Haul | Online Shopping - ASOS and Boohoo

EN: Hello my lovelies! This last week I finally managed to film not one but two videos, so here's the first one. It's another haul video but this time around is about things that I bought online. Well my shopping experience has been mainly with Amazon and E.L.F., I was always "afraid2 of buying clothes online, simply because of the issues if the clothes didn't fit properly and then have to send it back blah blah blah. 

On Christmas days I decided to buy two parkas, a light one from ASOS and a warmer one from Boohoo. Two weeks later I bought two rings from ASOS and a few weeks after that I bought some sweaters and beanies from Boohoo.

So far I'm very happy with the things that I bought and have no complaints. 

What about you guys? Do you shop clothes online a lot?

Wishlist #3

Wishlist #3 by karenussene featuring a black faux leather mini skirt

Zara lined jacket / H&M black faux leather mini skirt, $23 / Pull&Bear black booties boots, $78 / H&M black flat, $23 / Zara black heel shoes / H&M vintage black purse, $39 / Mango black bracelet / Lip gloss

EN: Hello Bananas!

Here in Portugal we are still full-on Summer. Last year Fall/Autumn only starter creeping in mid-October, I have no idea how is going to be this year but anyways by that time I will be in London so things might be different over there.

Although it's crazy hot here, the Autumn/Winter Collections are already popping in stores and all I want now it's black clothes... well actually, all year long I want black clothes but when you live in a hot country with temperatures from 30º to 40º C degrees, it is hard to walk around dressed in black, it's kind of a suicidal mission.

PT: Olá Bananas!

Se vocês vivem em Portugal sabem muito bem que o Verão está longe de acabar. No ano passado o Outono só começou lá para meio de Outubro, não sei como será este ano mas até lá de qualquer das formas estarei em Londres por isso as coisas provavelmente vão ser um pouco diferentes por lá.

Embora esteja uma braza por aqui, as colecções de Outuno/Inverno já começam a aparecer nas lojas e tudo o que eu quero agora é roupa preta... bem eu na verdade quero roupa preta o ano inteiro mas quando se vive numa terra com temperaturas entre 30º a 40º C graus, é um pouco complicado andar por aí com roupa preta, é uma missão suícida.

YOUTUBE ♥ TWITTER ♥ BLOGLOVIN' ♥ FACEBOOK ♥ TUMBLR ♥ G PLUS

I do not own the copyrights of these pictures. The Collage was made via Polyvore website.

Suit Up for Spring!

EN: Hello Bananas! Well this last week I came across a lot of suits outfits in many different websites. Do you like suits? Are you a suit type of gall? I like them, whether simple or pattern, monochrome or full of colour.
Here are some of my favourite suit outfits.

PT: Olá Bananas! Bem esta semana encontrei um montão de fatos em diferentes websites, concidência? Talvez sim, talvez não. Vocês gostam de fatos? Eu gosto, sejam eles simples ou com padrões, monocrómaticos ou coloridos.

Aqui ficam alguns dos meus fatos favoritos.

Rihanna for River Island

EN: Hello Bananas! I few months ago I told you that Rihanna was teaming up with clothe brand River Island to do a collection. And a couple of weeks ago it was the London Fashion Week and the clothes were finally revealed. In my opinion, the clothes are very Rihanna (current) style, the collection seems to be inspired by the 90's underground, very minimalistic style and most clothes are either white, black or grey, with a few colour pieces like yellow ad red and denim blue. 

Below you can see some videos with the Fashion Show. So what do you guys think about the collection? Would you personally buy anything? There are certain pieces that I like, like the cap, the bag, the boots and some of the dresses.

The Original Skin

EN: Hello everyone! Today I bring you some news! My Blog has a new partner! :D Say uuwwhhaattt!

Is still hard to believe, but it’s 100% fo real!

So about a month ago I got an email from a company called The Original Skin, actually not one, but two, my fault, the first email got “lost” in the middle of dozens of other emails that I receive per day, too many subscriptions… anyways, so I noticed the second email and I was like “Is this for real?” :O.

So I will start explaining. The Original Skin is a fast growing company, a clothing label based in London, England – you guys know how much I love London - they currently have an online store, for the moment with 4 designs of T-Shirts and some accessories. About a month ago they only had those T-Shirts design for men, but now they have it for women as well!  

Now about the collection, the current one is called “Nostalgia”, the designs were meticulously produced and designed by The Original Skin creative team. Let me show you some of the T-shirts that they have – the definitions of the designs belong to The Original Skin.

"Our first design recalls the rich yet ever evolving history of printed media. We

believe there is something romantic about our use of language, something that conveys

meaning, just like identity and personal style. Language is after all a statement. "

Loving | Primark A/W 2012

Hello everyone! Today I will talk about Primark, and some items that I wish I could buy them right NOW!

First I will start by telling you my relationship with Primark, is a bit of love/hate one. I discovered Primark in 2009 when I was studying in Nottingham and I was stupidfied at the time, there were sooooo many options and things were so cheap! But with time I started to notice the consequences of cheap stuff. You know, the jewellery that the colour washes out, the quality of the shoes that is not good the sole is very thin for the sabrinas/sneakers, some shirts are just badly made… etc… but still I shop there, specially for bags and some basic tops. 
When I was in London this year I got the chance to visit Primark almost like on a weekly basis, ‘cause London is full of them and it’s so easy to get to one, not like in Portugal that the closest one for me is at Dolce Vita Shopping Mall and takes me like an hour or more to get there -_-. So I noticed that Primark were stepping up their game, they have more clothing items that are similar to what you can find at shops like Zara, H&M Topshop etc, at a affordable price, which is great, problem is, that the quality is quite not THERE yet with certain items. Even my cousins that have been living in the U.K. they “complain” that Primark is starting to rise up their prices but that the quality is still not there in order for them to have that “luxury” of making things "more expensive".

Anyywwaayyyss enough of that story, let’s talk about what you can find at the stores, and these are my favourite items for the moment!

OOTD: Nrº 22 “After work… go to the Park”

Hello everyone, today´s post will be kinda different. I´m still not in the mood for Musical Fridays - read the previous post here -, even though I have a bunch of videos to share with you guys, I´m still not emotionally THERE yet...

Anyways I decided to share an outfit with you guys, something I dressed between May and June when I was still in London. 

One day after work, the sky was clean, the sun was shinning in London, such a rare thing over there. So a colleague of mine and myself decided to meet up at a Park at Highbury Islington and aahhh what a great idea! And aaahhh such a lovely area! It really got me thinking of possibly getting a room in that area. People were chilling out, reading books, playing, exercising, barbecuing, lovely!

Lana for H&M and RiRi for River Island

Hello Everyone! The Ladies above need no introduction, but just in case you don´t know them - and if don´t... where have you been? - on the left is singer Lana Del Rey and on the right also singer and I guess sort of an actress Rihanna.

And soon this is what is going to happen... no they are not getting together and do a duet - not that I know of - but each of them are getting to together with a clothes brand. This Tuesday was announced that Lana Del Rey will be the new face of Swedish brand H&M for this year´s Fall campaign. Now I don´t know if she will be just the face or also has some input on the clothes design. But apparently on the 19th of September it will be released a video commercial with Lana singing a famous song "Blue Velvet", a request made by H&M.

Now as for Rihanna, this one opposite to Lana's announcement, I haven´t seen many people talking about it, maybe because River Island (a U.K. brand), even though is sold Internationally, with cool kinda expensive clothes, still is not has BIG has H&M. Anyways yeah, on Monday was announced that Rihanna will collaborate with River Island for 2013 Spring Collection. And apparently Rihanna was the one that approach River Island, read the news HERE. Now I wouldn't imagine Rihanna with River Island, I think that Rihanna would be a better match with TOPSHOP, but never the less I´m excited to see what is she going to do!

 

Are you guys curious as well to see both of these Ladies collections?

YOUTUBE ● TWITTER ● BLOGLOVIN'

FACEBOOK ● FASHIOLISTA ● G PLUS

I do not own the copyrights of these pictures. 

The were randomly picked from Google Images.

Outfits of the Day

EN: Hello everyone! I don´t know if you know but I have a few online profile on Fashion websites. I don´t have the habit of sharing frequently it on my Blog, like doing a post about my outfits but I do I have a page option above that says Lookbook, in case you didn´t noticed already. Now... I don´t consider myself a Fashion Blogger, but I do like clothes, like... any other... GIRL! :P

Feel free to check out my pages (see the Links below) and follow if you like, or if you have a profile aswell, let me know and share the link to your page :).

PT: Olá a todos! Eu não sei se sabem mas eu tenho alguns perfis online em websites sobre Moda. Eu não tenho o hábito de partilhar frequentemente aqui convosco no meu Blog, ao fazer um posto a falar sobre o assunto, mas tenho em cima a página que diz Lookbook caso não tenham notado. Agora... eu não me considero uma Fashion Blogger, mas eu gosto de roupa... como... qualquer outra... RAPARIGA! :P

Sintam-se à vontade de checar as minhas páginas (vejam os Links embaixo) e seguir se gostarem, ou então caso tenham algum perfil, partilhem a vossa página comigo :).

LOOKBOOK.NU

CHICTOPIA

CHICISIMO

TRENDTATION

HYPEED.COM

LOOKBOOKS.COM

YOUTUBE ● TWITTER ● BLOGLOVIN'

FACEBOOK ● FASHIOLISTA ● G PLUS

These pictures were taken and belong to Me/Karen U..

Need your Vote please #1

EN: Hello everyone! Today I have a request for you guys. I entered a competition on Sleek MakeUp Facebook page, and the 10 most voted looks pass for the 2nd round. The theme for this look was "Festival Look", like summer concert festivals style. If you are reading this post today, please, please, please, pretty please, LIKE my photo on Facebook, here is the Link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150897126191582&set=o.180846081999236&type=1&theater&notif_t=like

You have till the 13th of July till 1pm (Lisbon/London time) to vote!
I would looooove to win this competition, or at least pass the first round, since the final decision will be from the Sleek MakeUp people picking the winner. The prize is some Sleek MakeUp products! 

MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE!

My U.K. Open Closet

EN: Hi everyone! So a few weeks ago I decided to re-record my "open closet" video from when I was still in London living at my Family´s house. The first time I did it I ended up hating it ´cause it was shot at night and the lighting in my bedroom was terrible yellowish and then I had to do sooo many "takes" because of my little cousin was always making noise and calling me bla bla bla. So one day early in the morning I was alone (only with my big cousin) and decided to give another try. So if you would like to see it, see the video below :).

PT: Olá a todos! Algumas semanas  atrás eu decidi re-gravar o video do meu "guarda roupa aberto", de quando ainda vivia em Londres na casa de uns familiares meus. A primeira vez que tentei acabei por odiar, isto porque foi gravado à noite, a luz do meu quarto era terrivelmente amarelada e depois fiz tantos "takes" porque o meu priminho estava sempre a fazer barulho e a chamar-me bla bla bla. Então um dia de manhã estava em casa sozinha (apenas com a minha prima) e decidi tentar mais uma vez. Ora se estiverem interessados em ver, vejam o video que se segue :).

Caxuxa

This post will is written in English and Portuguese! / Este Post está escrito em Inglês e em Português.

EN: 

Haavvveee you met Caxuxa? I didn´t… up until last week at least. I was contacted by a Lady called Ana that represents the brand, she is a very friendly person.

Anyways, Caxuxa… Ana told a bit of the store History.  There is a store based in Braga (North of Portugal) but  if you can´t travel all the way to Braga you can also buy their stuff online on their website. They have clothes, shoes, bikinis, bags, accessories from brands like Primo Emporio, Água de Coco, Caramelo, Liu Jo, Paul&Joe, Komono and JEFFREY CAMPBELL! :D Plus Caxuxa is also a brand, they offers a Tailoring service and make bags and accessories to the customers taste.

And the BEST part is that my lovely Blog readers can have a 10% discount off (be aware, in certain items) their purchases. Just use the code (also called cupom) openingmymind. :D Isn’t that great news?!?!?!  Oh and did I mention that they ship internationally? ;)

Now I will share with you some of the items that I liked.

PT:

Já conhecem a loja Caxuxa? Eu não conhecia… até à semana passada. Fui contactada por uma senhora chamada Ana que representa a marca, ela é super simpática.

Ora bem, Caxuxa… a Ana contou-me um pouco da história da loja. Existe uma loja situada no Norte de Portugal, em Braga, mas se não podem deslocar-se de propósito até Braga, podem sempre comprar os artigos online no website deles! Eles têm desde roupa, calçado, bikinis, malas, acessórios de marcas como Primo Emporio, Água de Coco, Caramelo, Liu Jo, Paul&Joe, Komono e JEFFREY CAMPBELL! :D E mais, Caxuxa é também uma marca, eles oferecem serviço de alfaiate e fazem malas e acessórios ao gosto do cliente.

E a MELHOR parte é que os meus queridos leitores do meu Blog podem ter acesso a 10% de desconto (mas por favor tenha atenção aos artigos) das suas compras. Basta usarem o código (também chamado cupom) openingmymind. :D Não são óptimas noticias?!?!?! Ah e já mencionei que eles vendem internacionalmente?

Agora irei partilhar com vocês as peças que eu mais gostei.

Bikinis of Água de Coco

Sunglasses from Komono

Bond Gold Black Watch from Komono

White and Purple Watches from Komono

Peach Jumpsuit (Macacão) from Paul&Joe

White dress from Caramelo

Jeffrey Campbell Litas

Jeffrey Campbell, Foxys and Lita Mushroom

EN:

From now on the right side of my Blog there will be a Banner of Caxuxa. This... what happened right here... it´s something that I NEVER thought it could happened to me... I mean my Blog is almost 5 years old and I have a "small" number of followers (but I still love you all <3) compared to some Bloggers that started this year and already have double the amount of followers - honestly I don´t know how they do it -, so for Caxuxa to get in contacted with me was a BIG surprise! Thank you Ana.
For more information please visit:

Caxuxa website: http://www.caxuxa.com/index.php

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/caxuxastore

Happy Shopping everyone!

PT:

A partir de agora do lado direito do meu Blog haverá um Banner da Caxuxa. Isto aqui... que aconteceu... é algo que eu NUNCA pensei que poderia acontecer... Quer dizer o meu Blog tem quase 5 anos e eu tenho um número "pequeno" de seguidores (mas continuo a amar-vos todinhos <3) comparando com outras Bloggers que abrir o seu Blog este ano e já têm o dobro de número de seguidores - sinceramente não sei como conseguem -, por isso, o facto de que a Caxuxa ter entrado em contacto comigo foi uma GRANDE surpresa! Obrigado Ana.

Para mais informações visitem:

O website da Caxuxa: http://www.caxuxa.com/index.php

Página no Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caxuxastore

Boas compras!

YOUTUBE ● TWITTER ● BLOGLOVIN' 

DEVIANTART ● FASHIONLISTA ● G PLUS

I do not own the copyrights of these pictures.

They belong to Caxuxa.

I need YOUR opinion!

Next Sunday I have this Church thingy to go to over here in London, it´s like First Communion (Primeira Comunhão), of a little girl. 

So I would like to ask for YOUR opinion on these two outfits options. Mind you the dress is more of a Coral colour, but with the flash of my camera  it looks more pinkish and in terms d length it reaches me right around my knees. I was going to buy a new pair of shoes, in black but then I found out that the ones that I wanted are from a previous collection so I won´t be able to find them anymore, specially on my size -_- , God, and they were so cute and comfortable... anyways, I will use what I have. 

The First option on the left is with my Mint shoes from Primark, do this two colours go well together? If I do where those shoes I might buy a mint belt in order to match. Since after all I´m living IN LONDON and so far rain is predicted till the weekend, the back up plan is the second option, it's with my Black ankle boots from Seaside and I will wear them with black tights as well.

So what do you think? 

PPPLLLEEAASSEEE LET ME KNOW.

I thanking you in advance. xoxo

P.S. Update: I will wear a little cardigan jacket over it. Plus according to my family that have been to other church events here in London, there are people that wear worse outfits than mine XD so I'm guessing they Church people won't stop me of getting in hehe. 

YOUTUBE ● TWITTER ● BLOGLOVIN'

FACEBOOK ● FASHIONLISTA ● G PLUS

The picture was taken and belongs to Me/Karen U..

Rosie and Ryan for Mark & Spencer

Sexy model and actress Rosie Huntington and hot actor Ryan Reynolds were chosen for the new Mark & Spencer clothes collection for Fall/Winter. The collection I guess is suppose to be called Autograph. They look pretty good together, good chemistry going on....

Oooohhh the sooonngg, how I love this song! 

Werelse for Mango Touch

This information might not be news for some of you, but I guess there are some of you that might not know about this. In any case I wanted to do a post about it in order to express my thoughts on the subject.

So there are these 3 famous Fashion Bloggers, Andy from Style Scrapbook, Chiara from The Blonde Salad and Carolina from Fashion Squad, they have been around for a while now, each one of them has different styles with a few things in common, and besides blogging some of them have their separate projects, I know that Andy has a bag collection (dedicated to cameras in a way) in partnership with Kipling, Chiara has her own shoe line called Chiara Ferragni and recently a lingerie collection with Yamamay, I'm not 100% sure about Carolina but I think she is a model aswell... 

Anyways these three beautiful girls got together and decided to create a online shop called Werelse, they launched last year and they started off with 4 T-Shirts designs. And I think things are going preeettyyy well for them, they even won the Best Blogger Business of the Year at the Bloglovin' Awards early this year. I admit I like some of them, but when I saw the prices I kinda *gaaassppped*, 38€ (the cheapest one) for a T-Shirt? Say uuuWhhaaaaatt? UUFFFF Pass...

They have recently announced they are going to launch a small accessories collection in partnership with Mango Touch and is going to hit stores on the 12-15th of April (uuuhhh 3 days before my Bday :p).

Now... if I was a rich girl... I would buy everything... but since I'm not, the items that I reeeeallllyy like are, the black wedge sandals, the black bracelet, the black purse (Love Black Much?), and the neon yellow bag. I'm just waiting for the prices to be revealed and have another *gasp* moment followed by a little heart attack -_-. I will probably be only able to afford the bracelet XD.

So what do you think? Do you like anything? Are you going to buy anything?

Brands? That's irrelevant ... sometimes

In my opinion and attention this is just my opinion, sometimes brands are overrated and over priced for no reason. When I buy clothes or accessories, I don't go for the brand I go for the fact if it is beautiful and if it looks good on me or not... And I understand that like a pair of shoes in some cases the more expensive they are the better they are, and I say this comparing some boots for the rainy days that I can but from a local shop or a Chinese store that I might pay 25€ won't be necessarily as good as a pair of Dr.Martens or Timbaland boots.

Anyways today I want to show you something. Last December when Sales season arrived to Portugal, I went shopping with my mother to down town Lisbon (Baixa do Chiado) and the first shop I get in was one called WS2/W52 and I noticed that they had capes, which I've been "dying" to have one. The original price was 39.99€ and I bought it for 24.99€. Immediately when I saw the price tag, it reminded me of the one from Stradivarius. I mean just look the picture above, on the left is the tag from WSA/W52 from the jacket that I bought and on the right a tag from Stradivarius (that I asked a friend if I could have it for the sake of this post lol)... I meaann obvious much?

And then the thing that made me ROFLMAO, after I left WS2/W52 I entered a Stradivarius store... and what do I see THE SAME CAPE!!!!! WTF! The same EXACT design! And they were selling then for the Sales price of 29.99€ pppffffff fff ffff! 

This is not the first time that I have seen this. A few years back they passed in the News in Portugal that there was some Chinese shops selling clothes that looked exactly the same as some certain shops. For example, the same week I discovered that, I was in Bershka and I saw this shirt that had a skull... then a few days later I went to my local Chinese shop and I found theee ssaammmeee exact shirt, the only difference was the "brand" tag fffuuuuuuuu.

Versace for H&M 2011

Last year H&M invited designer Lanvin to design some clothes for the brand, and it was a huge sucess.

This year as you probably seen our heard - if you haven't I don't know where have you been haha - H&M decided to do another collaboration but this time with the house of VERSACE! We have bold colours, palm trees patterns, and like interesting roman pattern in some items, you can see that pattern on the logo below, around H&M, I actually like that detail, and on the first video you can see it in a lot of places.
The waiting is finally OVER! Are you going to buy anything? From what I seen from other Bloggers that already have some of the clothes of the collection, some love it, others not that much, some compliment the material used on the clothes, other dislike the prices. Even though is "affordable" Versace clothes, the price is still a bit high, some say it's more expensive than Lanvin's clothes collection.
Did you know that apparently there is one red dress, that only TWO were made? IN THE WHOLE WORLD? One I don't know who has it, but the other one was featured in a Giveaway on Andy Torres Style Scrapbook blog.
Today the most common thing that I see on the Blogs that I follow is people that went to the preview yesterday at H&M.... I will see it next time I go to Lisbon lol.

Here you can see some of the clothes of the collection with the video commercials!

Burgundy and Mustard

I never been a girl that follows colours trends, in my case I've been in Love for a long time with the colour Burgundy, since my Nu-Metal+Pseudo-Gothic phase, and the colour Mustard since last year’s Winter, when I saw a picture of a girl with a mustard scarf, it was love at first sight. I tried at that time to find something in the shades of mustard that I liked, but no success.

This year Burgundy and Mustard are all over the place, and they also go nicely with each other.  Here are some items that I like in those colours.

Mango's series "What Should I Wear"

Okei, you guys know the clothes brand Mango right? And if you are into Fashion Blogs you will probably know Andy Torres from Style Scrapbook, and that this year she became Mango's It Girl.

Now Mango is taking things to another level, they decided to create like these series called What Should I Wear, that is kinda like I don't know, The Hills or The City (but in this case you know that the characters are actual actors, and it's all fake).

You can see the video for 2 episodes already online down below. If you see the video directly on Mango's website, there is this “time clothing line” ... I just made that up 'cause I don't know a proper name for it. So it's a bar that appears under the video, as the episode goes one , that shows you in detail the clothes that the actors are wearing, which is all Mango's clothes.

On the second episode Andy Torres makes an appearance as a stylist.

See the video, and let me know what you think. Do you think is a smart move for Mango, finding new ways to publish their clothes, or is simply just meh.

Tobey Maguire for Prada - Fall/Winter 2011 Collection

Honestly I would never picture Tobey doing this type of work.... not that he is not good at it... but mostly because I thought it wasn't his "thing". I don't know if he has done other works like this, but I can't remember any at the moment.  Anyways ..... what you think? Did he do a good job?