I love SKULLS

I make no secret of the fact that I have a love for skull adorned accessories.  I don't know what it is, maybe it's that little bit of punk or pirate in me.  I just really love to juxtapose something pretty with that grunginess of a cool sparkly skull.  I was inspired by my fab dressing friend Emma to do a feature on skulls, so I hope everyone appreciates them as much as she and I do.  In my book, no one does skulls better than Alexander McQueen of course.  Not only do they add sparkly skulls to our jewellery lust lists...

...they are also adorning our bags, scarves and shoes with these brilliant babies!

If I had a million dollars, a fair whack of that would be spent on Alex skulls, sigh...
For those who can already see www.net-a-porter.com

But McQueen isn't the only one embracing the skeletal movement at the moment.  I am equally impressed with Mawi's new skull incorporating range.  Adorning them on classically elegant earrings and necklaces, here is a couple from the range available from www.charmandchain.com

And Dannijo (available at www.charmandchain.com) have put colour and multiple skulls together to create a glorious necklace...

Want a necklace that is a little more affordable though...

These pretties are available from www.topshop.co.uk 

Maybe a bracelet, working in a bit of our "friendship" trend from last post...

www.asos.com

www.8otherreasons.com



 Or maybe a ring...

Available from Boticca

www.topshop.co.uk

www.topshop.co.uk

The pirate in all of us is rejoicing...

Enjoy. Elle Effe.

Friends Forever

Back in primary school, I remember sitting down with my friends at lunch, and then my brothers at home, and using up all Mum's cross-stitch cotton to make friendship bracelets. Well it appears that the old friendship bracelet has had a massive comeback of late! Designers are all giving it a go and charging exorbinant prices for their gorgeous bands, that ultimately we all could make ourselves. As much as I love what some designers have done, the champions of this movement would have to be best buddies and designers Stacy Herzog and Sarah Reid of Frieda and Nellie.




They have used beautifully intricate and difficult designs and intertwined them with vintage jewels, I just love how they have even used the humble friendship bracelet to make some very OTT necklaces. One of these babies is definitely on my lust have list.

Frieda and Nellie beauties can be purchased online at www.charmandchain.com and www.friedaandnellie.com

Above images thanks to www.charmandchain.com and www.friedaandnellie.com

I thought I'd give the friendship bracelet a go myself, I find that even just as a base or to use as a strand within a necklace or a backing for embroidery they are very useful, especially because you can integrate a plethora of colours into your designs. Downfall... RSI in the hands! Definitely beautiful but extremely tedious and time consuming. If you have the time though, sit down, pull out some old threads and make yourself something cute to wear, its easy, we all knew how to do it, and now you can find heaps of amazing designs on the web. I used friendship-bracelets.net.  Here's one of my unfinished products...

Made by Elle Effe

But I understand if you don't have the time, skills or knuckle strength to make your own.  In that case I have done the hard work for you and found some really cool, affordable but still unique bands to wrap your wrists with.

Available from www.boticca.com

Available from www.asos.com

Pieces from www.asos.com

Ashiana from www.asos.com

Love Rocks from www.asos.com

Available from www.asos.com

Ashiana from www.asos.com

Now to rest my joints. Enjoy Elle Effe

Girls want to be her...

Do I even need to introduce her, Olivia Palermo; she’s on the top of my list of style crushes, as well as every other woman on the planet. Her style is polished and perfect, mixing amazingly unaffordable high end with more manageable chain store clothing. What I really love about Livvy P though is the absolute ease in which she wears jaw droppingly gorgeous jewels! Having been granted a “fake” stint at Elle magazines accessories department as a part in The City, this already privileged lass has had amazing opportunity to be surrounded in all the best accessories in the world, I am so jealous.

After being spotted in some of Roberta Freymann's gorgeous bib necklaces, Livvy was invited to design a line of gorgeous statement necklaces with the designer. The essence behind them was to reflect her favourite cities in the world; I can't see the symbolism but can definitely see that they're gorgeous!

Get out your notepad and take a lesson or two down, no outfit deserves to be work without a beautiful necklace, if Olivia can do it we can do it too, just maybe a little bit more budget savvy though.

 She also sure knows how to work a massive colourful necklace, something I love, and how to layer pieces, see matching gold piece to left and below middle. It is always especially important not to be scared by wearing colour on colour, look for matching and complementary shades in the one piece and be sure to integrate some black or metallic pieces to tone the look down a little.

 

Enhance and LBD with epic jewels or large chain metallic’s, also don’t be scared to wear more than one necklace, try matching colours between necklaces or like Olivia, add depth with extra black necklaces accented with cool jewels.

Add a gorgeous accent to a floral dress by choosing colour matched jewels or metallic accessories.

 

And don’t forget to rock necklaces with casual wear, this would have to be one of my favourite necklaces, a design by Jaeger, is reminds me of guinea fowl feathers, a memory from my youth chasing the crazy chooks and collecting any lost feathers.

I’m sorry that I did that to you, it makes me sad that I don’t own every single one of those pieces. Hopefully it didn’t upset you but inspired you. If you want to be jealous of her even more, you can follow her on her blog www.oliviapalermo.com . Enjoy. Elle Effe.