How often do you shop on eBay lovelies? If you are unsure of what you can find I encourage you to visit the eBay.co.uk Fashion Outlet – it is a goldmine for fabulous finds!

I noticed that many of the fashion bloggers are sharing their online shopping secrets and little tricks on how and where to find most fabulous pieces, best deals, prices and lowest shipping fees.

So I was happy to be approached by eBay.co.uk, the UK’s leading online marketplace to evaluate their fabulous new fashion campaign with a goal to promote their Fashion Outlet and share it with my readers.

This campaign features fashion items from some of the leading brands that sell through the site, including House of Fraser, Office and LaRedoute, Joe Browns and Very Clearance.

The campaigns claim The clothes you love direct from the brands you love”, echos the growing number of high-street retailers that use eBay to reach to the site’s 96 million users all over the world!

 On eBay.co.uk you can find the combination of the biggest brands and the best of the high street, combined with that special vintage finds (I adore the green coat with red wine lining from the head image of this post) and that fabulous top from last season (which was sold out at retailers site in your size and you were dying to get it). You can also like the eBay.co.uk fan page on Facebook to get their updates regularly.




ABOUT eBAY FASHION OUTLET
 The sale of in-season stock on eBay.co.uk Fashion Outlet, has secured shoe retailer Office, 50,000 new customers and I assure you ladies, you will find some amazing shoes on eBay!
     
 eBay.co.uk Fashion Outlet launched in April last year, and now hosts over 100 fashion brands and 30 high-street stores including Superdry, Bench, Ted Baker and Jigsaw, offering shoppers the best deals and discounts on new, branded goods up to 70% off.

The fashion category on eBay.co.uk continuous to attract over four million customers searching for clothing items each month.

WHERE ELSE CAN YOU SEE THIS CAMPAING?
My readers in UK can already see this campaigns advertorials all through October in women’s weekly lifestyle magazines, including Grazia, Hello and More, and in early November for women’s monthly magazines, such as Marie Claire and Glamour. Since I am a Marie Claire UK faithful reader – I will be posting one of these for you shortly on my facebook page “fresh from print album”. J



The campaign was developed by DDB Tribal in Germany.
This is a sponsored post.



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“He who fails to plan, plans to fail”
Proverb



If you are like me, super hyper, multitasking, 24/7 working women, who when stressed tends to forget some of the appointments if I don't write them down, you will love to have one of these diva compatible and absolutely fashionably adorable, stylish and trendy girls only planners created by women for women.

The great thing about these planners is that they are getting updated yearly based on the feedbacks given by ladies who used them, they follow the newest trends in graphic design (last year it was pop-art styled while this year’s collection is retro minimalistic).



 So, 2012. Female planner (in Croatian language) is completely customized to be used by fabulously successful women!


- Size and format are adjusted to fit into female purse
- Side rubber band is added for more compacted fold
- Number of notes pages is increased
- There are 8 different cover designs to choose from
- The number of planner pages has been slightly increased
 - Planner has a built in hand mirror
- It contains categories interested to women: movies and books you plan to watch and read, list for special occasions, shopping list for fall/winter season, vacation check list, household budget tracking page
- One Sunday of each month is marked with pink ribbon (as a breast self check reminder)
- It has attached self breast check instructions

These fabulous planners are available for purchase via:

The price of one is only 79 HRK or 10 Euros. 

How do you like them lovelies?
Stay tuned because soon there will be a available through giveaway!


“Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.” 


Thomas Alva Edison


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It is now 2:39 am and I am determent not to sleep tonight because I do not want to sleep alone.

Childish much? Sure. But I don’t care. I am taking a moment to be thankful and to look back to the fabulous week I had with my boyfriend in gorgeous Madrid.

For this post I think photos will speak more than the words ever could.
I hope you enjoy them lovelies.







Thanks for having me bebe!

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When is your brand founded? How did you decide to have your own label and what did you do before?
I founded MOODYTWIN at the end of 2008, and started to design pieces for the brand in 2009. Before that, I did two lines; MIRANDA RIGHTS in 2003 while I was still studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and a collection of corsets called MISSpLACED, the following year. But I first started to design my own pieces was when I was 18, during my first year of studies at TTF, Zagreb. I did a line of leather jackets and made couple for Minea, then very popular Croatian singer. 
       The following year I moved to USA. After enrolling at FIT in NYC and doing two lines I mentioned above, it all jut became too much for me. Fast life in New York, constant financial struggle to pay my college, working at clubs until 5 am to earn money for my tuition, and then going to sleep just for few hours, only to wake up and spend half of day at school drawing until my eyes dropped out.....just wore me out at one point. 
        My creativity got burned under the pressures of challenges city like New York can put on you. I knew myself very well and I understood I have to take a step back, inhale, take a break from constant running, recharge mentally, and proceed when I’m ready again.

So far your collections have been provocative featuring T-shirts with funny, simple, punkish & rebellious messages, which fashion brand or designer do you most admire?
Yeah, it was very long thinking process, to comprehend what kind of brand I want to launch. What I knew very clearly is that I didn’t want to do different lines like I did before that only satisfied my current inspiration, a vision. I wanted to commit, I wanted to launch a brand, not a line, but a brand that would be long term, something that will exist until I exist, and something that would have to have my fashion signature all over it. And since everything that is final, therefore not possible to alter makes me very nervous, this had to be something that I can stand behind 100 percent, so it took me a while. First I had to understand what I am, to create a brand that would represent me.

I don’t really get inspired by different times in history; I just always get inspired by dark, apocalyptic, deconstructed couture whose feel and emotion I want to translate on to street. I like to play around also, fashion is a playground, I like to put serious things, a serious and dark emotion on something so casual that is a T-shirt.

If I would have to officially define MOODYTWIN, it would be like this - it’s a brand that aspires to take an inspiration in dark, deconstructed fashion and give it a Hollywood broken-down street ease. MOODYTWIN brand is contrasting its moody-toned (hence the brand name), goth vibe with slouchy, monochromatic simplicity and minimal detailing. Weather it’s creating T-shirts, jackets, jewelry, shoes or even home accessories; MOODYTWIN strives to be a brand with a strong, sometimes even provocative messages; highlighting the personality of people wearing it. 

I like couple of designers, but my full on obsessions are Rick Owens and Olivier Theyskens. I would practically slit my wrist for their stuff! See, I find fashion a bit overwhelming, and I think stylists are partly to “blame”. Everything is so all over the place, it’s just over-saturated and aggressive to me, so I like things pretty clean. Clean cuts, monochromatic, simple. And I like designers who design like that.


Who is a typical MoodyTwin consumer and what is the average price of your shirts?
Well, if you ask me, I would make stuff for Trent Reznor, Adam Lambert, Pink......or just avant-garde people who like a bit of deconstructed fashion. And in America, people like that show interest in my clothing. That’s why I had troubles seeing my clothes in Croatia or Balkans in general. I just thought it’s going to take years and years before people here would wish to spend money on something that is slouchy and slightly undone. But I was wrong, and when I call stores that sell my stuff I never ask “who buys my stuff”, but “what kind of people buy my stuff”. I took on marketing and communications for fashion at FIT and I always want to know the market, and my odds in it, so I call them a lot! And what they’ve told me, complete different people than I envisioned buy my stuff here. But I also have to say I toned down this collection for this areas, in America stuff is much darker and grave-y. I wanted to start little softer here, not to scare people off! :)

Prices are btw 40-55 euros in Belgrade, and btw 50-65 in Hvar.

Other then in Hvar store and multiband boutique in Belgrade where can one buy your collection?
For now Supermarket Concept Store in Belgrade, and Thesaurus Concept Store in Island of Hvar. And the end of October, there will be a location to buy MOODYTWIN in Zagreb, I can’t give you the exact name still because we’re negotiation couple of locations right now, but there will be an update about the location and exact date onmoodytwin.com! Also, I plan to add an online sale by the end of the year. It’s just too much work, and doing it on two continents, constant traveling, it’s hard to stay super-focused, but I have to, and have to endure it while not letting my creativity suffer during the whole ordeal.

Where do you produce your collection and what is the volume?
In US, I manufacture it in a small studio-production in downtown LA, and for Europe I manufacture in this small factory I found in Belgrade. And for the fall/winter I’m adding sweaters and bags into the collections, and that I wish to manufacture in Croatia. Working on finding a right manufacturer, as we speak. The amounts that I design are never more that 30 pieces for each design. But I also do custom made designs for people I know. I analyze the character of the person, and then I design a piece just for that person, one unique piece. It’s kind of a game that I do, try to “guess” people with design I do for them.

What are your plans for the future? Did you ever show your collection on any of the fashion weeks?
I envision my brand in the way that I do not want to be slaving of to seasons. I want to release pieces when I have an inspiration for it, and if it will be 10 times a year by couple of pieces, that that’s how I want to do it. I don’t want anything to challenge my creativity, and I want a clean, short path between me and people that want to buy my stuff.

But in general, MOODYTWIN is committed to being more than just a clothing brand. I’m determined to build a lifestyle brand; with a blog that i’m writing and editing onmoodytwin.com, I want to create an online community for its customers of a similar fashion taste – where we can all come daily to feel inspired, exchange ideas & keep an eye on all visual identities we love.

Viktor Drago called me 7 years ago to show on CAP, when I did my first Men’s line, but back then I had a partner I designed with, and he didn’t have any interest to show in a country he doesn’t even know about or as he thought would not be beneficial to his work, so we didn’t show. But I think I’ll do one in near future, just don’t want to do it with T-shirts only, I want to do a complete look. 


Do you think that a designer needs to have formal education in order to be successful?
I think every designer has to come from artistic upbringing. Different types of design are different in construction, yes, but the creativity is universal. If you look for the answer to that question in the real world, what are the examples? Galliano graduated from Saint Martins. Tom Ford graduated from Parsons, but he didn’t major in fashion design, but architecture. When he applied for a job in Chloe, he failed to mention in his application that he majored in architecture, not fashion. 
     Today, are we going to call Tom Ford, the most talented designer in the world - unsuccessful? Owens, the absolute fashion genius studied Fine Arts at Otis, in LA, but he dropped out after two years because the college was too expensive and got a job in downtown LA, doing patterns for designer knock-offs. Doing knock-offs?! Are we going to call Rick Owens unsuccessful? Theyskens also, studied fashion, but dropped out to do his own label. One of the best in the business today.

Art is very simple, you cannot fake it. There’s just one thing that speaks about the quality of an artist - a piece that he designed. When you take a pice that someone designed into your hands, it’s very clear if the artist is talented of not.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy being an artist, because there’s always a lack of money on the other side. In order to finish school you need a lots of money, fashion school are one of the most expensive. And then you need money to manufacture something that you designed. Less money, lesser quality. So it’s a struggle until you make it. And sometimes it’s hard to navigate your creativity with harshness of life. My journey is following - I enrolled in TTF, was first on the list, 100% on my entering exam. I studied for 4 semesters (the college degree at TTF consists of 5 semesters), and then moved to US, because I had an opportunity that I felt it will pass me if I don’t grab it at that moment. When I came to US, I enrolled in Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and since the college didn’t offer a scholarship or financial aid to foreign students I payed 9450 dollars per semester, myself. 
       I finished all my fashion credits, finished almost all liberal arts, and I have two credits I never took, math and micro-economics. I couldn’t study anymore because I couldn't pay it anymore. I applied for my green card and had to pay so much money to my lawyer, that I just couldn't pay school anymore. And that’s where I stopped, an inch before a degree. 
      Yes I plan to go back and finish it, but in the mean time I moved to Los Angeles, started a label, and I just cannot find time to do it, even though I try every year, and absolutely every year I think - this will be the year. Does that make me less successful?

Do you think that a fashion designer today needs to be more of an artist or a good businessman?
At the end of the day, we can only be what we are, if we are business savvy, that’s what we are. If we are more creative and not really understanding marketing of it, then that’s that. I might be a wrong person to answer that because I always appreciated creativity more than being business savvy. Two designers that I mention over and over are best examples - Owens that made his first success when he was 41, because he insisted to staying an independent designer who does not care about marketing, press, advertising in magazines. 
         Did you ever see Rick Owens editorial in a magazine? And he still managed to be one of the most sold designers of the decade. It’s what makes him who he is, and I strongly think that’s his appeal. Also Theyskens who designed for Rochas and Nina Ricci, and refused to do a more marketable assessors line or advertise to make bigger profit, and got fired from everywhere he worked because of that. Now he’s a creative director at Theory, and everyone can kiss his ass. 
         The guy designed Madonna’s Oscar dress when he was 21, who gives a rats ass he’s doesn’t care about marketing?! But I do also think if you’re not that business savvy, in order to still be in the game, you have to be 4 times more talented.

Who is your favorite fashion designer, foreign and Croatian?
Again, Rick Owens and Olivier Theyskens. I also like Ann Demeulemeester. Croatian designer Zigman is also very cool, he does a great cut and does colors really good. I hate colors, but the way he combines them is something that doesn’t “bother” me. And I adore Serbian designer Dejan Despotovic, I strongly think he’s the most talented designer in Balkans.

How do you see a style of an average Croatian women and what is your opinion about Croatian fashion scene overall?
Honestly, mostly not too crazy about it. I think girls here are too done, even during the day, I mean all that dresses, heels, freshly blown-out hair in 2 am? Not crazy about it. People walk like that on red carpets in US, why walk like that on the streets? Were you headed exactly? To have a coffee? But then again, I’m a bad person to be answering that question too, since I like Hollywood ease, so yeah, for me, they are to done. Too buttoned up, too done. But Croatian fashion, man that fascinates me. To have a fashion scene that developed, in a country that have been through so much, I think it’s pretty fascinating.

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Boardroom to red carpet was the first what came to my mind looking at Lei Lou by Alex Dojčinović SS 2012. Collection. Alex has stayed true to her brand equity, flirting with trends but not being bound by them.

As I wrote in one of my previous reviews of Lei Lou collections, Alex is a Lei Lou women, strong, confident, independent, intelligent, knows exactly what she wants, but still a true lady, polite, kind, warm and romantic, fragile and gentle. This is why she is able to understand and cater to alike women who buy her pieces – she is one of them and she truly knows what they want and need living such a busy, working women lifestyle. 

     So she creates comfortable, multi–wear pieces using best quality fabrications, gorgeous statement accessories which accommodate all of the working women needs  from work day (big purses or maxi envelope bag which fits iPad) to attending after work events (small bright purses & clutches and chunky  jewelry).




All photos via www.moda.hr

This season’s collections common denominators are mint, gold, aqua and nude color pallet, statement clear cut purses and square clutches, perfectly tailored pencil skirt romanticized with mint color lace or suggested floral print worn effortlessly looking with a second skin soft and silky blouses and gorgeous maxi dresses which can be worn with a fitted jacket during the work day and without it for a glam night and a fitted sleavless work dresses with ruffle sleaves.

Shop the new Lei Lou collection by contacting Lei Lou showroom:




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Romantic weekend on the island of dreams,
Where everything feels as lovely as it seems,
The smell of the sea and lavender flower,
Intensified feelings gave word love a new power.

Two passionate nights and two naughty days,
Saying “I want you” in so many special ways.
Only one weekend & next vacation set,
Short street ball game and a kiss to close the bet.

We took a long evening walk, we went to explore,
I climbed a little wall, looked at you making a face which I adore.
When I said I was cold, you pulled me close,
Saying that love warms you instead of clothes.

Mysterious castle – we climbed on the top,
When I was tanning you splashed me, didn’t save a drop.
Trash cans were huge; looking like salt shakers,
After this weekend we became emotional risk takers.



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It is a true privilege for me to finally introduce you to 8 ladies of La Passion pour la Fashion exclusive book club! 

This selected group of outstandingly successful, smart, confident, independent young and beautiful ladies meets once a month to discuss the book we have together selected for that month favorite read. 

As you can see by their short profile all of these ladies have something in common: they know what they want, no matter the function they love to work, enjoy what they do and are the best at it, they all innovate and search for new opportunities to enrich their lives. They are open for something new; they seize the opportunities life presents to them and are not afraid to take risks. These ladies are anything but ordinary, very similar but so different.

This is how our book selection will be as well, we will continue to explore different genres and comparing our views of the same book all during pleasant ladies only gatherings in the comfort of one of our homes or the loveliest little cafés our city has to offer all while drinking steamy cocoa, coffee or glass of wine and committing some serious chocolate sins with cafés most rich pastries!

I hope you continue to follow this developing adventure of ours!  I will post our book reviews last week of every month, highlighting each ladies comment and point of view. Hopefully many of you will be able to get inspired by, relate to our girly meetings, book reviews and personal stories and read and comment some good books with us!






"If a woman is sufficiently ambitious, determined and gifted 
- there is practically nothing she can't do."

Helen Lawrenson

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Seing these gorgeous mint and mustard color hats, sheer black blouse and Bermuda pants suite won me over to Jaeger collection, although it might be overall not to compact collection I think the individual pieces are quite lovely!


House of Holland got me a little overboard with all these trashy nineties nothing goes with nothing looks but I must say I find these bipolar shirts and dresses with snake skin collars quite creative and bold! Thumps up for trashy street style London look ;)




Felder sisters continue to play with German rockerish kinky eroticism look combining leather details with soft, silky, sheer and floaty materials and metal harness jewelry. Femininity with an edge.







I made a selection of a number of properly lovely signature dresses by Issa London as well as a few fun bright color pieces from exotic capsule collection inspired by Rio de Janeiro.  Royalty chic + resort kind a collection.



Jonathan Saunders enchanted with amazing collection featuring dresses in lovely colors of South Beach: peach, aqua and citrus. Saunders continues his search for ultra-feminine, he used pin-dotted cotton and silks to make sheer and sexy but still proper and wearable sundresses, negligees, camisoles, pinafores and other lovely body flatering pieces. Highly selable collection, hence most of the ladies in the audience wearing his previous one ;)

Which show in London was your favorite lovelies?

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