Tag Archives: sydney

Dove Colour Live [Nuffnang Event]

Independent. Confident. Easily distracted. Wall flower.

For the good and for the bad there are many words to describe the kind of person we are. It’s reflected in the way we carry ourselves, by the way we match our interior selves with the exterior.

When we dress, we want to impress and, unfortunately, doing our hair doesn’t always get the same attention as what we wear here at The Hidden Thimble. Hair arrangements always takes a loooong time and many attempts to perfect. So the next best thing? Colour it!

We were invited to Dove’s Colour Live event in Darlinghurst, hosted by Nuffnang,  for an evening dedicated to knowing more about colour appreciation.  George O’Neil, the Marketing Director of Dove Hair Care, introduced to use the new Dove Colour Radiance Range.

We had a warm welcome with either a choice of Moët & Chandon champagne or a super cute hair vitality juice before entering the “Dove Sensory Studio.” Siree headed straight for the Moët and Talyssa took the juice because she was driving. Never tasted $80 worth of bubbles for free. It’s bliss on the palette!  The secret to “hair vitality” juice peoples is cucumber. Just juiced cucumber. lol.

The whole idea behind the room was to sit in the darkness with dimmly lit coloured lights as you heard what each colour meant, what it reflects as a emotion and finally as a person. It was a unique experience of colour perception though Siree must admit she might have ruined it by the sound of her noisy camera -.-; #thuglyfe

So what does the Dove Colour Radiance Range do? Well it’s formulated to retain the vibrance that dyed hair looses with washing as well as nourishing hair from the damaged caused by the dying process. When you think about it, the process of getting your hair coloured is pretty laborious. You spend all that time figuring out what colour would suit you best, fighting the fear in that “What if…” scenario of maybe regretting the decision later and then dying your hair (which takes ages!) only to finally see it fade. It’s a little heart breaking to see it run down the drain and not stay on your head, no?

From my (Siree) blonde hair experience I noticed that over the weeks, my normal shampoo and conditioner combo would gradually dull my bright blonde shair to a blonde copper that seemed to go into the “greenish” blonde tone spectrum.  I realised I had to change my hair products to suit dyed hair. I always thought “Aren’t they just all the same?” How wrong I was! I could definately see a change in the blondess of my hair strands over 3 weeks.

After speeches we broke off into groups with a colour therapist to get a colour analysis and determine what colours suited our complexion and what our colour category says about us. Colour categories were divided based on the seasons.

Colour categories:

 

Spring: Easily distracted, keen for change, fun loving, excitable

Suits very contrasting bright colours – greens, blues, oranges (pretty much what our colour theory lady was wearing)

Summer: Introverted, absorbing, wallflowers, soft spoken

Looks great in silver and muted colours – maroons, shades of pinks, shades of blue-greens, creams.

Autumn: Good listeners, mysterious, independent, attentive, nature lover

Looks good in deeper shades of colors – natural colours, browns

Winter: Outgoing, loud, attention seeking, confident
Better in colorful shades however not orange – vibrant and bold

 

Talyssa here now, I know I always appear to be the cynical one in the posts…I seem to be the devil whilst Siree is the angel haha. But!  My only purpose is to present a non-biased opinion.  I swear it!

For those who didn’t know, colour theory has been around for quite a while, having an extremely popular movement during the 80s.  Nowadays, colour theory has evolved presenting 8 different personality types as opposed to four.  I think for the purpose of the event, Dove thought it best to keep their colour theory to the simpler 4 season method.  You can read more about it here: http://www.prettyyourworld.com/colortheory.html

If I’m 100% completely honest, I thought a lot of the colour theory was a bunch of bull. It is completely impossible to categorise something as complex as human beings into four categories – “Seasons” – and then from that, deduce personality types and colour combinations that suit them.  From memory, one of the first “stereotypes” I heard was that people of the colour group “Autumn” typically have red/auburn hair and that people who have black hair are clean cut, sophisticated, well behaved and elegant.  A few problems I had with this statement…first of all you can’t control what hair colour you were born with.  Secondly…what about asians!??! THEY ALL HAVE BLACK HAIR?!?!?!  ARE THEY ALL SOPHISTICATED AND WELL BEHAVED BY DEFAULT?!?!

In saying this though, I was completely enthralled and keen to find out what colour group, season and personality type I was -#OMGLIKEYAY! Seriously, I have some kind of weakness for all these kinds of things (horoscopes, personality quizzes etc)…regardless of the fact I don’t believe in them.

So what colour type was I?

SUMMER.

To be honest summer does describe one part of me quite well, but again, it depends on the situation I’m in and who I’m with.  Sometimes I think I act slightly different with every single person I’m friends with.  I don’t think I could ever pinpoint one definitive me.  I don’t know what my “true” personality is… does anyone?

Ahh I remember this moment clearly.  You see, I have never in my life radically tried to change my hair colour.  In my J-rock days (ohohoh yes there was a time I wanted to be all gothic-like) I always wanted to get a big, electric blue chunk in my hair because I really liked Meguru’s hair from Panic Channel. But, I was always too scared of a possible negative outcome.

You see the man who is touching my hair right there??  He is one of Australia’s best hair colour-ists and has worked on the hair of numerous celebrities.  When I heard this, I took my chance and leapt up onto that chair.  I would definitely lap every moment of this up!

You see, I thought this was it, my chance to finally get a professional opinion on what colour I should dye my hair!!! My chance to ask what colour would suit me!! My chance to get that extra confidence to take that very important first step when it comes to dying your hair!!!  I was so happy!!

Eagerly I asked him his professional recommendations for my hair. And do you know what he said!?

“You’re hair is already a nice colour.  I personally wouldn’t dye it or wouldn’t stray too far from it.  Maybe add some chestnut highlights, for some extra definition and glossiness, but that’s about it.”

WHAT FUN IS THAT!!?!?!  I’m so tragically upset.

I’ve always wanted to try something crazy like a blonde or some crazy colour, I just needed this one push!!!  But no..it’s just not meant to be…

Moving on, we tried to decipher my colour type. We had speculated that I was a summer, and I had it confirmed after holding a fair few colour combo’s against my skin.

Working out what colour palette suits me :)
Does it suit me?
And…I greatly dislike this photo, but from memory it’s the only one of Siree and I together on the night.

Overall, the night was fun, the goodie bags were awesome and I actually ended up liking Dove’s colour theory because it was girly and fun!  It kinda reminded me of something I would do at a sleepover with a bunch of my favourite females :) Most of all, it was great to meet other Nuffnang bloggers.  We even made some cool closer blogger friends, Jaybear and Soborii

 We’ll share our hair stories using Dove Colour Radiance Range soon! Maybe when we decide to dye our hair crazy to defy the odds. Who knows! 

Fashion Weekend Sydney 2013

The final day of Fashion Weekend Sydney wrapped up yesterday, with another successful year of ‘dazzling’ and ‘inspiring’ us Sydney-siders through SHOP’s exciting fashion filled event.  Fashion Weekend Sydney featured over 100 designers showcasing their latest collections at special discount prices, in the Royal Hall of Industries from 16-19th May.  On top of this, the event showcased over 15 Beauty and Lifestyle stalls, as well as the highlight of the evening, the signature Fashion Weekend Sydney catwalk!

Unfortunately, we could only attend Thursday evening, which limited the amount of highlights we could participate in and severely limited our shopping experience!!  One day for us to bargain shop is like saying sorry, no card payments here.

Shut up and take my money! HAHA

So what did a ticket to Fashion Weekend Sydney get you?

With free wine in hand, the first thing on our agenda was to check out the fashion catwalk. This years line up included Bec and Bridge, StyleStalker, Watson X Watson, Ixiah, Nicola Finetti, Talulah, Hussy, Natasha, By Johnny and Christensen Copenhagen, all showcasing their current collections for Autumn/Winter 2012-2013.  So let’s check it out:

Catwalk guide
TALULAH
WATSON X WATSON
NICOLA FINETTI
CHRISTENSEN COPENHAGEN
IXIAH

The stand out of the show for us was definitely the Ixiah collection. Unfortunately our images couldn’t capture all the pieces in their full glory!  Ixiah’s style captures a vintage bygone era appeal which compliments the feminine soft elements of flowing fabrics and lace.  For us, Ixiah’s collection had an appeal that was vastly different from its competition on the catwalk and extremely resonated to our particular fashion taste.

Gorgeous outfit from Ixiah.

This coordi in particular really made us go “wow!” when it first appeared on the catwalk.  It is refreshing and stunningly gorgeous!

The catwalk concluded after a short 30 minutes, but gave great insight into this seasons upcoming trends!

With the fashion show over, we were finally able to shop!!!  In our opinion, the shopping experience was fantastic, there were a mixture of vintage and high fashion stores, all selling one-off pieces at reduced (some even up to 50% off) prices.  It was really nice to see that some pop up stalls really put in effort into their décor.

Such cute charms!

Though we would have loved to do more shopping, we ended up talking to the lovely Melbourne ladies, Natalie from Harv & Milla and Janet from JC Lane.  Their style was so cute and definitely aligned to our tastes!  A pair of vintage style boots for only $59 caught my eye so of course, purchased!!

LOVE my new Shoes from Harv & Milla

Other free highlights included various fashion talks on the latest style and trend advice – how to wear this seasons style and essentials for your wardrobe, – free polaroid booths, competitions, mini makeovers, and $20 manicures with free Sally Hensen goody bags valued at over $40!!!

Our polaroid two shot!

Finally, an event bonus was the presence of food and drinks!  We have been to fashion events – LONG fashion events – that provided no food or drinks, so this was definitely great to see!! Yes even us fashion lovers like to EAT!

Overall, we definitely recommend anyone who loves fashion, shopping, or just interested in having a girls night out, to check out Sydney Fashion Weekend next year!  It is definitely worth in!

JUST IN – Ixiah is having a retail media launch night this Thursday! Fingers crossed we can get some media passes to show you all the beautiful clothes and fun on the night!

Until next time,

Xx

WHATIWEAR Sydney Fashion Blogger Meet!

Last Saturday was a pretty special day for us at The Hidden Thimble. We only started blogging last October meeting this awesome community that is the blogging sphere and figuring out what the hell fashion “is,” or for that matter what it “can” be, and now, we had the privilege to be a part of a selected few to attend an event for Sydney fashion blogger organised by the lovely people at WhatIWear!

The meeting place was at the recently new Guylian Dessert Café in Darling Harbour. New friends? New dessert place? TOO FREAKN AWESOME!! Unfortunately, Talyssa couldn’t make it to the event (and she really really wanted to be a part of it!). So that left me by myself…alone…GAHH! I’m a recovering introvert yeah! But whatever YOLO! HAHA


So what was the WhatIWear event all about? The opportunity not only gave us a chance to meet with the names and faces behind the website and other long lost fashion friends, but as a fashion social website it was great to hear, plan and socialize how WhatIWear could become the right fashion community for all fashion lovers – and we are their pioneers!

It was so much fun to meet all these lovely ladies! Shy nerves aside, everyone was not only stylish but we bonded together quite well. It was so hectic as well. I didn’t even get to meet the other half of the table properly! I can’t wait to meet everyone again (with Talyssa this time around) :)

So, what did I wear? The theme was to reflect the WhatIWear colours: white, black and orange.

With Karen from meandsunny. She’s so sweet and friendly! Her bag on the day was super cute as well!

Romper: Nasty Gal | Knee socks: Sportsgirl | Necklace: House Of Harlow | Earrings: Bagazimuri | Shoes: Dotti

Yeah my wardrobe lacks the orange but I improvised with my makeup and accessories accents :P I was so happy to have so many compliments on my drip paint/gloomy bear nail art! It was my first time to do them. Also my Farris wheel ring got its fair share of attention lol

The stylish Cassie from Cee Me More. The story behind the name I thought was sweet and funny since it’s something I can relate too ;)

 Now it’s time to meet the awesome team!

L TO R: Margaret from La Petite Mademoiselle,  PixelHazard from Bright Green Laces, Cassie from Cee Me More,  Rachel from Rachel Bambi,  Jessica from Mind Body Shop, Valencia (event organiser) from WhatIWear, Camille from Frilly Skirts, Karen from meandsunny and Ethel from Fashiondiction.

A big thank you to Valencia, the Community Manager of WhatIWear! She came straight from the airport to do the event! Much love! <3
Working like a BOSS
Actually this is what work looked like most the time lol

Working hard!
Follow us! lol
Funny as hell Ethel from Fashiondiction. Love her muchos!
I love this shot even though it’s blurry :) Sorry Karen!! ><

All our thoughts and ideas for the WhatIWear community to be the ideal fashion social space!

Spoils of the day! All the polaroids I stole got :)


I know things will get better and better as we develop our connection to the WhatIWear community and with all the beautiful faces and personalities that made us all pioneers to begin with!  I can’t wait to show everyone what we can do!!

Now, The Hidden Thimble has a WIW account! Follow us here. We’ll be updating our WIW page soon! :D

FML: This Shirt Has Cats!

If you don’t know who this little kitty is, well I’m gonna educate you on the awesomeness of this shirt because… it has freakin Chococat on it! Choco-freakn-cat!!

Yeah, possibly the cutest thing to have on a blouse. I got this Forever21 baby from my great friend as a Christmas present when she was overseas. She was still thinking of me when she was visiting long time friends, how sweet! So I’ll call her “Beloved M” here. She looks after me and my fashion endeavors, heart her long time~.

Rings – HOH | ASOS | Lovisa

Cuteness overload! This is from the HELLO KITTY FOREVER, FOREVER 21 X SANRIO Collection 2012. The items were really cute! I love the way they styled the pattern-on-pattern graphics for the photo shoot in the collection. It doesn’t look “kiddish.” The looks they portrayed were fresh and youthful for the pleasure of street style.  So unique! I wish Australia had F21 so I could buy more pieces :(

Cute right?! Click on the image to see more photos!
Pleather Skater Skirt – ASOS | Blouse – F21 | Shoes – hand me down

So I guess my take is more of a toned down version aww :(  To toughen the look, I paired the blouse with my pleather skirt which gave it a nice contrast. The skirt is the wet-look kind of pleather skater skirts available which I love because it’s so sleek.

Cute oxford-esque heels in cream and brown to match. These types of shoe designs were popular in Japan once upon a time… still is for some brands like Liz Lisa :)

The forced “I’m-not-looking-at-you-to-look-natural-but-it’s-all-lies” look to finish LOL :P

 

Hongdae – Because Korean Hipsters are WAY cooler than Hipsters in Newtown

Talyssa checking in – beware people, this post is gonna be a long one!!

Becauuuuuuuuuuuuuuse it’s about Hongdae!!  I. absolutely. love. Hongdae.  It’s so refreshing to be in a Hipster-esque place style wise, fashion wise and people wise, minus the arrogant, overly pretentious, clique-ish, self-entitled hipster attitude that unfortunately accompanies much of the hipster crowd in Sydney. Seriously. Sooo nice and refreshing.

I really wish Sydney had a similar place to Hongdae so I could at least describe to some extent how awesome Hongdae is…I guess Newtown might be the closest, but seriously, it doesn’t even compare. Actually scrap that.  Newtown is nothing like Hongdae. Period.

We set out on our first venture to Hongdae to visit the Trick Eye Museum. Online there was absolutely no information on the Trick Eye Museum – nothing about how to get there or where it was located…so basically we took a giant stab.

Our giant stab lead us instead to a tourist information center (pink dotted path on map below).  I really recommend coming here if you don’t know where to go or what to do.  The customer service is amazing – they are extremely helpful and super friendly.

Not knowing where the Trick Eye Museum was, the staff provided us with maps and hand drew directions on them for us.  On top of this, they gave us info on specials and Grand Korea sale cards so we could get as many discounts as possible during our trip!!  How nice right!?!

Even with our amazing directions, the Trick Eye Museum wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to find…I’ll let you guess why:

It’s like completely hidden right?!?!!?!?!!? I was expecting like some separate building which was quite large with considerable signage since it is a tourist spot!!! We walked passed it once or twice – it was hard to see!!!

You do need to set aside a fair bit of time for the Trick Eye Museum – the museum itself is broken up into sections (we almost missed one section).  On top of this, there are three galleries and a cat museum. We just did the museum and it took us approx 3-4hours?

You definitely want to come here at a time where people are usually at school or work…seriously…otherwise there are huge lines and a stack of couples left, right and center.  If you don’t know it now, you will definitely find out when you go to Korea that Korean couple culture is INTENSE.  There has never been a time in my life where I wanted to be more in love.  I was like damn…I want a Korean man right now, they appear to treat their girlfriends so well!!  *Filled with envy*

— End of sidetracked tangent —

So what exactly is the Trick Eye Museum?  Basically it is an interactive museum revolving around a new concept that stimulates your creativity and imagination through the Trompe-l’oeil (eye tricking) technique through vision.  To achieve this, the museum features a mixture of artworks and 3D installations you can interact with and take photos of, so you end up looking like a part of the picture.

A bonus – according to the brochure:

“…The trickeye artwork helps you learn aesthetic senses of form and also stimulates your creativity, which leads to the activation of your brain.  Your logic and thinking abilities will enhance!”

LOL! Woahh okay I’m sure these paintings aren’t that miraculous!  None the less, they are still awesome.  Now onto the photos!

One of the different kinds of optical illusions at the museum. These were paintings on the floor which when looked at from a certain angle, looked 3D

Nothing better than a warm drink on a frosty Korean winter day..
Siree’s part time job.
This illusion was awesome!!  Jokes, Siree is just a midget and I’m a giant.
Love struck. My expression is good no? That’s what I call dedication.
It’s not everyday you get to be up close and personal with a Rhino
I love my sushi!!
She was like this the whole trip. What a junkie!
Nicki Minaj right there.
Siree’s tactic for stealing the Museum’s food.
Being posers in typical Korean style LOL
Siree’s typical ‘pretending to be on the phone but really I’m just a poser’s’ pose

These are only some of the AMAZING interactive artworks – there are many many more cool ones as well.  All in all, The Trick Eye Museum is a great experience, a lot of fun, good laughs and results in some pretty awesome photos that friends and family were highly amused by.

For more info on the Trick Eye Museum such as transportation and pricing, check out the bottom section of this post.

The rest of Hongdae is pretty amazing.  It’s just a really nice place to go to just chillax with friends. There are super cute and relatively cheap fashion boutiques (the pinkage wig store is also here, but we were slightly disappointed with it!!), really cute cafes, awesome street food, epic clubs for amazingly great clubbing adventures, and just an overall really nice youth atmosphere – really safe, REALLY nice people, and no drunkard idiots – you can actually make real friendships.

The Hongdae Charm

Hongdae by day. I don’t know why, but I really like the look of streets like this…maybe because it looks quite foreign from what we’d find in Sydney.
This is along one of the back streets of Hongdae where most of the clubs are.  This street also connects to Hongik Uni.  The shopfront you see in the picture named “Mama” is actually a club.  This is what most of the clubs in Hongdae look like – they usually have a small black-painted entrance with the club’s name on it in large white text.  Inside you usually go down a set of stairs to the clubbing area.
Very naice. LOL. Opposite Condomania is NB1, where we had our awesome clubbing experience!!
This believe it or not is a restaurant. How nice is it?!!? This is what I mean about Hongdae, its style is sooooo nice!!
Pizza restaurant up close…completely diggin’ this style
Another restaurant. Pretty~
Cute, I love Hongdae!!
I don’t know why, but Korea tends to have a thing for owning a shop pet (usually dogs). Cafe’s have them as well, we found it was fairly common. This one belonged to a cute accessory store in Hongdae.
HOW NICE ARE THE CAFES!?!?! Seriously Sydney!! Get your act together!!
hehehe Master Roshi!!
Yup! Love Korean couple culture. So freaking cute.
Hongdae at night. Look at these cute shops!! I wish we had something like this in Sydney.  I love Korea’s concept of using really visual store fonts/windows, and the clothes are just too cute!
Hongdae at night. I really love Hongdae at night – it comes alive!
Hahahaha this photo says it all!! “Why am I here?!” “I hate my job”

Food

Look at that preparation. Look at that skill. As soon as we saw it, we had to try it.
BEST. CHICKEN. EVARRRRR!
That block right there is butter. Yup. Buttery Goodness.
Although I’m not a huge fan of sweets, this was delicious – buttery, sweet and savoury all at once. YUMMMM
Our dinner. This was delish!! Spicy seafood hot pot. We also ordered a kimchi pancake…but unfortunately that was not so good…
FREE ICECREAM AT KARAOKE!! Seriously Korea’s service is AMAZING!!!! You never get that kind of treatment in Sydney. It is seriously all these small things that make Korea really stand out and your holiday much more enjoyable!

I LOVE HONGDAE!!!!!!!!! Soooo good!!

Map

Map of Hongdae

Transportation:

For the general area: Take subway Line #2 to Hongik University Station, exit #5.

For Tourist Centre:  Take Exit #5 out of Hongik University Station and follow the pink dotted line on the map.

Trick Eye Museum: Take exit #9 out of Hongik University Station and follow the blue dotted line on the map.
Address: B2 Seogyo Plaza, Seogyodong 357-1, Mapogu, Seoul.
Pricing: 13,000won Adults, 11,000won Students.
Opening Hours: 10:00AM – 9:00PM
Website: www.trickeye.com

How long should I spend there?

There are sooooo many things to do in Hongdae that Siree and I came here on many different occassions.  You definitely need a day to look around, but you will find you need to come back here to dedicate time for shopping, checking out some of the awesome places to eat and to visit places such as the Cat Cafe and Trick Eye Museum.   This is also a great place to hang out with friends, so if you have Korean friends, you will find yourself hanging out here with them often, as Siree and I did.

When to come to Hongdae:

You should experience Hongdae both at day and at night.  There is always something going on in Hongdae, expecially at night, so it is definitely worth checking out.  For example one night we went to Hongdae, there was a HUGE outdoor silent disco going on.  FREAKING. AMAZING.