THE ACT OF ADORNING

Thursday, 6 September 2012

MBFF Brisbane Accessories Wrap Up

So the weekend saw the wrapping up of the Mercedes Benz Fashion Festival at Brisbane's Treasury Casino. I was lucky enough to catch a few shows. The Emerging Designer Group Show and Mercedes Benz Group Show on Thursday night.

A big crew of us caught up to catch the lovely Erin Hassall (www.erinhassall.com.au) release her new line...

Such beautiful new prints for summer and some stunning necklaces from Sistaco (www.sistaco.com).

Other notable mentions for accessories in the Emerging Designer show were, Shakah for some amazing tribal inspired neckpieces...

Isabella Longinou showcased some empire-style shoulder grazing earrings... (and beautiful cut out dresses)

Kip and Brand (www.kipandbrand.com) fashioned some very different ways to wear our favourite leather cuffs.

And Begitta (http://shop.begitta.com) went the Spring route with towering flower head-dresses and delightful floral chokers.

One of my favourite Brizzy accessory stores, Adorne, showed a range of their Spring/Summer stock which was absolutely drool worthy.

They covered pretty much every style you could expect to want to drape yourself with as the weather heats up.

Good news for me, turquoise is still in, mixing it with golds or the new stone of the season coral...

But if you have a liking for this new gorgeous new colour for spring, why not make it the standout of the outfit. As always I'm going to tell you to wear lots of it! And to make it stand out were over neutral colours.

Multicoloured mixed beaded layer upon layer also walked down the runway and into my heart, for somthing a bit more casual and fun for our days in the sun to come....

Or you could try your hand at some chunky nautical beads...

Silver was showcased as the main metal for the season, mixed with black or white beads and worn layer upon layer at varying lengths. Silver works in well with most neutral and even bright colours for summer.

Other notable mentions from the Mercedes Benz Group Show include Surafina for the flower pom pom headpieces, I'm making myself one of these for the race season...

And I just had to mention Lisa Brown, because the colours and prints were just beautiful and they were matched perfectly with large gemstone pendants

For the shows I didn't get the time to attend, I have trawled the images to bring you the snapshot of what other designers are adorning with this season.

Colin Heaney went turquoise, wood, bone and tribal...

Stephanie Caltabiano (finalist in Australian Fashion Graduate of the Year) went with the coral theme

Alice Waugh (another Fashion Graduate) showed us more turquoise, spikes and geometric neckpieces.

(This has gotta be one of my faves, adding to Christmas wishlist as we speak)

EP by Easton Pearson, rocked the pompoms

and finally Threadbare.co went for neon and brights!

All images are courtesy of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival Brisbane 2012 (www.mbff.com.au) because my fashion photography skills just aren't up to scratch yet.

Finally, here I am with my two lovely ladies Gemma and Brodie, showing them how the adorning thing is really done...

Sorry its been so long between drinks, I hope this awfully long post makes up for it.

Until next time... Elle Effe xoxoxo

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

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

The pirate in all of us is rejoicing...

Enjoy. Elle Effe.

Friday, 13 July 2012

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.