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Mischa Barton. Mischa Barton? I know you’re thinking why am I writing about Mischa Barton when she hasn’t been relevant for years. Mischa first popped onto everyone’s radar in 2003 as poor little rich girl Marissa Cooper in the hit CW show The O.C. She immediately became a starlet, one to watch and was dubbed the new ‘It Girl’. I loved her, I thought she was so pretty with her tan skin and beachy brown hair and so did everyone else. It looked as if she was definitely a star on the rise and then in 2006 in the season 3 finale of The O.C they killed off her character in a car crash which was rather ironic because Mischa’s life turned into a real train wreck after that. The once fresh faced  Neutrogena model went from underweight to putting on quite a bit of weight to a drunk driving, marijuana possessing girl interrupted. She fell off the map after that even her new 2008 handbag line went relatively unnoticed (except in Dubai), but now in 2012 she is back and with her she brings a fashion line called Mischa’s Place. The line was launched in Dubai, because of their love for her handbag collection, and on www.mischasplace.com. A flagship store will be opening up in London before the end of the year. She has received lots of snickers and dismissive gestures regarding her venture into the fashion arena, many still seeing her as the young star gone awry, questioning what she could possibly know about the industry and calling her website bizarre because it features sketches of the clothes instead of photographs. But before I even looked at her range I said, ‘You go girl!’. Many celebrities’ fashion lines ride on the coat tails of their fame and popularity and truth be told Mischa has none of that going for her right now and still she goes forward, almost as if saying, “Hey, I’m not worried if you think I’m silly, this is what I want to do and I’m going to do it. Maybe the whole world won’t like it, but someone will.” Mischa’s Place is run solely by her and her mother with no outside investors and she is quoted as saying that she wants her business to grow organically. I have to say I love her handbag collection and think there is a definite market for it, go check out www.mischabartonhandbags.com. Her clothing line is very wearable and I can see girls buying it, but its nothing to rave about as I feel I've seen it before. None the less  I see success in Mischa Barton’s future, she is looking good again and is going out there and trying. After all if we don’t try we have 100% chance of failing.


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GLENDALE Tote WAS £75.00 - NOW £37.50
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MAGNOLIA Large Doctors Bag WAS £85.00 - NOW £42.50
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BEVERLEY Cross Body WAS £49.00 - NOW £24.50
 
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When I started this blog I wanted to do a review of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's fashion line The Row since they won the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) 2012 Womenswear Designer of the Year award, but I never ever got down to doing it. So in honour of their 26th birthday I shall forgo my afternoon nap and tell you my opinion about their award winning clothing.

I have to say when I first saw their Winter, Spring and Resort Collections I hated them. They were plain and dull and mainly black and white with a random colour thrown into the mix. I thought the collections were just plain weird. How on Earth could the 'Fashion Council' present them with their top award?? I thought the fact that I dont like the range must be the reason why I'm not on the council haha. There is one outfit from the Spring Collection that seriously looks like a a pair of Summer pajamas and gown and one from the Winter collection literally made me depressed just by looking at it. I wanted to tell the Olsen Twins that they could pack their clothing into boxes, load them onto a boat and send them far far away down the stream, never to be seen again.

BUT

The more I looked at the collections the more I liked them! Especially the Resort collection. I began to think how elegant and simple they were, in such a way that it said look at me without screaming in your face. Maybe The Row is like the misunderstood kid in the class, the more you spend time with them the more your realise the genius of it all.


The Row Winter 2012

The Row Spring 2012

The Row Resort 2012

 
 
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While everyone is staring at Ian Somerhalder's frowning eyebrows, they totally overlook Zach Roerig's sweet smile! Zach Roerig plays Matt Donovan on The Vampire Diaries and definitely gets over shadowed by Damon, Stefan, Tyler and Klaus when in fact he is equally hot, just in a more cute way and what girl doesn't like a cute boy :).

 
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In 1986 Lionel Richie wrote the song Ballerina girl for his daughter Nicole Richie, I'm sure most of you wanted to be a ballerina when you were a little girl, but not me. It was only when I was 13 and watched Center Stage that I wished I had taken ballet classes as a kid. So my ramble about ballerinas is leading up to, yes you guessed it, ballet pumps! High heels have been the logo of femininity for longer than we all can remember, however over the last few years thanks to celebs like Kate Moss and Sienna Miller, ballet pumps have become the new "It Shoe". They go with any outfit from skinny jeans to cute mini-dresses. But my ultimate ambassador for the ballet pump is Jessica Day aka Jess aka Zooey Deschanel from the hit TV show New Girl. Her vast collection of colourful pumps has made me fall even more in love them and proves that you can make just as much of a statement with them as with heels. So I say to hell with hoity toity high heels and hello ballet pumps, plus they cost a fraction of the price!

Woolworths stock a wide range of pumps with prices starting at about R120.

This post is dedicated to my dear friend, Saaligha :).

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Kate Moss in the Center
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Sienna Miller
 
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Last night I watched an episode of New Girl entitled 'Fancy Man' and I was laughing so much and so loudly that my mom came to tell me to shshsh lol.Jess' style is so quirky and adorable that I knew I had to do a style inspiration gallery for her (see my gallery). While I was googling her outfits I discovered that a lot of her clothing was from Modcloth, an American online retailer based in Pittsburgh that specializes in  vintage-inspired and indie clothing. At the same time that I discovered Modcloth I discovered Polyvore (I am a bit delayed on that front, Suaad my sister-in-law has been telling me for months to check it out) and tada! I had myself a field day putting together looks from their range. And then I was sad. I wanted all the outfits lol,but none the less it was fun playing stylist for a bit.. Suaad said I should take my time when creating the collages because its a creative process but I was pulling items of clothing and pasting them onto the mood board as if they were on sale so in about an hour I created the following looks using clothing only from Modcloth:

 
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Today it was storming! Half the school stayed absent and everyone was complaining about the rain. So it got me thinking:

Don't Let the Rain stop You
The rain is pouring
It pours down onto this Earth
Giving us all the gift of life
It nourishes the plants that give us oxygen
It fills our dams so that we may quench our thirst
It keeps us indoors so that we have time for reflection
And it rids this world of all the madness
With the promise of a clean fresh day that will follow

So why?
Tell me why?

                                                                                    Do you complain and cry out about the gloom
                                                                                   Just for today, even for the moment embrace this gift of life
                                                                                   And see through its disguise
                                                                                   Because tomorrow the sun will shine again
                                                                                   And you, you would have learned the lesson that only the rain can teach
                                                                                   By: Zaida Dawood

Yeah, life gets hard sometimes and it feels like one gloomy day after the next, but the troubles that we face make us stronger, makes us wiser and makes us appreciate the days when the sun does shine :). So if my poem isn't that good and you haven't figured out my message, the rain is a metaphor for our problems and the difficult things that we face and we shouldn't let them stop us, but rather learn from them and move forward. I think it might rain again tomorrow I hope you enjoy it, so what if your hair gets wet it'll remind you that you need to buy a beanie or a cute beret type beanie at the end of the month and shopping is always fun.


 
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I woke up on Saturday very excited to use my new camera! Still in my pajamas i was outside snapping pics of birds, flowers, trees. Yay! Then I went with Neelam to Cavendish to do a little scouting on street style and what the stores have on offer. I spotted two girls who I thought had their own style and asked if I could photograph them and then bam! Every single picture came out blur no matter what setting I tried. When I got home Zayd compared it to Suaad's camera and the photo mine took wasn't just a bad photo it wasn't even a photo at all. We did some research on the net and read that other people had had the same issue, the camera couldn't take pictures indoors. And then we were sad. I decided I had no choice but to return it, the salesman was so shocked by the quality that he refunded me my money no questions asked.

Zayd sent me to Makro to buy a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W630, which none of the stores at Canal Walk sold and wow I couldn't be happier. It's stylish, the picture quality is great and the HD videos are amazing.

Lesson learned. When shopping don't be impulsive unless its a 50% sale then by all means shop away.


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Sony Cyber-shot DSC W630
 
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On Friday night I made the decision that I want a camera, mine broke about three years ago and I've been using my sister-in-law, Suaad's one when needed. I can be very impatient and when I'm excited about something I need it to happen now. So hurriedly I flipped through ads looking for a good deal so that I could get one asap. But knowing nothing about cameras I asked my brother, Zayd. Being the great big brother that he is he agreed to help on my quest for the perfect camera. Off to Canal Walk we went. Can't hardly wait. We walked the mall flat trying out every camera in every store. Then I saw this awesome Fuji 14mp waterproof camera, it looked cool and it had so many features. Perfect! Except my budget was R1100 and it cost R1700. And then we were sad.

Being impulsive by nature, I had to make a plan. I had R1100 cash, R300 in the bank, Suaad could give me R100 and if I returned my hat from Woolies I'd have exactly R1700. What can I say, "n meisie maak n plan". Only thing it was 10min till closing time so we literally ran across Canal Walk, bought my camera and danced a happy dance.


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Fuji Finepix XP30
 
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"Teacher, he's eating the play dough!"