Irie Diva Style » shoes

Right now I’ve got my eye on…

IrieDiva — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:49:54 +0000

What are you currently drooling over right now? Here’s a couple things that I probably won’t buy but they’ve caught my wandering window shopping eye.

A great blazer adds versatility and chic to any outfit and allows you to jazz up a dress or outfit you may have worn before and is sitting pretty in an FB album right now. In times of FB albums, we have to re-purpose! My archnemesis Charlotte Russe has a couple that I have my eye on.

I really like the way they styled the black blazer but I’m not really feeling the nautical colours of the short blazer ‘fit. I do however love its length. One of the problems I have with blazers is that they can overpower an outfit especially in the back, hiding all the cute. These lengths I’ve selected kinda hits at just the right points to add, not take away from an outfit. Plus I really love the ruffles on the black blazer as a sister without hips like myself needs all the fru fru she can get.

Since CR won’t take my money though, let’s move on down the list. I love accessories as much as the next and I’m beginning to think that pearls may be my favourite kind since I’ve managed to accumulate so many different kinds in my collection. A string of pearls instantly add a little glam to any outfit don’t you think? I own no actual pearls though, only cosmetic stuff. These HinsonGayle Pink Free-Form Baroque Pearl Rope Necklace seem to fit my personality. I claim to know nothing about real pearls and what not but I like these since they’re unique “Free-form baroque pearls are treasured for their unusual shapes, as no two pearls are exactly alike.” And they’re pink.

My list wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t include some Jessica Simpson items. I love her brand. This clutch has a size I love, I’ve been having a real hard time finding what they call a “good, sizeable clutch” and the measurements on this one fits my bill as I could throw my samsung 7 inch tab in it comfortably it seems. I love big clutches.

And a couple of her pumps for good measure

Two colours I could really use in my closet right now, though I think I should stray away from pumps in search of some strappy sandals…but I love these. The silly season is right around the corner….what’s on your wishlist?

Me in Christian Siriano for Payless

IrieDiva — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:48:19 +0000

So there’s been a lot of high end designers partnering with budget stores like Target, H&M and Payless these days to bring more affordable versions of their designs to the masses. It’s been welcomed with Americans waiting on the pieces to hit stores and collections selling out within days. The Missoni for Target collection flew off virtual shelves SO fast. I’m not sure how big of a name Project Runway winner Christian Siriano has made for himself as yet and if his designs were snatched up just like all the other big names but I was quite pleased to see his shoes in our local Payless Shoes here in Jamaica.

I went in the store to get munchkin a new pair of sandals as her feet are growing at the rate of a size a month it seems and I got her these cute little Dora sandals that lights up when she walks.

I hate having to buy her shoes in Jamaica, they’re so expensive. These cost me the equivalent of US$27 and I know I could’ve picked up something in Target for 10 bucks. Shoes that will last two months or so shouldn’t cost more than 10 bucks. Anyway these were cute so I went with it. When I was walking out a pair of blue pumps caught my eye and I realized I’ve never taken the time out to check out what Payless has on offer here in Jamaica other than kid shoes. The selections overseas are never that cute so I really didn’t think anything would be different about the stores here.

I saw these Christian Siriano pumps and quite liked the colour so I decided to try them on. In the picture on Payless’ website it looks quite olive coloured and perfect for an office setting but these were brighter and looked fab with my jeans and purple top. I felt like a hot mama running errands when I put them on. How practical though huh

Cute right? I wasn’t a fan of the squared toe but the colour is fab. But the price…

That would be US$87 dollars. Say what now? I guess I gotta pay for the duty and shipping to Jamaica…SMH. The price on the Payless website was originally $59 and its currently on sale for $49. But you know we don’t have true sales in Jamaica and Payless is doing well at adopting the culture. If I bought it online and shipped it out myself I would pay less than this price. Now you see why I don’t shop locally by default. They are cute though, do you like?

Shoe find: Penny loves Kenny – Tetra

IrieDiva — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:20:49 +0000

I first saw these Tetra – Turq Green a while back but they were out of my size so I set up an alert for when they restocked. I got that email recently! Aren’t they fabulous? I LOVE the turquoise green combo. Then I saw one of my favourite style celebs wearing it and it sealed the deal for me!

HAUTE! The other colours aren’t bad either…though I’d prolly only get the black ones…they’re fierce!

You know what made my shoe find even more amazing though? This photo that popped up in my tumblr!

Yes Posh!!!! VB and I have the saaaaame tastes! Of course her taste is way more cha-ching since hers are the coveted “red bottoms” Christian Louboutins but hey, we’re right here girl…right here!

Do you love my shoe find? How would you rock these shoes?

#FNOja the HWT Rundown…What I did, Where I went, Who I saw

IrieDiva — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:27:58 +0000

Ok. I can’t possibly post on all of Fashion’s Night Out in one go…I’ll have to break this up into a couple of posts. So first up, I’ll just tell you what I did and the deals I found. Even this rundown may need two posts but we’ll see how it progresses…

So…I had a plan. I had a route in my head and stores to check off my list. I was gonna start early in the day to avoid the rush. And that I did. I put on my cutest little frock that could work for casual or upscale wherever I went and I was about to head out my door when the heavens above opened up and wiped that plan clean. So, plan derailed, I looked in my closet to see what I could find that could offer a little coverage for the feet and legs while still providing some cute. Then I said f*ck all that and threw on my jeggings and my rainboots. It was pouring.

These rainboots make for conversation starters boy, everybody on the road had something to say. “Where you get dat” “A dat me need inna dis yah rain yah” “you come prepared boy nutten naah stop you” I met up with my sister who was to be my partner in crime for the evening and changed into my flats so we could get started. Thankfully the rain was done for the day.

My first stop was to the Half-Way-Tree area where I guess you could say holds the biggest gathering of shopping malls this side of Kingston. This is also where you’d expect most of the traffic to build up so my plan was to hit this area first, be in, be out and move against the traffic to all my other stops. I started with the department store Ammars. Figure I’d check out what Shenna, the Mission Catwalk winner, had new in store. Alas, when I got there, they hadn’t yet put out her stuff for display. Being early was not working in my favour.

It was good to see them bringing out their 50% tags though. I moved on to Collectibles that notably was not a member of FNO but conveniently had a big sale going on. Why not just register for FNO? Does it cost money to register? Anyhoo…They had some cute pieces in the store, I even saw a few pieces that looked like they could fit me but when you know you’re not trying to spend anything, you’re not motivated to try stuff on. They had an 80% rack at the front of the store with some lace leggings…..I’m not sure how I’d rock floral lace leggings so I just kept it moving. This cute little XOXO dress was on the 60% off rack but the original price for it was over JA$7000. Not. Cute. Enough. Someone commented on twitter that they must have marked it up to that price to offer a “deep” discount on it. SMH…the deals were sure looking great already…

It is cute though. I skipped past their shoe store as nothing in the window grabbed my attention and I know how ridiculously expensive Collectible’s shoe store is. How do these people stay open? Maybe with their other shoe store that sells more affordable items. I almost bought this cute pink flats there but the crowd was starting to build inside and the daunting task of getting an attendant to retrieve my size and then make my way over to the cashier was a little overwhelming, even at the greatly reduced price of $600+ tax.

Anyhoo I went to Artique, a favourite of mine for accessories to see what was new. Their selection of cocktail rings always blows my mind and they had 70% off a topaz looking (I forgot the material she said now but the colour was of the same Topaz that is my birthstone) tray of rings and bracelets. I tried on three that caught my eye… wish I used my camera instead of my phone to take these pics as the rings are so gorge! I am really tempted to go back for that green one…green’s my fave colour. I think.

You think hubby would be mad if I replaced my wedding ring with that first one? Aww never mind I already told all of y’all it was a cocktail ring lol…

I moved around the corner to Alexxya where this lime green dress caught my eye. Isn’t it cute? I thought it would be a cute progress dress for my weight loss journey…but at JA$5800 and only 25% off…it wasn’t cute enough. Or rather, I knew I could get something just as cute but cheaper online, like this one or this one, both by Bebe. And that was with only 2 seconds of search, if I put more effort in I’m sure I could find one in this green.

I wandered over into Go West, that sells Guess clothing (exclusively?) in Jamaica and I circled for about a minute before I hit the doors. Go West is already expensive, and they were only offering 20% off with a sale rack around back that was 30%. Meh…The stuff in there isn’t even cute. It’s like last, last season stuff…moving on. Outside of Xxtras looked promising…

But alas we were too early, and I had no intention of sticking around for the crowd. I don’t want to imagine what it was like in there after hours with that tiny little drink stand. I hit another department store, Lees this time around, and I have to tell you I lowkey love Lees Fifth Avenue. You can always find some cute staple wardobe items inside and they have some plus size pieces too. Now, I didn’t say it was overrun with cute stuff…I kinda wish they’d hire me as a buyer, but, you can dig and find. Like this grey shirtdress with silver accents would’ve been perfect with my jeggings and boots.

Shimmery and cute. And some summer tops and dresses for my plus size peeps

Both come in an array of colours and are really cute on…saw the dress on a mannequin, and wanted to get one for myself. It can be worn off shoulder as well. There’s a spaghetti strap version also in a lovely pastel teal kinda shade among others that is strangely more expensive than this version but still affordable at $2300.

Moved down the line to Premier Plaza and Sammy’s, a little shoe store that you can probably get a cute cheapo shoe if you catch them when they have fresh stock. I wasn’t too impressed with their selection but snapped this pair of platforms for my tweeps…they were having a BOGO sale (buy one get one halfoff) These were marked down to $2050, not bad.

Interestingly enough Kabella’s next door was also having a BOGO sale. Spotted these wedge pumps there.

Spotted this dress on their BOGO racks…

I was once again not impressed at the prices so I moved on. Went into a little boutique store called Danielle’s that was quite enticing with a 50% off everything sign. Saw some really cute summer dresses a la this post and some structured dresses like this one:

How Christmasy. There was a lovely red solid dress with some interesting pleats at the waist as well but I was in a rush to get out of HWT at this point. Til this caught my eye. I was so excited about this fringe skirt for only $1000 but all my twitter peeps told me to back away from the fringe

Ok. That’s it for the HWT portion of my #FNOja experience. This post is already one of my longest yet so I’ll stop here for today and continue with my other stops plus some schmoozing and excitement in another post or two. How was your FNO experience? Snagged any deals?

Tifa at her Get Flat launch

IrieDiva — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:55:59 +0000

Dancehall artist Tifa launched her new single Get Flat recently with the help of her endorsers Nuvo, but of course I’m quite interested in what she’s got on!

Pics courtesy of Skkanme

She’s wearing a metallic silver one shouldered dress with embellishments on the shoulder and pink booties. I LOVE silver and pink together, I’m sure the colour combo was chosen to go along with the Nuvo brand but hey, it works. ~~Dexter Pottinger is her stylist so I’m guessing he designed the dress.~~ I’m waiting on confirmation from her on this one so check back but yeah…pretty good guess I think. UPDATE: I should have known the dress was too “chill to be a Dexter, he loves a good shock value. Tifa told me it was actually from Posh Boutique and Designs in Barons Plaza. Seems worth a visit! Here he is with Digicel marketing exec Paula McLeod. Tifa is a Digicel brand ambassador:

Funny how they’re both rocking pink as well. I do like her dress as well but I wish it were more structured. Another shot of Tifa

I love her bangles. With all these photographers snapping every detail at these events, the pressure is on to ensure we’re always on point these days! Like these shoes tho…

Lace is so big for the summer…I liked this one a lot but wish she hadn’t worn it with a black bra. Pink, metallic, any other solid colour really but black just makes it seem as if her underwear is showing. Colour-blocking with orange would gave been great. Love the shoulder detail though, great top.

Here’s the video, directed by Dexter 3D Pottinger her stylist

So, what did I wear to CFW?

IrieDiva — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:02:05 +0000

I did a whole series on outfits for CFW so lemme share with you what my outfits ended up being. You already saw Friday’s, lets not rehash that one since it was pretty casual.

This was the outfit I was going to wear for Saturday night…

I really love that jacket and you already know I LOVE those shoes. The high platforms made me feel quite kardashian. They were super comfortable all night too, just very tricky to walk when I hit the gravel parking lot. The jacket did not make the night though, I went for all black instead.

Anyhoo I had just purchased this necklace from Shhh Boutique. What an amazing match right? Totally brought my outfit together. It was great to run into Oraine Barrett too (yes, the model from Rih’s Man Down) I loved that he remembered and embraced me like an old friend. Humility wins. (And he’s so hawt)

Sunday I had another outfit dilemma. I really wanted to go cute and girly with my new polka dot dress…I love me all things polka…but it is a tube dress and I have a complex with my arms. I hate anything tubed unless I have a cardigan over it. Since I did not intend to wear a cardigan two nights in a row, I nixed the dress. This is what I might have looked like

Yuck I hate that. The dress is gorgeous and would have been totally ruined by this big ol’ pink thing. To another event at another time…but for the occasion instead of cute and girly I went sassy and sexy

The belt did much better justice to this outfit. RAWR. I’ve had these satin shorts for so many years now and I’ve never worn them out like this. I’ve never been a short shorts kinda girl. I always wear them under dresses I deem too short to wear by themselves. But when I bought this top this is exactly the kind of outfit I had in mind and knew one day I would have to get over my thing with wearing short shorts. I don’t think I did too badly.

Right?

Nude pumps go with everything!

IrieDiva — Thu, 05 May 2011 12:00:32 +0000

I was thinking of titling this post “my love affair with dresses” but I’ll use the pictures that feature the nude slingbacks from my last post to show the versatility of nude instead. Ever since I had my munchkin my belly has not been the same and since I can’t wear pajama jeans to work I figure I may as well invest in a wardrobe of dresses to get my diva on. Its a fine balance still between finding those dresses that will be figure flattering while not making me look preggers once again but I think I’ve found a few.I am partial to the Merona dresses from Target because while they’re affordable, they’re really good quality, usually a nice thick or sturdy material that will enhance my curves instead of outlining them. Unfortunately they mostly come in solid colours and I am now all “solided” out and on the hunt for some cute prints. But these are the best of them.

Not everyday ya wanna don black or brown shoes yah know. Black can be very heavy when you’re wearing some fun light colours and so the perfect neutral to pull out for these occasions is nude! Everybody who follows me on twitter know I love Jessica Simpson’s line of shoes so when I stepped into Marshall’s on fine day and saw these right up front I knew I had to get them. They were neutral which I been meaning to get, they are platform which means they’ll be comfortable and they were in Marshalls which means they’d have my kinda price!

Anyhoo here are some of my favourite Target dresses accessorized perfectly with my new nude pumps.

OK so you can’t see them all these pics but I really love these dresses. ^_^ The yellow one is the only one I didn’t buy from Target, I got that one in Rainbow. Its also where I got the purple belt, I was so amazed that it matched my purple dress so flush! Anyhoo this is how I’m walking around my office on most days, in a super comfy dress looking effortless but chic. At least I like to think so

My most recent shoe haul

IrieDiva — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:00:50 +0000

I promised to share my latest shoe haul with you, these are a few of my faves!

I’ll start with the animal print ones. I recently wore this to a staff party:

When I bought these shoes I instantly thought back to this dress and getting all matchy matchy. I love the pair! the red clutch set everything off too. This outfit made me happy.

These shoes I got in Charlotte Russe. They’re ridiculously hard to walk in because the cork platforms are quite rigid and they just don’t sit right on the ground but they’re awfully sexy when paired with jeans. Style trumps comfort every now and then right ladies?

I got the gold wedges you see in the first pic at Charlotte Russe as well. Fabulous with jeans also for those occasions when black just won’t do. Uber confortable wedges.

These I can’t wait to wear! I’m so in love with them. I don’t even think I have an outfit ready to pair with them, I’ll have to be real creative in the closet. But whatever I pair this with, they will for sure be the star. When I have them on I feel almost Hollywood teehee.

These man, these are my current pride and joy. I wear them to work quite often. Every girl needs a pair of nude pumps that goes with everything and makes those legs look long and lean (sexy) and this does the trick quite well for me. I have quite a few pics of me wearing them with different outfits. I’ll post in another fashion feature soon. If you’re on my facebook page you’ve already been privy to a little preview. Please join me there and like my page! I integrate it with my tumblr and reblog lots of awesome pretty shoes!

Thanks for indulging in some of my latest shoes with me! Do you have any that you’re currently drooling over? Share!

Shoes that make him go…

IrieDiva — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Shut the door! Every girl got a pair of f*ck me pumps and hooker heels right? Right. You slip those bad boys on and you feel like superwoman, ready to take over the world. Your walk is different, your swag is different, its on and poppin… and if he’s around when you slip them on…he might just tell you to shut the door…

This sparkly number was surprisingly my last pair. A quick, last minute purchase to complete an outfit without going boring black. Unfortunately, they’re turning out to be a one time wear since I lost the strap for the right foot…yeah…don’t ask.

These might be my next pair…there’s just something sexy about a pair of patent red pumps eh…

Ooh la la. I realise I blog an awful bit about shoes here…sigh…its an addiction I tell ya.

How about some Mary Janes? Ooh la la…

These I really love…I’m still feeling the animal print trend and boy these are calling out to my soul. Do you like them? I dunno how come I’m so obsesses with pumps as of late…I was always a strappy shoe kinda girl.

Anyway, what colour are your favourite shoes? How many pair of black shoes do you own? Which shoe sitting in your closet is your sexiest pair?

I think all of these qualify for a little cooking in the kitchen with just them on….don’t you?

Trends this Christmas – Animal Print

IrieDiva — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:35:00 +0000

Last night was my office party and I decided to rock animal print since its trending this season. I knew it was a risk because the theme of the party was silver and black and when you go with trends, the chances are greater that someone will be in the same thing as you. Narrow it further with a theme and you’re asking for trouble. But I found this dress online and I fell in love with it and decided to rock it anyway.

A couple years back, someone actually did end up in the same exact dress as me at one of these office parties. Thats what happens when you buy locally, Kingston is but so many people and so many stores. So this time around I prepared by shopping online, however there were quite a few people in some kind of animal print last night and one chic even had on pink shoes with hers as well. Sometimes tho…its you. Its all about you. And when you’re feeling yourself as much as I was last night…nothing can shade that shine. Every now and then you may find yourself in a “who wore it best” situation and your “swagger” is what will give you your edge. Plus the arm candy was loving my outfit too…you know that helps

Last night there was no one in my dress, but a couple people came close to the print. Matters not…I was hot.

I kept wishing it was shorter tho. That there’s my inner hoochie tryna peek out…