Can't Wait For Spring?

Five spring things to do now...

1. Have a picnic in the park
Dress up in your warmest layers, pack a tablecloth and enjoy having the entire park to yourself!

2. Mix it up
Wear last summer's flimsiest floral frock with thick woolly tights, a chunky scarf and peep-toe wedges

3. Spring clean your wardrobe
Weed out all those "it was a good idea at the time" fashion fiascos and send them to a good home via www.freecycle.org

4. Pep yourself up with a self-help book
We recommend Fabulosity by Kimora Lee Simmons - cheesy but fabulous and full of feel-good fashion advice

5. Start planning your New Look
Check out the pre-spring collections at www.matchesfashion.com/lookbook/season/pre-ss08 then fathom out how to 'springify' your wardrobe with the stuff you've already got

Photo: Ellen Von Unwerth

Favourites things

So here are a few of our favourites things for next season seen on our travels. Firstly, we've noticed a cat trend coming through. Granted, it's just two cat tees at the moment but that's enough for us to warrant trend status. Next on our wish list are these Insight shorts from Urban Outfitters - how cute? On a sporty tip, Nike has finally got with the programme and stopped denying it's a fashion brand. Honestly, all this playing hard to get and insisting it's a performance sports brand was fooling no-one. This leopard-print tee is so not 'performance sports' and amen to that! Finally, we're feeling trainers again after years off-radar. Biba showed these proper old school stylee high tops and we're mad about them. Call us greedy but we want them all.







Pics - top to bottom:
TopShop cat T-shirt
Biba cat T-shirt
Insight shorts at Urban Outfitters
Nike leopard-print T-shirt
Biba trainers

Eye Candy

We've been traipsing round to all the press days and launches to find out what's in store for 2008. On the fashion front we've looked at so many floral dresses, tie dye tops and gladiator sandals, quite frankly we never want to see another one. But sunglasses are a different thing entirely. Ray-Ban Wayfarers? Pfft! A distant memory. Saucer-sized seventies sunnies? Passe. Our new obsession is the heart-shaped sunglasses we saw at Urban Outfitters and George At Asda. Not for the bashful, these are the epitome of flirty, feisty and fun!

Lordy Lourdes

A big debate is going on at www.jezebel.com regarding Madonna's lovely eleven-year-old Lourdes. The big deal? Her eyebrows. Much as we celebrate grooming for those who are interested, we wouldn't like to dictate that anyone should shave, bleach, tweeze or wax. Surely it's up to the individual? If Lourdes is aware of her downy top lip and bushy brows but making a decision to go au naturel then props to her. The key issue is choice. We think she's adorable anyway, but refusing to be swayed by conventional rules of beauty is what makes her super-stunning in our books. Hmm, wonder who she gets that from?

Bonjour Valentine

Apologies for our prolonged absence. We've been moving house (Navaz) and holidaying at Disneyland (Donna) but are back in action now. Navaz was lucky enough to work with model-about-town (and Charles Anastase's muse) Valentine Fillol-Cordier last week while shooting for Asos magazine. Sometimes a model is so inherently cool she doesn't actually need a stylist, she just styles herself! Valentine was one of those, not to mention the most charming sweetheart to boot.

Here are some of her favourite beauty products:

Hair product - "For a conditioning treatment I use Leonor Greyl Palm Oil. I put it on an hour before shampooing and wrap it in clingfilm. I also love Bumble & Bumble Surf Spray."

Lip balm/lipgloss - "Oh I hate lipgloss - it sticks to my hair! But I use lip balm by Bigelow. It's the oldest pharmacy in New York and it contains almond oil. It's really nice, I always get it when I'm in New York."

Eyeliner - "I like to mix black and brown together. I use brown underneath and black inside. Pout is my favourite, the packaging is super-cute."

Moisturiser - "At the moment I'm using Chanel Beaute Initiale. You have to moisturise your skin. I really think so. I wash mine 2-3 times a day and I always take my make-up off at night. It's so important otherwise you get spots two days later and then wonder why...!"

Carrie Bradshaw Returns

So filming is in full swing on the Sex & The City movie and already the fashion leaks have started. Carrie is rocking some of the hottest trends of the season and we’re nodding in agreement at all her style choices. Where to start? How about the bags? This bonkers Eiffel Tower bag by Timmy Woods has our hearts just pounding with passion – we want it now! But we’ll have to wait, the bag doesn’t reach stores til January.

In the meantime, there’s always the Fendi Sweetbox bag, a steal at about £600. Onto footwear, Carrie is still loyal to her Manolos but her Dior studded plat-heels (from last season) are given a new twist worn with over-the-knee socks in her own off-beat way. We’ll give it a try with Kurt Geiger’s school-girl socks – cheap and chic!

Alexa or Peaches?

We went to visit a TV company last week to brainstorm ideas for a teen TV programme. The first question put to us was, "which teen-friendly celebrity would you choose to present a youth-based fashion programme?" Ooh, pressure! We love Alexa Chung and having worked with her in her modelling days we know she's style-savvy yet nice, while Miquita Oliver we find too cool for school (and not in a good way). "What about Peacha Geldof?" came the next question. Noooo! We couldn't protest loudly enough. Do young people like Peaches Geldof? Doesn't she wind you up the way she does us? We don't know the girl, maybe she's lovely, but something about her grates. So the question is, if you could pick anyone, who would you like to see present a fashion programme aimed at 15-16 year olds?

Rachel's Rules

Christmas may be 78 shopping days away (yes, we're counting) but we're already compiling our what-we-want lists. Last year we went crazy for The Goddess Guide by Gisele Scanlon, a tome of sheer gorgeousness with the added bonus of zillions of tips. This year we're getting excited about Style A to Zoe: The Art of Fashion, Beauty and Everything Glamour, the new style book from Rachel Zoe which launched last week. She may be out of favour with Nicole Richie and Anna Wintour (fancy stating in an interview that you're more influential than La Wintour, doh!) but we reckon she's still got some worthwhile nuggets of advice to dole out. Get your copy from Amazon.co.uk.

Gotta Wear Shades

Next spring/summer is like, forever away but we can't resist compiling our wishlists in advance. How bonkers are these sunglasses necklaces from Tatty Devine? We'll take all three please.

BEAUTY BUYS FOR UNDER £5

We asked our favourite make-up artist Nadira what her favourite budget beauty buys are:



WET N WILD 3 of a kind, £2.49. A great multi-purpose stick for lips, cheeks and eyes. Choose from three shades to highlight and accentuate your features! Visit http://www.wnwbeauty.com/ for more details).








RIMMEL French manicure Nail Care in Rose Praline and Café au Lait £4.49. These are great neutral shades for everyday. The subtle colours are also great for hiding chips and polish blunders.









BARRY M Glossy Tubes £3.95.
It's an unspoken beauty rule that every girl has got to own at least one lip gloss for each day of the week. But with Barry M's candy-coloured Glossy Tubes you'll find a shade for every occassion too!

BOOTS Fragrance Free Eye Makeup Remover Lotion £1.49
One of the very few lotions on the market that actually shifts the toughest waterproof mascaras. And it’s under £2! Bargain!!!

MISTER MASCARA Eyebrow Groomer £4.87.
This double ended brush/comb will keep brows at bay and lashes clump free. After one use, you’ll wonder why you hadn't bought one before! See www.mistermascara.com for more details.




ME ME ME Beat the Blues Highlighter £4.50.
Most illuminators are really pricey, but this one is a steal! Plus it really does the job and livens up those cheekbones no end.

17 Get Cheeky Cream Blush £2.99.
Achieve a radiant and natural flush with this cheeky buy. TIP: Remember to pat the product on - vigorous rubbing will just wipe it off before you've even left the house!

Graphic Jam

Following on from the designers designing for the high street trend (which let’s face it has outstayed its welcome), we think the next big thing will be designers creating limited edition make-up ranges.

Boots 17 has been an early adopter of this trend and we’re loving their work. After Eley Kishimoto and Antoni & Alison comes Jonathan Saunders, he of the arty graphic prints that have been working the runway this London Fashion Week.

Make a beeline for his lip and eye autumn collection – even the packaging is awesome!

Antoni & Alison’s Anniversary Surprise

We haven’t always loved Antoni & Alison. Like Henry Holland, their witty slogan tees started to grate a bit after a while but this year celebrates their 20th anniversary in fashion so we decided to go along to their London Fashion Week show.

Well, it wasn’t a show in the regular sense of the word but oh my god, what a fantastic production! Set in the Curzon cinema in Mayfair, we entered the auditorium to be greeted by hundreds of multicoloured balloons and a cupcake on each seat from Lola’s Kitchen. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, the show itself was in fact a home-made film called ‘The Party Portraits’, a kooky short film showing a woman getting ready to go to a party and practicing the gestures she thinks necessary for a party, starring none other than…Nicole Kidman! No kidding! Apparently Miss Kidman gave her services free as an anniversary gift to the duo.

Antoni & Alison have always stood out as a company doing their own thing and for that they have a huge following. Plus, it’s great to see something a bit wacky and different amidst all the conventional catwalk shows (even if the clothes were a bit bizarre). Happy Birthday Antoni & Alison!

Beauty Is...

What is beauty? Is it a Marc Jacobs bag? A Chloe dress? Mischa Barton? Or is it a sunset, a smile, an energetic hug? Nivea asked us to take part in a panel discussion to debate the question over coffee and croissants as it launches its latest advertising campaign.

The debate was certainly thought provoking. As teen experts, our opinion is that today's beauty is about confidence. When it comes to outer beauty the recognised standard is conventional beauty - the straight-toothed, symmetrical-featured, size ten type of beauty - but surely this is starting to look old hat?

To us, modern beauty is unconventional beauty, an aesthetic where something unique stands out - think Amy Winehouse with her wacky hair and strong nose, Kate Moss with her child-woman look, snaggly teeth and unkempt hair or Lily Cole with her ravishing red locks, round face and long limbs. These days, beauty is not about so-called perfection, it’s about learning to celebrate our differences. Once we recognize this we boost our confidence and self-esteem and worry less about how people see us. (That said, a Marc Jacobs bag and a Chloe dress go a long way to supporting the cause!)

What's your definition of beauty?

How To Handle Hat Hair

Autumn/winter is all about the hat. Cloches were key at Proenza Schouler, beanies brought street chic to Ralph Lauren and furry headwarmers were all the rage at Anna Sui. But be warned, hat hair can attack any style and hair type! Whether baseball or beret, headgear of any description causes every strand to go in the opposite direction that you want it to.

The main cause for this is that hats cause hair to dry up and therefore turn static. So it's key to keep hair moisturised. This means, as well as using a conditioner after shampooing, try using a rich leave-in styling cream before drying.


Pic: www.nymag.com

More About Models...

No soon as we've posted our "return of the supermodel" prediction, we hear the news that the old, no sorry, original catwalk queens have been working hard to re-live their own superstardom the noughties way - by launching beauty ranges.

First it was Kate with her fragrance, now Erin O'Connor and Helena Christensen have put their names, faces and ideas behind a new range of haircare products aptly named Model.Me! Coincidentally, this season's hair trends saw a throwback to the 80s Amazonian style (see Versace above) that was sported on the likes of Cindy, Helena, Christy et al all those years ago...lets hope these products help us get ours looking that way!

Mad About Models

New York Fashion Week kicks off this week and New York magazine is running a huge models special (http://nymag.com/fashion/models/) to commerate the occasion. Check out these priceless model quotes:
“I don't want to take my clothes off, it's raining.”
Kate Moss, April 1, 2007. The Sunday Times

“I've never looked drib and drab in my life.”
Naomi Campbell, June 2007. W magazine

“I used to dress up as a model for Halloween, like every year.”
Chanel Iman, February 2007. Teen Vogue

Seems like people really are embracing the return of the model. Is the end of the celebrity nigh?

Pencil Case

It's the beginning of term and the start of a new beauty season, so why not sharpen up your beauty bag with a collection of make-up pencils? As you can see from this backstage shot from Alexander McQueens autumn/winter show, eyeliner is bolder and brighter than ever, from Amy Whinehouse stylee flicks to colourful Cleopatra coloured in blocks of colour. But not just for eyes - our favourite beauty crayon collection can makeover your whole look before you can say "pass me the sharpener"....

Best Black Eyeliner: BeneFit Bad Gal
TIP! Line upper and lower lash lines using short but sharp strokes.

Best For Whitening Nail Tips: Sally Hansen 2-in-1 Nail White Pencil
TIP! Run it under your nail for a quick French Manicure groomed look.

Best White Eyeliner: Sisley Phyto-Kohl Perfect Pencil In Snow
TIP! Apply to the inner corners to "wake-up" your eye.

Best For Defining Lips: Benefit D'Finer D'Liner
TIP! Avoid coloured lip liners like the plague! But use this invisible one to seal in colour.

Best for Defining Brows: No7 Japanese Brow Pencil
TIP! Wear it with pastel shades on your eyelids for an on-trend look.

Show A Leg

Right, the autumn/winter season is kind of in full flow so we’re thinking about…Christmas! Ok, not strictly but we did happen to visit Urban Outfitters’ head office recently to view their Christmas collection. Very nice it was too with lots of black and lots of patent. In fact they assured us patent is going to be massive for autumn/winter– think wet-look totes and saddlebags in particular. Also big on the trend-o-meter is bright coloured tights. According to our insider at Urban Outfitters these will be the Palestinian scarves of the winter season. What else? Nu Grave is predicted (translation: glamorous goth) and shiny leggings…more of which to come.

Our next stop was teen paradise Tammy. Stop looking at us funny. Tammy is our secret shop where we go for super-cheap accessories and other irresistible bits and bobs. We accosted jersey buyer Jo Byrne for her predictions. Her big recommendation? Leggings! Yep, leggings are still kicking about but don’t stress. Tammy are rocking zip leggings for autumn/winter. Like, how fab is that? We can just see it, a cool slouchy mini dress, zip leggings, high-heeled shoe boots and a jaunty beret. Very nice indeed!

Pic: Emilio Pucci/www.vogue.com

check us out!

Woo hoo, we're on Youtube! Check out our tip-packed fashion and beauty podcasts here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1hIs3HSPo4


There are 5 altogether, let us know what you think...

Super Super

The newly madeover Superette store has reopened and we were invited to the opening soiree. Crunchy snacks and cherryade were enjoyed by all and we couldn’t resist nabbing some choice accessories for ourselves. Our haul included this cute airmail pencil-case-slash-make-up-bag (even though Navaz doesn’t need ANY more pencil cases) while Donna thought it would be right down rude to pass up the candy-coloured hair clips. Aren’t you just loving the knitted ice-creams and cakes? See for yourself at Superette, 66a Sclater Street, E1 or visit the online shop at www.ladyluckrulesok.com.

Eau No Jordan!

Today sees the launch of Jordan's, oh sorry, Katie Price's new scent Stunning. To quote the busty one, it smells "sweet and soft with hints of jasmine and mandarin". Mmm...!?!

So why are celebrity perfumes so popular? We sort of understand the A-list allure of Kylie and Kate's configurations and can just about justify the glamour that comes with smelling like a superstar singer (new one's include Gwen Stefani's "L", Prince 3121 and M by Maria Carey), but when it comes to the desire of smelling like a D-lister, we're just baffled!!!

Since bottles of Jade's Shhh were spectacularly banished from shelves, WAGS and reality stars have been quick to fill in the space. Coleen McCloughlin, Shilpa Shetty and now Jordan are stinking out the high-street this summer!

Enough already...

Catwalk To High Street

Asos had their Christmas preview a few days ago and invited us to see the new collection. First they impressed us with a raft of new designer labels including the new Sienna-and-her-sister collection Twenty8Twelve (verdict: pretty good so far), then we checked out Asos Luxe, its slightly more high-end range (lots of sequins and French-style ruffly chiffon frocks) and then they showed us their in-house catwalk. WHAT??? Yes, they have a catwalk. In. Their. Office! How mad is that? The catwalk is used to show each item on a model in a live setting and it’s run with military precision. Asos has 200 new deliveries a week so that’s a lot of stuff to be photographed. All we know is if we had a catwalk in our office we would get zero work done. We’d be too busy practicing our Naomi Campbell swagger (sans stumble) on that runway. Work it girls!!

***Newsflash*** ***Newsflash*** ***Newsflash***

Hey, we told you! Printed denim's gonna be BIG and to prove it Cheap Mondays just showed these bonkers print jeans at Stockholm Fashion Week. Another crazy trend bubbling under right now? It's a bit sick but we're feeling clogs! Scoff you may but they're part of Gap's new autumn/winter collection and we think they might take off. (Er, we won't be wearing them though...)


Pic: www.style.com

Say Hello Wave Goodbye Part 2

HELLO FRENCH EXCHANGE, GOODBYE RULE BRITANNIA
Bib-front tops, Peter Pan collars, berets and duffle coats. This sweet exchange-student look is one part nerd, one part preppie and one part girly so have fun mixing it up. Where to start? Check out the designs of Charles Anastase, Sonia Rykiel and APC.



HELLO PRINTED DENIM, GOODBYE COLOURED DENIM
OK, coloured denim hasn’t totally run its course but if you want to get ahead of the curve check out printed denim as seen at People’s Market and Jeremy Scott for Ksubi.



HELLO DR MARTENS, GOODBYE VANS
It pains us to say it but those ugly stompy boots are gonna be everywhere for autumn. Chloe showed fugly boots on the runway while Agynes Deyn has been wearing nothing else all summer. Still loving your Vans? Keep hold of them, the Dr Martens trend will burn out faster than Lindsay Lohan’s career.


HELLO TIGHTS, GOODBYE LEGGINGS
Thick woolly tights are set to be the most wearable trend of the coming months. Practical and cool? Yes please! Take your cue from Kirsten Dunst and team bold mustard tights with high heeled brogues or play safe with grey school tights (bulk-buy kids ones from Woolworths).


HELLO JODHPURS, GOODBYE ROMPERS
If rompersuits were the surprise trend of the summer then jodhpurs are surely the main contender for the ‘who knew?’ trend of the coming season. All it took is one designer – Nicholas Ghesquiere for Balenciaga - to show them on his catwalk and everyone’s gone bananas for them. Get the affordable version at Gap, Full Circle and Warehouse.



HELLO ASOS, GOODBYE TOPSHOP
With a raft of top execs abandoning TopShop, attention is now on Asos to steal the limelight. Not only is it addressing petites and plus sizes, it’s selling premium brands like Chloe and Balenciaga and linking up with Patricia Fields (take that Kate Moss)!



HELLO FUCHSIA, GOODBYE FLUORO
Hot punchy pink is the colour we’ll all be wearing and not a moment too soon. Fluoro was fun while it lasted but hey, its time to move on. Find your fuchsia sheath dress at Preen or if you’re on a budget hit the high street for a fuchsia fix at Zara, Oasis or Warehouse.