While Bucharest Fashion Week is one big hot mess, Romanian Fashion Week on the other hand is ‘it’, where the most important designers show their collections. It took place a couple of days ago in Iasi, one of the prettiest cities in Romania and I proudly present you my favorite pieces from my favorite designers. That does not mean the others were bad, just that these are the pieces that struck a chord with me; clothes that I’d gladly wear literally everyday, all day!

Rows from top to bottom [click on the name of the designer for more pictures]: Andreea Musat - loved the chic ‘purity’ of the collection and the mix of fabrics; thumbs up for the use of feathers; Claudia Castrase - great geometric shapes and color combos; Lena Criveanu - you know I love these a lot; they are so very ‘me’ because I also love big volumes, ‘fabric flowers’ and using textile colored details on fabrics; Ludmila Corlateanu - for our innocent, girlie, Peter-Pan-collar-loving part of our personality [we all have one, right?].

Great, distinct collections. It’s pretty funny that my favorite Romanian designers are all female. Well, besides Razvan Ciobanu who also signed the Irina Schrotter collection:

First two rows from top: Razvan Ciobanu for Irina Schrotter - sophisticated and well-made clothes, loved most outfits a lot, but for some reason they give a ‘Chanel’ vibe; I keep on imagining Sasha Pivovarova in a similar dress with a similar bow, like the one in the first picture on the first row, from a previous designer-collection [Chanel, maybe?]. Or maybe it’s just my fashion-obsessed little mind playing tricks on me. Last row, Razvan Ciobanu sexing it up for his own collection. Notice the pumps in the first picture? Yes, those fetish pumps. Can’t believe the model actually walked while wearing them.

I’m glad to see that Romanian fashion is not that sickeningly tragic after all. Too bad I couldn’t attend. Maybe next year? Maybe I’ll have my own fashion show? How amazing would that be…

[photo credits: Stiletto, Fashion&Beauty]

Numero Tokyo - ‘Subaquatic Beauty’. [credit: scans from TFS]

No, I’m not talking about the 90’s band ‘Wet Wet Wet’ but about these lovely dresses that appear to be all floaty and wet. No, seriously, do you thing the editors really created this spread in a water tank? I remember the episodes in most America’s Next Top Model cycles when they made the girls take pictures under water, however they weren’t dressed in expensive McQueen, Cavalli and so on, gowns.

Sure, a quality gown can be washed and won’t get destroyed; just imagine jumping in the water while wearing a 2000 Euro gown. Must be a bit painful to watch. However, the photographs are amazing, so I guess it’s all worth it.

From the Met Costume Institute Ball. You know I love all things [dresses, of course] strapless and bustier-type, pleated and wrinkled, sequined in a massive way, giving the dress a different, more interesting texture.

Lately, whenever I look at a dress I wonder how it looks from the back. I am curious to see how the closing is made, because a fitted dress is hard to put on if it doesn’t have a decent closing, so that it creates a big enough opening for the hips/bust to get through. There is so much more to a gown than the visible sequins, just like there is more to a book than it’s cover.

Ok, I’ll stop with the philosophy. Been working too hard lately [sewing like a fabric], must have affected my blogging abilities. [photo credit: the fashion spot].

The apartment that I live in is interestingly located in a big intersection in the center of Timisoara, which gives me the opportunity to see a lot of different things: from car crashes to police car chases, naked homeless people living in the yard of an empty building across, surgeries through the windows of the hospital on the right, and recently I noticed this man, probably coming from a village near Timisoara, wearing a huge lamb fur coat [no, it has nothing to do with Gwen Stefani].

I remember my grandparents at the countryside having a lot of fur pieces made from the fur that remained after using the lamb meat for nutritional reasons. It was shocking to see that people still wear those home-hand-made coats in 2008. Come to think of it, there are a lot of people living in Romanian villages without electricity. Thought provoking, right?

These knitted organs actually inspired me. I asked my grandma to knit some winter scarves for me that I want to use in some dresses for my next winter collection. Winter 2009 that is. I do think ahead and all I want to do now is work on the new collection, move on, learn more about patterns, buy adorable colored, quality fabrics and just try different things, styles, designs out. I want the new, I am eager to literally create what I think of.

However, the big number of orders that I have to sew these weeks from previous collections literally prevent me from working on new stuff. It’s not complaining; I know I need to find an atelier to produce the orders that I get from stores, so right now it just is what it is.

It’s funny that everybody keeps on telling me that ‘you work hard now and then your employers will’ but the truth is I love challenges, I enjoy the work, like the lack of time, the exhaustion of it all. It just gives an important sense of accomplishment. Probably because when I have nothing to do, I easily get bored. Maybe I’ll start knitting. Hearts.