In Motion: Bloggers in London

It took me a while (a little over two months to be exact) but here it is: a short video about the little London trip we took back in February. My movie making skills suck but I had so much fun going through the footage I shot during our two-day stay. The girls you see in the video are the funniest ever.

Bloggers in London, with guest appearances of The Styling Dutchman, Polienne, Insomnia, The Fashion Folio, Belmodo.tv and Susie B. ;)

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H&M Bloggers Day / Fashion Against Aids 2012

Judging by the amount of H&M stuff I have and wear on a daily basis, the Swedish label is without a doubt my favourite high-street brand. So when I received an invitation for the first ever H&M Belgium Bloggers day, there was nothing stopping me from going. Or so I thought. The H&M showroom is located above their flagship store in the Nieuwstraat, Brussels busiest shopping street. Getting there proved to be a bit of a challenge because of people protesting and thus blocking the streets, but thanks to Paulien’s driving skills we eventually made it to the showroom. 

The Fashion Against Aids collection was being launched that day, so we got to see/wear/style this very pretty collection. The H&M team thought about everything and made sure we had a professional photographer and make-up artist at our disposal (and a whole lot of yummy food, shout out to the crème brûlée!!). It was a delightful afternoon, and I have the pics to prove it.

Want to get all festival-proof and up your good karma-points at the same time? The Fashion Against Aids collection is now available in both H&M Brussels and Antwerp stores, and 25% of the sales will be donated to charity. Win-win!

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Outfit: The Cut-Out Shirt

Pics thanks to Polienne 

The cut-out shirt: a dangerous one. The way you style this item really decides the way it comes across. Paired with a short skirt, bare legs and high heels, this shirt can look rather cheap. Worn with big hoop earrings and a high ponytail it screams bad ‘80s trend. Nonetheless, its bright green colour immediately caught my eye at Forever21. Since I love everything green, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and convinced myself I was able to pull this trend off. 

I decided to emphasize the colourfulness of the shirt by pairing it with a bold blue cardigan, neon necklace and lovely ethnic clutch – which I totally love! Since I wore this outfit to attend the Tommy Hilfiger Promise collection launch and the Oona PR housewarming afterwards, some sparkle was in order. Enter the glitter booties, my favourite party shoes of the moment. Also, these pictures remind me to buy a new pair of fitted black jeans asap! 

I’m spending today at the H&M showroom in Brussels, where I’ll be seeing and styling the new Fashion Against Aids Festival Collection. Of course you can expect a full report on the collection and my day soon, but if you like live updates, check out the Dogs and Dresses Facebook page!

Wearing 

Cardigan – T2 Vintage 

Shirt – Forever21 

Jeans – H&M

Clutch – River Island
Booties – Urban Outfitters (similar here)

Necklace – H&M (similar here)

Watch – Marc by Marc Jacobs (buy here)

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Magnum Pleasure Hunt in the City

Shopping for shoes, gossiping with girlfriends and eating ice cream while watching chick flicks: this image of today’s girls might sound a bit cliché, but that doesn’t mean we don’t love ourselves the occasional movie night, gossip session or shopping spree, right? If you do, read on carefully, as I have some exciting news to share! 

As if it’s not enough that Magnum provides us with yummy ice cream treats all year round, they are now catering to our shopping needs as well. I’m talking about the Magnum Pleasure Hunt in the City, a daylong event in various cities all over Belgium. They chose me to be their Pleasure Hunt Ambassador in THE best shopping city of Belgium; Antwerp. I’m planning on taking this job very serious and will convince you ALL to drop by on this day! Let’s take a closer look to what a Magnum Pleasure Hunt in the City entails, shall we?

 

Grab your girlfriends and come to Antwerp on Saturday the 12th of May for a day of VIP shopping. Take part in the Hunt and enjoy extra goodies such as a glass of champagne, free massage, mani-pedis and special discounts in 20 shops all over the city. Start your hunt at the special Pleasure Bar in the middle of Antwerp and work your way through the shopping route while enjoying cocktails, live music and of course lots of ICE CREAM! It’s safe to say Magnum knows what ladies want. 

Whether its fashion, beauty, wellness, food or nightlife you’re interested in, you’ll find that the Magnum Pleasure Hunt in the City has something to offer for everyone! 

Check back soon to see which fabulous stores will participate – and to see what kind of awesome prize I have waiting for one of my lovely readers too. Are you curious yet? 

In te meantime, register on pleasurehunt.be and be the first to receive news about this superduperfuncool event!

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JULIAN J. SMITH Zig zag Jeans

Pics by AnoukmeetsFashion

I know, I know, I know, it’s super cliché for a Belgian blogger to complain about the weather, but I’M A REBEL so I’m doing it anyway! Here we go: Whattuuuup with these dreadful weather conditions? Non-stop wind, pouring rain and the occasional hailstorm; gotta love Aprils in Belgium. Anouk and I met up to style and shoot some River Island looks last week (the first was this one), and thanks to the endless raining, we ended up shooting these pics on the only dry square centimeter right in front of my building. Anyways, enough moaning about the weather, I have to go and practice my Sun Dance. Who’s with me?

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Thoughts on Tattoos

I recently uploaded the picture below onto my Instagram and Facebook, together with a semi-mysterious caption, and decided to sit back and let social media do what it does best: cause hysteria. Well, maybe not hysteria per se, but word of my new ink got around pretty quickly. In no less than 3 minutes after posting the pic, I got several text messages from relatives, some of them praising my new tat, some of them freaking out about it (hi mom). My instagram following all seemed to like my new arm candy (26 likes to be exact) and before removing the pic from my Facebook account after 10 minutes, I collected 14 likes and a whole lot of comments.

   

Tattoos; either you hate them or you love them, fact is that they’re all the rage these days. But is ‘popular’ enough to make you want to “scar yourself for life”? Of course not! I love tattoos but I also strongly believe in taking the time to contemplate both the meaning and consequence of getting permanently inked. I know I did when I got my first two tattoos about two years ago, and I can honestly say I don’t regret a thing about them. They have meaning, memories and are just me. 

That being said, sometimes I feel like getting another tattoo done. Something bigger, more colourful. A few things are holding me back, so I don’t go for it just yet. That’s when I discovered online shop Fake Tattoos. Remember the stick-on tattoos you’d get with a package of crisps? These are just like them, but come in way cooler designs. I love scripts and words, so I immediately wanted to try the ‘Forever Young’ tattoo. It works just like a regular sticky tattoo, but this one lasts much longer. I took four showers and the script was still perfectly intact. The tattoo lasts up to 10 days, although I imagine it stays on even longer – all you have to do is don’t wash yourself!

As far as my little experiment goes, I won’t be ending up with a permanent reminder of my youth on my upper arm. I like the design and font of the tattoo, but the saying is a tad bit cliché for my taste. I can already imagine myself as an 80-year old grandma, lifting up the saggy skin of my upper arm and seeing a washed out remembrance of 60 years ago underneath all the wrinkles. Although I do really like the thought of tattoos as a reminder of previous times, the risk of having the annoying 80’s song by Alphaville stuck in my head for the rest of my life is just TOO BIG.

Contemplating a permanent tattoo but not sure if it’s what you’re looking for? Or are you just in the mood to toughen up your next rock festival-look? Order your favourite tattoo design on Fake Tattoos and try it out! And please do let me know your opinion on permanent tattoos in the comment section below - I would love to hear your views on the matter.



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Neonrealism

Pics thanks to Polienne

 

My new favourite lipstick, if I ever had one. I’m not really one to spend a whole lot of money of lipsticks, as I always seem to wear them once and loose them directly after. That being said, I have been wanting to try the colourblocking trend on my lips as well. So that’s why I was glad to find this fuchsia Brilliant Colours Lipstick by 2B Cosmetics in my mailbox the other day. Total recommendation for when you feel like adding a pop of pink to a casual outfit. 

 

Another bright coloured item in this look is the H&M neon necklace. I went to check out the Bloggers Night the lovely PR ladies of Listen Up were hosting, and the necklace proved to be an instant hit. I actually went back to H&M the day after to pick up a few of them for some of my fellow blogging buddies! 

 

Wearing 

Leather jacket – Essentiel 

Marble grey shirt – River Island 

Jeans – LTB 

Boots – Topshop 

Scarf – Louis Vuitton 

Bag – Primark 

Necklace – H&M

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In the press + Weekend Blog Awards

Fashion blogging is trending like crazy these days, and I couldn’t be happier with all the attention Dogs and Dresses has been getting. Recently, I got featured in Joepie, Belgium’s biggest youth magazine as well as in Gazet van Antwerpen, a national newspaper – and I just found out today that me and my blog made it to round 2 of the first ever Weekend Blog Awards! I’m one of the 10 finalists in the fashion category, and I would loooove it if you took a moment to vote for me. Just click on the image below and get your vote on! Love, E.

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12% Discount on Spartoo.nl

 

Just because I’m on a temporary shop stop doesn’t mean you need to be, right? Here’s some happy news for all you shoe and bag lovers out there: Spartoo.nl is offering a 12% discount on EVERYTHING! All because of the Dutch national holiday Queens Day, which is not really an holiday I normally celebrate, but this time I’m willing to make an exception. Shoes! Bags! Accessories! 

Just add the discount code KONINGIN12 at check-out (offer expires after 30/04/2012). Happy shopping!

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The River Island Round-up

Click on these links to view the full post - and be sure to leave me a comment!

Antwerp Streetstyle - Get the Look Girls

Antwerp Streetstyle - Get the Look Guys

Spring proof Your Wardrobe

Street Style Trend Notes

Special thanks to Antwerpenstreetstyle for providing me with inspiring streetstyle shots and Oona and River Island for this great opportunity.

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Pretty in Pastels

A pretty pair of pastel heels are a must-have this season, and these by Clarks will surely do the trick!

Clarks Dollar Craze Sandals

Clarks Diary Record

Spartoo.nl verkoopt zowel schoenen als tassen.

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Cupcakes, champagne & colour

So long sweet Easter break, hello again super-crazy-busy times! This week is all about the Press Days in Antwerp. PR agencies around the city invite stylists, journalists and bloggers to check out the new A/W collections – and to indulge in cupcakes and champagne. I’ll be spending later tonight, most of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in the midst of gorgeous clothes, fellow bloggers and the aforementioned cupcakes and champagne. Yay!

This outfit is actually part of my latest article as a guest blogger on the River Island Style Insider blog, hence the all-River Island outfit. I’ve been looking for the perfect boyfriend jeans for quite some time, and finally this one checks all the boxes. Baggy-but-not-too-big, washed-but-not-too-light, not too expensive ... Find them here.

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Shop-stop: halfway there

I know quite a few people who are going to be thrilled to read this, but I’m not one of them. For one reason or another I decided to go on a shop-stop for an entire month. Granted, my bank account is looking as skinny as Kate Moss these days and my closets are overflowing with stuff that yet needs to be worn. But resisting the urge to shop is hard yo! It wouldn’t be all that difficult if I was hiding on some sort of deserted island with no internet connection and no giant stores only a few footsteps away. But alas, I live in the middle of Antwerp, have internet connection at light speed, a credit card at my disposal and to top it all off, I have this blog! It’s very hard not to be persuaded when your mailbox gets attacked with press releases of pretty shiny things all.the.time. Oh the horror! 

Anyways, when Elise of Swapping.be told me about their latest project I was all ears. ‘Stoppen met Shoppen’ is what it’s called, and it’s basically a pact to hold of on shopping for an entire year. A YEAR! Like a full year! My heart stopped beating for a moment there. You know a year is like 365 days, right? That’s like a long time and all. That’s like a whole lot of Fashion Weeks. A whole lot of new collections. A whole lot of sale periods! 

After coming to my senses, I genuinely thought about entering but I knew it was a disaster waiting to happen. Entering the pact would be setting myself up to fail. I can’t NOT shop for an entire year. Hell, I don’t even want to! Shopping is one of my favourite things to do, not because of the actual buying but more because of the combining, coming up with new looks, playing with different garments, trends and colours (or at least I tell myself it is). 

After a little talk with both the devil and the angel on my shoulders, we concluded on the following: twelve months of not shopping is way more than I bargained for, but one month should work, right? I should be able to restrain myself from buying new and unneeded things for 30 days. My best friend S. came up with the same idea around the same time, so we teamed up and vowed to help each other through difficult times. 

Et voilà, here we are, two weeks in and all is well. No sign of relapse, only minor symptoms of withdrawal (checking asos.com numerous times a day) and only two more weeks to go. Uhhhm, are we there yet?

Can I count on your support? And how do you feel about holding off shopping for an entire year?

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Outfit: Wallflower

Pics by AnoukmeetsFashion

Today I actually managed to get up at a decent hour for once (waking up before noon deserves a high five in my book – HIGH FIVE!). Who knew mornings had so much to offer? I showered, got dressed, watched Gossip Girl, began my search for the perfect hard disk, got lost in terabyte-translation (1TB means a whole lot of space for crappy American reality shows to storage, so 2TB means even MORE crappy American reality shows), had coffee, read 3 different newspapers and went for a bike ride. So now I know how productive people feel, it’s time for me to take a nap! 

Wearing

Pants, blazer - H&M Trend

Denim shirt, bag, necklace - H&M

Boots - Topshop

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Keel’s Simple Diary

Recording life while living it is of great importance to me. Whether it is through pictures, mental memories or in words, looking back at what’s passed may help you cherish the moments that have yet to come. There’s nothing better than coming across an old diary or photo album and taking a dive into the past. I recently stumbled upon one of my old diaries whilst re-organizing my closet. The notebook was filled with childhood memories and snippets of teenage life – embarrassing but oh so fun to read!

I’d love to keep a journal, but life’s just too busy these days. Apparently there are three reasons why most people, although they have tried, won't keep a diary:

1. Not every day is very eventful.

2. It actually takes a lot of discipline to write.

3. In retrospect, many find what they have written embarrassing.

But there’s a simple way to record life’s moments: Keel’s Simple Diary™! A notebook that offers structure for those who don't have time to wonder, that asks questions and gives wisdom and advice. It gives the pleasure of a quick response and the sense that no matter what's wrong, more is right. Keel’s Simple Diary™ entertains, helps you focus and keeps you company. And on top of it all, it looks really cute too!

My Keel's Simple Diary - French edition

Always on the run and not a pen in sight? Download the Simple Diary app onto your smartphone and get your wisdom on the go!

Keel’s Simple Diary is a Taschen’s bestseller and soon to be released in the French edition (May). Get your Keel’s Simple Diary at the Taschen's Store in Brussels (Rue Lebeaustraat 18) for €12 and download the free smartphone app in the AppStore. Start collecting memories!

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Like: Pretty Ballerinas

Although running in heels might be acclaimed for on some occasions (ie. the Stiletto Run), walking long distances usually asks for comfortable shoes. Enter the ballet flat or ballerina. Audrey Hepburn wore them in Funny Face back in 1957 and they quickly turned into the iconic footwear they are now. Elegant as a heel, comfy as a sneaker: a pair of decent ballerinas is a must-have in every woman’s wardrobe.

Hep

I turn to Spanish brand Pretty Ballerinas for my flats-fix. Hand-made in Spain and from a long line of history and tradition, a pair of Pretty Ballerinas will keep your feet on the ground and make you look drop dead gorgeous at the same time. 

Pretty Ballerina Angelis in Black- Pretty Ballerina Angelis in Beige

Pretty Ballerina Ostrich in Pink - Pretty Ballerina in White

Pretty Ballerina Angelis in Zebra - Pretty Ballerina Angelis in Leopard

Pretty Ballerina Angelis in Blue - Pretty Ballerina Angelis in Fuschia

Spartoo.nl verkoopt zowel schoenen als tassen.
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