Kate Middleton, Michelle Obama and Samantha Cameron Fashion Face-off

With America’s First Lady Michelle Obama politically visiting U.K. for three days this week much anticipation by fashionistas were set into high gear as three of the world’s fashion icons, with husbands as world leaders and a future king, are bound to meet face to face. 

 Imagine Michelle Obama meeting with the British prime minister’s wife, Samantha Cameron, known for being a fashionista.  Also how is Mrs. Obama going to dress herself in meeting the newly married Duchess Kate Middleton and jive with her accessible style?

It was definitely a classic fashion picture history pages for the books.

    

 Michelle Obama, Mobama as she is popularly and fondly called in the U.S., is known for her love of baring her arms, donning high street J. Crew, wearing oversized pearl necklaces, brooches, costume jewelry and belts.  She can mix American designers’ works (which includes that of up and coming designers), like Thaakon, Isaac Mizrahi, Michael Kors and even the Olsen twins’ The Row with affordables from Talbots, H&M and Banana Republic.  This earned America’s first lady the reputation of being the queen of high-low dressing.  She wears designer looks with off-the-rack pieces that made Vogue Editor Anna Wintour comment that every look Michelle Obama comes up with is her very own.  The former lawyer is known to generate $2.7 billion in fashion sales and naturally inspires an army of knockoffs and copycats. 

 Meeting with the newly titled Duchess of Cambridge for a mere 15 to 20 minutes in the 1844 room in Buckingham Palace Michelle Obama wore a shiny, icy-blue Barbara Tfank dress and a swingy pink bolero jacket with a gun-metal slingback stilettos.  Kate, whose first official duty since marrying into the British royal family, is this meeting with the Obamas chose to wear a sand-colored fitted bandage-style dress priced at $340 made by Reiss Schola.  This dress which sold out in minutes is with a box neckline, asymmetric overlays and a panelled band across the waist.  More encounters between these two beautiful and stylish ladies are set to transpire in July when Prince William and Kate visit California.

   

 As with Kate’s fashion biography she already captured the world’s attention with her fashion choices way before she wed Prince William (though her name being with associated with the prince definitely paved the way for this).  This fascination on her fashion choices is proven by her being on the Best Dressed List of every imaginable magazine since 2006.  The future queen of England had famously favoured designer brands like Issa and Mulberry and is also known for wearing high-street fashion brands like Topshop giving off a simple, stylish look that many designers famously frown at for being not fashion forward. 

 For a BBQ in the British Prime Minister’s garden Michelle Obama wore a black-and-white belted dress from Tracy Reece’s pre-fall collection which she finished off with matching bracelets.  The sparkling detail at the waist provided a nice touch.  Samantha Cameron wore a pastel frock by Jonathan Saunders nipped by a bright green belt.

  Samantha Cameron is Britain Prime Minister’s 39-year-old wife known for her love of bright sheaths, cinched waist and platform pumps.

 For the usual, mandatory English tea with Samantha Cameron at the Cameron’s private apartment at Downing Street Michelle Obama wore New Yorker’s Narciso Rodriguez cobalt-blue coat was she momentarily had taken off to show her vibrant purple wool-crepe by London-based Roksanda Ilincic dress.  Michelle Obama accessorized this ensemble with a black belt and black kitten heels.  Samantha Cameron had British Peter Pilotto embroidered floral silk dress.  Grey pumps completed her look.

Read more: http://beyondjane.com/fashion/kate-middleton-michelle-obama-and-samantha-cameron-fashion-face-off/#ixzz1NmOIwIoT

Can The Middletons’ Social Climbing Ways Get Pippa a Nice, Rich, Titled Husband Also?

After Kate Middleton took the royal plunge officially last April 29 reports are now naturally centering on her aptly-named middle class family – the Middletons.  On the hotseat is the Duchess of Cambridge’s younger sister and her seamlessly natural and somehow selective way of getting boyfriends with double-barrelled last names bound to either inherit a title or a fortune and sometimes even both. 

Much as the degrading “doors to manual” murmurs were the only thing the media was able to dish out (prior to the royal wedding) as the by-line whenever the born rich, titled and influential would see the mother of William’s bride, former air stewardess – Carole Middleton, it does seem a little bit kinder now in comparison with what the media turned up with concerning the other members of Princess Catherine’s family, specifically, her best friend and strongest ally who also happens to be her sister, Pippa.

  This quest of the media was fuelled when Pippa Middleton almost stole the spotlight on her sister’s wedding.  Albeit both sisters were wearing creations of Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen it was Pippa’s figure-hugging dress that spelled the end of whatever privacy the “vulgar try-hards” Middletons were hoping for.  The wedding of the heir to the British throne was then dubbed “All about Philippa Charlotte’s bum”.

   Much as it was already known by royal watchers that “bold and brazen” loo-paper-wearing Pippa is the total opposite of her older demure sister the media was able to dig up a history of Pippa doing very calculated moves and showcasing an inherent talent of acquiring boyfriends that normally would be out of reach from such commoners-rags-to-riches like her family.

It was said that the great orchestrator of everything and everyone that gets acquainted with the Middleton daughters is none other than Prince William’s mother-in-law.  It was said that it was she who urged Kate to enrol in St. Andrews University when she heard that Prince William would study there.

Carole Middleton is known for her networking skills that made their online party accessories Party Pieces a success that eventually made her and her husband millionaires. It is said that of the two sisters it was Pippa who inherited this networking talent evidenced in her having rich, titled boyfriends.

 Pippa’s presence during William and Kate’s courtship had been a proof of the power of how close a sister Pippa was to Kate: always protectively holding her older sister’s hand, always leading the way, while at the same time being more tanned and smiling more than ever than  her sister. 

Known as the other half of the ‘Wisteria Sisters’ due to her and Kate being “highly decorative, terribly fragrant and having the ferocious ability to (socially) climb” Pippa, a party planner, has once beaten supermodels, actors and aristocrats in being named Britain’s most eligible person in the society magazine the Tatler.  Pippa beat the other 199 coolest young people with society connections, who love parties, and have good physical and financial attributes.

Being able to go to a lot of parties (“but most of the time as the caterer”) Pippa is known humiliatingly as the “Big Dipper”.

 Pippa’s current boyfriend is Etonian Alex Loudon who works as a stockbroker and stands to inherit a sizeable fortune.

 

 Known for her success in attaching herself to well-heeled classmates, in her third year in college, Pippa lived in with George Percy, the eldest son of the Duke of Northumberland and Lord Ted Innes-Ker, the second son of the Duke of Roxburghe.  She also dated Jardine Paterson who is an heir to aHong Kong industrial fortune.  Scottish aristocrat Billy More Nesbitt and diamond heir Simon Youngman also didn’t escape “Wisteria sister” Pippa’s grips. 

Eccentric Thrifty Ways of The World’s Billionaires

 Mark Zuckerberg just bought his own home.  Nice.  $7 million dollars.  Too expensive… if you’re an ordinary Joe.  But the 26-year-old Facebook founder is valued at $13.5 billion. 

Even with the traditional, age-old, father of all budgeting strategies of partitioning 30% each of one’s income on food, clothing and shelter with the remaining 10% for savings one multi-billionaire’s own, very first  home at  $7 million seems a little off-calculatedly cheap.

Then again, Zuckerberg and many billionaires like him, though separated by age and nationalities, all hold the same humble principle.  Though many frugal living tips have been printed since time immemorial these accomplished and wealthy people all believe in the same principle:  if the people who made them rich, their customers who mostly belong to the middle class, cannot afford anything of what sorts they, the very rich of the rich, won’t buy it.

Here are some of the world’s richest and how frugally brow-raising eccentric they are.  They’re rich, successful yet simple.  Each one an inspiration and a definite wake up call to people who are always at wits end to make both ends meet.

 Warren Buffett – a most admired American investor worth $50 billion. 

Still lives in his modest Nebraska home which he bought in the 1950s for $31,500. 

Replaced his six-year-old Lincoln Town Car for a 2006 Cadillac DTS.

Prefers to eat hamburgers.

Chooses soft drink over wine.

Bought his second wife’s wedding ring from his own shop and asked for a staff discount.

 Ingvar Kamprad – a Swedish founder of Ikea, an international home products company that designs and sells read-to-assemble furniture, appliances and home accessories and is the world’s largest furniture retailer.  He is worth $31 billion.

Flies economy.

Drives a 1993 Volvo.

Often dines at lower-tier restaurants.

Furnishes his home with his own Ikea’s affordable merchandise.

Known for dumping his barber when he found one that would cut his hair for $13.

Known also for buying his food in the afternoon because this is the time when prices of food drops.

Quoted on why he lives a cheap lifestyle, “If I start to acquire luxurious things, it will only incite customers to follow suit.  I look at the money I’m about to spend on myself and ask if Ikea’s customers could afford it.”

 Jim C. Walton – an American heir of Wal-Mart worth $23.4 billion.

Prefers pickups to sports cars.

Drives a 15-year-old Dodge Dakota.

 Azim Premji – an Indian scion of a cooking-oil business who is $12.7 billion in assets.

Drove a Ford Escort for eight years before buying a new Toyota Corolla.

Usually walks to work.

Stays at budget hotels.

Wears unbranded shirts.

Flies economy.

 Frederik Meijer – an American worth $2.5 billion.  Together with his father they launched the first “one-stop shopping” concept via their Meijer Grocery that was renamed Meijer Thrifty Acres.

Drives cars with high gas mileage.

Wears inexpensive suits bought from his stores.

Stays in cheap motels.

 John Caudwell – an Englishman worth $2.3 billion who just sold his 85% stake in the cellphone business Caudwell Group.

Used to go to work on a bike riding all 14 miles.

Cuts his own hair.

Buys his clothes at the British affordable retailer Marks and Spencer.

Drinks cheap wine.

 David Cheriton – a Canadian worth $1.6 billion.  He owns a large chunk of Google stock

Prefers riding his bike.

Drives a 1986 Volkswagen camper.

Flies commercial.

Cuts his hair.

Read more: http://socyberty.com/people/eccentric-thrifty-ways-of-the-worlds-billionaires/#ixzz1MOQiJzSx

Kate MIddleton's Wedding Dress in Par with William's Royal Cousins'

 It’s disconcerting.  Bold ones out there wouldn’t care if reports are saying that Kate Middleton’s wedding dress didn’t disappoint.  What on earth are they saying?  It was the most disappointing clothing ensemble the former Miss Middleton ever showed us that left many open-jawed in a major historical, disappointing way.

It’s not that the Sarah Burton creation, of the Alexander McQueen label, was bad.  It wasn’t.  It’s just not that in the same level in the impact department that Kate’s Middleton’s engagement dress created.  That Issa blue engagement dress was a class with a smash that made the uneducated aware what a classic dress looks like.

Rumors of Kate wanting a blend of tradition and modernity on her wedding dress coupled with the trademark Alexander McQueen vision turned out bad.  Royals wanting something usually means they get everything.  Kate’s combination of wishes, visions and hopes for her wedding dress didn’t work.  Her dress was a class alright but it is without that smash the whole world was expecting.  It was boring.
 Her sister, who is her Honorary Bridesmaid, Pippa Middleton’s dress turned out nicer though Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen also created this.  Pippa’s dress was a heavy, ivory satin-based crepe with a cowl front with the same button detail and lace trims as that of Kate’s. 

Probably without the pressure to make a big bang on that day Pippa Middleton just left everything to Sarah Burton.  Nice, smashing decision.  Pippa’s dress was a class with a smash and a modern classic.  This is the Alexander McQueen vision serving Kate’s younger sister well.  Though absence of rumours of Pippa working closely with Sarah Burton hadn’t come up yet it is conclusive that Kate Middleton’s working close with the creative director of Alexander McQueen in the making of her wedding dress did it for her.  Royal followers know how many artistically related jobs Kate was rumoured to have applied in, during the 10 years she was a girlfriend-in-waiting and a live-in  girlfriend of Prince William, which she only managed to stay with only for a while for some unknown reasons.

 The only thing that could stand on its own in Kate’s wedding dress ensemble is her lace top.  Really, really disappointing.  Imagine that wedding dress without that lace top and you get the disappointment I mean.

The new Duchess of Cambridge’s veil is of soft, ivory silk tulle with a trim of hand-embroidered flowers made by the Royal School of Needlework (definitely keeping up with the royals’ duties of being walking advertisements of buying British).

This veil was held in place by a Cartier ‘halo’ tiara lent by the Queen.  Her train is over six feet and the outstanding piece of sleeves made of lace is long and cut in a low V in front.  Though the future queen’s dress is made with ivory white satin gazar with its skirt echoing an opening flower with white satin gazar arches and pleats and its satin bodice narrowed at the waist and padded at the hips drawing on the Victorian tradition of corsets it just didn’t have the impact it should.

This boring royal wedding dress naturally comes to mind William’s cousins.  In recent years the House of Windsor saw William’s contemporaries going down the aisle.  Some of them took on the name of humble commoners while some of them took also unlikely commoners and brought them into the royal fold.

Kate should’ve learned a lesson or two from these royal-born and royally married wives:  just be the undeniable well-bred self that their name naturally moulded them to become or what their royal husbands definitely found in them and everything – beautiful wedding dress with a smashing appeal and lasting beautiful look would fall into place.  There’s no need to work on mixing tradition and modernity with an artistic vision of a designer.

 Here are the gowns William’s royal cousins’ wives and cousins-in-law wore to the altar.  They definitely came from humbler designers compared to Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen but some of them surely had that punch that no wedding dress, even if someone marrying off to the conservative British royal family, should lack.  


Read more: http://socyberty.com/people/kate-middletons-wedding-dress-in-par-with-williams-royal-cousins/#ixzz1Lo8IEYDF

Victoria Beckham’s Powerful Fashion Evolution

She is now known not only for the fashion she wears but for the fashion she creates.

 She’s one of the most promising and surprising designers who recently gained attention.  From being the Posh one of the 90s girl band, Spice Girls, and being the wife of a soccer great, David Beckham, she is now known not only for the fashion she wears but for the fashion she creates.
It was a long and painful journey to fashion greatness.  The whole world was a silent, suffering witness with her fearless and painstaking steps along the way.  
Now, it’s a whole new different ball game.  Victoria Caroline Beckham, 36, through her designer brand VB,  heralded a look that, though can be defined by words, is more visibly characterized by that certain recognizable total look that tells who the designer the moment one sees it.  This is Chanel history repeating itself, which Christian Dior also experienced, now only with a different name:  Victoria Beckham. 

VB’s trademark simple creations are stamped with such simplicity that her fashion evokes well-calculated components that is often, to the ordinary eye, just composed of cut and color.  It’s a beautiful architecture which  mere absence of many things, with only an artist’s vision, perfectionism and precision, is enough to lend a creation a beauty and elegance in the most simple, realistic, elegant and beautiful way.  The end result is always an innovative piece of clothing with such timelessness that it heralds a new classic – a truly magnificent creation that creates a whole new level.
With an innate eye and instinct for fashion coupled with the help of some designer friends who gave her valuable tips Victoria Beckham finally found a style that works for her that a surprised public suddenly took notice of and appreciated.  This eventually made her a threat to other designers with each and every collection she turns out with.

Currently Victoria Beckham is in her fourth pregnancy.  This would soon bring forth a daughter in July that she and David are very much hoping for after having three boys.
With the news confirming her pregnancy much speculation came about on how this English style icon, who currently lives in America, would bring forth a surge in maternity fashion.  All it did herald, though, was celebrities in the same pregnant condition.
With the onset of her pregnancy her design label Victoria Beckham (VB) started turning out loose-fitting clothes, still sophisticated and sexy but, a deviation from her trademark hug- the-body silhouette.  With the valuable talent of the people who work under her name no designer label dared touch maternity fashion during her pregnancy.  It’s worthwhile to take note that these loose-fitting clothing of VB are not even maternity fashion themselves but another well-calculated, innovative and timeless pieces.
Just a few days ago Victoria was caught by the paparazzi in a billowing grey jumper dress from her collection while she was in Los Angeles airport.  She was sporting the dress’ coordinating bag and black ankle boots.

Though with only some weight added on by the bump coupled with the tea and toast with lashings of marmalade that served as her pregnancy cravings it makes sense to say that with or without that enviable figure Victoria has truly found fashion, made the public appreciate her for it and had gotten the one in a million opportunity to revolutionize it.


Read more: http://beyondjane.com/fashion/victoria-beckhams-powerful-fashion-evolution/#ixzz1JiURYU5I

Polls Show Donald Trump’s High Probability Running for U.S. President in 2012

 The poll might just show Donald John Trump, Sr., 64, as a second placer in the latest GOP or Republican poll on who might be this political party’s potential bet against the Democratic Party’s in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Elections.

 Trailing behing Mitt Romney who got a 21 percent support and tying with Mike Huckabee wherein they both got 17 percent Trump bested Newt Gingrich who got 11 percent, Sarah Palin 10 percent and Tim Pawlenty 6 percent.

GOP, which is the Republican Party’s nickname that stands for Grand Old Party, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the U.S. along with the Democratic Party. GOP has the second most registered voters and as of 2004 totals to 55 million which is roughly one-third of the U.S. electorate. However the Democratic party boasts of 72 million voters as of 2004 and is the party where President Barack Obama belongs.

One of the two bright hopes for Trump being GOP’s bet is the result of a poll released earlier this week that found him to be the one who might topple Romney’s lead in New Hampshire.

The New Hampshire primary is the first primary in the quadrennial U.S. presidential election cycle which is the process of choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential elections.

Public Policy Polling says that without Trump in the game Romney sits at 31 percent which is actually a 16-point lead over Huckabee. But once Trump joins in the race Romney would just be ahead by six points which could easily change in Trump’s favor.

Likewise Trump is leading the entire potential U.S. candidates favored by the Tea Party.

Though not a political party the Tea Party is a political movement that has caucuses in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States. A Gallup poll shows almost 80% of Tea Party members consider themselves to be Republicans.

The psychology of Trump’s popularity may be the reason for the sudden surge of the possibility of this business magnate, socialite, author and television personality running as the Republican’s best bet for United States’ 2012 Presidential Elections.

Read more: http://socyberty.com/politics/polls-show-donald-trumps-high-probability-running-for-u-s-president-on-2012/#ixzz1J0kDI5tF