Top Off

Monday evening and my Paris hen do has been and gone, leaving me with a hoarse voice and wonderful memories. The girls did me proud! In the past 48 hours i've flicked through racks of vintage Balmain, Chanel and Chloé and experienced the best show i've ever and possibly will ever see at the Lido on the Champs-Élysées.

Showgirls, cabaret and prancing ponies aplenty, there was sequins, beading, trouser suits reminiscent of Yves Saint Laurent circa 1990 and topless Parisian burlesque beauties! Lithe and impeccably turned out, the breast-baring beauties were high up on the table discussions with much adoration.

So with this in mind and while flicking through Alice in Wardrobe Wonderland, i wanted to do a post about the wonder of femininity and fashion and especially how nudity can be portrayed tastefully and polar opposite to a tabloid page 3.

Would you agree?

The shots below are from Vogue Australia and then Kate Moss who champions the top off to perfection.

Style Spot - Ashley Olsen

Growing up, I had a pretty eclectic dress sense. There were the chavy, Reebok trainer years, the hippy flared years (my friends called them my 'fag-end trousers' for their resemblance to the end of a Benson & Hedges cigarette butt), the gothic Morticia years, the club-hopping, Ibiza-loving, limited clothes-wearing years and most recently, a term I'd like to coin as my own, my polished grunge years (I love The Doors and any rock music but still like to wash my hair). As such, I've never had one sole style icon. I've certainly appreciated the style of many a celebrity/model/mother (the latter of which I look to as constant inspiration), over the years but I've found that as I get older and more 'worldly', inevitably life influences the way I dress. 

So to break down my newly termed style, my current crush and whose style I equally admire is Ashley Olsen, aka one half of the Olsen Twins. 

I find it slightly strange to admire someone who's younger than me, however the way she wears Jil Sander tailoring, sumptuous Rick Owens knits, a crocodile Fendi tote slung so insouciantly off the arm and who can forget the Prada black satin turban circa 2007? She just gets it right, every time. 

From the draped, goddess-like white backless gown she wore to the Costume Institute Gala, to her homage to YSL in a black cropped tux; even her recent outing wearing a minimalist black string dress gave me a hit of '90s nostalgia. 

So here's to AO. Until the next style milestone. 

Images courtesy of olsensanonymous.blogspot.com