Yes, Your Majesty!

With the excuse of going to buy a pair of waterproof boots for our upcoming trip to Quebec City this weekend my sis and I headed out to Yorkdale Mall yesterday afternoon. The good news is she managed to find a pair of fur-trimmed Sorels. The bad news is, that's not all we managed to find.

We were ostensibly on our way to Starbucks, which you can conveniently only get to by passing H&M, when the $9.95 rack baited us in, which it always does. The great thing about H&M is that it's so super cheap it eliminates all the usual guilt and anxiety that normally ensues after and/or during a shopping spree. Like two kids in a candy store, my sis and I happily danced down the isles, ladening our arms with clothes until the hangers dug deep into our skin! Masochism at its best! Emerging from the change room we both exclaimed in unison: "I'll take everything!" (OK, we didn't really do that, but a little fictive bravado never hurt anybody). Here's what I copped:

Knitted cotton bolero, $34.95

Perfect fit, stretchy cotton tank, $17.95 (a bit steep but worth it)

Everything I've said thus far about H&M is blatantly obvious and probably why its gimmick works so well. There's another quality however that makes H&M indispensable to eurotrash: H&M is the accessory to the accessory. Allow me to explain. Like my girl at Life is Glossy said the other day, The Blonde Salad secret is out! But we can learn a thing or two from our dear Chiara no matter how famous she gets:

super expensive accessories + super cheap clothes = super eurotrash style

It's like dressing in reverse; first you start off by picking your bag and shoes as the main, designer pieces, then you add on a t-shirt or a trendy floral skirt. I remember when I purchased my first Gucci bag, I couldn't wear it with anything because it trumped all my outfits - it was never a finishing touch; it was a bloody coup de grace!

So we learn. The only way to pull off an amazing outfit without looking too designer-designer is to accessorize with brands like H&M, Zara, Topshop, Forever XXI, etc., and build around staple pieces like a Balenciaga bag, YSL shoes and maybe someday soon, a Hermes belt ;)

Mile High Romance

February is the month of... love?

Perhaps for some, but for others February is the month of epicurism, which is love nonetheless! Every year around this time all the MDFs (morte di fame) come out of the woodwork to enjoy reduced, prix fixe meals at some of Toronto's hottest, bank-breaking restaurants. Winterlicious is also the time of year when eurotrash doesn't mind paying for her own meal. I mean, if she's going to have to sit across the table from some Exhibit a, b, or c, listen to his boring stories all night and pretend to laugh innocently at his casual advances, all at regular price, then he best be paying the check! But why waste a winterlicious meal on a boy? After all, it's February, the month of... great friends.

Canoe Restaurant, 66 Wellington St, Toronto

This year the girls, by some miracle of the reso-gods, managed to score an 8:45 reservation saturday night at Canoe. Four unsuccessful parking jobs, two elevator rides and 54 stories later, we arrived atop the TD Bank tower - being the youngest girls there was definitely the MasterCard punchline and after a few martinis our designated driver was working the room like nobody's business. Our table was to die for and the view of the city made me feel like I was definitely in Toronto and definitely not in Toronto at all, which brings me to the point of this morning's post.

Panorama Lounge, 55 Bloor St W, Toronto

Lately, I've been reppin' T.O. like a mascot, and for good reason too; the city is mine! From those strange heights I always find myself falling more in love with my hometown. It's like seeing the city for the first time and already knowing everything about it; its traffic jams and one-way roads, its best ice cream and used bookstores, its last snowfall and the way back home to your house. Saturday night from my window seat at Canoe I thought all those things as I shared a meal with my three best friends. My eurotrash advice is to do everything up high! The city is filled with hotspots in the sky that until now, I've yet to discover. From 40 stories up you'll feel a sweet romance that no rose, chocolate or tiffany heart can inspire. So maybe February is the month of love after all; if it is, I never wanna come down.

The Sandal Boot: A Sho(e)-in.

Me, June 2009, wearing my Aldo sandal-boots for the first time.

Just the other day I was re-organizing my shoes and I found myself thinking, "Gosh, I really need to get this shoe thing right". Admittedly, I usually know what I'm doing when it comes to bags, boots and faceshields, but when it comes to shoes I can't tap my head and rub my belly in tandem for the life of me!

Am i selling out for the sake of this bi-weekly post? Maybe. I mean, for heaven's sake, eurotrash obviously knows what looks good. We ooh and ahh and make googly eyes at some of the world's hottest footwear, effortlessly building up the courage to go into David's or Specchio and cop that!

Then the following series of events occurs:

-You pump that heavy door open and walk in, trying to look all nonchalant meanwhile your heart is racing so fast that your eyes start to water. So as not to blow your cover, you blow your nose and pretend it's allergies.

-You browse around, seeing what's new in store. An insufferable salesclerk approaches, shit, and says the magic words, "Can I help you?". Funny how when you actually need help, the salesclerks vanish into thin air and it almost seems like the store is being run by Decepticons. Funny how at this moment, I don't need help: "No thanks, just looking".

-And now the salesclerk and his buddies are 'just looking' at you, as you just look. Your heart rate miraculously increases and now you begin to get dizzy. So many nice shoes, so many choices, what did I even come in here to get again? Oh yeah, I wanted to check out some Louboutin's, which for some reason, all of a sudden, seems like the hugest feat you've ever attempted.

-You turn some red soles over, and instantly $750.00 reads $7.5 million. They seemed so much more affordable from my computer desk earlier that morning. The shoes all look so beautiful that you forget all the clothes you own, you even forget your name. You concede; you're in no state to make a major purchase today.

-Heading for the 50 tonne door, the salesclerk bids you farewell, as if he's won the "she's not gonna buy anything" bet he had going with his coworkers all along. Horrible.

-You turn left and make a mad dash for Aldo's. You drop $250.00 on two pairs of shoes in under 2 minutes and you feel like a million bucks.

-You wear them two times. Once each pair. Sigh, if only you had dropped the 7.5 million when you had the chance.

Sounds familiar? Well my dear readers, I am here to tell you that this morning my last minute recovery trip to Aldo's has for once, been the right decision. Flipping through Style.com's "What to Buy Now, Spring 2010", I came across the very style of shoe that I have been cursing myself over for having bought last summer at Aldo's. Ladies and Gents, I present to you: the new sandal-boot... and my shoe sense restored.

Giuseppe Zanotti Design sandal, Spring 2010

Balmain sandal, Spring 2010

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Tom Binns Collection

A eurotrash girl is probably the last one to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to popular culture. She's always either too early or too late: she wore massive faceshields when sunglasses were still in their functional Oakley phase; she started reading Twilight the book after having rented Twilight the movie.

So blah blah blah, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is right on time even though the entire narrative is propelled by a skittish white rabbit who is perpetually running late for a tea party that is doomed to carry on ad infinitum. If life were like Carroll's wonderland, Alice would be a eurotrash girl. She's curiouser. She constantly stops to have tea with surreal characters and all of a sudden, inexplicably, becomes a VIP who is best friends with the Queen. What else should transpire on a lazy summer afternoon?

"Macche' importa se e` finita, cosa importa se era la mia vita o no. Ciò che conta e` che sia stata una fantastica giornata morbida" - Vasco Rossi, Una splendida giornata: the eurotrash anthem for those Alice in Wonderland days.

But enough with the intellectual reference game. What i really meant to blog about today is my new obsession spawned from this Carroll revival: Alice in Wonderland jewellery pieces. Big name designers like Tom Binns, Stella McCartney and Swarovski have unveiled collections under the auspices of the Cheshire Cat.

Stella McCartney

Swarovski Underworld Collection

These are all OK and will probably be donned by those girls who must have. Instead, what eurotrash is seeking are the one-of-a-kind, handmade pieces she stumbled upon at Etsy.com; a bit more recherche', tres affordable and won't make you look like you belong with the latter half of the tweedle twins. Eurotrash chooses a bright charm bracelet with vintage touches to wear with a simple white t-shirt, a summer tan and lots of pale pink lip gloss.

This is a Man's World...

Junya Wantanabe RTW Fall 2010

It's no fun being stuck in bed after very uncomfortable gum surgery, although I must say, I got a kick out of my periodontist. He not only called me out on my Pucci rain boots, but he actually paused to name the original composer of one of my buddha bar tracks whilst suturing. But alas, on to yogurt and toradol...

Has deliria set in? Because as I surf through all the men's fall 2010, ready-to-wear fashion shows I can't help but wish, like a little tiny bit, I was a man. What really did me in was that picture of Lapo in front of the Pitti posted by The Sartorialist. How hard can that be? Pink shirt, Burgundy tie, funky plaid blazer, staple jeans and grunge-grey boots. Done. Face it boys, you have no excuse to be dressed badly. It's so easy breezy!

Then I turn to my closet and cringe. Being a girl is definitely fun, if you like that omg-i-have-nothing-to-wear feeling that creeps up every time you swing open your closet door; tears and ice cream binges ensuing. From accessories to shoes, to jewellery and lingerie, to dresses and skirts, tops and jumpers, jackets and blazers, blouses and leggings, and everything in between- can you blame me for wanting to put on a pair of nudie jeans and start doing bench presses? Sure sure, my adversaries will say that men's fashion has come a long way in terms of experimentation and variety, to which the ever-growing metrosexual movement can stake its claim. Yet, truth be told, all you have to do is browse through some of these men's fashion shows (well, maybe not Galliano's) to see that for a man, a suit is a suit is a suit is a suit.

Paul Smith RTW Fall 2010

What piece in a woman's wardrobe is so essential that she could wear it all day every day, make small inexpensive changes to it as the season's do, and still manage to be the envy of all her friends when she walks into a room? Every girl knows that wearing the same bag over and over again will bring her no accolade and that there is no greater marker of inadequacy than fading into the background dressed in jeans and a black top, holding a martini glass. The staple theory just does not work for us girls; first, there are way too many staples and second, if you cling to them, well, you know what happens, you get the martini-blending effect.

Sigh. Maybe thats what I should do; just stop worrying about the opposite sex and make myself a nice french martini. No one said liquid diets didn't have their perks...

The Hermès Belt Fund

With all this talk of phone companies allegedly scamming their guilt-stricken, first-world customers into donating a paltry sum of money to "Haiti" simply by forwarding a quasi-chain letter to all their contacts on bbm, I decided to come clean about my own shady efforts at fundraising.

It all started with a conversation I had with my friend Kat last night as she drove me home from a "snooki-acrylic-nail-pink-icinged cupcakes and jersey shore" girls night in (yeah, thats right, eurotrash watches that show). She told me about her failed attempts at saving money all her life and how she's ready to turn over a new leaf for 2010. It breaks my heart to write this now, as it did telling her then, I said: "unfortunately, Kat, you and I have the nice clothes, nice bag and nice shoes disease and we know the transitory cure all too well...".

Then a lightbulb flashed and I thought to myself, what if I could save money AND shop?

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Hermes Belt Fund. Starting today, each paycheque I get, I will donate a certain portion to the HBF and for every dollar I place in that fund, I must place the same amount into an actual savings account. Sure it will take me twice as long to reach my goals, but when I do, I will have the same amount of money saved up as I just spent on a brand new Hermes belt! I know, I know, it's rather genius, I agree.

Why Hermes you ask? Look, a eurotrash girl has got every letter of the alphabet going on GG, LV, CC, RL, FF, DG, YSL - but this girl is missing the H; the ultimate fashion letter. Hermes is so sophisticated and so French that people hardly even wear it. Ignorance, n'est pas? For the more esoteric, we know that owning a piece with an H on it is like investing your money in an exclusive hedge fund that just keeps on giving. Look at Victoria Beckham, her Birkin and Kelly bag collection was recently totalled at 2 million dollars and she looks so good we could kill her. Then again, I'm sure she doesn't have an HBF going, but she might want to consider it, you know, just for fun.

Make no mistake though, for the rest of us eurotrash the HBF is serious business.

Danielle Steel: Proving you can still be Eurotrash after 50..

I have a confession to make. Over the (ahem, much extended) holiday season I read my first Danielle Steel novel. The correct response is: I have way too much time on my hands and I am now vehemently afraid of the thesaurus function. Forcing my way through all 352 pages of The House, I spent my last days of vacation waiting for Sarah Anderson to find out (because of course, I already knew after the first 10 pages) that she is in fact capable of falling in love with her steve martin-esque architect after a bad relationship with some hunk, buying a 30,000 square foot palace in San Francisco that her great-grandmother and her dead client lived in using her dead client's money she just happened to inherit, meeting a rich guy in Paris for inspirational prophecy and great wine, having a kid by accident and getting married - all at the age of 40. This is what a cold-blast in Florida induces. But every time I put the book down I would hover over its landing spot to stare at the back cover picture of Ms. Steel standing in the middle of an ornate living room donning a black ball gown with decollete neckline, hair pulled back immaculately.

I began to realize... this chick is eurotrash. I mean, she is always photographed wearing pearls or some obese necklace and jingly jangles (as my mom likes to call an excess of bracelets). Her tan is perma and her hair is sadly, longer than mine. It's as if she's managed to retain only the good parts of that Valley-of-the-dolls-meets-Joan-Collins look. And her life, well, if you think her books are outlandishly predictable, wait until you read her bio! Married five times, Steel is a recluse living in a 55-room home in San Francisco (sounds vaguely familiar...), early childhood spent in Paris with wealthy parents who taught her the joi de vivre which now demands she own a vacation home near St. Tropez, etc., etc. For Steel, art is the ultimate imitation of life. Damn, she is my kind of girl.

So I've sandwiched her in between Diane von Furstenberg and Donatella Versace in my style rolodex. Look at it this way: what author (of a book that is ostensibly NOT about fashion) goes into painstaking detail about her character's vintage Valentino dress find for an entire paragraph? And what author can trump her own book's front cover with her back cover head shot? She even has a fragrance and I swear, she is getting younger, like in an eerie Death Becomes Her sort of way. My advice? Add some of those gilded books to your library, they'll look perfect beside The Screwtape Letters and Bret Easton Ellis. I just did.