Ballerina Closet

Ballerina Closet is a new Swedish shoe brand, that was first launched in May 2011 by Hanna Danielsson. Their concept is to only design and sell ballerina shoes, for all occasions. The shoes can be bought both on the brand's website and at nelly.com (possibly at more places).

What I like about this brand is that they not only sell ballerina shoes in the classical black style with or without a bow. It is an interesting business concept, and I'm curious to see if they'll survive. I do hope so, because they create some really interesting shoes, and it's always nice to have a brand that sells colourful shoes, especially in Sweden, a country where black garments and shoes are more than popular. Ballerina Closet plays with colours, patterns and materials, which makes the shoes interesting. See some examples below;

Pictures from ballerinacloset.com

Sunglasses

Summer has finally reached Sweden, which means that sunglasses are high on the want-list. I have a pretty standard black pair, which I love, but lately I've been on the lookout for a more interesting pair. Below are some budget friendly alternatives;

1. Prada/ nelly.com

2. E&E Glasses/ nelly.com

3. D&G/ asos.com

4. Modekungen.se

5. Gina Tricot

6. Forever 21

The round shapes fit well with this spring's and summer's 70's trend and personally I'd like a pair with a more interesting colour than black.

Fashion for less

One Swedish brand that I have admired for quite a while is Cheap Monday. While their philosophy of high fashion for low prices is not new, they still manage to niche themselves and be perceived as more high fashion than their prices suggest. Originally they became famous because of their super-skinny jeans (I have a pair of incredible grey jeans from them that have been worn to death) and every season they have really cool jeans for a really good price on offer. Another characteristic of the brand is their logo, which looks like a skull. Apart from the jeans they now also have sunglasses as well as women's and men's wear. The style is typically quite relaxed and, in my opinion, very cool. Below are some really cool styles from their various spring 2011 collections that I wouldn't mind wearing myself.

Pictures from Cheap Monday's website

How cool is the necklace?

When everything's just black and white

As I mentioned earlier, I'm a big fan of shoes. I just came across these beauties at modekungen.se, a Swedish online retailer that carries a lot of interesting garments and fierce shoes. The only disadvantage are the limited sizes, usually it's one size for the clothes and apparently size 36-39 for the shoes. Which is sad when you have 40...

Anyway. The shoes:

If you're lucky and have between size 36-39, the shoes can be bought here.

Picture from modekungen.se

They remind of me Chanel's two-tone tights (which can never be a bad thing) from 2008:

Picture by Amanda Grillo/VOGUE.COM

Those shoes would work really well with a black and white outfit (and I happen to be very fond of those). I'd throw in a casual suit jacket, some cool dress and black tights (which aren't see- through, so about 80 den)

Catching up

This site is one of my favourites when I want to watch or read about something unique.

www.nowness.com

It is updated once a day and have interesting short films or articles about the fashion world, fashion icons, movie directors, museum exhibitions and so on. Today there was a short documentary about Daphne Guinness which is worth watching.

This site has also made one of my favourite short documentaries;

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/3/23/advanced-style-fashion-film

It is about age and fashion. It is just an incredible short documentary.

Watch it!

Trend for spring and summer

I think that one of the nicest trends for spring is colour blocking, especially when done the Jil Sander-way.

Pictures from Style.com

Orange and pink is one of my favorite combos. Luckily, this trend has been snatched up by every high street chain worth its name. Below are some lovely pieces in strong colours from Zara. I especially like the pink pants.

Pictures from Zara.com

And since I'm a big fan of shoes, here are some really nice ones from Zara as well.

Pictures from Zara.com

When mixing a lot of colour it can be nice to mix in some neutral accessories as well (unless you want to go completely colour crazy of course, that's always an option).

Bringing back memories

Just looked at the texts I'd written about New York and got inspired to look at some old pictures. We really saw some cool things. The shoe department at Saks Fifth Avenue is such a dream...