Thursday, September 27, 2007

Ring, ring, ring

Ok, I'm officially obsessed with rings. I just can't stop myself. Take me to a jewellery shop and its the rings I'm after, every single time. I can never tire of looking for rings, looking at rings and hunting for that perfect ring.

And my definition of the perfect ring is constantly evolving. I've got some very precious, semi precious and not precious at all but they're all precious to me. Every ring has a purpose, every ring matches a mood, every ring rocks with an outfit. I must have well over 20 and perhaps my obsession is partly borne out of the fact that with my teeny fingers, its actually quite hard finding rings that fit properly and they usually have to be ordered smaller or resized.


A nice big fat cocktail ring always works a treat on a night out. I'm talking conker size by the way. They can look gaudy but if your ring is extra large, keep other accessories minimal.


I don't believe there's a right or wrong finger to wear rings on. So I often wear rings on my index or middle finger as they're too big for my ring finger. I'd rock a pinky ring if I found one too! Thumb ring...I reckon I'd damage it very quickly, but dunno, actually I'll try that tomorrow.


I'm feeling gold rings at the moment as well, after years of being seduced by silver/white gold/platinum, I've come full circle to gold.

And other women get all giddy with excitement over new handbags or new shoes....I get giddy about rings.


So here we go...




This is a $15 000 antique morganite stone set in gold with diamonds and rubies. Fabulous. Interesting little fact, Morganite belongs to the beryl group of gemstones (emeralds, aquamarine), its often referred to as a pink emerald. It was originally named a Pink Beryl but the name was changed when the a certain Mr JP Morgan got hold of one to add to his extensive gem collection (largest in at the turn of the 20th century).





Another antique, this one is a $18,500 French Victorian Ruby ring. I LOVE this ring. I love the shape, the settings, the design. Never seen a ring like this before so I'll start saving up now!











Another antique beauty, this is a sapphire with four diamonds. Simply stunning isn't it?












And the last antique of this selection. Its onyx and lots of little diamond and I love its intricate and unusual design. And the fact that its big but not in the gobstopper size cocktail ring way. This manages to be a little understated yet utterly fabulous.







Betsey Johnson , the queen of quirk adds a little subversive gothic glam with this little spider...and a gem that looks decidedly like a drop of blood.









And this little buzzing bee from Kenneth Jay Lane is fun and cute and a little bit different.










R Dayan middle eastern offering just caresses your finger. Love it!













Rachel Leigh, she of the fun, sparkly, cute, you just gotta have it jewellery. I'm serious. Google her.









p.s. Little bit of history for you...wedding rings are traditionally worn on the ring finger on the left hand because the vein in the left ring finger (the vena amoris) was believed to be directly connected to the heart. Hmmmm.

Romancing The Stone..parce que j'adore Le Bling

A trend has been creeping up on the fashion radar for a few months. Excess is back in a new way and Marc Jacobs has just taken it to a new level with his new Python Taylor bag.

Women, like magpies, have been drawn to all things sparkly for a long time. The bejewelled look is one of the more constant trends in the cyclical world of fashion. Perhaps as the women with the real money tend to have a penchant for glamorous fashion and aren’t so fussed about trendy fashion. They’d rather leave that to the Primarni brigade. The Arabian royalty, the Greek scions, the Russian oligarchs, and the African oil billionaires are the shoppers with the real cash, in this day and age of the haves, who the designers are falling over themselves to reach and the have-nots, who the high street are targeting more aggressively with staggeringly low prices.

In the Spring/Summer 2007 collections (unveiled in September 2006) the extra large bejewelling came strutting down the Burberry Prorsum catwalk in the form of a stunning cocktail dress worn by supermodel du jour, Jessica Stam. Then we saw the fabulous crystallised collars at Aquascutum. A second well noted outing for the square jewel-like crystals. Then Tamara Mellon unveiled the Jimmy Choo Cecile clutch. And last but by no means least, the latest offering unleashed unto the market, the Marc Jacobs Sea Blue Python Taylor tote, matched by the equally glamorous and slightly more affordable Marc Jacobs crystal sandals. And in a blaze of outsize sparkling crystals, a new hot trend was born.







The dress that started it all.

Like Marmite, you either love this or hate it. The Marc Jacobs embellished python. For the record, I love the way it looks but its highly unlikely I'd actually want to carry it. A bit too Slutlana in Selfridges for me.





Miss Trish Of Capri makes the perfect glamazon sandals. I love.


I fell in love with Giuseppe Zannoti many many moons ago. When I started reading US Glamour, way before Glamour was started in the UK. If high octane glamour with amazing attention to detail is what you're looking for, Giuseppe's your man.





Saturday, September 15, 2007

Tiger Tem Collection Previews in London

When I started Tiger Tem, I would meticulously plan and host private viewings at different venues. It was always really good fun to work on a new collection, the theme, the look, the style of the collection, which always had to have a name. The first was Bloomin' Gorgeous as I used a lot of floral damask, then came Strings Attached which was lots of suede and ribbon. Then we had Crocodile Dundee which used, yep, you guessed it lots of crocodile then we had All That Glitters which introduced the bright, pretty and sparkly brooches on my clutch bags....then after that, I opened the Boutique.


BLOOMIN' GORGEOUS (2003)




STRINGS ATTACHED COLLECTION (2004).
This was when I started doing the tshirts as well. I figured as so many guys came to my events, would be good if they could have something to buy for themselves as well. It worked. Still does.




CROCODILE DUNDEE (2004)
This was when I introduced the travel sets.

ALL THAT GLITTERS (2005)





Growth can happen organically or you can plan it, smart people do both. So while Tiger Tem is always growing, trust me, BIG plans for the Boutique will be kicking off in November this year. I've decided to go back to basics and start hosting events in different places again. This weekend is London, probably Spain next, then nearer Xmas I'll definitely be doing Abuja. I'll need a lot fo help as I'm really out of the loop there!

So London this weekend, well today and tomorrow actually. Should be fun. Today is Maida Vale and tomorrow is Friern Barnet. Email me at tigerbites@gmail.com for addresses if you want to come.

The clutch bags are mainly in ankara with a few in my signature aso-oke colours. For those who don't know ankara is a printed african cotton and aso-oke is a beautifully handwoven silk. This time round I'm not putting any brooches on myself but I'll be helping people pick and choose the brooches for their clutch bags for that added extra to the shopping experience, to make sure everybody gets something special and unique.


The Goldfinger bags have been updated with more funky colours like orange...and they look soooo cute!

With the jewellery I've focused on rings. Yes, they're my first love with jewellery but I can't stop going on about how fabulous my new collection is because they are just BE-YOOO-TI-FUL! A teeny bit big for my fingers as my fingers are insanely small but I haven't taken mine off anyway.
Let me introduce you to The Eve, The Eden, The Adam and The Spidy...






















Only a handful of pics for now but more later.










xx

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Too fat for that, too thin to win. Welcome to The Era of the Body Fascists...starting with Britney




Ok, I’m fully standing on my soapbox again.

MTV VMAs 2007.

Britney Spears.

I heard about the performance before I saw it. I heard she looked ‘really out of shape’ and ‘overweight’, her performance was ‘lazy and underrehearsed’, ‘listless and disengaged’.

Is it just me or is the media making far too much money off poking fun at the girl? I watched the performance and I will definitely say I think she was ill advised to perform as she just didn’t look emotionally or mentally ready for it. I think she still very much in recovery and it was just too soon for her to perform at such a big show. I think it was brave but she clearly doesn’t have good management. If I was her manager, I’d have told her she wasn’t ready…and not pimped her out some more. Probably would have gotten fired on the spot, but so be it.

The girl is only 25 and has been through a complete and very public breakdown, a divorce with a messy ensuing custody battle, and is the mother to 2 kids under the age of 4. All of that is a hell of a lot for anybody to deal with and the vitriol with which the media attacked her performance has really pissed me off.

I know MTV is known for its crass humour and playing far too close to the edge but Sarah Silverman calling her 2 kids mistakes was a bit much. They’re children. They’ll hear that one day.

But the bit that by far pissed me off beyond belief is the media calling her fat. What. Are. They. Talking. About.




As you can see from the pic, Britney is far from fat. I think she looks pretty buff and I can only hope I look that buff after 2 kids!!! After everything she’s been through, I was very impressed she looked as good as she did. Granted, she doesn’t look like the uber-buff Britney we all knew, but seeing as we’ve all watched her world fall apart, I would have expected just a little bit more kindness. No?

And all those overweight journalists who are poking fun at her from the confines of their cookie jars, need to get a grip…or perhaps loosen their grip on the cookie jar.


And the same day, in London, models 1, one of the biggest international modelling agencies, hits the news for refusing to take on a size zero model. Dios mio, what’s a girl to do. Your damned if you’re not skinny and you’re damned if you’re too skinny.

At a height of 5 ft 10 inches and with a 22 inch waist I can only imagine Charlotte carter must look a little scary. She says she felt that she always had to be thinner to land the biggest jobs and in Europe, the thinner she got, the more she was booked. Its great that she had this to say:

I have to point out she's about half a stone thinner than this picture now.

"When Models 1 advised me to gain weight it was like a psychological wall coming down,' she said. 'It helped me to realise that I was too thin. I was impressed that an agency was actually addressing my well-being."

But while I think its commendable they are taking a stand against girls who are visibly underweight, I just don’t like the media OCD style fixation on the female body. Too fat, too skinny. Eating too much, not eating enough. Thunder thighs, visible ribs. Double chins, spindly arms. Big bum, bony bum. It just doesn’t stop.

We’re human, we’re not perfect. We’re not supposed to be. We’re all designed to be different. I’ve seen what goes into the airbrushing for magazines, press shots, album covers etc…and its nuts. They have teams of staff dedicated to ‘touching up’ the pictures. So the media is delivering images that aren’t real in the first place. Most weeks the cover of those crappy magazines (you know who you are) has something to do with FAT!!!! or SKINNY!!!! splashed across the front. It pisses me off, so I never buy them. They airbrush out ribcages of the skinny chicks, they amplify cleavages, they ‘slim’ down thighs, they ‘tuck’ tums…all in a bid to create an image of perfection that didn’t exist in the first place.

Is it any surprise eating disorders are on the increase? And its creeping in with younger and younger girls as well. It’s a mental disorder that’s prevalent in high achieving girls who strive for perfection and control in their lives. It seems to affect the upper/middle class girls more. And it looks scary, and heartbreaking. I lived with a few, with varying degrees of seriousness at school. And while I can appreciate that the media’s body fascism isn’t the only or necessarily the prime cause, it doesn’t help. Indirectly all this body perfection obsessiveness makes more and more, less strong minded people, feel less attractive. It’s the younger people I worry about. What does it do to them?

Will it ever stop?

What do you think?