A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm completely done with this grueling semester! Now it's time to sip organic hot chocolate and wait for  grades to come in before I start packing for Taiwan (you should have seen me screaming and jumping up and down like a lunatic when I saw A+ next to Physics :D :D). It has been raining nonstop this week in San Diego, which I find pretty amusing. I wish it would snow here - it'd be so gorgeous on the mountains. Today I also went to Best Buy and convinced the salespeople to take out a brand new Canon Rebel T2i for me to play with. Then I had to give it back : ( I'm incredibly stubborn when it comes to wanting something really bad. I never tell my parents and deny that I want anything every year for Christmas and if they somehow find out and spend the oodles of cash for me, I spend the next year feeling dreadfully guilty. After all, this is no small amount. My dad just commented earlier today while looking at my Disney photos that if I got an SLR, I would get terrible grades. My argument is I could shoot the photos that I'm going to take anyway faster and get back to studying. Logical? Maybe. Rationalizing? You bet.

I was so happy to see my "Sis" after so many years apart. She's so close to me, we're definitely like sisters even in our durrr moments. When we went to Disneyland the day before Thanksgiving, it was my first time and I was still captivated by the magical world of Disney. Turkey legs, churros, and hot chocolate came to save the day because it was super chilly in Anaheim too. She was in Cali for a beauty pageant finals and later she definitely placed. I'm so proud of her! Waiting in line forever was an upside too because we got to catch up on heart-to-hearts after such a long time. Space Mountain ftw! All of the princesses and the Evil Queen especially were so in character. Are they currently hiring for Mulan because I would be there in a heartbeat.

I was good this year, I swear ; )

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Poncho Honcho

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

H&M camel hooded poncho (S) // F21 harem pants (XS) // 
F21 leopard wedge boots (6) // Shopruche leather messenger bag //

Photography: JJ

In a little over 24 hours, I will be home stuffing my face with my parents' amazing homecooking, done with finals, and 63% done with college. Where has this semester gone? I'm a bit sad that SoCal won't have the pretty snow that we get in St. Louis, but I'm thrilled because I won't have to go everywhere looking like an overstuffed marshmallow. It's kind of ridiculous that some people can't go home because of finals until Wednesday. That's 2 days before Christmas D: ... all this time just rushing on by. I'm feeling the effects of time dilation and Lorentz contraction and their inverses and all of a sudden it's almost 2011.

I wore this outfit to the singing contest last last Friday to support my friends and basically this is the look with a poncho over my cropped top. You can't see the harem pants as well this way, so I separated the outfit into two lookbook posts. I absolutely can't get enough of the poncho and would wear it every single day if I could. I'm going through a heavy poncho/capes obsession recently and honestly, who needs arms when you can hide them away inside your cozy top? 

Lightroom update: Finding that clarity, brightness, vibrance, and contrast are usually the things I want to increase the most. These do a ton to bring colour back into washed out photos. Also I want to figure out how people create beautiful light in their photos - the overwash that lightens the entire frame ... PC Vignette Edge Effects 1 and 2. I had to bring out Photoshop CS4 too (must find time to explore with CS5 as well because I hear it's awesome). My skin turns tomato red if I use Direct Positive or Old Polar, but I liked the effect on my clothing so I just magic selection tool'd my face and hands and decreased the vibrance. Over break I hope to sit down with some tutorials and get my BA PS skillz on.

Last but not least, it's a very bold endeavor to instate an everything ban right now, especially during the holiday season. I figure it's time to revamp my closet and experiment with all my old pieces instead of throwing away cash on similar new pieces. In fact, right now I've become quite obsessed with un-shopping and finding ways to scrounge up funds for a nice lens and SLR. Right now I'm eyeing a nice prime lens (Canon EF50mm f/1.4 USM) and the Canon Rebel T2i body. Checked my bank and realized I'm going to have to spend 100 hours+ torturing myself with psych experiments. Anything for the blurrrrrr. Meanwhile, I'm going to be revamping my layout a bit so I can make my pictures even bigger and expand my sidebar too. For now, it's back to memorizing the properties of five million types of channels and toxins that stop them in their tracks.

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250+ Followers Giveaway Winner!

Drum roll ... the winner of my first giveaway is ... 

Jess of Stylepint!

Congrats Jess! Please contact me at pianistwithanaccent [at] gmail [dot] com within 48 hours with your mailing address and I will get your package mailed out to you asap!

Thank you everyone for entering! Stay tuned for future giveaways :D I really appreciate all the feedback you gave about how to improve this blog and what material you would like to see. It seems like fitting room reviews, makeup reviews, daily life posts were popular requests along with fur, nordic prints, casualwear, and all sorts of other trends. I'll try to fulfill each one of the requests eventually and get those posted : )

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Styleta Fashion Night Out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Fridays ago, I went to a fashion show hosted by Styleta, our new fashion student organization on campus. The venue in the DUC Commons had a homey feeling and the girls set up a makeshift walkway right down the middle of the three rows of seats. The yellowish lighting there made my photos grainy but that's okay - Lightroom to the rescue! I owe some of these photos to their Facebook page (credit: Becky Mak) and feel free to check out all of the models and outfits there. I was sad I didn't RSVP in time for a goody bag because they were giving out all sorts of beauty products too. The trunk show immediately after featured a lot of the pieces that the models wore and I nabbed a cool versatile camel sweater seen in a previous outfit post here. 

On the topic of modeling, there were some amazing hidden talent stomping that runway. The pieces varied from flashy dinner party dresses to casual menswear and I couldn't stop staring at the shoes. There was also the adorable fur cape, but then found out it was real fur so I put it back on the rack. Also, those crazy punk hairstyles in the last round were awesome. A lot of work went into this fashion show and I'm hoping to see more of these shows from Styleta in the near future. Whilst I obsess for hours hunting for the perfect SLR and lens I want to save up for ... I'm slowly finding my way around Lightroom. Today I found the "expand tab" button and now I can edit all sorts of fun things. Improvement day by day! PC Vignette 2 is also a fave for making the models the center of attention.

Last but not least, I had the opportunity to interview Yifan, the Style Director at WashU, to learn a little bit more about what Styleta is all about.

What is Styleta and can you give us some history about the organization?

Styleta (www.styleta.org) is an upscale, modernized take on the brick-and-mortar charity store. Our student-run, nonprofit organization offers fashion-savvy consumers the chance to do good while shopping online for discounted designer duds. The concept was born when Styleta’s founder and CEO, Yifan Zhang, witnessed the women on her Harvard College campus throwing out their valuable designer clothing. Few charities focus on high-end fashion donations, leaving these gently-used clothes to fill landfills instead of closets. Styleta has given these donors a place where they know their clothing will go to good use.

For Holiday Season 2010, Styleta will be holding a special “Double Your Impact” online sale to allow customers to double the charitable impact of their purchases. When you spend $20 on a new top, a donor will match $20, so a total of $40 will be donated to help women around the world.

I understand that the WashU Styleta branch is brand new. How have things been going and what events have you hosted so far?

The Wash U Styleta campus started in August of this year, and we have been immensely successful. We have recruited and established a presence on campus, ran a clothing drive, hosted two photoshoots, and presented a large scale fashion show & trunk sale. Our fashion show/trunk sale was completely reserved out, ~160 ppl attended the event and we sold a lot of merchandise at the trunk sale.

What are you goals for Styleta in the near future?

Nationally, we want Styleta to be the go-to place for designer clothing donations. Additionally, we want to expand from 4 operating campuses to over 100. For the branch at Wash U, we'd like to host more charitable, fun events in the future and spread Styleta's influence on campus even more.

What does fashion mean to you personally?

To me fashion is warm boots, colorful winter coats, and pearly bracelets. It is a method of expression.

Give us a highlight of the show from backstage.

Backstage of any runway show is crazy, ours was no different. We had three professional hair/makeup stylists working backstage as well as a number of student stylists. The awesome hair and makeup that defines our three collections were not possible without our stylists. We've also got a lot of volunteers helping backstage, physically helping the models dress during the show since the changing time is so short.

What are some of your favourite pieces of the night?

The last collection, fun/edgy, was my favorite in general. The fur coat outfit was great for me as well as the one with leather pants, white bandeau, and black puffy jacket.

How can interested fashionistas and -istos get involved?

By sending me an email at ymeng@styleta.org! We are always accepting new members to our general body.

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