Fashion Week Outfit, Feat. Qi Cashmere and Craft & Culture

With February's New York Fashion Week just around the corner, I thought I would show you my favorite outfit from last fashion week. I was lucky enough to work with two amazing brands to pull the outfit together (Qi Cashmere and Craft & Culture), and the result was one really excited me. Check it out!

The sweater from Qi Cashmere is beautiful. The material is lightweight but very warm, and the knit and fit are perfect. It's great for dressing up or hanging out in a pair of jeans in, and it's something I'll be able to wear for many seasons to come.

The amazing necklace is a one-of-a-kind piece by designer Meghann Sommer. I saw it online and I wanted it instantly. What it didn't expect was that it would weigh a ton (it has a leather strap that goes around your neck instead of a chain), but getting to wear something so special was worth it!  I love statement pieces, and the ones Meghann makes are incredible. I really hope to buy some of her pieces one day.

The lip color I used is really cool product from OCC Cosmetics called Lip Tar. I love it because it can be applied as light or as heavy as you want, and it wears for a long time. The product comes in the tiniest little tube, but it lasts for months because very light application is encouraged. The rusty red color I used is called Starling. 

Craft & Culture also let me borrow this beautifully simple necklace from designer Fail to wear. It's such a sweet little piece! It's so comfortable that you forget you're wearing it. 

And, of course, bloopers. 

Happy Birthday, The Girl In The Check Scarf.

It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I realized that I missed our anniversary. How could I? Darn you, college applications. On November 29th, The Girl In The Check Scarf turned a whopping 3 years old. Three years is a lot of time. It's hard to believe that I started this website in my freshman year, and here I am a college-bound senior. Crazy, right? I've changed so much, but it's not so much changing as it is finding out who I actually am. I still wanted to be a fashion buyer when I started this blog. After starting this site, my interest in fashion really started, and I was able to grow and learn more about fashion than I ever thought previously possible. The blog helped me to foster and develop my love of technology and ideas, and that has changed my life and career path. I started falling more and more in love with ideas, and today I can't wait to be a trend forecaster/ industrial designer.

I honestly don't know what I would be doing if it weren't for this blog. I would just be average. This blog has made it so that I get to be a regular kid, but I also get to have crazy adventures in fashion. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I've already been able to have three years in the fashion business, and I'm not even out of high school yet.

I am so deeply in love with this blog and all of you. My readers mean so much to me. I've gotten so many encouraging emails from young women telling me how my blog has inspired them to go out and do great things. That totally blows my mind! You guys keep me going, and I appreciate you more than you know. All your kind tweets, emails and comments over the past few years have encouraged me and inspired me so much. Thank you for all your love and support. I'd like to thank my family for encouraging me to do what I love and for supporting me every step of the way. Thank you for listening to my rants about every Balenciaga collection, thank you for loving me, thank you for texting me every half hour while I was at fashion week to make sure I was still alive, and thank you for always believing in me. You've never doubted my passion, and you encouraged me to work hard at what I love. I love you, mom and dad. I'd like to thank my grandfather for sharing his amazing stories of his fashion days with me, for asking me 'how's the fashion going?' every time I see him, and for printing out every article I've ever written. That means so much to me. Thank you, Poppu. Thank you to my best friends who have encouraged me to never give up. Thanks to Onswipe for giving me my iPad. It's completley changed the way I blog and work. Thank you, HVmag.com, for believing in me and taking on a 17 year-old as a guest editor. Being able to write for such an awesome magazine with such a great team has been a dream. Thank you to all the PR agents, brands and designers who have believed and me and worked with me over the past few years- I couldn't do this without you! Lastly, I'd like to thank my father in heaven for his love and guidance. Every time I got an invite to a show I wanted, I said a prayer of thanks. Every time I got a bit lost at fashion week, I said a prayer and he helped me find my way home. Whenever I had to make a tough choice, he has guided me and helped me see all that I could become. Knowing that God has a plan for me has helped me keep my feet firmly planted on the ground, not loose sight of what really matters, and not become too materialistic.

It's been a difficult year for me (you've probably noticed that by my lack of posting), but it's also been my most exciting year career-wise. I did TEDYouth, I had two jam-packed, awesome fashion weeks, I started writing for hvmag.com, and I've been able to do things that I didn't think were possible. I really hope and pray that in a year from now I can be here again, writing a post just like this one. A year from now I'll be at college, but I hope I can keep the blog going, and I really hope all of you will keep reading. Thank you so much for all that you do.

Much love, Sarah

Before Dior.

I love seeing shots of the collection prior to the runway show! I find it so fascinating to see how a collection comes together.  It's amazing that just the night before the show, 40 of the looks at Dior were still not completed, yet, within 24 hours, everything is finished and ready to present to the public. I was pleasantly surprised and how much I liked the couture at Dior this season, because I really didn't like the fall collection much (and I know a lot of other people felt the same way.) Without Galliano, the order and coherence of the collection was gone. However, the Dior team presented a stunning collection for spring. But to be quite honest, if you give me a collection filled with full skirts, incredible shapes and ruffles and I'm automatically sold!  It was a total flashback to the original creations of Mr.Dior so many years ago. The classic Dior silhouette was there, but the gowns were totally modern and wearable (well, as wearable as couture can be.) J'adore Dior!

Photos via here, and T Magazine (I love T magazine's fashion week coverage each season. The pictures are amazing!)

Fashion Week Update or "Justine Rants About Color"

Oh, color. Come baaaaack....

image via unknown, via tumblr

Hello Lovelies! Well, day two of fashion week is done and over with, and it's been one heck of a day! I had one showroom visit this afternoon and then a runway show later in the evening. I'm currently laptop-less and the computer I'm using isn't letting me upload any new pictures (which is unfortunate because there are so many collections, personal pics and backstage shots I'm just dying to post). So luckily I had this stunning shot to show you. 
Have you been keeping up with these new Spring 2012 collections? I'm liking the pink, yellow and blue tones I'm seeing. I'm excited to find some yellow accessories and some great blue blouses. I'm not a big fan of all the white, though. I saw that The Row did an all-white collection, and although I liked the design, I couldn't help but be reminded of Alexander Wang's all-white collection for last spiring. I just feel like fashion just had an all-white moment, and now going back to it seems a bit old. If this all-white concept is used in more collections to come, I really hope designers step it up a notch and use white in ways we haven't seen before. I guess I'm just a bit... disappointed? The fall 2011 collections and the spring 2011 collections were just BURSTING with new hues and bold ideas, and it's hard to change from that 'colorful' mindset into thinking about beige. and white. yuck. But then again, fashion is all about change, and I'm sure whatever trends I'm faced with I will be able to pull off. (or fail at miserably. Like I said, I need to get used to this new mindset!)
     Now,  I'm not saying there's no color on the runways this season. Peter Som and Yigal Azrouel featured some stunning, rich tones in their latest collection, which was nice after seeing show after show of beige looks with small pops of blue, pink, and yellow. One thing I really liked was a heavy use of black at Yigal Azrouel, Mandy Coon and Cushnie et Ochs. I'm a true-blue New Yorker, and black is my uniform. So I dread spring seasons sometimes because it means I will have to come out of my black and grey shell and wear some kind of floral prints or something so that I doesn't look like I hate color. And I don't hate color at all. I just like black so much better. haha. I'm still anticipating what the rest of the collections will bring, because honestly it is only day two, and fashion week has so much more in store.  Well, I'm beginning to ramble a bit, and you know it's late and you're tired when blogger tells you that you're spelling every other word incorrectly. I need sleep, and I'm looking forward to reading my new issues of T and Interview magazines. With that, I leave you, until the next time I have wifi, Lovelies. Happy Fashion week!