Closing the year with Klaus Haapaniemi

My son was born on the 9th of November and so it has been, naturally, that I haven’t had time to write any updates here in the Style Pigeon.

Just to close the year I want to leave this Christmas cat of Klaus Haapaniemi and wish You a great new year 2014! I know, I know, Christmas has already gone, but as this card from Habitat is not too full of Christmas and I really like the style of the illustrator Klaus Haapaniemi I think it is worth to post it here.

I wish you all happy New Year 2014, may many of your dreams come true during the upcoming year!

Illustrator Conrad Roset

Felicidad Duce, the Fashion School here in Barcelona organized this week a masterclass of creative illustration of fashion. This was in order to promote their "Creative Fashion Illustration" course that will be held by Conrad Roset. I did sign up to the one and a half hour class of this illustrator, but unfortunately I was dead tired after walking in the centrum buying all the last minute stuff for my unborn baby. It would have been interesting to practice again drawing and painting with watercolors.

Nevertheless I am glad I got to know this Spanish illustrator Conrad Roset as I really like his way of using watercolors. His paintings are so relaxed and colorful, joyful. His speciality seems to be muses; young ladies.  

Above some examples of his works.

Another upcoming event of FDMODA will be held next week about fashion journalism in the digital era; communication in social networks. That would be also great class, but I'm afraid or I hope by next week I would already be mother and therefor not able to participate in this one either. 

Closing of October

October has been quiet. My apologies for not to be more active here in Style Pigeon, but I'm in my last weeks of pregnancy and have been mostly sleeping or without energy the whole October.

Alexander McQueen started the October and now Hempel Award 2014 will close it. Folks; Hempel Award the 22nd China International Young Fashion Designers Contest is open for the year 2014! Here the link for the information.
Theme of the contest for this year is The Golden Age of each country.
Good luck for everyone who decides to participate! I would love to repeat the experience as since this years' contest I was left with the feeling that I could do it better...but I think this year I will pass it thanks to my approaching maternity. Fair enough.

Few practical tips:
Tip 1. In most of the recent editions the winning collection has been white, white, white. So no need to complicate the color palette for the contest as curious enough the winner seems to be in most cases the white one.
Tip 2. When being in Beijing don't pay the fee for sending a CD/DVD of the contest as it will never arrive and the organizers are no longer interested in replying emails regarding that.

Few picks from this years experience:

Creative solution for shoes from Norway.

I was Nr.20 and here fixing clothes & camera.

Gorgeous McQueen

Alexander McQueen doesn't fail; out of the 902 pages of American Vogue his add was one that captured my attention.  You just had to stay looking on it and give credit that they know what they are doing. Impressive.

Autumn has arrived

Although the weather might not seem to notice it. It's tremendously sunny here in Barcelona. But the fact that autumn is here, my favorite season, is the arrival of American Vogue's September Issue. Yes, the big book with this year 902 pages (14 less than last year) of new seasons fashion (mostly adds). I tend to buy it at the end of September as I am lazy to walk until the middle of Las Ramblas to the International Magazines Kiosk so I only do it when there's the fear it might be already too late to buy it.

After, it's pleasant to start the day glimpsing this image overload magazine. Usually during summer I hardly buy any fashion magazines as the summer selection; bikinis etc. tiny clothes is not so tempting, but when autumn arrives I am more than willing  to study the seasons chunky knits and warm coats. Time to cover up our bodies girls!

This year the cover is really fresh portraying the wonderful actress Jennifer Lawrence; beautiful and natural. The magazine itself is nothing really special; adds, adds and more adds and some maybe interesting article, but it's more the routine for "the starting of the autumn" that makes me to buy this issue. As I no longer study anything "back to school" doesn't exist to me, so I have to find some other things to get inspired. This September Issue is one of those.

Beutiful vintage

A new e-shop for vintage clothes and accessories was opened last week; Stiina's. Stiina Huhtanen is a Finnish stylist living in Berlin and the items she sells are mostly Finnish with some treasuries found in Berlin. The web page of Stiina's is really beautiful, stylish and really easy to use. You can find the items and the description of them easily and prices also seem to be fair enough, affordable.

In the past years vintage and retro have been really a trending topic and widely used describing and especially when selling things. An old item sounds so much better when you say its a "vintage" piece. I was glad when in Olivia's August issue they had a description of these "old" terms, to have some clearance what is what. Following is from Olivia's August 2013 issue:

Antique: more than 100 years old

Vintage: from the 1920's to 1980's

Retro: from the 1960's to 1970's

Second hand: from 1990's

Old/Recycled: all garments produced after 1990's

I have never been a fan of retro; the brownish color palette and more or less psychedelic prints have never attracted me, but vintage has always appealed to me. Old, well done and sewn pieces  evoques great respect in me. My dream job would have been one of a seamestress, but as we live in the prosperous era my parents didn’t let me to study in profesional school, instead I had to go to high school in order to then graduate from university…and at that time I didn’t have my own will to choose against them. Well, old things. Now I have my sewing machine at home and the possibility to create things always when I want to, or have time for it.

Following pics are from the Stiina's web pages.

One outfit from the Stiina's. The shirt has funny ruffle sleeves.

Good add

Today driving in the center I saw a good add on the back of a buss. It was about Vichy Catalan's Tonic Water. Vichy Catalan's product is sparkling water, but lately it has expanded its products to lemon taste sparkling water and now apparently to this tonic water.
The publicity is really stylish black and white image and it did gave me an impulse to buy it. Unfortunately  the supermarket we visited didn't have it, so I have to wait still to taste it. The sparkling water of Vichy Catalan is always a must to have at home, I like it.

R-collection

R-collection is a Finnish clothing company. Its style is simple, honest clothing for leisure and all the clothes are really practical. The wonderful thing about this company is that they weave some of the fabrics they use in Finland, Orivesi. The fabric is thick cotton jersey and it is really long lasting, good quality fabric. They have the headquarters in Kajaani and that is where they also do patterns and cut the fabrics. Sewing is done in Estonia.

R-collection clothes are perfect to my boyfriend who is not metrosexual at all and likes simple, long lasting, classical clothes. I always buy something to him when visiting Finland; T-shirts, college trousers or hoodie. This time I wanted to buy him a jacket, but as he was not with me maybe better not; when back in Spain changing a product wouldn't be so simple. A pity they do not have international e-commerce; they only send goodies within Finland.

From sales I bought 2 dresses for me; a black autumn dress and a blue linen dress for summer. The linen dress had funny pockets in front and the fabric was really pretty as the weft and warp where different color, the other one black and the other blue, creating a beautiful color texture. The black dress was just a simple jersey dress with no fuss, easy going. Maybe if I add blue lace stockings I might get the outfit to rock a bit more.

To be honest the R-collection clothing is not fashion or fancy at all; it looks really "Finnish" so to say. The clothes are perfect for home and outdoors. They also have really loose cuts, so you can't find anything really tight there or figure hugging. Loose and practical.

The linen pocket dress.

Above the typical R-collection logo, and then the one that was in my dress, more fancy one. I don't really follow/understand the different logo in the etiquette of my jersey dress as it is not fancy at all and therefor the basic logo would be more suitable for it. 

Styling from the Olivia's August issue. I love those blue stockings, it would give a twist to my practical but boring black jersey dress.

Yarns and ribbons

Impossible not to have an eye to yarns in Finland. Almost always when I set my foot in Helsinki I visit a yarn shop  Menita near the Design Museum. Usually I don't have anything special in mind, I just like to enjoy the atmosphere and colors of the exquisite selection of mostly natural fiber yarns. This time I had no time to go to the shop, but luckily in the biggest supermarkets in Finland there is also a great selection of Novita yarns.

Other fantastic shop is Luhti in Rovaniemi. From there I always go and buy some carpet rags. The difficulty is to buy a correct amount of something that you actually have only thought of doing, because if you then need more material it is almost impossible to get the same material here in Spain. Of course you could order via internet etc., but it always gets tricky when you are just lacking some color and for sure you wouldn't get yarn from the same dying set.

Here are the materials I bought this time and later, hopefully soon, I can share what I finally have done with these things.

Ribbons & yarns

Finnish magazines

When traveling adequate entertaining on the airplanes is a must. One of the best ways is to buy magazines, fashion, decoration etc. at the airport and read them through the flight. Magazines are that kind of short entertainment that you don't need to be too focused or concentrated as when reading a book/watching a movie and short breaks are more than welcome when the coffee trolleys reaches your seat line.

Visiting Finland I always like to buy Finnish magazines to have a look what is going on on clothing sector. Nowadays I don't know whether there's lot of going on, but at least there are many fashion magazines for such a small country. In summer you also have those 2in1 treats, so this time I bought various different ones just to have a glimpse of all. They were so cheap...

Gloria is for wealthy adults, career ladies so to say, focused magazine, classical one. Although I don't fit de description, not wealthy, nor classic, I always like to read it; usually it has interesting articles and it is not only about the latest in fashion. It also skips the selection of H&M etc. cheap brands. Though this time the summer issue was quite boring.

Costume, Olivia and Trendi they are all for younger lectors; young adults, that are still going out a lot and participating to summer festivals etc. trendy people, hipsters. Trendi is the oldest publication of these 3 papers and that is my favorite. I didn't like the layout or style of Costume (name is nice and the cover of 2/2013 issue) and the same for Olivia as they both were too messy, too blog kind a likes with short stories and reports of products. Well Olivia had an interesting Vintage-story and when entering Costume's web page you could print a pattern for a wide sleeved dress. I just printed all the instructions, so let's see whether this autumn I will be able to make a dress for me.

I still can't believe there are market for all these magazines in Finland. In the future I will just stick to my old favorites Gloria and Trendi; I feel I already start to be too old for Costume and Olivia.

Summer reading

More creams

I recall having seen this bright yellow cream in supermarkets in Finland, but I never would have guessed it is a Finnish product with the Key Flag Symbol on it. But it is.

It was launched in 1952 a prosperous time in Finland's history when Armi Kuusela was crowned to Miss Universum and the Olympic games where held in Helsinki. At that time cosmetic products were luxury items that only wealthy people could afford. Lemon Juice & Glycerine was designed to fill this gap and it surely did succeed as it became the favorite cream "for everyone". The name comes from the prime materials of the product; pampering lemon juice and moisturizing glycerine. The curiosity of the name is that it is in English, because at the time of its creation all the imported products were considered to be better quality so the manufacturer Transmeri wanted to give it an international air. The product has been always produced in Finland and the recipe has stayed almost the same for the past 60 years.

I was surprised about this history and decided to try out this nostalgic hand cream, the price is something like 3 euros so its not a catastrophe if it turns out to be bad. But it was great. The thing I was scared the most was its scent; I had an idea it might have strong lemon smell that I couldn't stand for it. I don't even use daily eau de toilettes as it might give me a headache. With this cream you hardly can smell the lemon, so that is great and it leaves your hands smooth and dries quickly.

The hand cream is the original product, but now within the years Transmeri has created a product family around it so you can find soaps and creams for feet as well.

Lemon Juice&Glycerine; I surely do recommend this product!

Mandatory Lumene purchases

Everyone who lives outside her home country more probably has a list of things to do and to buy when traveling back to home. The same for me; I'm always worried if I have time to eat the maximum amount of different milk products; yogurts etc. as in Finland there is an excessive selection of those, much more than in any other country and I don't even know the names of all these products as they don't exist anywhere else than Nordic countries. Milk is so good.

Other thing what I always do is that I buy a bunch of Lumene -products; some make ups and creams. Lumene is a Finnish cosmetic company that produces all its goods in Finland. They have very good price quality ratio and as the price segment is not too high, middle priced, I always buy some items when visiting Finland. I also like the Nordic, clean and fresh image that the company is famous for. There slogan is: "Beauty from the clean Nordic nature"(Kauneutta puhtaasta pohjoisesta luonnosta).

This time I bought Lumene Sensitive Touch creams + my regular powders and mascara purchases. New thing is CC Color correcting Cream (I haven't tried that yet). As the company is from Finland I can find good products with correct shades for pale, nordic skin. They also have good redness eliminator products for reddish couperose skin.

My mistake was to buy a new mascara and I didn't check the tester at all and the result was that the applicator is way too thick and therefor very messy when applying mascara. It reminds me more of a hair worm than a make up tool. I need to pay more attention to the testers next time.

Like two berries; Lumene mascara and a hair worm.

This time's Lumene Kit; Sensitive Touch Daily Moisture Cream, Sensitive Touch Comforting Night Cream, Sensitive Touch Comforting Eye Cream, Lumene Natural Code Skin Perfector Matt Powder, Beauty Base Red Neutralizer Concealer, Natural Code Skin Perfector Shine&Redness Eliminator, Natural Code Eye Dramatizer Volume-Maximisin Mascara (bad purchase), CC Color Correcting Cream

The Moomins

There are certain things I like in Finland, emotional and part of the childhood, nostalgic things. The Moomins are this kind of all time favorite Finnish fairytale characters.

Created by Tove Jansson (1914-2001) a Finnish novelist and artist the first Moomin book was published in 1945. The Moomins are a troll family that are a bit bohemian, loves nature and are very tolerant towards diversity. A very respectful family and a good role model for children. Although Moomin fairytales are for children, many adults also love them. They are so calm, wise and peaceful.

At the airport of Helsinki there are a shop dedicated to all kind of Moomin merchandising; books, clothes, mugs etc. I have only one Moomin mug and just recently my friend gave me a Moomin apron; really sweet pastel apron. This time I bought to my friend the newest mug from the Arabian collection of Moomin mugs as I could't resist the sweet Snork Maiden (Niiskuneiti) getting herself pretty in this pink cup. It reminded me of my friend and that's why she got it as a souvenir.

Tove Jansson's illustration are graphical, I'm really fond of them.

P.S. I just learned today that Tove Janssons's second name was "Marika", oih; Tove Marika Jansson. Marika doesn't really sound a Swedish name as Tove Jansson's family were Swedish-speaking Finnish family, but it is so nice that she had the same name as me. Here in Spain presenting myself as "Marika" provokes always a funny reaction as in Spanish "marica" means gay. Usually I need to repeat my name twice, but afterwards people do remember it.

Monkeys in Helsinki

In July I was visiting Finland and found these lovely monkeys at the airport of Helsinki. I had extensively time to wait my connection flight, so I searched the only restaurant there is to have lunch. Of course the airport is full of expensive cafeterias and take aways as every other airport with their boring and exactly similar offerings, but to have a decent lunch you need to be lucky. In Helsinki every kiosk is offering picnic-sandwiches and at the airport of Barcelona what you find in every cafeteria are the local "bocadillos" (Spanish style ham or cheese white breads). If you wish to have something else you really need to have patience to find a decent restaurant at the airports.

Well, anyway, in Helsinki-Vantaa it is in front of the gate 14; the Restaurant&Cafe Seasons.

This Restaurant&Cafe Seasons was really calm place and had a friendly service. Menu was fine although the proportions were quite mini. I took "fast menu" and the starter caesar salad + the main dish chicken were good, but really in size miniature. Dessert and tea were enjoyable to have with no rush and in a quiet corner.

In the restaurant I especially loved the wallpaper; monkeys on a light blue background. Unfortunately I don't know who is the manufacturer of this funny wallpaper.

Monkeys on the wall and sofa + me killing time at the restaurant.

Banana Moon - made in Monaco (partly)

Lately it has been way too hot here in Barcelona. Absolutely too hot; impossible to do anything in the evenings. The day goes fine working in an air-conditioned office, but the evenings on the street or at "not air-conditioned" home are horrible. You just simply cannot do anything.

But for the weekends its fantastic if you can go to the beach. And even more if you have new bikinis from the summer sales. Already during few summers I have been checking the bikini models of Banana Moon, a swimwear brand from California. This year before heading to the sales I first went to the web page to check which models they have. The bikinis are bright colored Californian surfer style swimwear; I really like them.

This time I was surprised as I found "made in Monaco" -video from the web page, wow, I really didn't know they are producing the goods in Europe. I was pretty sure in their swimwear I would found "made in China" -etiquette  as in so many other (read: all) swimwear brands. A new thing was also that they have added lingerie to their lines, another wow, as almost all lingerie "is made in China". The lingerie looked too girly for me, but maybe on next season they might have something interesting. At least it is worth of remembering, because it is really hard to find any underwear made in Europe.

Well, delighted by the fact they produce in Monaco I went to El Corte Inglés to see if I could find some pretty bikinis and of course I did. In the etiquette though it said "made in Tunisia", so I had to write an email to Banana Moon to verify where they actually produce the goods. Immediately on the next day I had the answer in my inbox: "that the creation / design and cutting fabric on sophisticated machines are made in Monaco and the silkscreen and assembly of the swimwear is made in Tunisia". Tunisia is fine for me as we all are by the Mediterranean sea. Good and fast customer service.

My set of bikinis, all other photos a courtesy of Banana Moon.

HAKEI - good in Spain

A dress from HAKEI has been so far my only purchase from the sales. I could fulfill my desire to buy something mint. Mint has been on my mind since last year, starting with the trousers of Borne by Elise Berger (Feb -12) following by a blazer from HAKEI and continuing as a possible color for a room, but the only real thing I have so far is this dress. It is a 100% linen dress, I'm thinking of having it as an end of summer/beginning of autumn dress.

HAKEI is a Spanish family firm that dates back to 1946. Since then they have designed fashion and leather goods that are mainly produced in Europe, mostly in Spain and Portugal. They do have some clothes made in or imported from China/India, but they are only few, mostly you need to keep an eye on the etiquettes of jerseys if you want to stick to Made in Europe.

I recommend especially their shoes and bags; shoes are chick (and funny) good quality shoes (I own a few pair of them) and the bags have a huge selection of colors. I have no bag yet, but hmmm, that could be a good idea for a possible birthday present in October.

This is my mint linen stripes dress, very freshy. As it is white and the material is light linen it is quite transparent, so I need to invent something to prevent shoving off my panties.

Prado -blazer that has interesting texture and quite curious star button.

An example of different colors in form of a Subi -bag.

Old/New fashion

Everything seemingly fresh might be  incredibly old. Well not old, but already presented in the past.  We know in fashion world everything is recyclable and invented already, but this clever blog shows it clearly. Part Nouveau is a blog hold by a graduate student of fashion history, Lilah Ramzi, and in her own words: "The blog seeks to aid our contemporary eyes, so used to being presented with the newest and latest within the creative world, to recognize and give credit to what has come before."

Art and fashion go hand in hand and sometimes there is a great homage to the original creation and in other moments it might pass to be a plagiation...the line depends many times of the honesty of the creator.

Following few examples are from the blog "Part Nouveau" and there are plenty of more comparisons, so pls have a visit on her blog; it is so interesting!

1955: Audrey Hepburn by Norman Parkinson

2013: Natalie Portman by Tim Walker for Miss Dior Cherie-campaign

1956: a short film "Le Ballon rouge by Albert Lamorisse

2009: Maryna Linchuk by Tim Walker for Miss Dior Cherie -campaign

The lila building in Barcelona

Isn't this pretty, this lila building in the street of Diagonal? My favorite ones in town. There used to be Habitat, the British furniture and decoration company which I also like and regularly visited, but as you can see Habitat has already moved away. What a pity. Now we can only enjoy the Habitat in Plaza Catalunya.

This building is just at the end of C/Enric Granados, so if you go and have Cup&Cake you will definitely see also this lila empty building looking for new inhabitants.