Five chic ways to wear a Brooch

A Brooch is one of the oldest accessories used by women on their dress, bags and hair, in order to turn a normal outfit to a marvelous one.

Brooches have always been an essential part of most women’s wardrobe. Besides, it is a jewelry item designed either to be attached to a garment or hold them closed. It is typically made of metal, often silver or gold, but sometimes bronze or some other material.

Most people like to wear brooches as a fashion accessory in order to keep up with the fashion trends or just to make their outfit more appealing.

However, there are chic ways of wearing a brooch without feeling old-fashioned or too dressy.

Follow these tips:

1. Pin the scarf with and connect it in the middle with a brooch. It gives the scarf a different feel.
2. Wear feminine brooches with edgy outfits (jeans, t-shirt leather jacket) to make the look more personal.
3. Wear the colorful brooches with your soft, feminine dresses and blouses to make them stand out and make a statement
4. One most important thing is that never match up the colour of your outfit to the brooch, it makes the outfit look old fashioned
5. Women with thick hair texture can wear a brooch for a diverse look. Which of these tips would you try?

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Marvelous Molds Launches New Fashion Accessory Silicone Mold Line by Elisa Strauss

Last week, Marvelous Molds launched an innovative, new line of silicone molds featuring popular fashion accessories inspired by cake artist, Elisa Strauss of Confetti Cakes.

The Fashion Accessory Line includes highly engineered silicone molds that have never been implemented by any mold making company. These molds are designed to be used to decorate edible gum paste shoes, handbag cakes and other fashion related cakes.

The line includes 16 new silicone molds: a Spike Strap Mold, Lizard Impression Mat, Zipper and Pull Mold set, Bird With Blossoms Silicone Onlay™, three different sizes of open link chains, three different buckles, Gathered Bow, Vintage Bow, Scalloped Insole Silicone Onlay™, Pearl Paragon Mold, Pearl Radiance Mold and the Skull Cameo Mold.

Elisa Strauss has created two videos demonstrating the use and application of molds from this new product line: Bird with Blossoms Silicone Onlay™ and Spike, Chains and Buckles.

Strauss first approached Marvelous Molds with the idea of creating a realistic alligator skin mold for a handbag cake. The collaborative effort evolved over time into a collection that includes accessories befitting any fashion application in cake decorating.

"The inspiration behind this collection came from the fabulous shoes out in the world right now. Hardware is the main attraction! I know from making cakes for over 15 years that to replicate these objects can take hours - so working with Marvelous Molds has been a dream come true. To make silicone molds that will stand the test of time and make pieces of sugar come to life resembling real fashion objects is amazing. Buckles that look like real pieces of metal, bows that have the folds found in fabric and a Silicone Onlay™ that replicates a real textile design- nothing like this has ever been done before to make it so easy for the cake designer." – Elisa Strauss, Confetti Cakes.

Silicone Onlays™ are 3D stencils made from food-grade silicone, an innovation invented by Marvelous Molds. These unique molds allow bakers and cake decorators to apply complicated designs in fondant/gum paste directly to the sides of a cake with precision, saving hours in time spent hand cutting and applying them.

Marvelous Molds strives to achieve authenticity in design when developing their silicone molds. The Lizard Impression Mat was created using a genuine lizard skin – one that was thoroughly researched for texture and appearance – to derive the most desirable impression for fashion cake applications.

"Our goal is to develop silicone molds that increase productivity while offering beautiful and unique designs that are difficult to create by hand. The immediate response from our customers has confirmed that the Fashion Accessory line is a great success." – Chef Dominic Palazzolo, Marvelous Molds owner.

Marvelous Molds, a subsidiary of Culinart, Inc., has been designing high quality, food-grade silicone molds for the home and retail baking and cake decorating market since 2010. The company currently collaborates with renowned cake decorators Elisa Strauss, Earlene Moore and Marina Sousa to offer the foremost designs in silicone molds. Marvelous Molds also produces their own highly successful line of silicone molds and patent pending Silicone Onlays™. Marvelous Molds' products are each individually designed to produce an edible decoration in the most efficient manner possible. Each design implements patent pending advancements, a hallmark of the company.

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Model Alexa Chung is Back for Longchamp's New Collection

The British fashionista has starred in her second campaign for the French luxury accessories label. 

Shooting at the Chateau des Ormes in France, photographer Max Vadukul captured 30-year-old Alexa Chung with the new Pliage Heritage bag, inspired by the famous Longchamp Pliage bag which turns 20 this year.

Alongside the bags, the model, TV host, journalist and DJ appears with a Jack Russell puppy in the new Longchamp print campaign, as well as in a film by Jean-Francois Julian titled Longchamp Heritage With A Twist.

Set to be revealed on Sept 9, the short shows Alexa in an Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland-style romp soundtracked by an original song by French pop star Christine and The Queens.

Illustrator Fabienne Legrand was also hard at work on set, creating a series of drawings which will be displayed in the fall on the Longchamp blog, Enjoy By Longchamp.

This is Chung’s second campaign for the accessories brand, following on from the sunny Spring-Summer 2014 adverts which were revealed at the end of last year. She is also the face of Nails Inc and has also starred in campaigns for fashion label Maje. 

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Apple’s iWatch Could Be The Next Big Sports Fashion Accessory

Sports sells gatorade, and sports sells sneakers, and sports sells clothing and hats and TV trays and bottle openers and anything that has enough surface area to hold a logo. But can sports sell the concept of the smartwatch? That’s what Apple might find out beginning in October, the rumored launch date of the iWatch, according to a new report from 9to5Mac. The blog’s sources say Apple is working with professional athletes to test the fitness tracking features of the upcoming device, and it’s only logical that if they’re helping inform product design, Apple should tap them for promotion, too.

The stars working with Apple include Kobe Bryant, Dustin Brown of the LA Kings, and other unnamed stars from top U.S. pro sports organizations. 9to5Mac also says that the iWatch is being developed as a fashion piece, to ship in two different designs, with an announcement in October and a ship date soon after. The report echoes one earlier today from the Wall Street Journal, which said it would include fitness tracking and be unveiled in October, too.

Building wearables so far has proven a challenge, at least in terms of making something that sells with the kind of volume that makes them worthwhile for a company like Apple. The top-selling smartwatches to date are the Samsung Gear line, and 2 million total smartwatch devices were sold last year according to Strategy Analytics, of which 1.2 million were Android powered. Apple, by contrast, is shooting for first year sales of between 50 and 60 million units for its device alone, according to reports from media outlets including WSJ and Reuters.

To sell the devices, turning to the age-old marketing machine that is professional sports is a logical path. Apple is said to be packing a heap of sensors into this device (10 to be exact) and working with Nike on the fitness features. Traditionally, if you create something that has a ‘performance’ or activity angle, turning to pro athletes for a marketing push delivers huge dividends – Gatorade, and every other sports drink on the market, likely wouldn’t exist without the influence of celebrity endorsements.

Apple hasn’t leaned too heavily on the celebrity angle for promoting its past products, at least not directly. Instead, it has used a comprehensive media strategy of helping Apple products find their way naturally into films, TV shows and celebrity pockets, along with a few select endorsements via television ads and media spots. But it has acquired a company recently that could help with this kind of market positioning: Beats.

Beats doesn’t really make sports accessories – but you’d be forgiven for thinking they do. Their advertising campaign around the World Cup is one example of how well they’ve been able to tie their headphones to athletes and athletics. Nevermind the fact that Beats on- and over-ear headphones are pretty much the opposite of what you want on your head while you’re running five miles or training for a triathlon. They share the same basic design as earmuffs, which are made to keep heat in your head. True, Beats makes wireless earbuds, too with the Powerbeats line but they’ve managed to give the whole brand sports cache.

There is no evidence that a smartwatch will pack people into stores, Apple-made or not. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest an Apple-built sports and fitness/fashion accessory will sell and sell well. Apple wouldn’t be the only company trying to use fashion as a selling point for wearables, but it might be the one with the best angle yet.

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