I've got the Blue(s)

For the eyes:

MAC 266 eyeliner brush

MAC Fluidline in "Blacktrack"

MAC eyeshadow in "Prussian"

Too Faced baked eyeshadow in "Deep Space"

For the Face:

Lancôme foundation "Colour Ideal"

MAC Studio Finish SPF 35 concealer

Chanel Joues Contraste in "Orchid Rose"

Nails: Chanel nail polish in "Blue Satin"

(if you want to see the drawing without the collage, it's here!)

As I maybe told you once already, one of my first "girly" loves is make-up (in some moments of my life even more than fashion).

Ever since the first time I wore a drop of foundation and some mascara, at about 14, I've never stopped to use make-up and I've always had a special eye for new products, formulas, colours and combinations.  

When we had to go to a party with friends I remember I was always the one doing the make-up of all of us in the bathroom of my parent's home... and it was the most amusing part of the night for me!

I don't know if it is also for my love for painting and drawing that I have this eye for colours and an ability with brushes, but that's it, I love it and I'll always have a passion for it.

Lately I really like blue, especially for spring, so today I started to draw a girl with blue make-up and in the end I had an idea: since I really had a lot of fun in the past, why not talking about make-up here too?

Yes I know I already talked a lot about make-up, but I mean hard-core talks (ahaha) with looks descriptions, tutorials and the like.

I really didn't have time to make sort of a photo tutorial for the look I painted, but it's a very easy one, so I'll just describe it... agreed? :-)

So here we go!! 

(If you're not interested just step to the end of the post: there is a Cacharel collection that I'd like to show you!)

1) The most important thing when you use green and blue make up is a bomb-proof base: these colours tend to make you look tired so they have to be spotless in order to avoid this effect.

Hydrate the skin and apply a foundation with good coverage but also bright and natural. Be sure to cover dark areas (under-eye, near the nose, chin...) with a concealer half tone lighter than the foundation. 

Fix the base with a powder (I use MAC mineralize powder half a tone lighter than the foundation).

2) Apply a soft and neutral pink blush to the apple of your cheeks.

3) Prep the eye-lids with an eye primer: I love Too Faced Shadow Insurance. In this way the eyeshadow's gonna stick to your skin all day long, without fading, melting or creasing.

4) Apply a matte blue eyeshadow all over the upper lid and all along the upper and lower lash lines. Brush any hard line with a fluffy but firm brush on the upper lid (the best is MAC 217) and with an eyeliner brush on the lower lid.

5) Apply a fine but visible line of eye-liner on the upper lash line, tight to the lashes

6) Blend the eyeliner with a darker, less matte (but not glittery or too frosty) eyeshadow (I use the one in the photo from Too Faced) and line also the lower lash line, using an eyeliner brush.

7) With the fluffy brush add some more dark blue eyeshadow in the outer corner of your lids to add depth. Brush away very well any hard line.

8) Add a lot of black mascara (my favourites are Zoom Lash mascara from MAC and Diorshow from Dior) and a nude lipgloss and you're done!

So now the big question: do you like if I do these kind of posts with beauty advices/tutorials? And in the case you like them, would you prefer to see example pics of how I do it on my eyes or is it OK like this?

I ask you because I wouldn't really like to write something that is boring for you!

Ah and speaking of blue, I really love it paired with yellow, mustard and beige/camel colours.

I recently saw the Cacharel Resort 2011 collection and I find it very nice:

Images from Cacharel website

What do you think? I really really like it, especially the last two pieces of this photo sequence.

Ok, I am going to bed now, a big kiss and good night!

Al

Paris is all I need

This Japanese girl was incredibly elegant. It was one of the first beautiful people of Paris I saw during this little holiday, Friday night in the Marais

The Marais, my parisian biggest love

Inside "Merci" shop

She had a classic Vanessa Bruno bag that I've always liked and these very nice fringed Oxfords

Centre Pompidou... It seems I have some kind of destiny with orange bikes

(I was listening to this song while drawing):

I don't want to speak too much today, you already had the words-flood yesterday and that's enough!

It would be great if you could breath the same atmosphere that I felt in Paris through these images, but I know it's almost impossible (I would need a better camera... and better drawings! ahah)

Sometimes I would like to be a street-style photographer to catch all the styles, the nice people, and the situations I see around me, but I am too shy to ask people to take a pic of them... I try to draw once home but inevitably the result is a bit diluted compared to the "original"... But I still hope that in this way I manage to convey at least the 0,01% of what I see...

Good night all of you!

Al 

Before you are in Paris...

In front of Merci shop, a wonderful concept store in Blvd. Beaumarchais where YOU GOTTA GO

... You have to arrive there!

Does it sound like the most stupid and banal sentence of the century? 
Ok I've got to admit that it is indeed, but I just want to tell you about my trip of Friday because for me it was kind of something strange. 

I don't know, I travel alone so much, and this trip was really nothing special or adventurous, but somehow it made me laugh once I finally stepped out of the train at Paris Nord, so I feel like I want to share... usually I would call my mom or a close friend to have a laugh but they followed the story live broadcasted (I swear! My phone company must have loved me that Friday!) so I can't make a recap with anyone. 

Sorry to tell you, you are the unlucky chosen to listen to my bla bla bla.


So no fashion or drawings or whatever slightly interesting here, I'm sorry, you're authorized to step directly forward to the next post if you prefer! (that I hopefully will publish tomorrow... I'm so busy these days, sigh... )

So Tommy was already in Paris for his "secret mission" (he asked me not to talk about it, maybe later on!) that started at 3 PM, I went to work instead (after a night of three hours and a half sleep), had my department presentation (imagine to talk one hour about your lab results and studies of the last six months in front of a bunch of quite smart people... Believe me, it's kind of exhausting). 

So imagine me pale and super tired after work, with a 10 kilos-backpack on my shoulders and a big heavy bag, feeling literally stoned by the tiredness and the release of tension, running to the bus for the station and calling happily Tommy. It was 5 so he should have finished what he had to do by then. Phone shut down, no Tommy.
"Ok, maybe it takes longer"
I call him again at the station half an hour later. Then after 20 minutes again. Then after 10. Black-out. I'm starting to worry.

I call him again, the phone is still off, I'm on the train for Lille, it's 7 PM and since I am totally not an anxious person I start to freak out. 
I call Veronica "What should I do?? Is it possible that he's still there (doing what he was secretly -ahaha-doing)?? How do we do for the keys of the apartment, the guy is waiting for him from 6:30 to 7:30!!! Is it possible that he forgot?? Oh my God, what if something happens, he never travels alone!! TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" She tries to reassure me, I try to call him again and by then is 7:20. Panic.

At this point I called my mom, burst into tears for the anxiety, the guy in front of me on the train was looking at me full of hate while trying to read his book (do you have any idea of how an Italian worried woman sounds at the phone with her mother? Something like this, but even worse for your ears)

I was just about to call the Belgian armed forces, the French army, the MI6 and the CIA when Tommy finally called me and explained me the situation. Everything OK, no panic, calm down.

I finally return to my usual self (I still don't know if it was the effect of tiredness or if I just discovered a new crazy side of me, we'll see...) and I am already arrived in Lille.

I decide to buy some cigarettes. In this moment I need or some nicotine or an injection of Valium so I decide for cigarettes, which should be the easiest to find near a station.

Apparently it is not. Easier, I mean.

So I wander a while, I decide that my backpack is too heavy for any kind of adventure, I enter a bar and ask the bartender in my spotless Belgitalfrench (where the Belg- is a very nice, very comprehensible I would say,  mixture between English, my Italian accent and the Dutch accent of my friends and the people from Gent):

"Esskussé muà, esskevvusavé ù sjjé pé asssheté dé sssigarrretttess?" (Should I translate my Belgitalfrench for you?)

I think he understood the word "cigarette" and also what kind of French-speaker he had in front of him so without a word he left his bar, a baguette half open and 4 people waiting for their drinks (and one for a baguette sandwich, apparently) at the counter, showed me to follow him with the hand and walked down the street until the corner (in the meanwhile I was really trying to imagine what the 4 people at the counter and the baguette were thinking...). 

"Là! là! Tabac!" He said pointing at a sign big as an elephant on which was written TABAC in red neon light. Needless to say he made me feel a bit stupid (just a LITTLE...) but he was so nice and funny that I just thanked him with a very big (and stoned) smile "Merrrssi!"

I arrived at the cigarette shop laughing and when I asked for my cigarettes apparently the Belgitalfrench worked again because the guy asked me, very nicely, where I was from:

"Ssjje suiss Italiennnne... mé sjj'abitte en Beljjikk!" (No translation? Sure?)

So he laughed. And I felt even more stupid. But then he gave me as present, again with a very big smile and a wink, a cute lighter.

Actually, that's when you start to think that your skirt and the leather perfecto that suits you so well are starting to do their job.

At this point my energies left me (for the presentation - or the fear of half an hour earlier that Tommy could be in the Seine stubbed to death - or the embarrassment for my stupid Italian accent - or maybe all of them - I don't know...) I really needed some fuel but the only place I found to eat something was McDonald's. 

And I entered. 

I.went.to.mac.donald.s.O.M.G. 

Immediately after the first bite to my Big Mac I felt like a truck full of fat just deposited its greasy contain right on my hips. Oh yeah, 5678 Kcal in a bite, now I call it life!

Anyway, I had something in my stomach and (lots of) sugars in my blood again that could keep me alive until Paris, I never felt so much thankful and friendly to fatty acids, believe me. 

Time to get to the train track, (I warn you if you ever take a TGV in your life: check every single number of the coaches, because the order in which they are positioned defeats any logic), the "Relais" (the magazines/newspaper shop) closed LITERALLY in my face one hour before, when I was trying to find some cigarettes so I had to deposit my fat (even Big Mac-fatter) bottom on the first class seat (not because I am classy and cool of course, it's first class because it was 27 euros thanks to an offer ahah) of the TGV without even a magazine to read.

As always I find a very good solution: sleep!

I didn't even notice that we were moving and suddenly I find myself in Paris Nord station, my (alive and safe ahahah) boyfriend waiting for me, together with a nice and cosy night in a bistrot in the Marais...

Finally, Paris!

And now I leave you with this very boring flood of words and I'll come back tomorrow, well rested and fresh as a rose, with my usual way of blogging and drawings and Fashion monomanias (and maybe some pics of Paris, but I'll see: I still have to check them!) 

A very big kiss in Belgitalfrench, a very good night and see you tomorrow!

Al

Fendi Silvana multicolour and the Parka

In the Drawing:

Crocheted Silk Dress - Oscar De La Renta on Net-à-Porter

Hooded Parka - Zara

Studded Leather and Rope wedge sandals - Valentino on Net-à-Porter

Leather bag Silvana - Fendi

Outside drawing from top left, clockwise:

Silk crepe de Chine blouse - Chloè on Net-à-Porter

Necklace - coseAtre

Tokyo mid-rise pants - MIH on Net-à-Porter

Peep toe shoes - ASOS

Leather bag Silvana - Fendi

Bracelet - Missoni on Net-à-Porter

Orange point flats - Jil Sander on Shopbop

Sunglasses - Miu Miu on Net-à-Porter

So yes, actually when yesterday I told you "I am leaving for Paris and until then I've got a lot of work, so I am not going to write here until next week" it was all a big bla bla bla: there was an explosive combination that pushed me to write the last post before the week-end (and then I'll go, I promise).

The above quoted combination was: terrible-day-at-work-to-ultimate-the-presentation/my-brain-is-fried + I saw the multicolour Silvana on Vogue.fr (love at first sight) + yesterday night I had a look at one of my copies of Elle Italia before sleeping.

The first and second reagents of the reaction are easy to understand, but I'll explain you the third: why Elle Italia inspired me a post in which I put a lot of stuff in a collage?

The answer is very easy: Elle Italia's got the nicest shopping editorials I've ever seen, called, easy to guess, Elle Shopping.

In Italy I used to buy Elle every month (I try to do it also here in Belgium, even if it costs a fortune) and as soon as I was stepping out of the newspaper shop it was my tradition to immediately skip forward straight to the shopping editorial. 

After that, I stepped back to the beginning and read the magazine from the first page to the last one (I really really suggest you to buy a copy once, even if you can't read Italian, just for the pics... it's the best magazine together with Vogue.fr and Vogue America in my opinion).

Needless to say it has always been my favourite magazine, for many reasons, and I've always thought "it should be so much fun to create looks like they do in Elle Shopping..." 

Of course I couldn't do it because, as you all could imagine, I don't own a magazine neither I am a whatsoever editor but yesterday night I had the illumination, between the thought of a slide of my presentation and another: "I haven't got my own magazine but I've got my own blog ERGO I finally can do it!"

And here I am, with my Al Shopping ahah!

I had so much fun doing it that I would like to do some more in the future, every time I see a look or a dress or an accessory that inspire me... what do you think? Would you like to see some more or is it boring for you? Not that I am going to post these collages every day but once in a while, to have fun... let me know!

And what do you think about the Silvana? I am totally in love with it... In my opinion it is the It-bag for summer together with the Luggage Shopper of Cèline (did you see the knitted version? I am drooling...)

If only I could buy it... But anyway, that's why we love fashion, because it makes us dream... no?

And the parka... I really gotta have one, I think we'll see it really everywhere this spring (well, actually already in winter...) and I think this one from Zara is super nice (and buy-able for me ahahah)

Ok, now I really go, tomorrow I'll really go to Paris and I'll really see you next week.

Kiss!

Al

À Paris

The style of les parisiennes is able to make me freak out even more than the Londoner's.... argh!!

Yes, as you may understand from the title of this post, I am going to Paris.

Don't misunderstand me, I am usually not lucky enough to travel this often (Italian week-ends with family aside) but this time it happens that I have to go to Paris just after I came back from London and honestly I couldn't be happier.

So friday night I'm hopping on the train and I'll be back on Sunday (for secret reasons ahahah... I'll tell you next week but no, anything that has to do with something super-cool like fashion weeks and the like... I guess it was not so difficult to imagine, ahah).

So this tiny post just to tell you that I'll be back here just on monday or tuesday: I'll be very busy until Friday because I have to finish my presentation (a one hour-long presentation for the department meeting, the most boring thing ever but I have to...) and then I'll leave so I'll see you in a few days... I'll miss you!! ahahah

If you have any suggestions for restaurants, nice places to see and cafés please tell me!!

I leave you with some pics and songs to put you in a Parisian mood as much as I am...

La Tour Eiffel in May

Place des Vosges, my favourite square

Les Halles... I love it!!

The Air are my favourite French musicians (and I love their French accent when they speak english!):

I love the album "5:55" from Charlotte Gainsbourg (in fact, the Air wrote the music).

Bises!!

Al