zanerobe crafts first eyewear collection

we love our zanerobe and their new eyewear collection has spunk and life - the perfect addition to any summer outfit. if you're anything like me, you're simply bursting at the seams waiting for summer to roll around, so spoil your inner shopper with this collection and you won't be disappointed!

click here to flick through the lookbook and here to see the full collection.

happy shopping pretties! xx

On Sale: Konstantina Mittas for Sportsgirl

Australian designer wares by Konstantina Mittas are now heavily reduced – her featured Capsule Collection is a girly-girly style with a glam-rock edge. Get ready to dress like a bold and brave fashion muse with this unformidable collection.

To read this article and others written for 2Threads, click here.

sambag surprise pop-up store

SAMBAG, the destination of the savvy and chic, will be opening a surprise Pop Up Store in Chadstone Shopping Centre – “The Fashion Capital” in Melbourne’s most prestigious and established shopping centre on Thursday September 23rd.

The store will be located right next door to Mimco and opposite to Sass and Bide. SAMBAG’s Spring/Summer 10 collection will be fully delivered and offer an array of bags, swimwear, accessories, summer apparel as well as unique and endless variations of the SAMBAG classic ballet flat.

The Pop Up Store will create buzz and surprise as the first week of November will then see the opening of SAMBAG’s new permanent store just around the corner. The spring opening will be timed perfectly for Chadstone’s celebrated VIP shopping night in late November and for Christmas. The store, situated at the entrée to the designer fashion walkway, opens with the full High Summer 2010 SAMBAG range.

It’s SAMBAG’s second toehold in a shopping centre. The first, in Chadstone’s sister centre in Chatswood, Sydney opened in May 2009, and has since rivalled SAMBAG’s flagship store in Woollahra as the group’s highest performer. SAMBAG Chadstone will feature the brand’s signature blue interiors albeit with a fresh take. Penny Kinsella from Essi Designs, is applying a contemporary approach but maintaining the inviting plush atmosphere of sister stores with ottomans, mirrored surfaces, and pendulum lights.

SAMBAG, which this year celebrates its 13th year of confirming Australian style, was founded by Sam Wagner in 1997; SAMBAG’s “affordable luxury” is known for quality, style and beautiful finishes. Beginning with simple but covetable totes SAMBAG now offers a lifestyle proposition for fresh, simple, no-fuss stylistas, with shoes and boots, bags, clothing, accessories, swimwear and a capsule range of SAMBAG for kids as well as endless updates of the SAMBAG classic ballet flat.

Chadstone has for years set the tone as an influencer in retailing with ongoing developments in 2009 attracting a cluster of desirables - Gucci, Burberry, Miu Miu, Jimmy Choo and Prada et al - under its ever expanding roof. It had the highest retail turnover of any centre in Australia last year at $1.2billion. The strong branding as the “fashion capital” positioned Chadstone at the fashion epicentre of Melbourne, drawing crowds of 360,000 on Boxing Day 2009, from a trade area comprising one million people – 25% of the city’s population.
Wagner, who feels the fashion hub of Chadstone is ideal to capitalise on the recent strength of the Melbourne market complementing as it does the area’s demographic, has already opened five SAMBAG stores; Woollahra, Chatswood and the Strand Arcade in Sydney, as well as two (soon to be three) Melbourne stores: Prahran East and Albert Park. SAMBAG Online was relaunched in June and has seen an increase in sales of over 200%. And now her SAMBAG aesthetic – and the many variations of Wagner’s well-known SAMBAG Tina ballet flat – will dance into the heart of Chadstone.

Guess Fall 2010 Campaign with Alyssa Miller and Elsa Hosk by Ellen von Unwerth

swing it baby. let's take a ride in your car. teenage sweethearts. big hair. even bigger dreams. The Fonz. vintage is born.

untitled

you never notice
it's not there
until you're taking the hits
the more you try
the more you're there
never here
what we think we know
is evergrowing
silence seeps like mould in the rain
can we say there's something else?
when all we've ever tried to be is right in front of us
whispering hopes of something divine
we can't huddle underneath the pain
promise me you'll not do the things i've done
believe whatever gets you through
we'll move forward when our hopes are right in front of us
so take me for granted,
one last time.

Cintia Dicker by Anne Menke for Marie Claire France

Magnificent Obsession by Peter Lindbergh with Ewan McGregor and Natalia Vodianova

inceptor

If you haven't seen it yet, it will most probably change any opinions you have about the relevance of dreams in our lives. I saw it the day it was released, and I had read no reviews as yet, to cloud my opinion of it - and it was BRILLIANT! No movie rivals it's stellar combination: tactile plot, dynamic and amazingly good-looking cast and an ending that just grips you and nags your every afterthought. I cannot wait until it comes out on dvd so i can own such a stunning thing.

Again, i must emphasise that this cast...it's sex on legs - if sex could walk. Firstly you have Joseph Gordon-Levitt who is world-renowned for his role in 10 Things I Hate About You (pre-Heath Ledger passing -Ii love you Heath) and then lesser known for other films and then there was 500 Days of Summer, gorgeous film. Then Ellen Page or Juno or the girl who pops up in US Nylon Mag and THEN Vogue in a Marni dress less than a year later! how did she do that?! Because she's talented. She has that kind of way to her that makes you believe that every little thing she acts out is true, and that you too can act like she can. Not true but i love her for thinking we could. and then there's my husband Leonardo Di'Caprio. his performance is so acute and lasting that you want to jump into his world and hug him and tell him everything will be okay: that the world will not blow up/we will survive and live a happy life together.
what?

There's Cillian Murphy who gives a performance of a career. And then Tom Hardy - give me a moment. Tom Hardy is a beautiful specimen.

You then have the really delightful Marion Cotillard who has very quickly become a favourite of mine due to movies such as Nine and La Vie En Rose - her talent is so spectacular, it take one viewing of one movie to love her, and want the very most for her career. A true Parisian role-model in the film industry for women of any age.

The movie itself leads you to think about what is real or imagined, what is attainable and what is too far to reach, and what the human mind is capable of. There are so many ways to interpret this movie, and the themes of 'layers' in your dreams is so intriguing that I spent half the movie ciphering theories and scenarios of the layers - a feat which really should have occured afterwards.

But I love that - it sparked something in me.

What did it spark in you?

it's go time

today it all begins. we live and then we write about it. in this case i live and don't write about it for yonks, well no more. this is an invention test, masterchef style. not really i just love that show. have you ever seen julie & julia?! see it.
basically what i'm getting at is that my long-term partner in crime Valentina and I will reinvent this blog to wow you little dazzlers and punch you in the face with our observations on life. photos / videos / poems / interpretive dance - the forms of expression are endless. one thing that will be consistent is our sheer passion and commitment to whatever it is we're bringing you. we're starting small but aiming high and we welcome any and every little contribution you may have. we hope you can relate & enjoy!

much love, G and V xx

McQueen honoured

Five months following the shock death of fashion's modest great, Alexander McQueen, very fittingly the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) has graced his honour with their Board of Directors' Special Tribute Award.

Endearingly, they have enlisted a deserving friend, the one and only Sarah-Jessica Parker to present the award at this year's event on June 7 at the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York. Her profound appreciation for McQueen was on most people's lips back in February: "He was talented well beyond his years and the seriousness and unrivalled talent which he applied to his work is in bountiful display year after year and collection after collection," she said. "Every single inspired, original, lofty, whimsical, stunning, brilliant and jaw-dropping detail was Alexander McQueen."

take all your saved pennies up to the counter

note to self

notes to yourself are investments of the best kind. they pep you up when you need the extra YOU CAN DO IT slapped in the face like a wet fish. no drug influence of any kind, and no fish necessary.
not only do people around the world write things to themselves but they actually follow them through!! who would have thought. oh, you did? i didn't. i have a diary and an iphone and guess which one gets used even more than the over will ever be?
i just love stationery stores, so this shouldn't be a problem at all. its like walking into a shoe store - they're pretty and expensive and the lighting is extra good, the merchandise inspires quality writing - so what's left to hate about them!

i like it when i have exclamation points in my notes to self, it re-iterates my point. i don't like it when i write in some sort of code so that nobody can ever understand what i was ever trying to say, if they (somehow) stumble across my note to self. uggh, it's a note to self, i think it'll be immune to others reading it all by itself without the help of pig latin.
anyway, this is a note i found which was written a good five years ago while cleaning my room, aka death trap with shoes. it's comforting to know i took a moment to record my goals, however small they were. take note of the sheer wisdom.

Think before you react.
Practise Concious Communication.
Live your life more in public - share it!
Take all bad as challenges.
Create for yourself what you feel is missing.
Smile like you mean it.
Relate to people as if they're your best friend!
Dare to show enthusiasm!

pain

it's never your fault.
just something we all wish you weren't.
it's almost like telling a fish to breathe out of water, because no expectations means no
let-downs.
it's taken a while to build up, a moment to die down,
but when i see you again, it'll be like nothing has changed.
at least i hope it will.

if youth and determination were all that mattered, it still wouldn't fit right.
like a limb torn off, and sewn back together with fishing wire.
fake, plastic.

alterior motives don't show when you're not looking for them,
and i was blinded, so blinded.
it's funny how we do that.
and never let it show,
just like we want the pain.

take it away though, and it's all the more painful.

just special

if someone you knew, who has been there for you for years, but their real potential as a friend never really showed itself, because neither of you had really experienced life for long enough - if they died today...what would you do? of course you'd be sad, but what would you actually do? would you change your relations with others so that they knew just how much they have meant to you over the years? would you be a better listener, more astute to what others were going through around your little world, would you sing at the top of your lungs when you're happy in their presence, or cry when you're sharing the hardest moments of your life with them?

those emotions you take for granted when you're in the presence of your favourite people are melded into the moment, all apart of the greater experience, and you ride it, with them.

but what if those people are taken away from you? what if when those ones who have been sewn under your skin are no longer around?

well, you learn more about who you are. you're taken to a place where you've never had those people to cushion the blow when you're lonely, or sad, or just even needing to talk. you start to think about life more, i mean really think, of what you want - as a career, as a lover, as a friend, as down-time, as a hobby, as a good time. your beliefs are still your own, but it's like they've been trapped in a world you've always known. don't get me wrong, this can be an amazing thing, but if you as a person are transient - and we all know everything changes - your outside may not match what's going on inside.

i've gone through these hurdles and a few personal trials this year to realise the value of true friends in this world - the cuddly ones, the ones you've known since you were three. they know you, and you know them, to the point where you can read eachother's minds. you do everything together. they're the first person you think of when you're asked to bring a friend along. when you talk, it's like you pick up where you left off, like every fucking time.

i'm lucky to say i have that friend, and she means the absolute world to me and life would just be dull without her. but i don't always have to be with her. although i want to, i don't need to, and that's important to have. it means you don't O.D. on them....

I know how much i mean to her, and she knows how much she means to me.

it's as simple as that.

please don't live your life with others oblivious.

for my girl, my sister.

xx

new year

there's something about this poem that speaks to me.

happy new year babies.

may this be your happiest year yet, full of growth and love. xx

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.

FRANK O'HARA