The island of dreams.

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.

Lights.Camera.Action.

   Fashion.hr Industrija, fashion trade fair & promotional event combined with fashion.hr fashion shows in the night hours are kicking off the fashion events season in Croatia, which consists of three fashion weeks in total: fashion.hr, Cro-a-porter and Fashion Week Zagreb, in that exact order, stretching from end September to end November.

        Those who follow my blog know that I choose to write about Croatian fashion events sparingly and I am rather focused on highlighting the selected local designer for which I think based on my practical experiences of working in fashion business (retail, wholesale & fashion weeks) and now in PR for large global company, have a good quality product, well developed overall business strategy and brand strong enough to compete on relentless global market.

Bellow you can read my previous posts with commentary on mentioned Croatian fashion weeks:

Let's talk Croatian fashion

Birth of an industry 

Dreft Fashion Week Zagreb 

Cro-a-porter  

Announcing Croatian trade show event

One of these designers who’s show I am super excited to see tomorrow is of my fabulous friend Alex Dojčinović, now widely recognized in Croatia as a star designer with an enormous perspective for an international expansion and success, as she has proven to be consistent in designing quite concise and highly sellable collections with aesthetics and price points with which most of women can relate to and can afford.

My review of Alex’s new collection is due tomorrow right after the show! Hopefully I will manage to also visit Fashion.hr Industrija trade show during the day on Saturday before departing for Madrid, as they have set a quit interesting schedule for the next couple of days.

I am curious to also learn about your perspective on Croatian fashion weeks, what are your expectations darlings?

"As a fashion designer, I was always aware that I was not an artist,

 because I was creating something that was made to be sold, marketed, used, and ultimately discarded."

Tom Ford

Introducing the lovely ladies of the La Passion pour la Fashion bookclub!

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

She moves like Jaeger!

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?

Swap until you drop!

Fall is here and you got nothing to wear? Look no further than your friends’ closet!

We all totally crave for full Burberry collection for this fall, me personally, I am a McQueen dreamer....but the reality is that one would need to sell a car to buy one of these collection pieces, however this doesn't mean you can't look fabulous and have a piece or two to follow this fall seasons top trends. As we all know, fashion recycles.

My suggestion is (and something I have been doing for years with my girlfriends) is to organize a clothing swap party, as the saying saids „One person's trash is another person’s treasure! “ If you live with your parents you can also go „closet shopping“in your mum’s, sisters or grandmas closet, just try to make sure they know you are doing it!;)

There are some ground rules to organizing swap party:

• Invite a group of friends to your house whom you would like to participate in a swap
• Determine the average condition the clothes should be in: No wholes (unless the trend) / recently washed / not faded / no undies J
• Each person should at least bring one piece but maybe more
• Ask to have clothes brought a day before the swap so you can categorize it per size/type
• Mark a room to be a dressing room
• Prepare light snacks & drinks for your guests to feel welcomed
• Ensure that everyone has fun and that swap is fair in terms of the amount people take away

Here is my favorite sweets recipe – macaroons ala Laduree!

Enjoy lovelies!

                                                                          Xoxo,

We got the necklace giveaway winner!

Last night in midnight we got our first La Passion pour la Fashion jewelry

 giveaway winner!

The lucky girl who will be wearing this lovely unique necklace is Ines Talaja!

Congratulations Ines ! Thank you to the rest of the ladies for participating; there will be more opportunities for you soon to win fabulous fashion prizes!

I'm 27 today and this is what I learned so far...

Today is my 27^th birthday, last five or six years I have spent living in several countries, continents, states and my birthday celebrations weren’t all that, so after a while I have kind of stopped celebrating my B-day all together, as there is always something more important going on, however since about 24^th birthday I tend to stop that day despite my extremely hectic and fast pace of life and look back on the year behind me.

So, what have I learned from my last birthday, or what has life confirmed to me to hold true:

Say what you feel, when you feel it, don’t assume other person knows it …as hearts are often broken by the words left unspoken.

Forgive and let go….I learned that people will hurt you as long and as often you let them and as hard as you allow it. The pain will last as long as you don’t forgive, and when you do it, then you set yourself free and you are able to move on. People almost never hurt you because they are just mean; they most often hurt you because they are scared or because they are to weak to say what is on their mind.

It's ok to be alone....There are some things in life (often some of the heardest) that you need to go through alone, where not even your friends and family can hold or talk you through it and that is ok. It is important for you to learn your own limits, to feel the pain. You need to get over it alone and grow from it and become stronger because of it. The moment when you accept yourself and learn about who you are, and love yourself, you can trully love and be there for someone else.

Appreciate what/who you have while you have it…this is one of the things I learned to do with some people. I learned to appreciate and enjoy the moment I am with someone, I learned that each day is a blessing and that sometimes there is no second chances, especially in love. Learn to recognize it, appreciate it, give it back and enjoy it while you have it, don’t take it for granted and cherish it to maintain it. True love doesn't happen often.

Don’t judge people…You don’t know their story…Judging and stereotyping a person is the easiest and the laziest thing to do. In order to give a person a chance, maybe to gain a lifelong friend, you need to listen more than you talk, do it without assuming things, judging or interfering, trying to put yourself in that persons shoes, learn to accept the person as he or she is, with all the positives and the negatives about them... and then be there for them, and let them be there for you.

Smile a lot…even when you feel down, supposedly stretching your face into a smile automatically triggers your brain to start releasing happy hormones, and smile is the only gift that is totally free and it makes a person giving it and person receiving it feels good.

Stand for something….even when you are the only one whose opinion differs, if you have facts to support it and you fully believe in it, defend it, and sell it, make it happened and make a difference. Don’t fall into routine and be satisfied with being average... take some risks when it matters.

What are some of the thighs life has taught you lovelies? Care to share?

Brilliant Braganza!

During last Dreft Fashion Week Zagreb earlier this year I had a chance to spend some time with Jean-Pierre. this Canadian designer stroked me as a true creative genius. He really does know what women want to wear and is quite warm, simple and a modest person. Due to some personal engagements I can't be in London right now, but the second I saw the first look shown above I smiled and said "office pajamas" how genius! He did it again!

"What a woman would wear to seduce Ben Nicholson at a party at the Gatsby Estate" – is the way Braganza has described his SS 2012. Collection. 

He kept his sci-fi theme inspiration creating smart collection which many different generations could wear on many different occasions. Plenty of the pieces I would definitely describe as timeless and classic with Braganza twist to them.

He played with traditionally male tailoring creating dresses made out of reconstructed -shouldered collarless suit jackets, jackets alone worn on figure hugging dresses made in soft grays, beiges and dramatic monochrome palettes with emphasized shoulder padding. This somewhat classic color pallet of art deco graphic prints was broken up with splashes of bright coral pink-tangerine colored digital print dresses.

I feel like this was Braganza at its best! Overall, very multi-wearable, smartly tailored power pieces each fashionista would love to have in her closet! This collection takes you from day in the office to lovely business or romantic dinner following a divine gala…and the accessories! Ahhhh these divine sci-fi powerful shoes! But this is no suprise knowing about his now traditional cooperation with Nicholas Kirkwood.You can see bellow some of Kirkwood shoes from previous Jean-Pierre Braganza collections. 

Brangaztic indeed!

Photo source in order top to bottom: www.Style.com , personal archive, www.fashionising.com.

You can see the whole collection bellow on my Youtube channel lovelies. 

Worldwide celebration of fashion! - Sept. 2011.

Glee Cast inVogue

The need to celebrate new season collection, to celebrate style & fashion has infected fashion lovers all over the world. Someone up there floating in the universe can for sure smell the new launched designer perfume scents, can hear the new Louboutins clicking on the pavements from Shanghai, to Dubai, New York, London, Paris and Milan.

World’s most fabulous fashionistas have shopped and were entertained in extra polished and celebratory decorated designer stores in their home towns, all decked up for marching the streets as if they were one big never-ending runway wrapped around the globe.

Where and how were you celebrating this fashion week season lovelies?

Ahhh..Another great celebration of fashion in New York! What’s up London?

La GIVEAWAY: WIN "Black&White Heaven" necklace!

Here is my first jewelry giveaway lovelies!

You can win this unique & quit lovely necklace by “Black & White” jewelry.

The winner will be selected at random, the giveaway will end & winner will be announced on Tuesday September 20^th at midnight!

 In order to participate and potentially win this fabulous necklace please do the following 3 steps:

1. Join the network of my lovely followers

(Click Join this site Google Connect button in the right hand column)

2. Like La Passion pour la Fashion site on Facebook for latest & the greatest from fashion world  and Black&White Heaven fan page

3. Write your full name and email address in the comment of this post

Good luck to you all lovelies!