If you want to brighten your home and are a fan of unconventional design items, you should have a look at Bev Hisey’s new original collection of rugs.

This collection of hand-made rugs is called Dirty Dishes not just because it is a catchy name – the rugs really represent dirty Petri dishes under the microscope.

Bev Hisey’s created eight rounded rugs looking exactly like eight kinds of bacteria and viruses. So you can have a rug in your living room that looks exactly like zoomed E. coli, HIV, cholera, anthrax, flu or SARS. Despite its motive these rugs are elegant, colourful and can fit in every interior.

The collection “Dirty Dishes” is ideal for humorous and witty people who admire contemporary design and are proud of it. Just imagine what your guests will think when you tell them that you have dead bacteria on your carpet!

Are you really fond of shopping? And are you tired of going to the same malls and stores in your city? Then I have some good news for you – the biggest shopping mall in Europe Westfield London is now open!

The biggest place where all the shopping fans can now spend their weekends was built in London and can offer its customers 265 shops and 49 amazing restaurants. You can buy almost everything in Westfield London – a wide range of clothes, jewellery, accessories, cosmetics, books, music, furniture, sport products… Just everything you can think of.

Besides great shopping and culture possibilities this place can offer you wonderful and healthy food which is prepared by michelin starred restaurateurs. So if you want to spend some time with your friends or family, buy something nice and relax for a while, this small town full of stores, supermarkets and great restaurants is the right place for you.

It took four long years to build this amazing shopping centre and I believe that everyone who manages to get to London will certainly enjoy it!

For more information visit UK.Westfield.com

The Little Star is an ideal piece of furniture for those who hate to assembly the furniture on their own. The design of this wonderful table named The Little Star was created by the british designer Ben Huggins nad costs about two hundred pounds on the Internet.

This table makes it really easy for everyone who buys it – you just bring home a box shaped like that one which is used to carry a pizza. When you open it, you find only three triangles and one circle inside.

It takes you only a while to build up your own Little Star, and because of its light-weight construction it is really easy to move the table somewhere else or put it back to the pizza box. It is good just to get inspired, even if you are not going to buy The Little Star:-)

I bumped into several photos that made me feel a lot better:-) So I hope that it will also brighten your day.

Nobody looks perfect twenty-four hours a day, and even celebrities often go out without makeup. It is unbelievable that a lot of girls are suffering from anorexia because of the retouched celebrities in magazines and stars in TV wearing plenty of makeup.

Here you can see that they also look pretty normal like everybody else.

The world of fashion wouldn’t be the same if Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel didn’t invent the little black dress, simple but elegant clothing and learn women to wear trousers.

The biographical film Coco avant Chanel by the director Anne Fontaine wants to show us the beginnings of Coco Chanel’s career, her difficult childhood and what she had to sacrifice to become the timeless fashion icon of all women. Audrey Tautou, the French actress well-known for her wonderful part in Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (Amelie from Montmartre), stars as  Coco Chanel and gives to her part all her French charm and elegance.  The another thing is that Audrey also ubelievably resembles Coco – she has got the same petite figure, black hair and dark eyes. Coco Avant Chanel is meant to be a modest and not ostentatious film – only two camera were used and it was shot only in France in Biarritz and at the castle Millemont.

So if you admire Coco’s style and want to know something more about her attractive but complicated life, the film Coco Before Chanel will not definetely let you down.

Coco Avant Chanel Official Trailer

Summer will be soon over and we should prepare our wardrobes for the hot autumn 2009 trends. This fall will be in token of trends from previous seasons as well as new chic combinations and colours.

First, if you enjoyed wearing leggings this spring and summer, do not throw them away – leggings will be still in. You can combine them with skirts or wear them in place of the pants, and if you want to be really coll, buy a pair of print leggings. As for the skirts, forget about a mini – ideal autumn skirt is knee-length. The colours for fall 2009 stay the same – neutral shades like black, grey, beige and nude tones are traditionally accepted during the fall. But people who want to dazzle will wear trendy colours such as gold, burgundy, pink or scarlet.

Secondly, a lot of fashion designers have also introduced metallic and velvet dress in their collections. But if you are not courageous enough to wear such clothes, there are good news for you – the combination of black and white will propably be hot and trendy forever. Finally, don’t forget to buy some slim pants, a vest, a lot of scarves and a pair of thigh-high boots.

As for the make-up, women traditionally start to use foundation and powder again in autumn which helps to cover the imperfection of the skin. After the summer your skin is often in good condition, so put on a lightweight foundation in order to prepare your complexion for cold weather. For dark-haired women it is ideal to use dark eyeliners and chocolate, bronze or beige hues and blondes will look great if they put on pink or nude colours. Also don’t forget to choose darker shades of your blush.

So that’s it – now we can look forward to fall 2009!:-)

Sources: Nymag.com, About.com

She is beautiful, attractive and unconventional. In her thirties she is one of the most admired woman in Japan. Born as Yuri Ebihara, this woman first studied fine arts at Kyushu Sangyo University, but then was given an opportunity to become a fashion model.

Through the years Ebi-chan managed to gain many exclusive contracts and also appeared in several TV dramas and commercials. She also has a twin sister Eri Ebihara who eventually chose not to become part of the world of fashion.

Recently, Ebichan admitted that she has conquered Japan and now she is ready to “go international”. Will she manage to get among supermodels such as Gisele Bundchen and Kate Moss and turn into the first woman from Asian country to win over the fashion world? I am certainly looking forward to her break-through.

What is the worst thing people still try to wear? And what would you never put on? I was asking these questions silently when I saw a quite handsome young man wearing socks in his sandals. And again when I approached an elderly woman in long summer dress with pink floral pattern, a red handbag and blue hair. Her hair really had a bluish tinge. And she was around sixty. Tell me, does such things happen abroad too, or just in my country?

I meet plenty of handsome men and attractive women every day, but despite the fact they often read fashion magazines and gossip about celebrities’ outfits, many of them can combine ubelievable pieces of clothes. I know that many people would say that the style of clothes you wear don’t matter – that they are happy exactly the way they are. But imagine what we could achieve if we paid attention to our appearance! Everybody wants to look well and smart at work, impress people and feel confidently every day. If you feel comfortably in your clothes, your hair is OK and you don’t have to worry about your dress, you will look more confident, act more assertively and be able to deal with people without loosing your temper. So here are some useful advice:

1) Spare some extra time for yourself in the morning. If you get up 15 minutes earlier, you wouldn’t have to leave your home with a feeling that you didn’t have enough time to choose proper clothes, put on some make-up or that your hair look awful again. If you set off to work knowing that you look nice and your hair is wonderful, you would certainly feel better and you would be more successful at work.

2) Never wear things that are generally considered inappropriate – people judge you according to your outer appearance, unfortunately:-) These things include: socks in sandals, really huge gold jewellery, colour of hair that doesn’t match your skin tone and clothes, too much sunbathing, nice smart dress worn with dirty shoes, too much make-up and perfume, combining too many patterns/ colours together and so on…

3) But don’t forget to be yourself – nobody will like you even if you looked exactly like Madonna or Jennifer Aniston:-)

So I’m looking forward to your ideas and comments – what is the worst thing to wear? And do you experience in the streets of your town something I do?:-)

I’ve been thinking about a new topic for this blog and when I was browsing several sites about fashion trends, I bumped into a picture of really crazy shoes from Japan. I thought: “How can women wear something like this, for heaven’s sake?”

I practically never wear high heels (even though I often write that these shoes are sexy and can perfectly shape your legs … blah blah:-) But I know that when I wear them, I feel tired and my feet hurt after a while – so why should I ruin a nice evening by suffering from painful and swollen feet? A week ago I went to my boyfriend’s graduation ceremony which took place in a theatre, so I was supposed to wear something formal. I decided to “suit up”:-) and wear my beautiful red dress which I had at a ball once.

I knew that high heels would be perfect and that I’m about 30 centimetres shorter than my boyfriend so I wouldn’t look like a dwarf next to him, but my favourite ballerinas shoes won my inner battle again. I didn’t look higher and my legs weren’t as sexy as they would be if I put on high heels, but I felt relaxed and comfortable.

So there are some photos of the craziest shoes in the world – but do not try to find inspiration here, it’s really just for fun:-)

Barbie doll is celebrating the 50th anniversary. Unfortunately. From my point of view, this terrible doll should have been banned many years ago but it sells so much money that no company wants to turn its profit down.

When I was a small girl, I used to own few barbies but I didn’t play with them so much.  I would always think: “Why are they so thin and beautiful?” I didn’t like the fact that they are all the same – good looking, happy, wearing fashionable clothes. And nowadays it all seems worse to me when I read articles about Barbie syndrome and look at photos of Cindy Jackson, who after countless plastic surgeries resembles big Barbie doll. I read about girls’ desires to have a physical appearance of the famous Barbie.

In recent years some people began to draw attention to the fact that Barbie’s body image is unrealistic and that it can bring young girls on anorexia or bulimy. From Wikipedia.org: “A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale. Barbie’s vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips). According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.” If a Barbie was a real woman, she wouldn’t be able to have babies or even walk because of her waist. Barbie’s waist has been widened recently but in my opinion her appearance is still unacceptable.

If you read something about Barbie’s history, Barbie’s fashion style, Barbie syndrome or how to become a Barbie, you might get desperate and angry exactly as I did. And then you can become an Antibarbie.