Phantasmagoria: July 2013

Monday, July 22, 2013

The Face of Fall

I took a gander over to MAC at Nordstrom last night, and spoke to a rep as they were closing down the counter, asking her a couple questions about what's coming up for fall. She was far more helpful than I was anticipating (not that I expected her to be unhelpful necessarily). I was also taking photos for a separate school assignment, hence the massive lipstick photo. What she shared with me had me excited for fall. The looks are bold, but edgy and sexy as hell. I'll try and incorporate some of them into my routine for sure.

She told me that there were four major looks that MAC was focusing on specifically. As is typical, they are inspired by looks shown on the Fall '13 runways. They include an eye called "Re-belle" a lip called "au currant" a skin/eye/complexion called "perplex-tive, and and eye called "spiritual eye."

1. Re-Belle

2. Au Currant

3. Perplex-tive

4. Spiritual Eye

Full descriptions of the aesthetic and inspiration behind each look can be found here:

http://www.professionalbeauty.com.au/2013/06/18/mac-aw13-trends/

I really like the au currant look, but also am aware of how hard to wear it will be. It fits with the 90's grunge obsession right now. And the incessant use of black lipstick I've been seeing in younger magazines like nylon and paper (and of course the blogs). I really like the perplex-tive face look too, but am not a fan of it's glossy eye. It just looks greasy honestly, and doesn't really make sense off the runway. The spiritual eye is pretty, but I never wear that little eye makeup. I just.. would rather not wear makeup. I dunno, I need my eyeliner and brow highlight. The re-belle is super sexy and in my opinion the most wearable. You don't have to go to runway extremes with it, but still rock a courtney love/ just rolled out of bed/ I don't give a monkey 'cause I'm too busy nursing my hangover.. look.

I'm sad my Riri Woo and Heaux will only be on trend for a couple of more weeks now. Obviously I'll still wear them but I won't feel quite as special. So tell me, are you brave enough to try one of these? Which ones do you like and/or freak you out? Do you feel similarly about the 90's thing? I'm gonna go listen to some smashing pumpkins.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Rain City III

Happy Tuesday, readers! I have the day off from work and school, so I thought an update was necessary. The city's been full of color and craziness downtown amidst the heat we've been having. I'll do a separate street style post as it's a part of a school assignment. By the way, who ever said summer school wasn't fun was way off. I'm really enjoying it and it's great to get as many credits out of the way as possible. These are just some more random bits via the camera roll.

Around the fourth, there was denim like CRAZY in all the display windows. These were both Nordstrom. I never thought denim on denim could look good, but these visuals gave me new insight.

I fell in love with these mesh wedges from F21. They were out of my size, so I had to order them online. They're easy to walk in, but that also may be attributed to the fact that I wear heels to work and have much better trained feet now.

I love how there's cobalt everywhere now. This skirt is not quite the same hue, but it looks pretty darn close. I scooped this on sale for a steal at Nordstrom recently, and it's perfect with a red lip. Very summery.

I thought these funny printed totes were cute. Super steals for under $17 at asos online

I got bored this morning before meeting my sister for lunch, so I made some summery polyvore sets too. I am obsessed with cropped printed trousers right now, so the first one was especially fun to make.

As I said, I love printed crop pants right now, so here's an inexpensive pair I just ordered from F21 for only $19.80. Of course I had to stick with black and white so I can wear them to work haha.

And most exciting of all!!!!!!!!!! The lower portion of the once relatively derelict and useless Westlake "mall" is getting a Zara! I am so excited they decided to make good use of this prime retail location. It was always kind of depressing walking by there when it was just Lush and a few random shops no one cared about. This place is going to be CRAZY when it first opens. I am beyond excited! Zara online is having huge summer/spring sales so I picked up a couple things online to tide myself over.