There’s no doubt Valentine’s Day can bring out the best in office relationship gossip. But with love topics buzzing around our head quarters this month I’ve discovered it can also do the opposite.
You see when your colleagues are largely female you get to hear a lot of chit chat, a lot of hilarious dating talk and a lot of general moaning and groaning about the opposite sex. But aside from trivial tales you also get to hear a hell-of-a-lot of heart breaking stories that could stop you sleeping soundly for the next month. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to launch into a man-bashing column (as tempting as that is) but instead a realisation I had after hearing some horrendous tales of adultery, deception and cruelty.
Here were women who had been through hell and back with their relationships (I’m talking scenarios even Hollywood couldn’t muster), and had come out the other side with themselves, their career and their strength in tact. Most importantly, they had emerged with whole hearts just full to the brim with love. Overcoming an aftermath of pain, trust issues and financial woes they had held their heads high and soldiered on – resilient, caring and passionate women till the end.
They refused to carry past issues into current relationships and rather than passively aggressively pour out their hurts they actively sought, help, guidance and practical measures to truly heal themselves.
To say these women are inspirational is an understatement – in fact for me, they serve as a pillar of strength and solid proof that no matter how bad things get, you can always drag yourself up from the rubble and carry on. And after all that’s what women do best.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
 

During one of our Style editorial round table meetings a couple of weeks ago (OK it's more like a few chairs thrown together while we slurp down half cold coffees) we decided to wrack our brains on what's topical in late-Jan and Feb (this, of course, required more coffee).
And while fashion talks, beauty news and the latest Brisbane and Gold Coast entertainment was an obvious start (when our minds weren’t agonising over the State's biggest natural disaster of all time). We realised what's really eating up our thoughts is how darn much we've all been eating. Yup Christmas was definitely a time to overindulge for many in the Style team and while we marched into Jan throwing around words like diet, boot camp and regular exercise as part of our 2011 resolutions, it took the first stressful deadline for most of us to fall off the bandwagon (for some the first day of work was occasion enough to crack the Tim Tams). And this got us thinking... How do we buck the fitness fail trend?
You see it's easy to start a new year guns blazing with fab plans to succeed where you previously fell flat on your backside. But for many of us (and I'll put up my hand for this one) all it takes is your first stressful week, the first lot of bills or even your first all-you-can-eat buffet and the promises of a good diet, increased organisational skills and regular exercise go out the window.
All of a sudden it's been six weeks since you've opened your mail, the joggers are once again stuffed in the back of the cupboard in a defeated pile and the fruit and vegies you stocked up on have turned into a science experiment at the bottom of the crisper.
So where do we go from here?
Well first things first, we reasoned, this is a job best left to the professionals. I caught up with Brissy fitness guru, Function Well's Darren Bain, who dished up some solid tips on keeping the joggers out of the cupboard. And next I picked the exceptional mind of Adele Blair, from Blair Lifestyle Management, who taught us how to stay organised and even how to avoid the inevitable takeaway food run when you're feeling vulnerable. We've served up a top spread in our February issue for you to sink your teeth into, but in the meantime here's some additional tips from Adele that I'm already bringing to my health and organisational table.

1. People often say they don't have time to be organised, life is so busy, gotta be rushing here there and everywhere. News flash, we all have 24 hours each day - it is how we choose to fill those hours determines what time we have to dedicate to anything. If getting more organised is important to you make it happen - in fact getting yourself more organised will actually create more time in your day.
2. Be realistic about time frames: Setting timeframes too short may lead to added stress and anxiety, especially if you can't achieve things in the time frame you have set. Equally, allowing too long to achieve a goal can be just as problematic.
3. Determine the best time of day to do specific tasks: If you are a morning person, allocate this time to do important work where you need to be alert.
4. Plan your meals: This was something I introduced only last year and I can tell you it saves me loads of time.  I spend about 15 minutes every second Saturday morning with my coffee and plan the meals for the next two weeks and while I'm writing the menu I make the shopping list that goes with it - easy.
Do you have any hot tips to stay on track in 2011? If so let us know.
 
 

This week I witnessed an exchange that made me giggle. I was buying my lunch at a bakery/café and in the background Celine Dion was warbling her way through a Christmas tune. One shop assistant turned to the other and offered her $20 to erase this song from the playlist. I could totally sympathise. Having spent over a decade in retail work environments, a never-ending loop of festive carols can certainly send you over the edge. Think about it. While you’re shopping you are exposed to maybe an hour max of treacly tunes whereas the poor shop assistant working an eight-hour day gets to hear the same songs every hour on the hour. And there’s always one screeching, whining rendition of a carol that just sets your nerves on edge and you get to know when it will be playing again...
If you can get past the carols and desperate shoppers on Christmas Eve fighting over the last perfume coffret or undented plum pudding tin, there’s lots to love about working retail at Christmas. Take the unfurling of the Christmas wreaths that have been in storage for the past 11 months and using visual merchandising to transform a department store into a winter wonderland. Or setting up the Christmas trim section and unpacking so many hundreds of delicate glittery baubles and decorations that you leave a trail of shimmer in your wake as you make your way home. You also get to nab the best gifts first and in pristine condition!
So, when you are out and about doing the mad Christmas dash be thankful you actually get to enjoy the carols and atmosphere retailers have worked so hard to create!

It’s well and truly party season now with events happening in Brisbane every day of the week, and sometimes multiple events in the one evening. Here at Style we’ve been known to go a few soirees and shindigs here and there and have learnt a thing or two about surviving the silly season with our LBDs at the ready, comfy heels (yes, there are such a thing!) and champagne tolerance sorted for the festive season onslaught.
Now that you’re dressed up, wanna know how to get into the social pages? Photographer Tara and I have compiled a checklist to ensure your primping and preening lands you a possie in the socials (or at least a hot Facebook profile pic!)
Don’t wear black. Everyone wears this shade and while it’s flattering, it doesn’t photograph that well and you won’t stand out from everyone else. Go bold and wear colour – it’s the first thing we notice and make a beeline to photograph.
Make an effort. There’s no such thing as being too dressed up for social pics! Hot shoes, fab accessories, a great attitude and a polished ‘do will get you noticed in a good way. We love a good costume too!
Don’t stalk the photographer. Oh yes, we’ve seen you clock us as we walk in and follow our every move. It’s just creepy and won’t get you snapped. If we like your look we’ll find you!
Also, don’t ask for your photo to be taken. Book in for a portrait!
Use your real name. It might seem hilarious at the time to call yourself "Minnie Mouse" but you won't see your pic when you eagerly pick up the mag and flick to the socials. And, leave the single monikers to Madonna or Cher - we suggest giving your surname too if you want to see your pretty face on the page!

We hope to see you out and about in December!

 

 

 

Ahem. Now that I have your attention, I have to admit I had an attack of the giggles when this, um, package landed on my desk. The product is 4SKINS underwear – a garment for men that claims to stop odours in their tracks. That’s right, fart-proof underwear.
After we stopped laughing (fart jokes are funny at any age) we set about putting these undies to the test. The fabric in the briefs is treated with Nano-Tex Neutraliser technology that maintains shape and softness while isolating odours and stopping smells from passing through material to provide comfort inside and outside.
Sadly, these new-gen undies did fail to contain the odours emanating from our gassy guinea pig. For those who just want a great fit, 4SKINS also come without the special attributes in four styles priced from $27.50 and are available online.
 
www.4skins.com

In an interview with a student yesterday about working in the fashion industry I was asked about my personal style. This seemingly easy question absolutely stumped me – what is my style? As a fashion writer I devote a lot of time to interpreting looks from designer collections and defining interviewees’ fashion styles but when it came to turn the sartorial spotlight onto myself I didn’t know what to say.

It’s kind of like being asked what music you listen to – the answer immediately pigeonholes your tastes. Do you name check an obscure Finnish band that hasn’t even cut a demo yet (I love it when models do that!)? Or admit to singing along to Hall & Oates in your car?

People usually listen to a wide variety of music depending on their mood and fashion is much the same. How you feel will usually dictate what items you reach for in your wardrobe.

On another note, what if the signature style I aspire to is in reality something else? What if I was trying to channel a Gothic Lolita meets Little House on the Prairie vibe but looked more op-shop hippie instead? Is it bad to be stock-standard classic with a twist or a fashion victim?

Finally (after much consultation with colleagues) I settled on laidback preppy/fitted style with statement pieces. At least, I hope that’s how it looks!

Has the high school reunion been made redundant in the age of Facebook? Heading toward my Brisbane all-girl high school’s 20-year (yes, 20!) reunion next year, it’s a world away from the 10-year reunion. Back then we relied on the annual Old Girls’ newsletter or grapevine to fill us in on former classmates whereabouts, engagements, marriages, and sadly deaths, while still keeping in touch with a select few friends.

Ten years ago many of us were interstate or overseas but the girls who did attend the reunion had a fab time, now with sanctioned alcohol drinking, and many tales were swapped, myths busted and gossip laid to rest.

Fast forward to 2010 and our senior year had its own Facebook page and many of my old classmates are my online friends. We can access each others’ lives via our profiles and see just what has happened over the intervening years. Curiosity about what ever happened to so-and-so can be sated online. Is the prettiest girl in the class still drop-dead gorgeous? Did that high-school couple get married? Did that friend end up travelling overseas? What happened to the weird girl? The recluse? The sports star? The artistic girl? The musical star? The brain? Do they still look the same? We can swap contact details, view photos, send messages and even, gulp, arrange to meet up and chat face to face!

And here’s why the high school reunion is not dead. Nothing beats catching up with old friends face to face. Through our class’ Facebook page there’s been a few daytime get-togethers for the mums in our year and just last weekend I caught up with some other girls for some drinks and a chat about the old days and the intervening years. You may find that the people you spend the most time with at reunions are the ones you barely knew at high school and are now living the most interesting lives.

What’s even more interesting for me is that while my year was a highly ambitious group of Gen X girls, all with plans to travel and work in their desired fields after university, now in our 30s most of us have returned to Brisbane and the surrounding areas. Driven by nostalgia for our school years? I’ll let you know after our next reunion!

 

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I hardly had any time to myself last week. It started with the opening of the Valentino Introspective Past Present Future at GoMA (exclusive to Brisbane, I might add), continued with the week-long Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival Brisbane (MBFF), with the first night of Mamma Mia! musical at the Lyric Theatre and the Ekka thrown in for good measure.

With sparkling sunshine and copious amounts of sparkling (let’s not mention the torrential downpour last Tuesday!), our fair city put on a great show of its own to prove you can go out every night of the week in Brisbane if you want. On any given night there’s theatre, ballet or music events, charity balls, product launches, boutique openings, wine appreciation evenings – far from the cultural backwater Bris Vegas is sometimes painted as! And while we may not have a decent place to dine at after 12pm like Sydney and Melbourne do ( do let me know if you know of somewhere!) but I’m sure we’ll get there.

In the meanwhile, do make sure you head along to see all the amazing events at Brisbane Festival and nab yourself a prime possie for Riverfire!

While compiling the August imprint page, we asked the Style staff what their pet peeves were. Boy did that open the floodgates! Turns out a lot of little things get under our skin and although our pet peeves may reveal a bit of our personality, there’s a lot of shared annoyances that get our goat.

Not surprisingly, traffic and car conduct got the most mentions – everything from people picking their nose at the lights, frangipani car stickers (can we add Bad Girl and Magic Happens stickers to that?) and driving like Miss Daisy to more serious car conduct like road rage, not indicating at roundabouts, using fog lights in the absence of said fog and just downright bad driving. It seems hopping in the car gets us hot under the collar.

From road rules to general etiquette, there’s a lot of bad habits out there. Stylers cited ungroomed men, body odour, foundation lines and people who miss belt loops on their trousers as major turn-offs and, as I’m sure Miss Emily Post would agree, bad manners, laziness and incompetence, shoddy grammar, patronising Gen Y-ers, impatience and penny pinching ways are not desirable traits.
Modern living also drives us bonkers with emoticons, slow walkers, people talking loudly on mobiles and reality shows about cooks renovating houses and moving overseas to compete in talent contests also topping the list.

My AFL-loving family liked the boss’ pet peeve best – Collingwood – now that’s something most people can agree on! But before you think we’re an office full of whingers, tell me, what ‘s your pet peeve? I’ll guarantee you won’t be able to stop at one!
 

 

Outdoor music festivals – fun or just plain festy? With Splendour in the Grass weekend upon us (July 30 to August 1) and on our doorstep at Woodford this year, this hugely popular sold-out event is now in its tenth year with a capacity for 30,000 music lovers over the three days.

A few years ago I went along to the old Byron Bay site for the annual music fest. The year before the heavens had opened and turned the grounds into a swampy mess so some enterprising locals were hawking gumboots by the side of the road to festival-goers and this was definitely the must-have festival clobber for that year.

While the lineup is always amazing for music festivals, is it a sign of age when you miss your creature comforts? With my parents living nearby we were able to bypass the camping and look relatively fresh every day but after a day of beating sun, dust, portaloos with no toilet paper, queueing for drinks for munchies (no not those ones!), and having taller, sweaty peeps block my view of the stage I was longing for a stadium show in an airconditioned venue with a seat – nanna, I know!

Of course, the beauty of the outdoor festival is the ability to see a mix of artists on the one lineup and pick and choose who you want to see. Some of the artists featured rarely travel to Australia and you also get to hang out and mingle with your friends and meet other like-minded music lovers.

As night fell on the first day we made our way to the Tipi Forest to relive our rave days in this hidden circle surrounded by teepees with DJs, performance artists, light shows and art displays. Quite a few relics from our Valley raving days were wandering around still barefoot and clad in tie-dye and psychedelic gear. Glow sticks were abandoned on the ground and the dusty conditions meant some dance partygoers had streaks of dirt on their faces. Little did I know I was one of these dirty urchins – a fact I didn’t realise ‘til I saw my face in the mirror back home late at night.

Oh well, maybe I enjoyed myself more than I thought!

A strange phenomenon occurs to first-time visitors to Byron Bay. Whether it’s a weekend or a week, the hippie ambience seeps into your consciousness and you start to consider chucking your old life in and moving to Byron to be at one with nature and sell candles at the markets. A place where sarongs are acceptable unisex apparel all year round.

A visitor to the Shire (aka God’s own country) for 23 years, I’m lucky to have a permanent base to escape to courtesy of my parents. Once we head off the highway (now only 90 minutes from Brisbane) you can feel the mental gears grind to a halt and those work worries roll off your shoulders.
Byron time is like island time –  no sense of urgency and everything can be done “manana”. Great if you’re after relaxation but lousy if you have an overflowing cistern.

Byron attracts a variety of creative types and people on the run from former corporate lives. On my parent’s street alone there’s a man who creates metal sculptures and street art, the lead singer of a ‘60s folk group who still tours Europe, a former session drummer and a well-known percussionist plus numerous interesting people you meet while walking your dog on the beach.

Of course, once you return home to the big city, the dream of moving to Byron fades like those soy wax-based, organic cotton-wick candles as reality sets in. After all, is utopia still utopia if you live there 24/7?

 

At a recent luncheon I was seated with female journalists from other local publications when the table talk turned to the races and, more specifically, what the young female attendees were or were not wearing at these events.

Most of these fellow scribes had a good decade or more on me and were horrified at the hemlines on some of the dresses these young girls were wearing. “I blame porn,” asserted one elegantly attired journo. I turned to her incredulously but before I could get a word in, they continued on their tangent.

“But what about the designers?” I wanted to ask. “Surely you realise these dresses are influenced by what inspires the designers? And didn’t you wear that in the '90s?” Sure, designers have been chided for shunning womanly curves and sending human coathangers down the runway to best show off their designs... but in cahoots with the porn industry? Last time I checked, crotchless panties and latex outfits weren’t the latest covetable items.

But it’s not just middle-aged female journos who abhore the bodycon resurgence. Males in their 30s who are not regularly hitting the clubs shake their heads at the flesh displayed by young females. “I can’t believe she wore that out,” they mutter, peering desperately into their beers to avoid eye contact with anything that could get them into trouble with their other halves.

As a regular on the social scene for Style, tight and short is such a common dress code I don’t even notice anymore, which makes other people's double takes all the more amusing. What I do notice is when this look doesn’t flatter the wearer and is more a case of fashion victim then trendsetter.

At the recent Siana Valley opening I took along that rare friend with no interest in fashion. As a tiger handler, clothes serve a practical not sartorial purpose. She spied a gal clad in a cut-out sass & bide dress with a voluminous skirt and raised an eyebrow. “What is she wearing?” Well…. 

By Cassandra Laffey, editor

Recently sub-editor Nadia and I were invited back to our alma mater to view the new facilities. Journalism students at UQ now have access to an “Ideas Room” with cosy pods, plasma screens, couches and a media lab with the latest recording equipment – a far cry from our student days sharing computers and learning reel-to-reel recording!

In the presence of past and present students, an IT professional (who will remain nameless but may or may not be Nadia’s husband!) decided to stir the pot by suggesting that the days of magazines are numbered and soon we’ll be reading our glossies on Kindle or iPad. Obviously, in the presence of printed word proponents, this prompted heated debate. How are people going to rip a beautiful image off their Kindle and stick it to their bedroom wall, I asked. No need, soon there’ll be digital walls, was the reply.

Australians are the highest consumers per capita of magazines in the world but it’s true that this is a new era for information distribution. At the recent RAFW shows in Sydney, the special guests feted like celebrities were international bloggers like The Sartorialist Scott Schuman’s French girlfriend Garance Dore, Streetpeeper, UK-based Style Bubble, Tim Blanks of style.com and influential young blogger Susie Bubble who occupied prime front-row possies. My spies tell me that one blogger (who had the best possie of them all) balanced his laptop on his knee while taking shots of the runway on his iPhone for immediate upload onto the RAFW website. How can print media compete with that? Sure, the pics wouldn’t be as beautiful as the shots taken by professional snappers, but for the fashionistas awaiting their inbox fix, it doesn’t matter.  Hell, we’re logging on too, sister, while checking our tweets and updating our Facebook!

So while we’ve also entered the brave new world of blogging, (obviously!), I still reckon nothing beats holding that latest covetable issue of your favourite glossy, full of anticipation of the beautiful images, sparkling prose and latest must-know info inside. Of course, being the multi-taskers that we are, we’re super excited to share our thoughts on just about everything online so you don’t have to wait so long for Style every month!