Street Photography

As some of you might know, I started taking photographs around three years ago, already long before my interest in fashion started to develop. The people surrounding me have been always my main subject though. Back then it was mostly strangers. And I am calling it street photography what I did back then. We see many similar sceneries or moments during our daily routines, that we usually don't pay any special attention to anymore. But even those moments are worth capturing sometimes. If you wait for the right moment and get the right framing, something very ordinary can turn into an interesting photograph. And this does not only apply to street photography. With all these digital cameras nowadays, it has gotten a lot easier to take photographs then a few decades back, but what seperates the real talents from an average photographer is and will always be the photographic eye. These two following photographs from my archive are an example for that.

For more, take a look at my Visual Diary.

Heartbeats

Heartbeats (Cover) by José González

Mind Is On The Midnight

Michaela Sanders and Sam Pearton by Rachael Cassells for RUSSH May/June 2009

Bits And Bobs #41

T-Shirt by Jil Sander, Trousers by American Apparel, Jacket by Whyred, Shoes by Whyred, Straw Hat by ASOS, Vintage Bag

Jil Sander was so kind and sent me this t-shirt a couple of weeks ago and I liked it so much, I was more than happy to include it in one of my outfit posts in return. The weather was so cold that I had to wait several weeks though. The last couple days were perfect. I'm currently applying at the art school in Zurich for photography and it seems they liked my portfolio and the assignment we had to turn in, because they invited me for the interviews. Besides that, one of the main things I do right now is enjoying the sun at my favourite café while reading a book. Life can be so beautiful.

Streetstyle Selection #4

During fashion weeks, I find the amount of stylish people on all these streetstyle blogs overwhelming. And because I am so bad at hunting stylish people in Zurich at the moment, I wanted to share some of my finds with you.

1 by Garance Doré, 2 by Facehunter, 3 by Mr. Newton, 4 by Stockholm Streetstyle, 5 by Copenhagen Streetstyle, 6&7 by Style/Clicker, 8 by The Sartorialist,
9 by Stil In Berlin

Round And Round

Round And Round by Sophie Hunger

Instant Film Cameras

It's a shame that Polaroid decided to stop producing their traditional instant films a couple of years ago, because especially in combination with a Polaroid SX-70 camera, you were able to capture beautiful photographs printed instantly with its own charm. So I was rather surprised and also happy to see a new instant film camera by Fujifulm, called Instax 210, that shoots pictures in the traditional 3:2 ratio. The camera isn't exactly what you would call compact, because it's quite big, but the film cartridges are a bit cheaper than the ones of Polaroid used to cost. More photographs on my Visual Diary.

Magie Noire

pictures via tfs
Jessica Stam by Miguel Reveriego for Numéro France December 2008

Paris Fall 2010 RTW

Last week, another month of fashion madness ended this season with the ready-to-wear fashion shows in Paris. Paris fashion week is the one I was looking most forward to, since many of my favourite designers were showing their collection there, plus I was eagerly waiting until the first pictures of Alexander McQueen's final collection hit the web – and it was worth the wait. The team of McQueen showed 16 outfits in a private presentation, which are all referencing to paintings of the 15th-century. Although the clothes look really complicated, McQueen made them with a minimum of seams – such techniques always fascinated him. Another great collection was Lanvin. Can Alber Elbaz do any wrong? He has been constantly one of my favourites for the last couple of seasons. His collection for Lanvin appeared to be comfortable while maintaining a strong shape. The clothes looked like made out of one garment that draped around women's bodies. Although I didn't have much time during Paris fashion week to follow the shows as closely as the other ones, I still managed to have a look at most of them.

Alexander McQueen


Lanvin


Stella McCartney


Chloé


Other collections I liked as well

Pictures via style.com

Bone Song

Bone Song by Timesbold

Bits And Bobs #40

Tube Neck Sweater by H&M, Jeans by Acne, Coat by Fidelio, Shoes by SWEAR, Vintage Hat


(click to enlarge)

Looks like winter decided to make a return in Switzerland after having one week of ridiculously warm (15°C!!) weather. So I had to postpone my plan of putting my winter coats away for now. I was very happy to find this lovely tube neck sweater at H&M Trend, which is keeping me warm and cozy until spring decides to stay here for good, because snow does not exactly make me want to go shopping for spring clothes. Oh, and in case you haven't noticed in my previous Sunday entry, I got new glasses!

Les Trouvailles De Fiona Hefti

Last weekend, Fiona Hefti (former Miss Switzerland) invited people once again to the lounges of Kaufleuten for her show Les Trouvailles de Fiona Hefti, where she presented a selection of small boutiques from Zurich. It's a little fashion show with models exclusively dressed in clothes from these boutiques. This time, the shops were Dings, On Y Va and Monsieur Dubois, who are all among my favourites in Zurich.

(click to enlarge)

Everyone of these three shops has its own area of expertise and are all offering a range of relatively young and upcoming labels. Dings sells womenswear from labels, such as Wood Wood, Stine Goya, Sessun and Family Affairs. On Y Va sells menswear from labels, such as Our Legacy, Wood Wood, Henrik Vibskov and YMC. Finally, Monsieur Dubois offers shoes exclusively for women from many labels, such as Surface To Air, Minimarket, Opening Ceremony and H by Hudson. If you ever visit Zurich and want to do some shopping, I strongly recommend these three shops – the interior design of On Y Va and Monsieur Dubois is very beautiful.

Addresses:
Dings
Zollstrasse 12
8005 Zürich
Phone: +41 44 271 20 07
http://www.dings.ch/

On Y Va
Zähringerplatz 15
8001 Zürich
Phone: +41 43 343 91 21
http://www.onyva.ch/

Monsieur Dubois
Oberdorfstrasse 15
8001 Zürich
Phone +41 43 244 90 85
http://www.monsieurdubois.ch/

Don't forget to take a look at the other places in my Zurich City Guide.

One Year After

I can't believe that Fashion Bits And Bobs is turning one today. It was March 8th, 2009 when I wrote my first serious blog entry here. I am still remembering the times when people asked me for how long I have already been blogging and I always told them just a few months. Guess these times are over. But I am still a very young blogger compared to other people, who have been blogging since 2005. If someone had told me back then, how literally life-changing this project will turn out, I would have never believed it. And also, I would have never guessed that my blog would get such a huge response. Considering my blog's young age, I feel incredibly lucky for that. Guess I started my blog at the right moment, where the hype around fashion blogging just really took off. So I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU to all my lovely readers, all the people who have commented on my entries, all the magazines, websites or other press that wrote a nice article about me and helped me to get the word out for my blog. After all, if it wasn't for you, I probably would have lost interest in blogging very soon again. One special thank goes out to the girls of Styleseeking Zurich, who helped me build a readership in the very beginning. Over time, I have added several categories to this blog and I always wondered, which ones are your favourites? And also, are you missing something dearly on my blog? Some of you might have noticed that I started writing a bit more in my entries to give it a more personal touch in addition to my photographs. So please let me know what you think in the comments and once again THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Hero

Hero by Regina Spektor

POP Magazine Issue 22

I've never been interested in POP magazine until last summer, when the first issue of POP with Dasha Zhukova as editor-in-chief came out. In this issue, Dasha Zhukova talks in the editor's letter about how everything is made digitally available today and whether it will be the end of today's print publications or not. At one point, she says: „However, art and fashion magazines serve a more aestehtic purpose than an informative one. It is the beauty of the layouts, the quality of the design, the feel of the paper, all the tactile sensations that make these publications worth buying. These magazines are collector's items of sorts, visual time capsules of the period in which they are published.“ While I think this doesn't apply to all fashion magazines, it certainly does now to POP. I am not buying magazines anymore to keep me updated or to get the latest news, because that's what I have my Google Reader or Twitter for nowadays. I have already written a bit about all this in one of my previous blog entries. This issue of POP Magazine contains over 360 pages and is full of beautiful editorials, well written articles and interviews with a great layout and design.

(click to enlarge)

This issue is also a good example on how you can connect digital content with a printed publication. They included some graphic markers for something called augmented reality, where you will have to go to their website and show the marker to your webcam – something very interesting will happen. Unfortunately, I couldn't test this so far, because thepop.com/ar and POP's iPhone app are both having problems at the moment.

London & Milan Fall 2010 RTW

The most awaited show in London was Burberry once again – even Anna Wintour came to London exclusively for this single show. The collection had a similar vibe as the menswear one, so not too many surprises there. But I have to give them kudos for their livestream, because they took it to a whole new level. Not only did they stream their show live in 3D (same technology as in current cinemas) to a few selected places all over the globe, they also streamed it directly to our screens in HD and even made a whole pre-show around it – similar to broadcastings known from TV channels. After the show, you were able to pre-order some items for a limited time with an estimated delivery time of six to eight weeks, which means you would get it before it even hits the stores. As I already said in an earlier post, I think this all is going in a very interesting and exciting new direction and I can't wait until other brands make similar moves. Here are my favourites from London and Milan fashion week.

Margaret Howell (London)


Burberry Prorsum (London)


Fendi (Milan)


No. 21 (Milan)

I have only picked the ones of which I liked the entire collection – but it might be very well, that I have missed some nice ones, because I didn't have much time the last two weeks to pay close attention. I'm looking forward to hearing your favourites in the comment's section.

Margaret Howell pictures via elle.com, rest via style.com.