FBFF Spring Trend

This weeks topic for Fashion and Beauty Friend Friday is Spring Trend.
What are the top 5 Spring trends that you are looking forward to seeing/sporting this season? (Can be anything from makeup, shoes, accessories, clothing, etc..)

What an excellent topic. With all the beautiful summery weather we have been having I am definitely feeling in the mood for wearing some spring and summer clothes. Just hoping it is going to hang around for a bit longer. For me Spring and summer is mainly about bright colours as you will see from my favourite trends.

At number one of my favourite spring trends has got to be stripes. I love the bold and bright Prada stripes but I also love the more classic Breton stripes that seem to be still hanging around from last summer. Most of all I love mixing stripes with other patterns.

Which leads me nicely onto my second favourite trend for the spring pattern mixing. Again this is not really a trend that is particularly new for this spring (are any of them?), it has been bubbling away for some time now. It was clearly evident in one way or another at a number of the shows including D and G, Moschino Cheap and Chic, Alexander McQueen (which featured patterns withing patterns), Marc Jacobs, Prada, Miu Miu, Kenzo, Philosophy Di Alberta Ferretti and Chanel. I just love the bright and boldness of this trend and the way it is so cleverly done. You can also create your own individual look within this trend.

At number three, has to be bright floral patterns. Another trend that seems to come back year after year. For this spring and summer there were lots of really bright florals on the catwalk so hopefully there will be plenty around in the shops. I am also pretty sure that I will have some lying around in my wardrobe from previous years.

Number four on my list is colour blocking. This was most obvious at Jil Sanders but also lots of other shows. This is another great trend for DIYing and you can easily adapt it to create your own look. I like to try and adapt it to fit in with the types of clothes that suit me so leggings, long tops, cropped jackets and cardigans. I also love this trend as it gives me the chance to wear all my favourite colours at once.

With so many colourful favourites for spring, I think it is only fair to give my eyes (and those around me) a break. White is my final favourite trend if you can call it that. I specifically like the floaty, lacy, sporty and sheer whites which were almost everywhere for the shows. I couldn't really choose between them as I loved them all.

What are your favorite spring trends?

You can check out lots of other FBFF posts here on Modly Chic .

All images from elleuk.com

Florals For Men

I have finally managed to get Mr Style Eyes to wear florals. He has fairly set opinions on certain things in life, one being that that men should not wear florals. I think think the fact that the pattern is in black and it has an underlying stripe making this shirt a striped rather than a floral shirt might have swung it on this occasion and he has actually admitted to liking his new floral shirt.

The floral shirt was very kindly sent by Blue Inc and I believe that the textured black pattern is called 'flocking'. It is available in both a black and white stripe (like this one) or black and grey stripe. It kind of reminds me of wall paper (in a good way). It looks equally good with a pair of jeans or slightly smarter black trousers. I love it and think it definitely adds a bit of style to his almost pattern free wardrobe. I will just have to make sure he doesn't wear it in the same day as I wear a full on floral print dress or we may look a bit much.

What do you think to men wearing florals- yay or nay?

Ceri X

Clocks spring forward - SS10 trends floral

It's officially summer time (sort of). I was woken up this morning by a small child wanting cuddles. Before I had the chance to say it is my turn for a lie in, Mr Style Eyes, reminded me that although my clock said 5am, it was actually 6am, at which point I gave in and got up. On the down side, I have been pretty tired all day, on the plus side, I got time for a bit of early morning outfit planning. I know, very sad, but it beats watching Dora the Explorer for the hundredth time.

Anyway today's outfit was is part of my No More Wants Challenge, where I create looks for SS10 using clothes already in my wardrobe. It is however a bit of a cop out as florals are always in fashion in spring and summer. I wanted to try wearing this dress in a slightly different way to the way I wore it for the whole of last summer so I tried wearing it with snake skin tights which freak me out ever so slightly as they make my legs look like snakes. I then tried a few different cardigans/ jackets. I am not sure if I can carry off the pale sort of colours of the dress with the grey jacket and it does make my hips look even larger but I like the contrast of feminine and grey casual. I couldn't resist trying with the pink cardi, one of my favourite colours.

Dress - New Look

Tights- Next

Shoes - Marks and Spencers

Grey jacket - Next

Pink cardigan - Fenn Wright Manson

SS10 Trend - Pattern Mixing

I have been playing around with pattern mixing for a few seasons now, so I was delighted to see so many examples on the catwalk for SS10 that I could use as inspiration. From real clashes to more subtle combinations, I love them all. I think it is something about the busyness of this look that I love. It is also, the perfect trend for my next No more wants challenge as I have plenty of patterned pieces in my wardrobe. I particularly love the pattern mixing at Kenzo, Rodarte and Dolce and Gabanna. I don't think there are any wrongs or rights with pattern mixing and I don't think there is any science to it, it is just a case of try and see.

At Dolce and Gabanna

At Proenza Schouler

At Rodarte

At Marc Jacobs

At Alexander Wang (quite subtle - look at the shoes)

At Dries Van Noten

At Kenzo

At DKNY

As this is such a huge and extensive trend, I had lots of outfits that I was going to make, but as usual I ran out of time, my camera battery ran out and I ended up with just 2 outfits for now - excuses, excuses. I have been dying to try out a combination of polka dots and florals for some time. I am not sure how wearable this outfit is as the polka dot dress has a lining and it is difficult to stop the different layers riding up, but I love the combination of patterns.

Polka Dot Dress - Marks and Spencers

Floral dress - New Look

Shoes - ASOS

Bag - An old cream satin bag decorated with mauve and silver nail varnish

The next outfit was definitely inspired by the mixture of tie dye and plaid/ check at Rodarte. I bleached the black top to get this interesting orange and black effect that reminds me of tie dye. I loved the effect so much, I was tempted to bleach everything in my wardrobe (I didn't luckily).

Top - second hand black top - bleached

dress - Oasis

Tights - Dorothy Perkins

Boots - Topshop

Necklace - present
scarf (tied around waist) - a present
catwalk pictures from http://www.style.com/

Eclectic Layering

I was browsing through the new Spring collection on the ASOS website, when I came across a trend described as eclectic layering. I have been experimenting with pattern mixing and layering for some time and was interested to see their take on this look. Unfortunately, they didn't give much in the way of actual examples just lots of different pieces that could be layered in an eclectic way. Their description is 'mixing and matching different influences from heavy reworked denim to soft chiffons and light sweats' They had some very lovely floral pieces that I can really picture as part of a layered ensemble but of course, I am not shopping at the moment and I already have some florals in my wardrobe.

I have however spotted some great versions of eclectic layering on the catwalk which I will be a starting point or inspiration for so many spring and summer outfits. I was tempted to put together an outfit for this trend, but actually there were so many possibilities, it made my head spin. I do however think that eclectic layering will feature in many outfits for other trends as it features so many different trends e.g florals, chiffon, safari, tribal prints, polka dots, stripes, sheers, layering and the so the list goes on..

At Alexander Wang

At Ralph Lauren

At Peter Pilotto

At Paul Smith

At Meadham Kirchkof

At Fendi

At Dolce and Gabbana

At Christopher Kane

At 3.1 Phillip Lim

catwalk pictures from www.style.com