Not just a pretty face.

Karl Lagerfeld once said, "sunglasses are like eyeshadow. They make everything look younger and prettier." And this is the reason why sunglasses are a woman's best friend. Sunglasses come in all different shapes and sizes and the 'it' pair of sunglasses can come and go just like your favourite hermes bag, however, a stylish and on trend pair can last you a lifetime. 

The classic ran ban wayfarers are a favourite among A-listers especially Rachel Bilson, who is never seen without them. Yet the most popular eye-ware of choice at the moment is the cat-eye. These feline frames have been snapped on taste makers Diane Kruger, Mary-Kate Olsen and Nicole Richie. Both styles are wearable for a wide range of faces and will be a must keep in your wardrobe forever. Sunglasses have the impact to dramatically change any outfit and are as good as a perfect pair of heels or bag to complete an outfit. A perfect pair of sunglasses will live with you forever so instead of using your sunglasses as a mask to hide behind use them as a statement piece in your wardrobe. A bold pair of sunglasses also has the ability to show the world you are reading to tackle anything that life throws at you, so I say... the bolder the better!

Lasting forever.

The woman is a strong person. Throughout our lives we are expected to create relationships, friendships, make children, take care of all the housework, cook, clean and also hold a respectable job in the workplace. There is far more expected of us now than our ancestors who's role in life was solely to stay home and bring up a loving family. The long lasting relationships that we create in our lives amongst our friends and family can also be transcribed into our wardrobe. 

Like our social lives, our wardrobes need those classic, modern and versatile pieces that will stand the test of time. Taking inspiration from french dressing and style icon Audrey Hepburn, trench coats, stripes and fur detailing are pieces that you will forever cherish. It is due to this style of dressing why woman from all over the world see the French as the most stylish and sophisticated out of them all. They always dress for themselves, and are never seen to be following trends but holding an inner sense of style. We need to cherish and hold onto the people in our life that will be there for years to come, hanging in our life like our favourite wardrobe items.

Pure Living in Style

For most of us living in a world where we are always “on”, looking our best and all dressed up. I have found that there are times when we all need to get back to basics whether it’s in the way we dress, the way we live, eat and spend our time. In our crazy world it is easy to get caught up in everyday life and miss the soft voice of our soul longing for stillness, healing and deep relaxation.

We all love the feeling of coming home, taking of our makeup, putting on our comfy trackies, even if they are Juicy Couture and curled up on the couch with a great book (and a great man). We find that we can simply be without the need to “be” anything or anyone other than who we are, naturally.

Basics are called just that, they are what we need and what we build the rest of our wardrobe around. They are the staples which make our wardrobe and without them our outfit would simply be too much. We’ve all seen stylish women wearing a white T and a great pair of jeans. Effortless, stylish and chic!! I have come to realize that in life it is much the same - the simple things, the basics are what truly nourish our soul.

Costa Rica is a country known by the words “Pura Vida” (Pure Living). I have recently been researching some of the world’s greatest retreats for the Private Access Woman and Pura Vida Retreat and Spa in Costa Rica is considered as the Wellness & Yoga destination of choice.

You can say that life at Costa Rica Retreat can teach us all how we can really get back to basics and develop the foundation for a way of living that is pure, pleasurable and sacred. There are basic retreats I have been to but at Pura Vida you get to go all natural with style. You can be the yogi saluting to the sun and lying by the pool in your bikini and designer sunnies.

Ahhhh finally a place where substance and spiritually merges with style.

Developing a healthy relationship with food is important and with the most divine menu options such as salad, cucumber with mint, cherry tomatoes over a bed of cabbage, Quinoa Risotto, Skewers of dried tomatoes, mushrooms and basil with balsamic, Salmon carpaccio with passionfruit sauce – this is one place you will never want to miss a meal that is prepared fresh by the full time kitchen staff of local Costa Rican women.

The healers at the retreat are hand picked for their gifts. Choose from Lympathic Drainage Massage, Facials or a unique healing session called La La Land where you can find yourself blissfully going somewhere you have never been before. Many have returned from Costa Rica totally transformed inside and out.

You also get to start the day you wish you you could start everyday - with a yoga class, waking up the body, stretching, breathing and connecting. Pura Vida holds many retreats throughout the year or if you just want a few days to get back to basics, you can book yourself in and do as little or as much as you like.

Pura Vida offers a perfect balance of mind, body and spirit in an oasis of beauty, tranquility and home like intimacy. You can pamper your body and soul and explore the delights of Costa Rica, a country which is renowned for its beauty.

So just like our basics in our wardrobe, getting away from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives to reconnect with ourselves is something we all need to do on a regular basis. We need our basics in our wardrobe to bring balance to the rest of our outfits just like we need to get back to basics and retreat to bring balance and harmony into our lives.

We need to learn how to disconnect from the world and just like coming home to put on our comfy trackies we come home to ourselves.

Pura Vida Website...click here

The New Sweater.

As the mornings become fresher and the nights crisper we know that winter is slowly creeping upon us. One winter item that used to be left for sunday evenings lazing around in our 'comfy' clothes is the humble sweater. However, this year the sweater has matured and grown into a more sophisticated and versatile item. Perfect for layering, the sweater can be paired back over jeans with boots or simply worn over bright shorts or skirts for those tran-seasonal moments. This is a more casual, day time look compared to a blazer or leather jacket which has shone as the staple items for many seasons. This winter get excited as it's all about comfort, class and rugging up in those winter woolies.

LMFF favours the everyday fashion consumer.

It's that time of the year again, time for L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival. This is the ultimate event for fashion lovers around the country. LMFF is an event open to the public so no matter if you're in the fashion industry or not you are welcome to join in the fashion festivities. This fashion event puts the consumers as the focus as they parade their best looks around the cultural hub. This year, Melbourne was turned from a sea of black into a colourful rainbow with pops of colour and different prints.  There was a lot of individuality and eccentric looks in patterned pants, neon accessories and florals as well as the 'classic' women who choose blazers, black and white and clean lines. Whatever you're look or style there was something for everyone and a true event for real woman on the street runway.

Stella McCartney Creates the Balance.

If there is one designer that knows the fine art of perfecting man-style power dressing mixed with femininity, it's Stella McCartney. And the world agrees. She is continually opening more stores (fingers crossed she lands on our shores) and is also the official designer of the British team's 2012 Olympic uniforms. At her recent Fall 2012 show at Paris Fashion Week, McCartney said the "Stella woman is about balance."

This is the balance that women around the world seek to find and create. The balance between juggling family, career, other relationships and inner self. It is a hard balance to come by and one that takes years to perfect. Only the strongest, most confident and powerful woman find this balance. But what it all stems from is your inner balance and inner happiness and being content with yourself and your surroundings. It doesn't come from how other people perceive you or how much you have succeeded in your career, but from the feelings inside.

Stella McCartney creates clothing for this woman. Shirt dressing, skater skirts with oversized jumpers and tailored pants with intricate detailing in a palette of cobalt blue, black and white. This type of tailored power dressing that is still a touch feminine is perfect for the modern woman. McCartney manages to perfect it season after season and you can too.

Without the Mask...Style & Spirituality

There are special days and celebrations throughout the year providing us with remarkable opportunities for personal growth and transformation.

The Jewish Festival of Purim provides a peak into our untapped power provided we are willing to take a journey of discovery to find out who we are under the masks we wear every day. One of the limitations of the five senses is an inability to see our true nature. We identify ourselves as an artist, doctor, mother, entrepeneur, police officer - but these are just paths we've chosen in life.

It’s not all that we are, in reality we have infinite, great abilities that have yet to be revealed and our daily lives provide us with the opportunity to reveal our true nature instead of our selfish, ego and primal instincts which make us no different from wild animals.

The festival of Purim is a holiday with the practical power of removing the doubt & fear that keeps us limited, and helps us to connect to our source. For centuries, kabbalists have been hosting masquerade parties on this night, using joy, song, spirits and special meditations to reconnect to the soul hiding just beyond the sense of “me.” And the following day, they would always do acts of sharing within the community, to help them live from this connection.

It's really the one way to be in the world, to give and to share your love and your life. It really is a beautiful life and behind our masks we too are beautiful souls here with a purpose to share and spread the light within. We are here to touch the hearts of people who care for us and to transform each other in the process, to make each of our lives greater, better and filled with light.

And it feels good to know I have made other people's lives better and brighter just by being my real self and a few months ago I received a beautiful greeting card from a beautiful soul (you know who you are) as a reminder of how one person can change someone else's life for the better.

We are in essence divine beings with pure souls. We simply need to let go of limiting, illusory and false concepts that we have misidentified as ourselves. This is why Purim is such a joyous holiday filled with unique energy that you can access only on this day. Discover how life looks when you can see through the masks of our physical reality and see Light in everything and everyone.

True Religion

We all know how heated a discussion can get when we bring up God and religion and there are so many of us asking questions as to the meaning of life and if there really is that big G in the sky looking over each and every one of us.

Having grown up attending a Jewish school I really couldn't understanding the stories of the burning bush and splitting of the sea. To me they seemed a little far fetched and exactly what they are "stories". I have often questioned if these events took place or did these stories hold a deeper meaning and explanation for the mysteries of the universe and our purpose here on earth.

For many years I took the spiritual path instead of the religious one. I connected to this beautiful energy I felt after my yoga practices, my meditation sessions and later the healing energy and power of reiki. But as you would have it my life took me back to my roots and back to the traditions of my Jewish faith. I often see that people are afraid of religion but what they are missing is the spirit and beauty of the teachings which bring us true lasting fulfillment not found in a ipad, iphone or "i" anything!

The path to happiness and our "true religion" according to Kabbalah is to share our unconditional love with others. To give instead of receive, to share instead of take and in this world it's a difficult task when we're all buying into the "i" mentality. The teachings tell us that we are beings of light and it is when we disconnect from the light within that all chaos begings. We are overcome with fear, anger, revenge and the "desire to receive for the self" creating a short circuit which goes from the initial high of our selfish desire to complete darkness.

Kabbalah teaches that it is the light that we are really after, everything in this world is vibrational energy emanating light. Yet the lasting fulfillment only comes from filling ourselves up from the inside out. An unhappy person with a Mercedes is still a misery and creates unhappiness wherever he may go. Our happiness does not come from what happens outside of us, it comes from what happens within. Our joy is the love we give, the friends we make and the people who love us and we love back creating a flow of energy of sharing that goes around and around.

Connecting to our inner light is where the real happiness comes from, we literally fall in love with who we are, what we bring to others and how we share that light in our life. Things happen around us and they are just part of the 1% world and according to Kabbalah all that we want is in the 99% where the true light is. By resisting our impulsive nature to take revenge, to take for the self alone and to do what our inner voice tells us to hurt others, we plummet deeper into the darkness and create more chaos in our lives.

I have also found that TRUE RELIGION is not going through the motions of prayer, ritual, festivals. It is about knowing the spiritual depth of why we do these things and how they can transform us into better people and elevate our spirits bringing more and more light into our life. I have spent time with some very religious people, who have grown up knowing only that world of strict obedience to the rules and regulations of our Jewish faith yet what determines our "true religion" is who we are in our hearts. Some religious people do not have TV's in their homes as they believe that watching anything other than the G channel exposes them to such violence, sexual references which is not good for the mind and soul. As Karen Berg said so beautifully when her husband, a Kabbalistic leader wanted to throw their TV out "If the TV goes so do you" as she believed if someone watches TV but they will give you the shirt of their back then that is TRUE RELIGION.

As for the jeans they are pretty nice but whether they are branded True Religion or not, we really need to look deeper into one's heart to determine their real religion and not what they look like on the outside wearing the 'religious' garb and doing the rituals blindly without consciousness.

Love xx Mia

New York Fashion Week.

New York fashion week is where the real stylists come to play. This season it featured everything from white on white, wide leg trousers, maxis, minis, quilted leather jackets and neon hits. So really, it had everything. This season is about channelling what you love most and making it unique and individual. These women have got it going on and really heating up the New York winter blues.