Make up post #1

Finally I decided to write a little bit about my make up obsession. I'm not a make up artist or a make up blogger, I'm just a girl that loves make up and experimenting with it or as I call it 'playing with make up as a 4 year old girl'. My main craziness is eye make up, especially eye shadows. But this blog post is going to be about my mascara and foundation collection. Today I discovered that I own 11 mascaras (all of them are relatively new, because I throw them away every 3-4 months), 5 foundations and 17 lipsticks. Not that much for a make up lover to be honest.

Istanbul holidays 2015

It was the first time ever I was away from Azerbaijan for the New Year Eve. Visited Istanbul where my sister lives and we spent the holidays together. Thanks to our friend Gunel who actually planned this months ago while I didn't think we were going to make it, but never say never. It was fun just to be young, free and crazy for a while :) And I changed my hair colour for the new year. Personally for me it was a huge decision, because everyone knows how obsessive I am about blonde hair. The next collage is a small summary of my New Year holidays. You can see our looks for the party, random but very nice instant photo in shopping mall while I was trying on a Missoni headband, our 7 km walk in Belgrade Forest in Istanbul that ended up with such joyful photos, and finally my evening eye make up I was so proud of)))

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

When someone advises you to go and see a certain movie, the film is always going to be assoiciated with the person who you heard it from. Last year around this time I was advised to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I watched the movie a year later by chance and the friend who told me to see it was the only one I wanted to discuss it with...

The movie is about a hard-core daydreamer who works in LIFE magazine whose life takes a turning point when he has to find the lost negative. It says that life starts when you stop daydreaming and begin doing whatever you were dreaming of. In case of walter mitty we observe how everything falls in its own places in his life the minute he takes actions instead of falling off lifw daydreaming. He goes places he didnt even imagine going one day, he does things that take a lot of courage and meet people who help him to get where life takes him. The movie is so colorful and with the message a lot of people actually know but need to hear it again in order to follow the sign. I was very impressed and inspired by it. Watch it next when you need some re-assurance before doing something courageous or you wanted to do for a long time and have never made up your mind. 

Shoe Heaven, Harrods.

I can't imagine any fashionista visiting London and NOT going to Harrods. Let's just accept it as a fact and never return to this matter. Because Harrods is one of the biggest and oldest department stores in Europe with history dating back to 19th century. It has a few distinguishing points like the building, first ever escalator, food hall, shoe heaven etc. that make Harrods to stand out among all other department stores. Lately they renovated shoe department and named it Shoe Heaven. That is  the story I want to tell.

It's been more than 6 months that I left London the last time and missed shopping there very much. That is why when I went to Knightsbridge (the part of London where Harrods is) the music playing in my head was the following song from famous TV series:

The reason is because you actually feel like a leading female character from a movie or TV show at the moment where she decides to go shopping and change her life :) So in this case background music is necessary. I was going to buy a bag, a pink bag to be precise. Apparently I hadn't had one  till then (can you imagine?). After browsing the ground floor AND the lower ground floor I found what I wanted but decided to look through shoe department before taking what I came for. Just in case asked a sales assistant which floor shoe department is on and got this answer: 'You mean Shoe Heaven? On the 5th'. I thought it was only words until I got there. They changed it completely that I couldn't even recognise. It actually was a shoe heaven for any woman that ever laid eyes on designer shoes. I was wandering in the Heaven and admiring the latest collections presented there. Departments got bigger, wider, brighter. Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik had these fake departments where you can see shoes and suppose that it is the boutique, but when you ask for your size they tell you to go further. You feel like you are being teased and invited to see more of these feet candy by trick. I headed straight to Manolo Blahnik and it was like finding a treasure among other gems. You reach the short stairs and they lead you to the attics with the world of Manolo. Then during your fitting process (everything happens so naturally that you have no idea how you ended up here) sales assistant tells you that 2 days ago the master himself was there and signed shoes... Couple minutes later you find yourself paying for the black satin jewelled Nadira pumps and trying to realise that pink bag is gone now... Long story short: after the Shoe Heaven I choose shoes to the bag I actually came for.

All the brands presented at Shoe Heaven

St. Dunstan-in-the-East

London is all about exploring. Every street, every maze, every garden, every lane, every square of it is worthy. You never know what may expect you when you turn around the corner. And sometimes google helps you to turn the right corner to find something amazing. 

A couple of years ago my cousin Nigar showed me a hidden place in The City of London that she found on the internet. For years we have shared with her our two big loves: London and New York. So exploring them over the wild web of worldwide is our hobby. So I was postponing visiting the oasis in the centre of a city where concrete jungle intertwine with historical Tower Hill, but my last visit to London made me to go there. 

Generally Tower Hill area of London is very interesting. On the one hand you see a historical castle with mesmerising view of Tower Bridge and on the other hand there is financial centre of the city with its modern architecture. And between these buildings surrounding Tower Hill, right on the north bank of Thames River you can find St. Dunstan Church in the East (don't mix it up with the one on the West, they are two different churches). Here is its brief history:

And now the Church itself... I was amazed to see this place exist in real life. It feels like you are on a set of a movie or in Wonderland itself. It's unbelievable how such a garden can be located in the middle of a megapolis. The place magically brings piece to you. These are winter views of the church that I took on December the 5th, now imagine its beauty in summer when everything is green. 

Baku Fashion Week 2014

Yesterday I attended the first Baku Fashion Week ever. It was just a start for something big in future. Baby steps as they say. But I hope it will grow and prosper as time goes by and we will proudly talk about fashion weeks in our hometown.  Fashion Week was actually only for 2 days. On the first day Azerbaijani designer Gunel Behbudova and Georgian Designer Avtandil Tskvitinidze presented their collections on the runway in Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Baku. The day two (the one I attended) was about the last show of the Baku Fashion Week and after party. My friend Narmin got us the invitations and we had the front row on Nadit show by Nadia Taziyeva. The collection was colourful and full of dreams where knit and chiffon dominated the stage. Here are the photos taken on my humble iPhone camera during the show...

Sherri Hill fusion

A few days ago I saw Spring 2015 collection of Sherri Hill brand. It is an american designer whose work is mostly concentrated on evening wear. Her gowns are famous all over the world and you can sense that southern-american chic style in her designs. But this collection for summer is literally blooming before our eyes. Colours are bright, models are smiling and you can feel that warm spring wind blowing from the screen. It was so comforting to see these dresses on a rainy and windy autumn evening that I needed to share it with you, guys. The collection is huge and you can look through it on Sherri Hill's website. But here are my favourites...

Life is a puzzle

Life is a puzzle. We are trying to figure it out and see what it is  actually about our whole life. Putting a 1500 piece  puzzle process is practical reflection of it. I'm fond of impressionism and finding museum collection puzzle of Georges-Pierre Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte was lovely. I started to collect the puzzle, then my mom joined and finished it. We got to memorise  the painting and found out that there are 47 people and 3 animals on it. Seurat used pointillism technique and it makes the puzzle pieces very blurry as you see on the photo. But mom was very concentrated and her motivation was guests she invited over so the table needed to be free to serve food :) 

one million lovely letters

That moment when you are so down like you have never been in your life yet. And you walk into a bookshop on your way home. After loosing hope to find a book that will fit your current mood you find something that not only will fit your mood, reflect what you are going through but it also will seem like the author is your long lost twin sister that somehow was born and raised in England. Jodi Ann Bickley may not going through the exact same things in her life, her struggles in life are much harder and serious. But emotions people feel in their chest are the same. The book found me (that is what I prefer to think) at the perfect timing, because if I read it couple of years ago I would't relate to it as much as I did. Her uplifting true story called 'One million lovely letters' which is also the name of her online project. This project is about writing to people who need a letter to remind that they are not alone in what they are going through in life, say how special they are and just make a little bit difference in their mood at a very important period in their life. Jodi wants to reach one million mark. The project is still in process. It saved her life, changed for better and she believes it makes changes in others' lives too. I didn't write to her, or received a letter from her. But her book was enough to make me feel better and put a smile on my face. Cover photo on the inside reflects some letters she have sent to people. I picked this one for myself:

Here are the parts of the book I found myself in:

shoes I need in my life right now

shoes I need in my life by didi-fan featuring lace booties