Lana del Rey: The trendy artist for 2012

Lana del Rey is the sensation of the moment. I heard about her not a long time ago and I loved her voice. I saw her pictures and videos and thought, wow, she's too pretty to have such a powerful voice.

Her past is quite hazy. Internet fans are divided. She seems to have had a hard start, and a past of drugs and alcohol when she was a teen. She likes to describe herself as a "gansta Nancy Sinatra" and before becoming Lana del Rey she was Lizzy Grant. You can still find things about her old self on internet. 

Lizzy Grant was a young, shy and not very stylish new yorker who used to sing in bars and who  suddenly became Lana del Rey. Her singles "Video games", "Born to die" and "Blue jeans" have become must-knows of the indie culture. Home-made videos with vintage images made by herself. Original voice, music and videos. What else could we ask for?

She has simply made the most outrageous mistake that an original "underground" artist can make: plastic surgery. She thought she wasn't pretty enough and filled her lips with collagen.... the result: people start feeling disappointed.

Then all the story about her living in a caravan, having hard times...it all becomes weird. Then we discover that  her father is a millionaire (he is one of the first investors in the internet domain business) and has indeed helped her market her career. Next we learn that her artistic name was decided by her managers and today it happens that her Wikipedia entry has been substantially modified. Two weeks ago so much different information was available.... naughty naughty PR campaign.

Is she a real star or a marketing product? The only thing she has never changed is her long nails.(Have a look)

She made a terrible performance on Saturday Night Live and the bad reviews started pouring in. Despite these controversial aspects to her career, she has managed to win the Q award of the "Next big thing",  is nominated for the Brits as "International breakthrough act" and the MTV Brand New 2012. After that catastrophic performance she experienced a big jump in the Billboard charts. Her album was launched on Monday. Thanks to this huge but polarizing campaign, she has already sold 70 000 copies.

Like magic, she is the girl of the moment and has already featured on the soundtracks of the London fashion week SS/12 for Christopher Kane and Emilio de la Morena.

Her style is a mixture of pop star, 60'glamourous Hollywood actress, and hip hop singer....too many different styles to make it work. Right now she is just too wrapped in her marketing campaign. She needs to be natural, her colorful voice needs to prevail. A more unprocessed style is what she needs,  otherwise Next Model Management, which she just signed with will know what to do with her, as they are currently doing with Alexa Chung and Alice Dellal.

For the moment, we have just had a starter of Lana del Rey. Bad reviews are not going to stop this machine so well backed up by a powerful record company.

Personally I don't like all the songs on the album, but the ones that I do, I absolute love and can't stop hearing them in loops. That is what is precisely so polarizing about Lana del Rey. 

Aerlingus worth more than Primark

I flight very often, which is one of the reasons for the name of this blog "TrendFLY holic".

I think I can say I flew with every single low cost company: Ryanair, Easyjet, Monarch… but by far my favourite one is Aerlingus.  An Irish company that I discover in one of my frequent flights to Malaga. I was in the first plane which was baptised. Yes, it sounds weird, I couldn't believe it either when the pilot who was a woman said when we landed that we will be received by the press and two fire trucks that will wet the plane. The next day it was in all local newspapers.

 

http://www.diariosur.es/20090407/turismo/lingus-centra-malaga-mayor-20090407.html

Buying a flight ticket is like going shopping. You know that when you pay expensive you will receive an excellent service, you can carry almost two hand luggages, nice and comfortable seats, cabin crew uniforms are fitted… If you fly with Iberia, British Airways, United…is like going shopping to Burberry, DKNY, Armani… of course if you go first class it is like going to Chanel, Loewe or Balenciaga.

But let's be realistic, everyone likes more for less and these new low cost companies  let us make more trips for the same money that we would pay for one trip in first class. Is the same concept that Zara, H&M, Primark: consumption is the priority. Although we love to complain when we buy a GAP jumper cause is plenty of bubbles after wearing it a few times we continue to go… the same for the flight companies. How many times did we hear people, included me, complaining about Easyjet flights being delayed, Ryanair tiny seats and millimetre luggage restrictions?… And yet we still go on flying with them.

Sometimes, once in a while, we find nice brands that make fashion clothes, fit us like measure-made and are as cheap as a high-street mass market brand. In that moment we feel like a pirate who found a treasure. I felt the same when I discovered Aerlingus. The only flight company to have such a nice airplane where you can sleep in peace with no aircrew who will disturb you cause they want to sell to you stupid lottery like in Ryanair. The most amazing detail is the resthead: you can regulate it as you need and if you want to sleep don't worry about neck pain cause your neck will be straight.

 You have a Cara magazine to read, you have a pocket on the front seat to dispose things (no pocket on Ryanair), and very important too: crew people are most of the time lovely and smiling. What else could you possibly ask for?

When you have that "luxury" service at high street price you don't want to change, you become loyal to that brand and feel happy and proud of your purchase. Unfortunately fashion brands and air companies don't survive only with few "followers", they need to sell enough to become profitable. I was deeply sad when I tried to buy my return tickets and was able to buy only one way cause they decided to stop to fly to Malaga. I spoke to the boarding guy, to the air crew and even to the pilot and expressed my disappointment cause I really loved that company. Now I am seated in a Ryanair tiny seat, the girl next to me has her luggage under her feet, I had to pay 40€ cause my luggage was 1 cm extra large, I am in a bad mood, people speak very low….  :( 

Aerlingus…why did you leave me alone ?!!! 

RIP: 3 january 2012 Flight EI 902 6:35 am seat 6 A

Lemon & Curry ... the new colours

When I saw Victoria Beckham yellow dress before summer already in Selfridges store...I knew something would seriously happen with that colour.

What's up after Orange??
This winter and next year we are going to continue to wear bright colours, all the different ranges of yellows, golds, ambers, currys, mustards, lemons...
Yellow colour shines with optimism and happiness. Golden yellow colour carries the promise of positive future. Is the color of the positive energy and creative thoughts.

From Alexander MacQueen, Stella Maccartney to Jil Sander, Joseph or Aubin and Wills... something is going on.

Sorry for the superstitious people who think yellow colour brings bad luck....

1st shoe galerie anniversary

When you are a little girl you dream to be Cinderella and have that Prince who will fight to find you and make you wear the shoe which will symbolize he is the right person for you and you will be loved the rest of your life and have lots of kids.

When you are adult you go to the biggest shoe gallery in the world and buy the shoes you love.It is at Selfridges, Oxford street in London. Don't worry if you can't afford Chanel or Louboutin shoes. Being the biggest shoe gallery in the world means as well being open to all budgets, sizes, designers, coulors, styles.... If you don't find there a pair of shoes for you it is because you don't want to.

A map of the shoes heaven

It is now one year since this women dream department opened and every single time I went there it was full of princess looking for the perfect pair of shoes. Of course weekends are busiest time but if you can go during the week a the opening or closing time you will feel like being in a museum. 

They have 4000 shoes on exposition from 150 brands. You can find from luxurious Chanel, Louboutin, Repetto, Fendi, Alexander McQueen, Balmain, Lanvin, to averagely expensive Burberry, Prada, Givenchy, Gucci, Tod's to affordable Office, Kurt Geiger, Top shop, Vans, Hawaianas...

Some of my choices. Funny, elegant, outrageous, breaking the mould...

The Burberry Sample Sales.

Yesterday was one of those days that you realize working in fashion is fantastic:

The Burberry Sample Sale

They opened at 8am and people were queuing for hours.... A few years ago it used to be at the Haymarket store, it being one of their key sites. However Burberry took the decision to relocate the flagship store status to Bond Street. Since the flagship store was relocated, Burberry chose to use their Heritage site for functions and events, sample sales being one such event.

The Haymarket store has an element of Burberry’s past heritage visible through the antique clock on the building, it evokes a feeling of true British-ness and quality. It is after this grand store that they originally decided to name their truly memorable and most copied check, “Haymarket”, and it has stayed that name ever since.

The sample sale used to be held for up to a week! It consisted of two huge floor full of bargains including shoes, scarves, trench-coats, handbags, gloves, swimsuit...even golf balls...EVERYTHING !!! 

Items were generally replenished constantly, with a large selection of sizes. 

However todays sample sale consists of a limit selection of sizes. It is currently located in the headquarters, Horseferry house, in a very small room, bursting to the seams with eager employees, keen to achieve bargain. Unlike the early sample sales of Burberry, there is a feeling of a maximum security prison. Two I.D. checks add to a tense atmosphere, and create a large overwhelming queue of Burberry loving women.

Is it worth it? Yes, at 90% discount off retail press, of course it’s worth it.

I fell in love with these shoes. I checked the price and the ticket said it was £375 now £225..for me this was still too expensive...one hour later I came back to the shoes to recheck the price and stupid me...£220 was the store sale price, the sample price was £37 of course the girl just in front of me took the last pair in my size. For the rest of the day I felt annoyed at that girl for taking my shoes that were obviously meant to be mine and not hers!!!

Instead I treated myself to a scarf, sale price £25, and that leather trench coat for £100 and the puffa jacket above, (the first in my life, I normally hate that style) for £69.

I found good items for Christmas present; a few scarves, coats for the guys, and men’s ties...

This image summarizes the day I had at the Burberry sample sale.