Favorite addresses

London

Currently, is one of my favorites.. I would say for.. the variety of options that the city gives to anyone, plenty of activities and everyday chances that offers and for the multi-cultural people that surrounde the whole beat. As for entertaining, shopping, going out, arts and culture, London is the capital of them. 
I listed some of my fab places&things to do right now.

#1
A stroll at Bond street is always a perfect and stylish inspiration, not only for fashionistas.

 

Chanel,  26 Old Bond Street

#2 Grand Brasserie
A beautiful hidden french brasserie called Zedel located to the heart of the city. With aristic decoration and strong doses of gold you can taste great creamy soups and authentic fillets.

Zedel
20 Sherwood St, London W1F 7ED, United Kingdom

#3
Elemis Day Spa
Situated in the heart of Mayfair, London, the Elemis day-spa is a sensory space for men and women to escape from the stress and pressures of everyday life.

      Elemis ,2 Lancashire Ct, Mayfair W1S 1EX, United Kingdom

#4
Browns
One of the most educated and elegant boutiques in London. Here you can find all the finest pieces of designers such as Givenchy, Akris, Celine, Kenzo, Rick Owens and many more.

 Browns fashion boutique, 6C Sloane Street; SW1X 9LE London, United Kingdom.

#5
Aubaine bistrot
A really wonderful place to have brunch with friends or taste an original french breakfast. My favorite plate is croque madame for sure.

                                                                     Aubaine restaurant 
 #6
Tate Modern
A modern Mekka for contemporary Art and culture. It is a must visit and a great (lonely-I prefer) long-long walk from the city's fuzz.

Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG, United Kingdom

#7
The National Gallery

From my recent visit at the Gallery which exposed the rare and extraordinary and work of Vincent van Gogh:Sunflowers.


Van gogh
(Letter describing his Sunflowers in a letter to the painter Emilie Bernard August 1888.)
1889 painting finished
''A decoration in which the raw and broken chrome yellow will blaze forth on various backgrounds , blues between pale Veronese ( emerald green) and royal blue, framed with thin stips painted in my orange.''

 National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN, United Kingdom

#8
Diptyque
A beauty heaven for me, just adore it. Amazing candles, lluxury fragrances and delicate body creams.
I can spend hours and hours inside..

Diptyque,
37 Brook Street, Mayfair, London

Send me your favorites and reviews!
xx
El 

Headbands

#THE EDIT 
chic twist

"From Brigitte Bardot who loved to wear wide black ribbons in her thick blond hair until Natalie Portman who caught her hair updo in disciplinary way personating the prima ballerina in film" Black Swan , " the stylish Alicia Silverstone in «Cluless» 90s movie who changed the color depending on the overall outfit to go to college , we arrive at today and particularly in spring collection of Victoria Beckham where black headbands starred and made the outfits dynamic and fashionable throughout the show. Try headbands from morning highlighting the features of your face while making a low ponytail at night , prefer a more glamourous version, embellished with stones or with a velvety texture . "InStyle.gr 

from Elena Anastasiadis , fashion blogger at elforelegantlife

Weekend beauty affair

 Saturday&Sunday mornings

No5 moisturizing mist,Chanel

 Face masks with pink clay,Apivita

Scented candles,Mad et Len

 Day creme,Kirege

Mad et Len by Antonioli

THE PERFUME HOUSE, MAD ET LEN, IS BASED IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE AND SPECIALIZED IN INTOXICATING AROMAS HANDMADE WITH AN ARTISIAN'S TOUCH.

Collegiate

Feeling classical 

Valentino showed us the way  and made the collar one of the most delicate details of the season.

                                                                 Valentino Jacket

                                                                   Kenzo white shirt, shop here

                                                                       editing El,

Art of Perfection | Azzedine Alaïa

In the hands of Azzedine Alaïa, a dress is so much more than stitched fabric. It’s an exaltation of the female form. A technical masterpiece. A unique vision. Over lunch in Paris, fashion’s ultimate independent finally comes to terms with his singular legacy.
You never know who you might run into at Azzedine Alaïa’s headquarters in the Marais section of Paris. On a Friday in December, there’s the fashion photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, shopping for a navy A-line minidress as a gift for his wife. Azzedine “has a real sense of the woman’s body,” Mondino says. “And women know that.”
Alaïa walks into the ground-floor shop, as he often does, pleased to see his old friend. “Stay for lunch,” he insists.
Mondino demurs, “I have to work.”
Carla Sozzani, the founder of the 10 Corso Como gallery, boutique and hotel in Milan and Alaïa’s longtime friend and style consultant since 2000, is there too. So is the French photographer Sarah Moon, who recounts how she originally went to see Alaïa in 1977 at his first studio, on the rue de Bellechasse, because she’d heard he made Marlene Dietrich’s suits. “No, my dear, it was Garbo,” he corrects her. “I dressed Garbo.”

After much chatter and joke telling, everyone but Mondino moves into Alaïa’s large open kitchen for lunch. In fact, there are 22 around the immense old glass-topped garden table, including the painter Christophe von Weyhe, Alaïa’s retail manager and life partner of more than 30 years; several company assistants; and some friends of friends. “It’s always like this, lunch and dinner,” Alaïa says, as plates of roast chicken, puréed carrots and mashed potatoes are served.
Alaïa is fashion’s enigma. The Tunisian-born designer has officially been in business for nearly 35 years, and he’s been privately making clothes to order for chic women since the 1960s, yet he still has what would qualify as a cult following. His company remains small — about $63 million a year in an industry where many brands earn hundreds of millions in sales annually. Unlike most designers today, who carry the title of creative director and serve more as managers than couturiers, Alaïa cuts his own clothing patterns and sews the samples himself, each stitch exactly where and how it should be. Most important, through the wizardry of perfectly placed seams and stretch knits, Alaïa’s clothes nip, tuck and hoist to maximum effect. The top model Naomi Campbell, who has known Alaïa since she was 16 and calls him “papa,” describes his designs as “almost magical. No other dress can make a woman look and feel as good as an Alaïa dress because it cinches a woman’s body perfectly.”
Alaïa has always made the clothes he wants to make, at his rhythm, showing them when it pleases him, selling only to stores he likes and delivering them when he wants. Years ago, when he decided he’d had enough of the Paris show schedule, he simply opted to present his collection months after everyone else, and then soon after, stopped showing altogether. Alaïa simply plays by rules of his own making, rather than ones created by the fashion industry. And yet retailers can’t help but love him. His clothes appeal to a broad range of women, from “true collectors” to young customers “investing in pieces that will stay in their wardrobe forever but somehow always seems modern,” says Daniella Vitale, C.O.O. and executive vice president of Barneys New York, which has carried Alaïa since the early 1980s. Alaïa “has an uncanny ability to bridge all of it seamlessly. Very few designers have that capability.” His collection, she adds, “is one of the most successful brands we have in the store.”
Katie Grand, the influential stylist and editor in chief of Love magazine, had Alaïa make her wedding dress, a brown snakeskin number with a fitted bodice and short flared skirt, in 2009. “He tortured me for a few months,” she recalls with a laugh. “The first question he asked was, ‘What size are you going to be at your wedding?’ ” When she told him, he explained that the dress wasn’t the sort that could be altered at the last minute. “He said, ‘I want you to lose weight by the end of next week. Don’t eat anything, and stay on a running machine.’ I said O.K. The dress fit on the wedding day, and I was happy in it.”
Alaïa’s fierce independence was instilled by his grandmother, who, he remembers, “always said, ‘Children until 7 should remain free. No need to clutter their heads with religion and other things. They need to live freely as children.’ ” He’s carried on this philosophy throughout his life. “I am still free,” he insists.
Much of that may soon change. After a brief and relatively hands-off foray with the Prada Group in the early 2000s, during which he expanded into accessories, Alaïa sold his company to Richemont, the Swiss-based group that owns Cartier, Montblanc and Chloé, in 2007. With big money behind him, growth plans are afoot: Sozzani is in Paris in part to help oversee the construction of a new four-story Alaïa outpost on rue Marignan, due to open this year. A perfume — one of luxury fashion’s favorite cash cows — is in the works, as is global retail expansion.
With all of this, Alaïa remains his usual unassuming self: small (just over five foot two), soft-spoken and feisty, dressed in his habitual black Mandarin jacket and trousers, with three dogs — Anouar, a Maltese given to him by Campbell; another Maltese named Waka Waka, from the singer Shakira; and Didine, a St. Bernard — never far from his feet. At roughly 72 years old — he has never admitted his age — he is fine with what appears to be Richemont’s positioning of the brand for a long-term life after he is gone. “All can continue without me,” he says. “It must continue. One day, you say, ‘That’s it’ for yourself. But not for the house. You simply have to find the right replacement.”
Come September, the Paris fashion museum Musée Galliera is mounting an Alaïa retrospective for its reopening after a four-year renovation. Among the gems that will be on display: the immense French Tricolor gown that the designer made for the opera soprano Jessye Norman to wear as she sang at the French bicentennial concert in 1989 and the iconic spiral zipper dress that was inspired by a jacket Arletty wore in the French classic “Hôtel du Nord.” There is also an Alaïa Foundation in the works: a place where his personal design archives, as well as pieces from other designers he admires and collects, like Madame Grès, Madeleine Vionnet and Jacques Fath, will be on display. And in May, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will perform a new version of “The Marriage of Figaro,” the Mozart classic, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with Alaïa-designed costumes and a Jean Nouvel set. Though busy, Alaïa remains tireless. Of his 75 employees , many under 30, he announces proudly, “But they are older than I am!” One, who is passing through the kitchen at that moment, laughs in agreement. “I am very curious,” Alaïa says. “Every day, I say: What am I going to learn today and whom am I going to meet?” No doubt some of them will be at lunch.

CREDITS AND PHOTOS FROM NEW YORK TIMES

Made in Brasil

Κεντρική Πολιτική Κοινωνία Διεθνή Οικονομία Γνώμες Σπορ Free Time Σινεμά Ταξίδι Άστρα Αφιερώματα Blog

Ομορφιά made in Brazil

22-10-2012

 

 

 

 

Είναι αλήθεια ότι τα πιο όμορφα και καλοπληρωμένα μοντέλα που κάνουν λαμπρές καριέρες στο χώρο της μόδας έχουν βραζιλιάνικη καταγωγή. Η Βραζιλία είναι μία χώρα που παράγει σούπερ μόντελς με εξωτικά πρόσωπα, ατελείωτα πόδια και υπέροχα δέρματα.
Εμείς ξεχωρίζουμε τις καλύτερες φτιάχνοντας μία λίστα που η ομορφιά και η θηλυκότητα ξεχειλίζουν.
Γνωστή παγκοσμίως για την ομορφιά και το απίθανο δέρμα της είναι η Gisele Bunchen. Η ιδιαίτερη φιλανθρωπική της δράση, ο επαγγελματισμός της, η μητρότητα και το low προφίλ της είναι μερικές από τις αρετές που την έχουν κάνει να ξεχωρίζει στη βιομηχανία της μόδας.
Η Alessandra Ambrosio έγινε αρκετά γνωστή μέσα από τα σόου της Victoria"s Secret. Με σταθερή πορεία προς τη κορυφή άρχισε να φιγουράρει σε εξώφυλλα γνωστών περιοδικών και catwalks. Γεννημένη στο βόρειο μέρος της Βραζιλίας του Rio Grande du Sul, ξεκίνησε το μόντελινγκ στα 14 της χρόνια.
Η Camilla Alves άρχισε την καριέρα της σχετικά αργά ,στα 19 όπου μετακόμισε απευθείας στη Νέα Υόρκη για να δουλέψει full time. Η δουλειά της την οδήγησε να γνωρίσει τον πανέμορφο ηθοποιό του Hollywood, Mathew Mconaughey. Εκείνος από ορκισμένος εργένης έγινες τρυφερός σύντροφος και εκείνη άφησε στην άκρη το μόντελινγκ απέκτησαν μαζί δύο παιδιά. Η Camilla μάλιστα λανσάρει και μία δική της σειρά από τσάντες.
Η Andrianna Lima θεωρείται από τις πιο γλυκές καλλονές με τρελές απολαβές που ξεπερνούν τα 7 εκατ. δολλάρια το χρόνο όπως δηλώνει η λίστα του Forbes. Έκτος από τη φίρμα της Victoria Secret που είναι από τα κεντρικά πρόσωπα του οίκου από το 2000 έκανε διαφημίσεις για το Αμερικάνικο Super bowl, για τη Donna Karan και Mavi Jeans.  Έχει δύο παιδιά που μάλιστα το ένα το απεκτησε φέτος από το γάμο της με τον Σέρβο μπασκετμπολίστα Marco Jeric.
Η Izabel Goulart ή αλλιώς χαιδευτικά "Iza" μετακόμισε από  την επαρχία στο Σάο Πάολο για να κυνηγήσει τη καριέρα της ως μοντέλο. Προερχόμενη από πολύτεκνη οικογένεια με 6 αδέρφια, ξεχώριζε πάντα. Το άστρο της έλαμψε σύντομα με εκείνη να περπατάει χιλιόμετρα πάνω στις πασαρέλες των Valentino, Chanel και Ralph Lauren και περιοδικά όπως Numero και Vogue.Εκτός των άλλων είναι μέσα στο team των αγγέλων της Victoria Secret και έπαιξε το πρώτο της ρόλο στη σειρά του HBO "entourage". Η ίδια έχει δηλώσει ότι δεν φεύγει από το σπίτι χωρίς να βάλει μάυρη μάσκαρα ματιών και ότι ποτέ δεν κοιμάται χωρίς να ξεβαφτεί.
 Η λίστα μας δεν θα μπορούσε να μην συμπεριλάβει την Isabeli Fontana, Raquel Zimmermann και τη Flavia De Oliviera. Η τελευταία γεννημένη το 1983, μπορεί να μην είναι και τόσο γνωστή αλλά δεν σημαίνει ότι δεν είναι Βραζιλιάνα καλλονή. Φυσικά έχει κλέψει τις εντυπώσεις με το hosting της σαν φτερωτός άγγελος στη Victoria αλλά έχει επιλεχθεί και σαν κεντρικό πρόσωπο του Michael Kors,Dolce Gabbana, Blumarine, Pomellato και Salvatore Ferragamo.
Η περίπτωση "Raquel Zimmermann" είναι γνωστή και ως όποια πέτρα της μόδας και αν σηκώσεις θα τη βρεις από κάτω. Η ξανθιά θεά που ανακαλύφθηκε τυχαία στα 14 στο Porto Alegre έχει δουλέψει γιά όλους σχεδόν στο παγκόσμιο fashion industry. Ο φωτογράφος Steven Meisel την έκλεισε το 2000 για την ιταλική Vogue όπου έγινε και εξώφυλλο. Επίσης άνοιξε το video clip της Lady Gaga "born this way".
Η Isabeli Fontana ξεκίνησε από το διαγωνισμό ομορφιάς της Elite φτάνοντας στον τελικό, όπου πήρε και το διαβατήριο να μετακομίσει στο Μιλάνο. Με αρκετές σημαντικές και αναρίθμητες συνεργασίες στο ιστορικό της η Isabeli απέκτησε ένα γιο το 2003, δυστυχώς από έναν αποτυχημένο γάμο που ήρθε σύντομα το διαζύγιο. Το 2009 έκανε το ντεμπούτο της στο Forbes σκαρφαλώνοντας στην 11η θέση των πιο ακριβοπληρωμένων μοντέλων. Φαίνεται ότι ο γάμος δεν της πάει και πολύ καθώς το 2005 έκανε και άλλον ένα γιο με τον ηθοποιό Henri Castelli αλλά μέσα σε δύο χρόνια χώρισαν.
Το σίγουρο είναι ότι αυτή η χώρα εκτός όμορφους ανθρώπους γεννάει και χαρούμενους. Με ένα ιδιαίτερο ταπεραμέντο, ξεχωρίζουν για την αγάπη τους για χορό και καλοπέραση. Η ιδέα της ομορφιάς για τους Βραζιλιάνους δεν είναι απλά πλαστικές επεμβάσεις και μασάζ, αλλά διατροφικές συνήθειες, άφθονο νερό, πολλές μάσκες με αβοκάντο σε μαλλιά και πρόσωπο και ενίοτε μακιγιάζ, καθώς η φυσική ομορφιά και τα λεία ηλιοκαμμένα πρόσωπα τους λάμπουν όλο το χρόνο χωρίς περιττές προσθήκες.

chanel 5 the body mist

The scent, from wikipedia

[edit]Provenance of the "recipe"
The idea for the development of a distinctly modern fragrance had been on Chanel’s mind for some time when her lover, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, introduced her to Ernest Beaux on the French Riviera in early 1920. Beaux was the master perfumer at A. Rallet and Company, where he had been employed since 1898. The company was the official perfumer to the Russian royal family, and “the imperial palace at St. Petersburg was a famously perfumed court.”[22] The favorite scent of the Czarina Alexandra, composed specifically for her by Rallet in Moscow, had been an eau de cologne opulent with rose and jasmine named Rallet O-DE-KOLON No.1 Vesovoi.
In 1912, Beaux created a men’s eau de cologne, Le Bouquet de Napoleon, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino, a decisive battle in the Napoleonic Wars. The success of this men’s fragrance inspired Beaux to create a feminine counterpart, whose jumping off point was the chemical composition of aldehydic multiflores in Hougibant’s immensely popular Quelques Fleurs (1912).[23]
He experimented and manipulated the aldehydes in Quelques Fleurs, resulting in a fragrance he christened Le Bouquet de Catherine. The scent was intended to inaugurate another celebration in 1913, the 300th anniversary of the Romanoff dynasty. The debut of this new perfume proved ill-timed. World War I was approaching, and the czarina and the perfume’s namesake, the Empress Catherine, had both been German-born. A marketing misfortune that invoked unpopular associations, combined with the fact that Le Bouquet de Catherine was enormously expensive, made it a commercial failure. An attempt to re-brand the perfume, as Rallet No. 1 was unsuccessful, and the outbreak of World War I in 1914 effectively prevented public acceptance of the brand.
Beaux, who had affiliated himself with the Allies and the White Russian army, had spent 1917-19 as a lieutenant stationed far north, in the last arctic outpost of the continent, Arkangelsk, at Mudyug Island Prison where he interrogated Bolshevik prisoners.[24] The polar ice, frigid seascape, and whiteness of the snowy terrain sparked his desire to capture the crisp fragrance of this landscape into a new perfume compound.
Beaux perfected what was to become Chanel No. 5 over several months in the late summer and autumn of 1920. He worked from the rose and jasmine base of Rallet No. 1. altering it to make it cleaner, more daring, reminiscent of the pristine polar freshness he had inhabited during his war years. He experimented with modern synthetics, adding his own invention “Rose E. B” and notes derived from a new jasmine source, a commercial ingredient called Jasophore. The revamped, complex formula also ramped up the quantities of orris-iris-root and natural musks.
The revolutionary key was Beaux’s use of aldehydes. Aldehydes are organic substances, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. They are manipulated in the laboratory at crucial stages of chemical reaction whereby the process arrests and isolates the scent. When used creatively, aldehydes act as “seasonings,” an aroma booster. Beaux’s student, Constantin Weriguine, said the aldehyde Beaux used had the clean note of the arctic, “a melting winter note.” Legend has it that this wondrous concoction was the inadvertent result of a laboratory mishap. A laboratory assistant, mistaking a full strength mixture for a ten percent dilution, had jolted the compound with a dose of aldehyde in quantity never before used. Beaux prepared ten glass vials for Chanel’s inspection. Numbered 1-5 then 20-24, the gap presented the core May rose, jasmine and aldehydes in two complimentary series, each group a variation of the compound. “Number five. Yes,” Chanel said later, “that is what I was waiting for. A perfume like nothing else. A woman’s perfume, with the scent of a woman.”[25]
This was the defining moment in the creation of Chanel No. 5, a new perfume redolent of past places, a fragrance concordance of Chanel’s childhood years at Aubazine, Grand Duke Dmitri’s royal court in czarist Russia and Beaux’s snowy, icy arctic.

CHANEL SHOW AT GRAND PALAIS ..

PARIS, October 6, 2009

By Sarah Mower

Chanel was up at cockcrow for a gigantic fashion romp in the hay. A huge barn had been conjured up in the center of the Grand Palais, and the models emerged from it, wheat ears clinging to their tousled blond Bardot beehives, straw stuck to their clothes, and a little smirk and stagger in their step as if just caught out at you-know-what. Naughty, naughty! Between them, the Chanel country coquettes managed to flirt their way around every rustic reference in Karl Lagerfeld's extensive repertoire of craft-y couture skills, from hopsack to basket weave and cane work to aprons, dirndls, peasant-y poppy prints, and fantastic wooden double-C clogs. It was a bumper harvest of everything that is chicly tattered, beribboned, and gloriously made about Chanel, as well as the season's sole experience to make the anxiety and earnestness around fashion evaporate, to make it seem like fantastic fun again.

Never mind the hay, Lagerfeld was on a roll. Digging into a theme can sometimes throw up some embarrassing puns, and the effort to be youthful has occasionally had off-beam results at Chanel. But with this collection, Lagerfeld's summing up of the season's tendencies—beige, ivory, and black; rough textures; transparency and lace—was spun into a collection so masterfully balanced between classicism and current fashion affairs that the whole thing felt delightfully sure-footed. The knack was that he didn't rush it—just let the thing keep bouncing out in a sustained variation of caramels, taupes, and ecrus, all logically adapted to the house's nubby tweed suits, frothy blouses, and fluttery chiffons. The editing of everything to short lengths looked sweet without being chichi—the test being that every teenage girl looked naturally at home in the little thigh-split skirts (that's what has happened to the bottom half of the Chanel suit), as well as in the mini-crinis and ruffled dance dresses.

Prince and Rihanna were competing for attention in the front row; there was a surprise turn from Lily Allen, who rose out of the floor on a hoedown platform to belt out a saltily worded country number; and at the end, Freja Beha Erichsen, Lara Stone, and Lagerfeld's constant companion, Baptiste Giabiconi, were literally rolling around in the hay together. And yet, remarkably, the clothes never became a sideshow. In a season when celebrities, concepts, and a lot of forgettable mediocrity have got in the way of seeing why luxury fashion should merit the price, this was a Chanel triumph.