tom Ford, Gucci or Yves Saint Laurent. She wrote a column for Elle magazine before being appointed to editor-in-chief for the French Vogue that she completely restyled. Either in a busy city between shoots and interviews or at a hip party, she is always stylish.

Either a fur addict or very subtle she is always on the best-dressed list of any important event. She isn't a bag fan and hates the idea of displaying wealth through logos. The next photo-mix shows what I thought was one of the subtlest and most refined touches of personality I ever saw: at this year's Menswear Paris Fashion Week she wore a small Chanel bag with her initials embroidered on it. (Photo of the embroidery: Garance Doré)

She is very upfront. She rarely wears a watch or a bag. She has a daughter and a son and has been in love with the same man, Christian Restoin, for more than 30 years. She looks great. And she's 55. Could the world be more perfect?

Seaside serenity

Channel at low tide. Deauville.

Deauville is a small town on the northern coast of France in Normandy. At first glance it may seem too bourgeois, but that's what I like about it - it has that je ne sais quoi that translates into class and subtlety and the serenity of a vacation at the seaside without the luring tourists around you.

Renowned for its very rich visitors in the past, Deauville has a Casino and many imposing hotels and mansions on the waterfront. But that's not what makes its beauty, it would all be in vain without the never ending beach and the lighthouse. In fact, you already caught a glimpse of this marvelous beach and of its lighthouse a few weeks ago, in Hot weather... The beach is huge, but treacherous - the tide can be very quick and take off with... let's say your shoes (that's what happened to me!) or other belongings you might hold dear! The weather is generally not very hot and neither is the water, but just imagine waking up early in the morning to go for a walk on the golden sand, wind fluttering in your ears and not a soul around you for miles.

Beach. Deauville.

Waterfront mansions. Deauville.

The food is great, there are some typical dishes you may want to try, but the fresh fish and seafood are the real treat. The locals are very open and friendly and you will have a great time in one of the small restaurants.

My favourite part of Deauville other than the beach? The channel you have to cross in order to get from the train station to the Casino and the beach. In the morning you just cross it by foot, but in the afternoon you might have a problem with that - a boat would be a better option, unless you're the swimming type ;)

Channel at low tide. Deauville.

Channel at high tide. Deauville.

Photography Exhibition @ Cafe Verona

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Yesterday I attended the opening cocktail of a beautiful photography exhibition at Cafe Verona in Bucharest. It's Mihai Grigorescu's first photography exhibition, based on the book he published in April 2009, Maramures - people and places.

I loved his pictures. He portrayed Maramures from all its different angles - people and how they work, their way of life and some traditional celebrations, but also the magnificent landscapes. The book was yesterday on show at the Cafe, I hope that wasn't just for the opening day.

Here are some pictures I took yesterday, so that you can see the setting of the exhibition. The atmosphere was really good, people were enjoying themselves over a glass of wine while looking at the photographs.

And for the end I saved a special treat: some more original pictures form this exhibition of Mihai Grigorescu! These were my favourites:

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

Photographer: Mihai Grigorescu

The exhibition will be open until the 31st of July if you want to take a quick look.

Style profile: Alexa Chung

Some of you may already know who Alexa Chung is. For those of you who haven't heard about her yet, she is a british former model. She also hosted many TV shows in her native country and in the US and is a contributing editor for british Vogue as of 2009. Her mixed origins are responsible for her great looks - her mother is English, but her father is three-quarter Chinese. In January she modeled for Vivienne Westwood in the London Fashion Week and she currently is the face of SS10 Pepe Jeans London campaign. This girl is so cool, that she even has a bag named after her, the "Alexa", desiged by Mulberry.

Alexa Chung has a unique sense of style. Either rock 'n roll or french chic, simple or eccentric, laid back and relaxed or red carpet glamour she always looks her best. She is a great fan of ankle boots and flats, that she wears with almost everything. Her quirkiness gives a new edge to the schoolgirl style bringing it again into the spotlight.

I put up a selection of different outfits to show you the stylistic chameleon she is:

Which one of her styles do you prefer?

A quiet place in the big city

Arabian days...

Paris is a city that never stops surprising me! Wondering through its streets in an excruciating heat and while the roaring of the cars overwhelmed me, I stumbled upon a marvelously quiet place... well... OK... I guess I should be honest... I didn't actually STUMBLE upon it, I read about it in my guide... The result is the same, don't you agree? It just feels really weird saying that I used a guide for Paris and that I discovered so many beautiful things I had no idea about, after having spent a whole year here! It seems one discovers much more being a tourist than being a local...

In the south-eastern part of Paris, near one if the entrances to the Jardin des Plantes, there is a beautiful Mosque built in the 1920s in moorish-hispanic style. It has baths - or as they call them hammam - that are open to the public and a great restaurant and terrace. The tower overlooks the quiet surroundings from a hight of 33 meters and it is still used to call people to prayer.

Pure cobalt blue

I loved the colours in here, from the cobalt blue of the terrace to the vivid orange and golden tones inside the restaurant, everything reminded me to my trip to Africa and set me in a moroccan mood. Drinking a cup of tea on the cool terrace in the shade is the perfect remedy for the heat you have to endure during a hot summer day. The sweet things to eat are exquisite, but they come with a price - you'll find yourself surrounded by sparrows in no time! They are so accustomed to being fed, that they will even eat from your hand if your cookies are tasty enough!

Sparrows enjoying lunch

The restaurant inside is gorgeous, next time I'm in Paris I will definitely stop by and grab something to eat here! The next two photos are courtesy of my french guide (yes, I also had a french guide, not only my book ;) ) Eric D., I didn't want to take credit for his beautiful pictures.

I hope I dragged you into the mood for drinking some tea to cool off, because the heat outside here in Bucharest most certainly outruns the one I had to stand in Paris two weeks ago!

Rome at sunset

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take,
but by the number o moments that take your breath away."

Some days just don't look anything like the others, today for example I finished some work I had to do that I had been procrastinating since forever and I felt liberated! That's how I thought of the theme of today's post - moments that take your breath away. Doesn't this picture incorporate just that?

I always thought that the Tiber that flows through Rome wasn't as exciting as other rivers. I had already seen it a few years ago the first time I was in Rome and I hadn't seen anything special about it. I always had this image in my head about the perfect river that passes through a city and it resembled the Seine passing through Paris. A few weeks ago when I was in Rome I discovered however that I had been totally wrong! I don't know which part of the Tiber I had seen last time, but what I found now was stunning!

The river has the same strange beauty of the Seine, winding around big old buildings and you can take a walk on its banks. There are a lot of bridges crossing it, even ruins of old Roman ones in the middle of it and what is most astonishing is that there is even an island!

Overlooking San Pietro

Signore, scusi! Am I in Rome or in Paris? Which river is this?

The fashion show @ Villa Rodizio

As I told you yesterday, by the end of the first day of the Vintage, Handmade & Designer Fair at the Villa Rodizio there was a fashion show. It took me by surprise, I was looking at some clothes when I suddenly heard the loud music and saw people taking pictures - I was practically on the runway when it began!

Pink illusion I

Pink illusion II

I went backwards through the crowd, trying to find a good spot to take some pictures, but of course everything good was already taken by people who knew better and actually watched their watches to see what time it was!

Waiting

All eyes on her

The really cool part was when the models started disappearing and I didn't know where... and then I saw one right in front of my nose! After the catwalk, the models continued showing off the clothes passing through all the rooms of the villa - that's where I found the best place to photograph them. Look at how concentrated this model looks, even though she wasn't on the runway but in another room:

Concentration

This is one of my favourite shots, because I managed to get both the model and the photographer who was trying to get his best shot of her.

Getting the best shot

Whoever organised this runway show really thought outside of the box by extending the show into the setting of the fair. It seemed less distant and cold, you could actually see the clothes and the people were happy to see the models passing amongst them. Bravo!

Vintage, Handmade & Designer fair @ Villa Rodizio

Dress to impress. Villa Rodizio.

Today I went to the Dress to impress vintage, handmade and designer fair at the Villa Rodizio in Bucharest. The location was gorgeous, the villa's main entrance overlooking the garden took you to a huge hallway where it all began. Designers and visitors chatted, changing impressions about the pieces presented, people were squirming around trying to decide what designers had the most interesting creations, it was a beautiful chaotic atmosphere!

The villa offered the perfect decor for all the vintage pieces - stained glass windows, antique furniture, watercolour paintings on the walls. Here are some of my favourite photographs that I shot today. I can only hope they will render as much magic as the place itself!

Vintage purses and jewelry from Italian Vintage - Anamaria Negoita

I first saw evintage at the antiques fairs on Aviatorilor Bd. and I loved them from the beginning. I always am very glad to see them at these fairs, because they have really beautiful things, from jewelry and scarves to purses, everything is just perfect! And if that doesn't convince you, take a look at the trouble they take in creating the decor of their spot.

Decor. evintage.

Scarves.

I also discovered here a really cool jewelry designer Alexandra Furcic Marcu, from Modamania Design. She mixes ribbons and metal and the result is just stunning! Funny thing is that I tagged along a friend of mine to this fair and he had this idea of photographing Alexandra's necklaces at somebody's neck. Well I was his guinea pig for this and I ended up liking one of the necklaces so much, that I bought it! Thanks Costin!

Jewelry. Modamania Design.

Quirky T-Shirts from Antante

Vintage & New

The End

As I was about to leave the fashion show started... but that's another story! If you haven't had a chance of going until now, I heartily recommend it. The fair will be open until 8 PM tomorrow.