Tag Archives: fashion

Embrace You

Posted in beauty, clothing, fashion, personal style, tips and tricks by

You’ve probably noticed the abundance of Bohemian details adorning summer styles.  It seems like it’s hard to find clothing without some type of crochet, lace, or embroidery. Personally, I love these feminine details.  And, as with any style, how much you go there is all up to you.  Let me explain.

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Take this navy chiffon dress pictured above with its crocheted front panel, as an example. While the top seems like it came right out of the seventies, the bottom has a ruffled hem that hits just above the knee.  This, combined with the chiffon contrast fabric and the conservative navy color mixes the style up a bit.  Instead of being a flash back dress, it has elements of the seventies toned down with other very girly attributes.

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In contrast then, consider the Bohemian dress pictured above.  When you combine the decidedly boho print with the tassel detail and the crocheted shoulder, it screams hippie mamma.  Both dresses are cute and right in fashion, but one has Bohemian elements and the other is Bohemian.

I love this about fashion.  You can experiment with a different persona.  You may not be Bohemian in nature, but perhaps you have a bit of a free spirit.  You can have just a touch of that laid back feel without going over board.  Or, perhaps, you’re a neo-hippie selling art at concerts.   Well girlfriend, go there in a BIG WAY.  Your clothing should be an expression of who you are, and the truth is, we are all elements of a lot of styles and mindsets – some we embrace and some we keep a little on the down low.  We can “go there” with our clothing to varying degrees and quietly or not so quietly say to the world, “I am me.”

 

 

Making Rose Quartz Work In Your Wardrobe

Posted in beauty, clothing, quality, value, color trends, fashion, personal style, tips and tricks by

With Pantone’s announcement of Rose Quartz as the color of the year, you may be wondering how to wear such a soft and gentle shade of pink.  I am dark haired and look much better in bolder colors.  As a result, I usually avoid pastels.  What I love about this shade of pink, however, is how well it pairs with darker shades like brown and olive green as well as with creams and whites.  

  
When pairing Rose Quartz with olive green, it is essential that you stay consistent with either warm or cool tones.  Rose Quartz it usually a slightly warm color, so you will also want to choose a color of olive that is also slightly warm.  Avoid strongly warm greens that have a predominate yellow undertone.  The other fantastic aspect of putting Rose Quartz and olive green together is that the pink adds a feminine aspect to the more masculine olive green, especially in utilitarian or military themed items.  Military continues to be a strong trend in spring so you should see plenty of military vests, tanks, and light jackets out there.  Try putting a Rose Quartz tank under them!

Rose Quartz is also beautiful with creams, khakis and browns.  Apply the same advice of matching the level of warmth, and you can’t go wrong with any of these colors.   You can also pair Rose Quartz with its counterpart color of the year Serentity blue.  This feels less earthy to me than the other choices, but remains a viable option.  What I’ve done here is to put an ice blue blouse under the Rose Quartz sueded vest and then pop the two with with a Serentity blue purse.    It’s a nice combination with both soft and strong elements.  

  So have fun this season exploring these new colors.  You may just find your new favorite ! 

Posting From Market- WWD Magic Day 2

Posted in beauty, clothing, spring 2015 fashion trends by

So I have to tell you, today was rough.  My dear, sweet mom left her purse on a bench just outside the market entrance.  When we finally realized it, we discovered that some honest buyer had turned in the purse to a market worker who turned it into a security officer who turned it into the security office.  The problem was that somewhere between the market worker (who is convinced the phone was still in my mom’s bag when she gave it to the security officer) and the security office, her iPhone 6 and $200 cash went missing.  Total bummer!  It is really frustrating when you are pretty sure the guy who is supposed to be protecting you is the one who took your property.  Worse is when the security office shows no interest in investigating the theft.  You could almost hear them thinking….”dumb lady, shouldn’t have left your purse, tsk, tsk, tsk.  Not our problem (even though it was likely one of our guys who did it).”

Tea and Rose is a cute young contemporary line we carry at Fashion Crossroads.

Tea and Rose is a cute young contemporary line we carry at Fashion Crossroads.

Anyway…despite the iPhone fiasco, we did manage to get some buying in today.  We started out the day at Lysee leggings where we purchased new colors for our spring leggings including

Me and the Creative Director from Yellowbox shoes as well as our fabulous shoe collections for spring and fall

Me and the Creative Director from Yellowbox shoes as well as our fabulous shoe collections for spring and fall

heathered brown and grey as well as a cute denim cropped legging.  We also found several amazing embellished black leggings.  I am most excited about the champagne joggers that we bought because these have a silky fabric and Lysee’s fabulous shaper underneath.  By the way, a jogger is a loose fitting, silk pant with an elastic cuff at the ankle.  They are a key trend.

Me and the owner or Anushka handbags. Anushka has some beautiful new purse designs that we will be seeing in Fashion Crossroads this spring.

Me and the owner or Anushka handbags. Anushka has some beautiful new purse designs that we will be seeing in Fashion Crossroads this spring.for the season.  

Next we visited Ginger G, one of my favorite young contemporary lines we carry at FC Outlet.  As usual, we found lots of really cute tops, dresses and skirts there.  And as has been the case with every young contemporary line we visited in the last two days, the booth was packed.

Then, we headed to Lush to purchase some more young contemporary items for the Outlet as well as picked up a new line that is very cute and similar to Pretty Angel but younger.  This line has a vintage feel and focuses on layering slip dresses under lacey tanks and tops.  Sooo cute!

You may notice that none of the pictures in today’s blog are from the booths that we visited today.  I’ll share some more pictures from today in tomorrow’s blog post because for some unknown reason, I cannot get my photo stream to update on my ipad.  Today is just not a good Apple day.  I think I’ll put all my devices away for the night and hope everythings goes better tomorrow!

Here’s to a new day….

Posting From Market – WWD Magic

Posted in Fashion, Jewelry, personal style, spring 2015 fashion trends, trends by

Today we headed to Magic at the Sands Convention Center.  This is always the highlight of my week at market because Magic sees more young contemporary and junior buyers than the others we usually visit.  One of my top priorities while I’m there is to pay close attention to the fashion trends I see representated by all the buyers milling about.  I have learned over the years that if I see a trend worn by a large marjority of the buyers, it will make it to Casper, Wyoming.  Not every trend works its way from the coast, either the West or East, into mid America and especially into the casual, lifestyle wear driven Rocky Mountains.

I saw many, many buyers wearing the shoe boot, cropped and rolled skinny jean combo, both male and female.  I saw quite a few plaid shirts, long vests, kimonos, skinny jeans and tall boots, short jumpers, gladiator inspired shoes, and lots of beat up jeans.

Check out the floral bomber, gladiator heels, colored skinny jeans and boots.

Check out the floral bomber, gladiator heels, colored skinny jeans and boots.

This on trend market attendee is showing off his rolled skinny jeans and lace up boots with a blazer and hoodie.

This on trend market attendee is showing off his rolled skinny jeans and lace up boots with a blazer and hoodie.

These shots are candid, catching buyers doing their thing…buying and checking their phones!

I also noticed a large amount of grey- heather, dove and charcoal- from nearly every

Display highlighting the importance of grey in spring 2015 fashion

Display highlighting the importance of grey in spring 2015 fashion

vendor we visited but especially the young contemporary and junior vendors.  Between the grey trend and the still very popular cream and white vintage lace and bohemian trend, it was a struggle to find things in color.  But, have no fear, while we will definitely have a preponderance of greys and neutrals in our young contemporary department this spring, you wil also find soft florals and pastels to break it up.  It is also worth mentioning that despite the fact that the key color for 2015 is marsala, it seems it is used mostly as an accent color for spring.

Today we bought from Elan, Blu Pepper, Tea and Rose, Vocal, and Anushka.  We picked up NikiBiki and Jamierocks as two new lines for the store.  NikiBiki was recommended by a customer is similar to Tees By Tina but less expensive and in plus sizes.  They also have exceptionally cute active wear which you will be seeing in the store as well.  Jamierocks is a great new jewelry line that offers daintier, multi-layered jewelry at great prices.  Tomorrow we will see Ginger G and Lush for FC Outlet and a few other new young contemporary lines that we saw today.  Tune in tomorrow for more info!

Posting From Market- Women’s Wear in Nevada (WINN) Show

Posted in clothing, Fashion, spring 2015 fashion trends, trends by

Today we shopped the WINN Show, short for Women’s Wear in Nevada, at the Rio Convention Center.  The WINN show is focused on speciality stores and has many of our best lines.  Today we saw Foxcroft, Tribal, Multiples, Alisha D, Belldini, Weavz, Keren Hart, and Lior.  It was a very full day, beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 8:15 p.m.  We stopped for an hour lunch but otherwise were working lines the rest of the time.

Foxcroft had beautiful tencel blouses as well as their fabulous wrinkle free cotton blouses.  I wore my Foxcroft blouse yesterday.  It came out of my suit case wrinkle free and was still crisp and beautiful when I hung it back in the closet at the end of the day.  Ladies, if you want a great blouse, there is none better in the market!  The picture on the left shows an upcoming “blouse tunic” or “big shirt” from Foxcroft.  This is the next big tunic style.  It looks great with leggins, skinny or straight jeans.  You will also be seeing Blouse Tunics this summer so be sure to add at least one style to your summer wardrobe.

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Early fall grouping from Foxcroft with blouses and sweaters.

Foxcroft Blouses

Sales Representative for Fox Croft modelling a blouse tunic that will be in Fashion Crossroads in September.

We also saw Tribal today.  We were so excited about the fall line.  It looks amazing.  Tribal hit a home run in balancing casual jean looks with dressy work looks for a very functional line with a ton of fashion and practical pieces.  The challenge will be deciding what not to buy!  You Tribal lovers will be so happy with what you see from the line both for spring and fall of 2015.  It is also worth pointing out that the company expanded their booth and were booked solid all day, with every seat filled with buyers.  That’s a good sign both for the line and for the market as a whole.

Tribal booth at the WINN Show in Las Vegas

Tribal booth at the WINN Show in Las Vegas

Based upon the number of buyers at both the Off Price Show and the Winn Show, I thnk it is fair to say that buyers are feeling good about the economy which means customers are shopping all across the country.  That’s good news for all of us!

Thinspo and Fitspo

Posted in Fashion by

So maybe I am totally out of it, but this is the first I have heard of ‘thinspo” and “fitspo” which to define the most simply are images and quotes that women post to encourage themselves to be thin and fit.  So, curious, I googled the words and came across whole websites devoted to the topic.  Many of the postings were phone pics taken by real women in seductive poses showing off their, admittedly, quite thin and often very fit bodies.  I learned from Glamour magazine that Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram have banned “scary pro-anorexia images known as thinspiration” (August, 97).  Not being much of a pinner and still new to Tumblr and Instagram, I was amazed at the seductive photos I saw on these websites.  I’m not sure if the motivation is to get attention, a date or to just show off their bodies, but many of the women were dangerously thin.  It used to be that we worried how women’s magazines gave an unrealistic body image to girls, all the while knowing that these bodies were air brushed to hide flaws.  But the pictures I saw were not airbrushed.  They were real, true hard bodies.

So we’re back to it again, aren’t we?  Where is the line between fit and anorexia?  What is the message these kinds of photos are sending to our kids?  Can the average woman really look like that without starving herself or spending two hours at the gym every day?  Is this the definition of modern beautiful?  I am 40 years old and all for fitness.  I work out three times a week and count my calories.  At 5″3, it takes a lot of effort to stay at 120 lbs or less.  I can’t imagine the kind of effort it would take me to look anywhere near as fit as many of these women looked.  I know its possible, but at what cost?  Here’s the deal – the definition of beautiful is a moving target and has been since the beginning of time.  Whether is was cor-setts designed to make women’s waists look impossibly small or Renaissance painters immortalizing the delightfully plump woman of ease, what we find beautiful is always changing.  And that’s okay.  But when the definition of beautiful inspires women to unhealthy places, something needs to change.