Happy 4th of July!

Fireworks at Laguna Beach!

It finally feels like summer has come to SoCal - how has everyone's Independence Day weekend been so far?

KL and I finally caught Transformers 2 and I must say that I enjoyed the movie tremendously, despite the lackluster reviews going around. The movie is a pure summer pop-corn flick, just don't expect anything too cerebral and enjoy it for what it is! We caught Transformers 1 during the 4th July weekend 2 years ago so this has definitely become a July 4th movie series for us.

We went to Laguna Beach today to catch the fireworks show...it's always interesting to watch the sky fill up with light and colours and to hear the fireworks fizzle across the sky and explode.

I'll be going back to Singapore for a month and a half, just to bum around before school starts. I hope to have time to post some more, before I fly back on July 10th.

Enjoy the rest of your July 4th weekend! :D

Battle Leather Jacket: Rick Owens vs Yaya Aflalo

First of all, I want to thank the gorgeous Anna from Cocktail of Fashion for her lovely award to me! Thank you so much Anna *virtual hug*! I strongly urge you guys to check out her blog, she has the most beautiful wedding dress that I have ever seen, as well as some of the most inspirational pictures out there!

I finally decided to do a post comparing the classic Rick Owens biker leather jacket vs the Yaya Aflalo vapor leather jacket, as I get quite a number of emails/questions on how they stack up against each other.
(It helps too that I am resting at home today as I have not fully recovered from my cold/cough. If anything in this comparison doesn't make sense, ask me as I am heavily sedated on Theraflu as I am writing this ;))

A picture of the two jackets in question - can you tell which is which???

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Answer: Yaya jacket is on the left, the RO is on the right.

Another picture of the two jackets side by side, unzipped:


As you can see the leather on both types of jackets are different. Note though, that I think I have the blistered leather version of the RO jacket, which is meant to look a lot more distressed anyway. But I really love the RO leather, it gets softer and seems to mold to you the more you wear it, it feels more organic and I have no doubts that it will get better with wear. The Yaya leather on the other hand, appears smoother and more uniform..but it's really soft too!

The sleeves on the RO are tighter and mold to the arm more. This is evident in the following picture:

Yaya sleeve on top, RO sleeve below.

As you can see, the RO sleeve is way narrower than the Yaya's. It expands to fit your arm, whereas the Yaya sleeve is wider, though I wonder if this can be mitigated by sizing down one for the Yaya's?

Let's take a look at how the leather jackets drape on a human body, i.e that of yours truly:


I think there's really no clear winner in this "battle", it really depends on what one is looking for, vs the budget that one has. I love my RO because of its drape and the little details that go into it: the silver zippers, the tight ultra-long sleeves and the luxrious lining. But the Yaya jacket is really a good buy for its price..it might lack the details that the RO has, but it does look great nevertheless and does give off that RO vibe!(which to me means skinny sleeves and drapey leather) If anyone is interested, I decided to spring for the RO in the end as I got a chance to purchase it at a really good price, and I feel that it is a worthy investment!

Oh and I didn't caption my last picture in this post. You should be able to tell by now which jacket is which, so quick, which one is the RO in the last picture??

Shoes, shoes, shoes!

I have been feeling under the weather for the past two days. So, please excuse me if I haven't replied to some comments and emails yet. I woke up on Tuesday with an inflamed tonsil on the right side of my throat and a slight fever. Hopefully this will go away soon..my throat doesn't hurt that much anymore but I can feel a cough developing. Darn, I hate to be ill during summer, especially with a long weekend coming up!

But onto happier things. I was looking through photos taken during my birthday week and those of you who have been looking for a cheaper alternative to the Ann Demeulemeester S/S 09 boots may be interested in the picture below:



The photo was taken in Laguna Beach, but the store was already closed when I took this picture. I couldn't go in to investigate further, but these seem to be under a Jeffery Campbell line called "Limited edition"? These seem really close to the Ann D's and even KL thought that they were the same ones that I had. The best reproduction of the Ann Demeulemeester lace-up boots that I have seen by far! Even the multi-bow sandal next to the Demeulemeester look-a-likes are a decent alternative to the Marc Jacobs bow sandals this season!

A recent acquisition from my Vegas trip:


Givenchy s/s 09 booties

I got these on super-sale from a shoe store at Wynn. Love love love the huge zipper running up the boot, plus the cowboy boot details. It's like a bad-ass, shoe-gone-wild version of a cowboy boot, which suits me just fine, given that I always depend on my accessories to add that extra zing to my outfit. They are really comfortable and run true to size...expect to see them featured in an outfit post soon.

And another shoe-porn picture:


Rick Owens S/S 09 multi-strap booties

I call them my mummy (as in Egyptian) boots! They are in the colour dust and the multiple straps remind me of the fabric strips that are wrapped around mummies. The wedges may look deceivingly high and intimidating, but they are really comfortable! I have no problem walking in them!

Vegas baby!

I gave official notice to my manager last Friday. Now going back to school has never felt more real! Some of you out there might be aware that I had decided to pursue a full-time MBA program at the start of this year. It was really time to go, from the moment that I received offers from the schools that I had applied to, it has been a struggle trying to motivate myself to put in the hours and the effort that I used to. The reason for the change in my attitude is finally out in the open and I guess I can "slack" easy ;)

For my birthday on June 11th, KL and I decided to re-visit a very familiar city. We went back to Vegas!
We got a room at the Signature hotel at the MGM Grand, which is a really great place to be! I had great difficulty leaving my room every day and I still cry when I think of the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom - I miss it so much!

What I wore for the car ride from Orange County to Vegas. As you can see, comfort is of utmost importance:

F21 tee, Elizabeth and James pants, Dries Van Noten sandals

A shot of the view at night from our room:


One of my favorite stops in Vegas (besides Barneys at the Palazzo ;)), is the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanic Gardens. As the name implies, it's a magnificent display of landscaped gardens, meant to invoke the essence of each season. Besides changing the displays with each seasons, I think Bellagio also comes up with new displays for special occasions like Independence Day and Christmas. When KL and I were there, it was the Summer display.

The flower ferris wheel that dominated the display:


Ladybug! One of the very few insects that I am not squeamish about:


I love how rosebuds were used to recreate the snails' shell. It took me some time before I coaxed the right expression out from the snail ;)


Lovebirds!


They were so cute and couldn't stop grooming each other. Some of them were already asleep when KL and I were there (it was 11pm plus after all!) as the lights were switched off.

And of course what would a blog post be without food? In place of a cake this year, KL told me that I could pick whatever sweets I wanted from Payard!
Macarons from Payard - the chocolate and strawberry ones were heavenly! I can't remember what flavours the other colours were, I think I need to go back there for a second tasting!


More sweets from my sweet:


On the left is a little slice of berry heaven named Joie, complimented with a dark chocolate-hazelnut creation named the Louvre. I have a hard time deciding which one is better, so I'm gonna cop out and say I love them all!

On the day of my birthday itself, KL took me out for dinner at the Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill. I have always said that I wanted to try out this restaurant whenever we were in Vegas (yes, even though I know it's so much nearer to drive to the one in L.A.), so my wish was finally got granted ;)

Our appetizers:

Left: sweet corn crab fritters, right: chilled tomato gazpacho

I ordered the sweet corn crab fritters with a zesty aioli while KL got the chilled tomato gazpacho with a dollop of crème fraîche and croutons. Halfway through, I had to give up my fritters to KL...veggies are his Kryptonite and he can only stomach so many mouthfuls of "veggie stew"! My apologies for the photos everyone, it wasn't a candle-lit dinner, but somehow the pictures turned out darker than expected!

For the main course, I ordered grilled tuna with a red onion salad, while KL had beef filet, with herb creamed corn, pesto and balsamic.


Dessert! Apricot melba with toast almonds, vanilla ice and raspberries! No fighting here, we each got a share.


Then it was off to catch the Criss Angel's show, Believe.


It seems that the reviews for this show weren't too good but I have to say it's really bad at all! Just don't expect a usual Cirque du Soleil show, this show is really more of a "Best of Mindfreak" performance with surreal imaginary thrown in to link up each illusion. Personally I felt that the "links" were really the weakest part of the show, some of the performances felt a tad too contrived at time, but in all fairness I did enjoy the dancing bunnies. That's all I should say I guess, without giving too much of the show away.

Lastly, I shall sign off this post with pictures of my birthday outfit, worn with Dries sandals during the day and my trusty Ann Demeulemeester lace-up boots at night!

Lanvin dress, various necklaces from F21 and Made Her think, Dries Van Noten sandals (left), Ann Demeulemeester lace up boots (right)

Pictorama: A random night out at Irvine Spectrum

First of all, I am extremely honored to show off this lovely award given to me by Hanh:



Hanh is an extremely lovely lady with an impeccable sense of style. Check out her blog here. It's so inspirational and chock full of pictures of her lovely outfits and yummy food, some of which were whipped up by Hanh herself! I love that the blogs that I frequent are featuring food more and more, I confess to be a diehard foodie and I feel that truly great food satisfies not only our palate, but also our eyes!

A pictorama of tonight's event:

I worn: Rick Owens leather jacket, Lanvin t-shirt dress, charcoal gray ribbed socks, Ann Demeulemeester lace-up boots, Chanel baby cabas and Forever21 necklace.


KL and I went to: Irvine Spectrum


I lusted over: the 13.3" Macbook Pro from Apple. (hint, hint, KL - I need a laptop for college!)


We drank: A humongonous serving of Wetzel's Pretzels' lemonade. (which I'm convinced is one of the best lemonade ever! I always have to fight KL for this.)


Outside: The Verizon wireless store


And ate a cheesedog from Wetzel's Pretzels as well.


Sometimes junk food is just immensely cathartic and the hot, greasy dog hit the spot on this cold night! Yum, yum, yum....


Enjoy the rest of your weekend, everyone! :D

Surface To Air buckle wedges

Credit

Grey suede. Copious number of buckles. Mmmmmmmm. You.will.be.mine.

Edited to add: Since I got some emails on where these wedges are available to purchase, I'll like to reveal that they are available for preorder on azaleasf.com. Use code "grechen10" for 10% off!

Memorial Day weekend: To Big Bear we will go!

I have been on a blogging sabbatical and it's really been kind of....liberating. The first part of it was really accidental, I had to deal with work visa issues, our car broke down in Yorba Linda, leaving KL and me stranded (it was a horrifying experience, never did I feel so vulnerable before and we didn't have AAA at that time, but now we DO)...but I had to admit that my sabbatical extended as I just wasn't feeling inspired to blog. I think I finally have to come to terms with the fact that I'm not really good at updating my blog regularly, sometimes I have a lot to say, sometimes I just don't. But that doesn't mean I tire of the blogging experience! That's something to be said about composing your thoughts and watching it take form on the computer screen...my blog also serves as my journal on my life and style. But ultimately what really makes blogging so enjoyable is the interaction that I get from everyone, your comments and your emails. So I'm back on my blogging soap box again!

So during the long Memorial Day weekend, KL and I drove up to Big Bear Lake.



I have been to Big Bear several years ago to ski (don't ask, I think I was probably a hazard to everyone on the bunny slope!), but this was my first visit to Big Bear Lake. KL and I took it easy and walked the trail by Big Bear Lake. It was a good opportunity for us to get some sunshine after soaking in the fluorescent rays of our office.



Can you spot what's among the rocks?



My KING OF THE WORLD pose! (this was taken at another trail near the lake, which led into the forest)



I got a new header up as well. I was inspired by my recent trip to Big Bear and decided to put up something bright and sunny up! After all summer is here!