The other half

Summer may be long gone, but we don't need to abolish all summer doings. One I'm definitely planning on keeping is my multiple arm candy.

This year's most notable arm bling acquisition was from Greek brand IMISI that makes colourful ribbon-like bracelets, embossed with empowering quotes.

Every quote has its other half, which you can order along. Or you can wait and see if you'll bump into another person wearing it. Great conversation starter if you do, no?

Pink/grey quote bracelet, IMISI. Wax rope, aquamarine crystal and gold clasp, APRIATI. Silver charm chain (worn without charms), SWAROVSKI. Hammered silver bracelet, PRIGKIPO. Blue infinity symbol bracelet, CRUCIANI.

The Art of Denim at McArthurGlen Athens

If you are good stalkers and follow my Instagram, Twitter or FB page, you already know. If not, here's the deal:

Early this week, 12 Greek fashion bloggers gathered at the McArthurGlen Designer Outlet of Athens, with the same mission: To put together the perfect denim outfit, as part of The Art of Denim campaign, running from September 21st to October 9th.

This campaign is actually a big deal for two reasons: 

1. The Art of Denim is the first world-wide campaign McArthurGlen lauches, in Europe, Brazil, China, Russia and North Korea. 

2. This campaign means you can shop at all the participating stores (which are too many, trust me) and get an extra 20% off on the already amazing prices.

Overall, it was an amazing day, hanging out with all our blogger friends.

Acting cool in denim with Zoe of Act&React, Gabriel of Cool Artisan, Elena of lfof.gr and Olga of McArthurGlen Athens. 

With Stefania of Not For Sale and Alexia of Smells Like Fashion, who's shamelessly photobombing us. 

You can find all 12 bloggers on McArthurGlen's FB page here.

And this is my outfit, shot by the amazing Nicky Economou:

Light-wash men's jeans, dark-wash denim button-down shirt and black belt, Levi's. Black leather high-heeled clog sandals, Diesel. Cat ring and hair band, Accessorize. Leather clutchbag, BSB.

I decided to do double denim (because if you gonna go, go hard) & men's jeans. I love the "boyfriend" look, and my favourite pair of jeans is actually from a men's store.

To "girl it up" I made sure the shirt was fitted, the heels were high and the general feel was something like pin-up mechanic with some getto bling, if it makes any sense at all. Now that I think of it, maybe I should have added some big gold hoop earrings as well. Next time!

As I mentioned, the selection of participating shops offering that extra 20% off is huge and you can find denim items (duh) but also casualwear, sportswear, shoes, jewellery and accessories. And not just womenswear, but menswear and childrenswear as well.

To make your life easier, here is a list of the brands:

ACCESSORIZE, ADIDAS, ALBERTA FERRETTI, ALE, AMERICAN STARS, AMERICAN VINTAGE, AMERICANINO, ANNA MARIA MAZARAKI, ATTRATTIVO, BILL COST, BILLABONG, BODY TALK, BROOKS BROTHERS, BSB, CAMEL ACTIVE, CARLO PAZOLINI, COLINS, D PAM, DIESEL, DOCKSTEPS, EDWARD JEANS, ELEMENT, EYEQ, GANT, GIANFRANCO FERRE, GINESTRA, HUGO BOSS, HUNTER, ICEBERG, JUPE, JUST ROBERTO CAVALLI, KEM, LACOSTE, LEVIS, LI LA LO, MANDARINO, MARASIL, MOSCHINO, NOTOS GALLERIES, OXFORD COMPANY, POLO RALPH LAUREN, REEBOK, REPLAY, ROCOCO, ROCOCO UOMO, SKECHERS, STAFF, TOI&MOI, TOMMY HILFIGER, TRUSSARDI, TSAKIRIS MALLAS, VERSACE, VS.

Happy shopping!

FW 2013/14 at the adidas brand showroom

Yup, this great reunion of Life in Athens, Life Full of Fashion and yours trully happened last week, at the adidas Fall/Winter 2013-14 collections.

Alex leave them alone. These are mine, MINE I TELL YOU.

Cuteness overload aaaaand matching chandelier earrings.

Of course the adidas guys couldn't let us go without a little souvenir! This guy above is artist Tommaso Taraschi and he customized these cute urban-inpired prints for each of us.

Kindly demonstrated by Thalia above, I chose the Tokyo one. It featured a cat, a geisha, a ninja, some noodles and sushi. Basically, some of my absolute favourite things!

Till next time, adidas!

Spotted the perfect ballet flat

Regarding the title, yeah I have a thing for puns. As for the actual shoes, well these are the latest addition to my ballet flats collection.

I actually go through a lot of pairs, as they are my go-to footwear and I am known to walk a lot. I recently decided to throw away many of my battered old ones, as they were just too destroyed to wear any more. In need to refill my collection, I found those babies at Zara during the summer sales.

Cute, real leather, b&w polka-dot ballet flats for just 17.99 euros. Score.

BTW, who hates those elastic ties they use to keep shoes together? Make you walk awkward as fuck, but I guess it's still better than buying two lefts by mistake.

Welcome to the shoe family, guys.

Hey, honey!

Yesterday was the launch of the latest bath & body line by The Body Shop, named Honeymania.

The honey used in the products comes from Ethiopia and it is sourced as a part of The Body Shop's Community Fair Trade programme. 

You can see more about honey harvesting and the beekeepers' communities here:

I'll just say I'm really happy we were sent home with this:

The Body Shop's body butters have recently become a star product of mine. They are really luxurious-feeling and moisturizing, but without being too heavy, as they literally melt into skin like butter. As I've almost run out of my favourite Shea Body Butter, this will come rather handy.

Arcade Fire, David Bowie and those mirrors

Arcade Fire released their "Reflektor" video just a couple of days ago, on September 9 at 9 p.m. E.T. (yes, it's all nines, how cute in a cheesy-weddingy kinda way).

The video had all this hype surrounding it right from the start, being the first single out of the much awaited same-name album and having its own undercover instagram account. But it seems that wasn't enough, because then David effing Bowie was added to the mix.

I have 3 observations:

1) The song is rather good.
It's probably the hipsters that are gonna tell you it sucks, because now Arcade Fire have gone mainstream, therefore now they're no longer worthy of their attention. This is getting old.

2) This has to be artist Gustav Troger.

The mirrored man in the Reflektor video and the MirrorMan "living scuplture" by Austrian artist Gustav Troger are identical. You can see more on this photoset by Flickr user SilverSky (where I found the artist's pic above) but don't tell me it's not him. And, if it is indeed him, why won't the video's director Anton Corbijn credit him? Expect some finger-pointing, name-calling and plagiarism-shaming any time soon.


3) The video hit a personal memory.
It strongly reminded me of something I was professionally involved in back in 2011, while I was working at film and TV production company Filmiki. I wasn't usually part of the actual creative process, but I did manage to get my ass involved in a couple of interesting projects. One of them was the making of music video "Time is all mine" by Greek musician Sillyboy, shot by director Stathis Mourdoukoutas. The first pic of this post is from the day of the shooting.



It shows a person covered in little pieces of mirrored glass, while the chorus says:
I often listen to Ziggy and get undressed 
This is my humble confess

See the connection here? Both music videos feature a mirrored person and a Bowie reference.

I'm most certainly no David Bowie geek myself. There must be tons of trivia out there, that I never heard about. So, if you know what's the deal here, please tell: Is there a reason mirror-covered people and David Bowie seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly in music videos? Or is this just a plain coincidence?

Red check and greenery

In this time of the year, Sundays are for staying in and planting your ass on your generic-but-oh-so-cute IKEA garden furniture.

Yeah, I finally cleaned up my balcony, so I wanted to show off a bit.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go drink my 3rd cup of the day while reading blogs.

Back in the city

Can you tell I had a haircut? I actually choped off 10cm or so while I was on holiday - and added some subtle layers too, which I'm still not used to. Boy, me and my hair have a complicated relationship. But more on that later...

Aren't woven textures great for this particular season? I mean, it's still too hot for your typical closed-toe shoes and leather handbags, but it also kinda feels wrong to trot around the city in beach sandals, no?

Taupe cotton sundress, ASOS. Red woven leather ballet flats, ZARA. Green sunglasses, RETROSUPERFUTURE. Straw tote, grandma's vintage.