Victory for Karen Walker

Just listed on mycatwalk and sold out within a day, am very glad (and smug) that I checked out their new stock as soon as I got that email yesterday, as I'd hate to have missed out on this gorgeous tee! The namesake tee of her current southern hemisphere AW'07 Victory Garden collection, it bears the skyrocketting carrot which features in a neat little animation on the splash page of her collection's website.

Graphic prints have often been a feature of Karen's past collections, and this season even more so, with vegetable faces upon singlets, stripes across long sleeved slouchy tees, and spaceward pointing arrows following the trail of that carrot amongst the stars. Speaking of stars, I love this Starry Cardigan of hers too; but at $430 it's not likely to be leaving shop shelves quite as quickly as that carrot shot off, and unfortunately even more unlikely to find itself on my closet shelves.

The pants in her collection are of four widely differing styles - tights, knickerbockers, drop-crotch carrot (!) pants, or wideleg lightweight denim. Scanning over her rows of thumbnails, one thing stands out - volumes of volume. Size, like that carrot, is everywhere, in the puffy knickerbockers with frilled cuffs; the paperbag skirt sitting like a pleated lampshade mid-thigh over models' twiggy legs, her 60's shaped tunic dresses or puff sleeved swing coat layered over slouchy tees and wideleg pants. A familiar shape is present in her Alice coat here for a second ride in the capsule, reincarnated in chocolate this time and already in stock at glamourpussprincess for $517.


Fellow Australian online boutique ozdesigner have also received a small supply of the new Karen Walker stock today, including the Cross Front Dress - her version of every designer's staple this winter, the knit dress - and the cute Caterpillar Necklace, which featured heavily in her NY SS'07 show last week. Although not big on price, it's certainly much larger than those dainty silver pendants we've been wearing!

And no, I don't know what the thing is with the carrots. Perhaps she's pushing the contrast between such down-to-earth things as humble vegetables and their lepidopteran friends being a part of the most recent antipodean collection of her high-flying career to date, but they're not altogether completely new motifs for her. Both carrot and caterpillar have already long been immortalised in sterling silver, along with such other rudimentaries of the garden variety as the humble watering can, peas, and Granddad's prize crysanthemums. Humble though her cabbage patch muses may be, the success of her current collections both locally and in NY foretell a career set to be little short of stellar.

Alphabetiffany's

Not being the girliest of XX chromosome bearing humans around, I'm mildly bemused by my attraction to these cute little Tiffany & Co. padlock charms. They're available in every letter of the alphabet, and may be worn as a pendant, snapped onto a charm bracelet, or used as a bag charm. Would make a nice present, I suppose; though more childish sorts amongst us (and you know who you are!) may derive purile pleasure from simply spelling their names (or other words you may not find in the dictionary) in their perpetually overpriced sterling silver..

Andrea Brueckner

I've been a fan of Andrea Brueckner's handbags for a good year or so now.. my love affair began not with her wildly popular Saddle Bags (though yes, I did in time jump upon that horse too) but her classically styled Hamptons range. Crafted from full grain leather, these are the kind of travelling bags that would not look out of place stacked upon the back of a dusty cart, or sitting on the leather back seat of a 1930's Buick. I had to have one, and being a bag worth keeping I'd have been a fool to have not bought the larger size, too - something easily justified on a cost-per-use basis when they'll be used forever!

My next AB range purchase was a medium black Saddle Bag, made in such wonderfully soft and slouchy woven-look embossed leather that I decided I must have more of it, and have been desperately trying to track down a Vegas Bucket Bag in brown for the last few months. The tone of the tan and brown leathers used is so rich and delicious that even after months of thinking about it and considering other bags, I still always come back to wanting this one.. a very good sign, I feel, when there are just so many thousands of other bags out there now. Being the stingy sort that I am though, I'm patiently waiting for those I do know of to go on sale, or for one to pop up on ebay for a pittance. Masterful at finding online deals, I remain quietly confident I'll get one in the end.

In the meantime, I've been busy ogling Andrea's newest collection. Her Spring '07 range went up on her website last month, and is rather a radical departure from her previous works. Based upon two main styles, the Luxembourg and Marias, the looks of both are far cleaner and simpler than their predecessors, and unlike many other designer collections are available in quite a wide range of materials and colours.

Luxembourg range:

The Luxembourg range is my favourite, for both it's casual clean lines, and the soft washed leathers used. For a spring range the available colours are quite autumnal, but they suit the style perfectly and will work especially well with neutral clothing. A stronger look is present in the crackle patent options - I think the Luxembourg Satchel looks fantastic in this leather, and in both the large and mini size would make for a bag capable of taking you from work to play with style.

Marais range:

The Marais range has to me a more vintage feel, and features the antiqued brass chain strap from the Hamptons Clutch and the Raw Edge bag of previous collections. The stand out of this trio is the Marais Hobo Bag, an tidied and updated hobo shape that in the striking look-at-me Poppy colour will have heads turning and cars stopping for it's brilliant traffic light red.

Marked for a higher price point than her previous collections, this spring's bags will be facing some stiff competition from not only other mid-range design houses, but also the markedly improving handbag ranges of such department store retailers as Banana Republic. Whilst many designers have embraced the softer styling of washed leather bags recently, weighing heavily in AB's favour are her wide range of material options for each bag, and the more unique styling of using vintaged-look leather whilst still avoiding the usual battered, scruffy feel of such bags.

"Reunited, and it feeeeels so gooooood..!!"

On the 21st I had an appointment with my Doc to reassess my ability to drive post-op. A week after the last operation to remove the top screw from my bone, I had a phone call from his surgery telling me that I couldn't drive anymore until a review, due to changes in legislation regarding people like me with metal in their legs! No one had told me this, and up until the phone call I'd been driving since January, when my surgeon in Toowoomba had told me I could start trying to put some weight on my leg bit by bit. Once I could walk with use of one crutch as a walking stick, I'd had MrFrankie drive me to a parking lot, and practiced some emergency stops at speeds up to 80kmh. No problem, so off I'd gone on my merry way, beep beep. Apparantely if I'd had an accident, my fault or not, I'd have automatically been at fault since I officially shouldn't have been behind the wheel at all, and then of course all insurance claims would have been void. Thankfully nothing had happened, and I only stuck to driving within town anyway, under the 50kmh limit, but the thought of having crashed our new car with no cover is hideous. Thanks for the heads-up, Docs!

Aaanyway, backstory explained, I had a review on Wed. I was planning on using the appointment as an opportunity to show Doc how much I'd been working on the leg, and how much progress I'd made, as the other problem I had was that he'd only allowed me a 2 hours a day maximum for light duties!! His reason? That he didn't want me sitting behind a desk all day. Meanwhile, of course, here I am slouched on the couch at home anyway, surfing the net and not earning money. Of course I could do more hours than that - I've been swimming and gymming more than 95% of able bodied folk in town since the day after I got the cast off, I could handle sitting at a desk or doing some filing!

So I trotted in there, sans-stick, and proceeded to show off all my reclaimed legabilities. It must have been like watching a one-clown show.. I did a one legged calf raise; walked forwards, lifting off my heel; moonwalked backwards; wrote the alphabet with my ankle; and told him about my 2.5km stroll on Sunday. Ta-daaaa! Duly impressed, Doc asked if I'd seen signs that my bones were rejoining (had I?! Lol. See previous post..), so I showed him my newly deformed bone bumps, and.. he sent me off for an xray!!! YEEHARRRRR! I was so excited.. as posted previously, I've been dying to see how they're looking, and so curious to know whether the external signs and symptoms I've endured have actually been for good reason.

The answer? YES!

The first in each pair of xrays were taken on the 12th of February; the second of each were taken on the 21st March, 3 weeks after the removal of that top interlocking screw there. You can see that the half centimetre gap between the tibial bone ends has closed, and if you look carefully you can see that the top of the tibial nail is now that half centimetre closer to the top of the bone!







I'm so, so happy with the progress.. all the work I've been doing on the leg - not just all the gymming and swimming, but the all-the-time kind of work, like walking off my heel, doing calf raises whilst seated on the computer, calf raises at the kitchen bench whilst making coffee - it's all paid off, and I'm stoked. Given that the last option if this hadn't have worked was a lovely little operation in which part of my fibula was removed and thrown away, and a wire was threaded down the middle of the titanium nail inside my bone, hooked onto the ankle, and then my leg yanked hard to close the gap.. well, let's just say I'm very very happy not to be facing that anymore!

Doc reckons I can now be allowed to work 6 hours a day, and can also drive again, both personally and for work. Oh yes, I am a Very Happy Frankie!

Shrinking pains

I've not talked about myself or my leg on here for a bit, as since starting Frankie's Fitness Files I've pretty much been putting all that health and fitness, day-to-day type stuff over there, so it's about time for an update.

My leg's been progressing really well since getting that top screw taken out. Those terrible pains I was getting when I stepped too heavily or tried standing only on that leg have faded away, though if I do something silly (like kick a large wooden sleeper whilst stumbling around in the pitch blackness of a friend's garden to feed his dogs whilst away) it is certainly back in a [blinding] flash. I've been working on increasing my ankle and calf strength in that leg by making sure I lift my heel off the ground when I walk - before this, I was limping on that leg flat-footed, as even with the aid of a stick I had too little strength / too much pain to lift off that heel. Now I've gotten to the point where I can walk a long way (4km) with the stick and lift my heel the whole time, and without the stick I could walk unaided and limpless just around the house.

This morning I made quite a big progress point: I took Harvey on a 5km walk, and from the halfway point walked all the way home with my stick on my shoulder (except for the odd steep downhill), lifting my heel! My leg, especially the lower portion, became quite fatigued towards the end so I stretched at regular intervals and of course wasn't exactly challenging any land speed records, and I got home tired but feeling great. HURRAH!

After the walk, I still had no problems, but all at once this afternoon my leg seemed to have reached the conclusion that it was, in fact, quite aggrieved by all this morning's activities, and proceeded to press charges. I developed sudden pains in my lower leg, radiating down from the fracture site towards my ankle, and there's some swelling and redness there too. The pains come and go in waves, and can be quite intense, though not at all sharp - they're that deep, aching bone ache to which I've become so accustomed. The same bone ache of growing pains, except for my case of course they're shrinking pains!

Now it might sound a bit alarming, but despite being so much more intense than usual, I'm sure that all this is a sign that what my surgeon had hoped would happen with the screw removal is actually now occurring. The top half of that broken bone, no longer pinned to the rod inside it, is now slipping down the rod under my weight to become closer to the bottom half. This of course is causing the inflammatory response at the fracture site, as the broken ends get closer together. I'm dying to see my next xray to see just how much movement has actually occurred, but have another 3 weeks to wait yet.

In the meantime, I'm happily in pain! What an odd thing it is, after years of watching out for signs of training injuries and hoping of course that they never occur, to be so happy to be feeling pain.

Browser window shopping

Oh the agonies of being on a spending ban.

I recently deleted the Topshop website from my massively over-populated "Shopping" bookmarks tab due to it's inordinate propensity to diminish my bank account. However, after chatting with a fellow Aussie TFS member regarding the high street delights of said store, I've succumbed to my over-evolved hunter/gatherer urges and have visited the devil website again.

Fool.

Cap Sleeve Swing Jacket - £40


Toucan Print Oversized Tee - £12


70's Floral Print Tunic - £28


Slouchy Hooded Jumper - £35


Unique Wideleg Trousers - £70


Sleeveless Blouse by Boutique - £35


Peeptoe Leather Slingback Wedge - £45 ... And in grey.


Border Print Tunic - £28


Oversized Mac - £55

Ohhh, the humanity! *frantically pushes command-Q to avert fiscal disaster*

Something beginning with K..

My beady little eye has spied the new winter '07 collection of Sydney fashion designer Kate Hurst, and I likes what I sees.

Very simple in colour and style, to me it very much has a London mod feel to it. Variations on shift dresses and tunics comprise most of the collection, with the odd pinafore and gathered skirt thrown in for good measure. It looks infinitely wearable and a cinch to mix and match.

What would have otherwise remained a very dull, wintry palette is sparked up here and there with patterned tights and shifts, leopard print, and the odd monochromatic tartan check to keep things interesting.

Although with this range she seems to have fallen instep with many of the existing trends to have hit Australia following the Northern Hemisphere's winter season - tunics and tights being the major players - I think hers has enough play and individuality in design to remain distinct from the chain-store versions. Obligatory 80's-throwback is present in the Moneypenny dress.. as someone who was present the first time around, it's great to see my beloved ra-ra skirt has finally grown up!

My favourites? The high-waisted, full-skirted Dove skirt; the clean, simple black Brighton Anorak; and of course Ms. Moneypenny.

View Kate's entire I Spy collection here, at http://katehurst.com/

Alice McMall

I've been waiting impatiently for new stock to arrive at Australian online boutique ozdesigner.com all year, as despite being a fantastic store they're once again characteristically slow to update. However, now that their first shipment of new season's stock has made it to their website it's unfortunately really not worth waiting for.

First up is a release of Alice McCall's latest creations, the Aussie designer best known for the odd nice piece, such as her famous Love is a Drug dress, but who for the most part creates over-worked dresses and seperates in some pretty horrific prints with an equally horrendous price tag to match. After viewing much of her summer collection from behind the safety of dark glasses, I'd pretty much come to the conclusion that she must be feeling pretty darn safe in her position at the top of the Australian fashion food chain after the success of her LIAD last year. Clearly she now feels she can churn out whatever ugly 70's wallpaper prints she likes, as the mob-effect of hundreds of frantic Voguettes trying to out-shop each other would guarantee payment on her mortgage within one day of their first rabid pre-order stampede.

Now that the first drop of her new wares are up on ozdesigner, my suspicions are sadly confirmed. Behold, ye ugly nappy bag of cheap striped cotton.

Doesn't look like $190 worth, does it? Well, that be because it's not. Although should you like the teatowel look and have $320 to throw away, you can have the matching heels..

I'm wondering if she'll pop out a frilled apron to match. Moving onto the rest, let's not forget the obligatory printed tee on very thin looking cotton for $110 - seemingly a must for most designer collections recently ,and a nice way to get a lot of money for, well, nothing that would have cost more than $10 to produce:

Australian fashion has come a heck of a long way recently, especially in the last five years, and whilst for the most part I absolutely love our antipodean styles I do think that once some design houses reach success they get carried away and start to take the piss with it. What I mean is that they seemingly give up on the quality, and focus on quantity.. cut a corner here, send manufacturing contracts to China there.. update an old style with a little snippet of lace there on the back pockets, and whack an extra $30 onto the price tag for the nothing extra (hello, Bass and Side).

I'd say Australian fashion crowd are extremely loyal and patriotic when it comes to supporting their home teams - look at the massive success of Tsubi and Lover in recent years - but when the design houses put out rubbish like this with bigger and bigger still price tags each season and expect shoppers to snap them up, they're taking the piss. Should we mullets buy cheap rubbish in the blind expectation that "it's so-and-so label, therefore it must be fashionable and coveted, therefore I NEED it", then the designers will make for us cheap rubbish.

Personally, I won't be spending my hard earned $200 on a fabric bag that looks like it came from the $2 shop of my local mall.

One little piggy that won't be going to market..

The Chinese Year of the Pig has brought this pig farmer more than he ever expected with his most recent litter. Xi An, a newborn piglet from the northwest Chinese province of Shannxi, was born with two snouts and three eyes, making him potentially the truffle-snuffling equivalent of a golden goose!

Take That, Robbie!

Interesting switch in the UK record scene lately.. reformed boy band Take That have reunited and promptly risen to the top of the UK charts after a decade-long absence from the record store shelves. Their new single, Patience, and album, Beautiful World, have topped not only both the single and album charts, but are also the most downloaded single and album, with their DVD making it to the top of the DVD charts, too.

The first band ever to top all five UK charts in the same week, their success must be especially bitter to poor Robbie Williams.. after declining their request to rejoin them as a group, they are now top of their game whilst he is once again hit rock bottom, currently in rehab for prescription drug abuse.

More bad news for Robbie - EMI are reporting a massive 15% drop in profits this financial year, and blaming their poor performance on the American market for this; a report widely believed to reflect Mr Williams abject failure to woo the Yankee fans with his cheeky British style. I bet they're sorely regretting the $80M advance they paid him 5 years ago, and I wonder if Robbie is regretting tempting fate with this little line from his past single "Kids"..

"Single-handedly raising the economy
Ain't no chance of the record company dropping me.."

Wheee!

I feel really good this morning, and I'm glad I started my fitness blog last night. Now I have somewhere to prattle on about all those kinds of things, without fear of being boring and clogging up this blog.

I'm surprised I feel so good, actually. I had a shitty night last night, and in the end felt so down and flat that I had to take a Stilnox to actually get some sleep. Sleep, however, is a wondrous thing of renewal and refreshment, and today I'm bright as a bright thing. I hope my energy continues on through the day, I have so much to do. As mentioned yesterday the place is a tip, though most worryingly Mt Laundry's unsustainable growth has reached Critical Mass, and hourly now I hear the ominous rumble of some clothing item or other succumbing to the almighty force of gravity and snowballing back down the slopes. I must address this situation of slovenliness; I must make a contingency plan:

To do today, Frankie:

• Hang gym gear up so that you have something to post about in the fitness blog later
• Don protective clothing and tackle the rest of Mt Laundry
• Dig up tax stuff - yes, I've not done my tax yet for last year. Please, for the love of God, don't tell Brazen..
• Walk Harvey later on at dusk. It's the only time I can go out in summer without fear of my shoes melting into the earth.
• Drink plenty of water.. I used to drink something like 3L daily, and I've grown lazy and stopped. Must start again.

I made a Livejournal today, because I was wondering how it compared to Blogger. My LJ is here, though I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. Maybe I'll think about that later too, if I have time / can be arsed.

Frankie's Fitness Files

I've created a new blog, Frankie's Fitness Files, to track and chart my progress in regards to all verbs sweaty in my life. Expect an exciting series of what-I've-done's and what-I've-eats [sic], a daily diary of calorific intake and expenditure.

The fitness side of things is a big part of my life, and it made sense to keep it wholly seperate from this blog, which is.. well.. I guess everything else. More train of thought, this one, whereas the other is all training.

There's not much there yet, but I'll be working on it very much over the next couple of days, as I've tons of backstory to add on there.

My sessile subsistence..

For someone with supposedly so much energy and love of exercise, I've not done a hellofa lot this morning. So many good intentions to be doey; to work out, do the cleaning, tackle the snow-capped Mt Laundry in the corner of my bedroom, and to walk Harvey.. yet strangely, no action.

My arse has been so long resident upon this couch I'm afraid one may before long consume the other, and since for once I've not consumed the equivalent of a small African nation's daily calorific intake in baked beans on toast, it may be the couch that finally prevails. MrFrankie may return from being male and tinkering with his dirtbike down below in his cave to find me almost swallowed whole by our big sofa, unthinkingly chosen for it's lovely soft smooshiness a year ago, without foresight that said smooshiness might one day spell my doom. If I close my eyes and sit still, I can feel myself sinking farther and farther into it's mushroomy depths, and the soft cushion's sides creeping up the side of my thighs and around from my back, engulfing me and resisting my escape, macrophage style.

If my couch were an animal, it would be Jabba the Hutt, only less slimy and sweaty looking.

Flossie #2

We sold Flossie on Saturday. Quite sad, but had to make the choice to move on and so best to get it over with.

If dirtbiking were my be-all-and-end-all, I'd have kept her and gotten back on the horse, so to speak, but with this leg I just can't risk it happening again. If I'd kept her and kept on riding, there's no way I'd not have another accident, and I don't want to go through this again. My main recreational goal remains my running, and so getting back into that as soon as possible is pretty much everything I'm concentrating on right now.

I still want to get out there though, and loved going riding through the bush trails, so instead I'm going to get into mountain biking! It is something I've thought of before, but having the dirtbike back then there wasn't enough time I suppose to consider getting a bike and fitting that into my life too. Trail riding will be fantastic fun and will still give me the thrills I took up dirtbiking for, only (hopefully) the crashes won't hurt so much. Sure, I can still do some damage, but with the pushbike weighing less than a tenth what the Yamaha did, the odds are a touch more in my favour!

I've sussed out what I want, and am going for the Trek Performance Hardtail 6000. It's an entry level performance off-roader, so nothing more than I need or will appreciate, but will give a great ride and also be reliable and tough. We've no massive downhills here, I don't need anything too specialised, but it's exciting to be starting a new sport and to see where it takes me. I started running last April out of the blue, and that rapidly became a new obsession for me. I wonder if biking will be the same?

Gggffpfhpspskrhrhrlaskjdhjghtttffhh!!!

After my operation on Monday, the surgeon told me to go back to using crutches to get around on, and gradually return to weight bearing on my broken leg as tolerated. Me being me, I just carried right on as I was: limping away on my sore leg with the support of Bernard, my walking stick, and resorting to crutches only when it got to the point where it was either that or crawl.

The problem isn't so much the pain from the operation site (though the inch-long wound in my skin and the screw-long hole in my bone sure don't tickle), but from the top of the nail inside my bone. With the top screw gone, my tibial bone now bearing my weight will bit-by-bit slide down over the rod and so causes the new pain I feel. This is deep inside my knee, below my patella and roughly level with the top of my tibia, where the top of the rod is butting upwards inside the bone.

Everytime I step or slip heavily onto that leg, I get such a sharp jolt of pain it makes my eyes water and vision tunnel away into greyness, and I have to sit or stand still until the cold sweat fades away. There's nothing worse than bone pain. The first day after the operation I could barely even stand on both legs or I'd get this pain; every day since then it's tolerance has gradually improved, and until 10 minutes ago this morning I was walking around almost like I was last week, which felt fantastic. However I should have known that pulling on jean shorts whilst standing only on that leg was asking for trouble..

As per my diet post last night I'd planned to go to the gym this afternoon and see how my leg likes the exercise bike, but now that I've just jolted my leg again like this I might give it a rest. Dammit! Well, either that or I could take a couple of Panadeine Fortes, play Pink Floyd on my Pod and float through my session.

Four-letter word.

D-i-e-t.

Wash my mouth out and stand me in the corner, I just said a four-letter word out loud. Diet. Blasphemy.

But there it is, I've said it. I've been meaning for the last 3 months to go on a diet and shift the fat I've gained since breaking my leg in November, but it's somehow never eventuated. I don't even have a lot to lose, only 3kg or so, you'd think it would be easy. Just 'eating right' for a couple of weeks, working out everyday, easy peasy. Only two weeks. I mean, look at those poor bastards on The Biggest Loser, these people have twice my body weight in fat to lose, and all I have to do is stop shovelling chocolate down my cakehole for a fortnight. Yet somehow, every single time I've tried to do this I've sabotaged myself and failed.

Most frequently my failure is due to the 'TimTam Syndrome'; you have one biscuit, there, you've fucked it. Ruined your diet, sent your bsl skyrocketting.. you fat cow, you may as well go right ahead and eat the whole pack now, and start again tomorrow. Doh! I find too that the same principle applies to my training: If I don't train in the morning, I don't start the day right, and often end up just cruising through the day without paying attention to how much and how often I eat, and then usually skip the afternoon exercise option, too. I find overall that the more I exercise, the better my eating is, though this is hard to maintain for a long time before having a 'break' for a day (which usually also entails succumbing to TimTam Syndrome).

I've had a disruptive week for training due to going away for my op and the travelling, but tomorrow morning will go to the gym and get back into it. I need to plan my meals out ahead of time to make sure I eat every 3 hours and don't go overboard with the carbs, so that even if I can't do too much on the exercise bike at the gym because of my leg I won't be too high on the intake. By using the Aussie Bodies website last year to calculate my goal PCF (protein, carb, fat) values for my average days' intake, I found that I was eating far too many carbs so this is something I watch out for now.

I don't know that I want to fill this blog up with my daily eats and workouts, but I wanted to post this up anyway to make it more 'official' that I'm focusing on this. Maybe I'll make a workout blog, something seperate to this one. Anyway, in the meantime I'm going to read my Oxygen and running magazines to go get my interest in working out back on track. I still miss running so much even though it's been over 14 weeks now since breaking my leg, and it's hard to take my training seriously until I can run again. It just feels like I'm biding time until I'm properly back into it, and as though it's not as worthwhile. I think if I could change my attitude to what I'm doing and convince myself that I'm starting again as of now - not when I can walk properly, not even when I can try running again, but right now - then perhaps I could stay on track for once.

Where's that bag?

Following on from his incredibly successful Astor Satchel range of a few seasons ago, Michael Kors has seemingly released a new drawstring version of the Astor.. but to a select few only. I say seemingly as they are as yet unavailable at any stores, online or high street, and the only evidence of their existance are these fashion show backstage shots. The new version has an open top which partially closes when carried as the drawstring closure cord also functions as the bag's straps. A lighter version of the satchel, my favourite feature is the metal keychain accessory in the shape of the original Astor bag.

His original Astors in the Weekender size were seen dangling precariously from the bony shoulders of just about every model last winter, the gifts a clever marketing ploy by the designer to get his wares out there and seen on the A-list fashion set. He seems to be up to the same trick again with the new addition to the Astor family; meanwhile, the rest of us common folk must (im)patiently await their release to major stores later this year before we can get our hands on one.

For the purists among you, the original Astor Satchel in the rare Weekender size has now been re-released and is available on the Michael Kors online store for US$450. This more popular but hard-to-find size fits everything you would ever need for a long day or quick stopover, and unlike the smaller Large sized satchel the straps on this big sister version easily fit over the shoulder. This is my go-to bag; when nothing else looks right or (more often than not!) I simply can't be bothered thinking over my outfit, this one works with anything I wear.

Why I eyes ya..

New model Masha, from Women's Paris agency, is the latest 'alien' model to hit the catwalks, and is scoring attention as much for her coltish frame as for those massive Bambi eyes.




She reminds me of those 'Evolve to TDK' ads, with the photoshop-enhanced eyes supposedly large enough to take in all their new technology. Spot the difference?


Someone check this girl's thyroid!