The Ladybug and the White Shirt, the story continues: discovering Balossa SS2016 collection at White Trade Show

During the Milan Fashion Week one of my favorite stop-overs is the White Trade Show: I love this place not only because it gives you a forward-looking idea of what will be on next year but mostly because you discover many new interesting brands. In fact when I get back home I have my bag full of business cards and I spend a lot of time online to visit sites, Facebook and Instagram pages!

​But it is also an occasion to visit some of my favorite brands and to see which surprise they prepared for my little happy eyes! It was the case of my adored Balossa White Shirt, one of my favorite brands ever (especially because they have wonderful handmade shirts, that I adore, but this you already know!) founded by the talented designer Indra Kaffemanaite, who presented the new SS2016 collection a few weeks ago at White Trade Show in Milan.

As usual it was a pleasure to meet Indra because she is such a sweetheart and she takes a lot of time explaining every single piece with such a passion that you feel like falling in love every time she takes a new shirt from the hanger. But I have to say that the 2016 Spring Summer collection managed to amaze me maybe even more than the last one, when I first met her. The beautiful shirts of this collection reach a new level of deconstruction leading to new experiments and breaking the rules in a totally unexpected way. Balossa plays with volumes and lines creating real art sculptures with surprising details: cut-outs, draperies, asymmetries and the most original detail, sleeves and collars everywhere except where you expect to find them! You can find sleeves as belts or pussy bows, collars as pockets (or inside pockets) or as details all along the shirt, shirts as dresses or jackets: the freedom of creativity is strong and refreshing. Eccentricity becomes sensual and bold at the same time.

Every Balossa shirt is a statement piece!

The shirts of this collection are made with selected Italian cotton, so that they are soft and fresh (a real pleasure to wear) with a touch of sheer every now and then. White is the main color but the new shades of blue and pale pink are perfect for summer (I am really in love with the blue shade, very hard to find and extremely sexy).

I am not surprised that during the White Trade Show, Balossa received the Inside White award from Izumi Ogino, designer of the maison Anteprima. She chose Balossa because of their shapes, cuts and volumes that represent a perfect mix of Italian and Japanese styles. I can’t agree more with her!

I try to show you some of my favorite pieces here but believe me, it was very hard to pick up only a few of them!

For the day I wore a Balossa asymmetric white shirt, of course!, with Acne Studios skinny jeans, vintage Escada yellow shoes from Epiphany vintage and thrift store in Frankfurt, handmade African earrings and Balenciaga bag.

The Ladybug has Her Head in the Clouds: Introducing Balossa at White in Milan

Fashion week recently concluded; a low point for me since I was super busy, making it hard to attend all the events and shows. But I took advantage of last weekend to head over to some presentations I was invited to check out.

First of my Saturday morning Fashion Week-end was the White Show in Milan to meet the emerging brand Balossa.

Before meeting the beautiful and talented Indra Kaffemanaite, the designer and owner of the brand, I did some research online to get to know her better, and when I landed on their site (www.balossashirt.com) I completely lost my mind. Fell in love. Badly. Totally. Completely. Desperately.

She is a shirt designer. Shirts… Yes, only shirts and mostly white. But calling her creations just shirts is seriously understatement: they are artistic creations, they have an architecture that sometimes look like origami or paper sculptures… other times white birds or dancing ballet dancers. These shirts have movement and dimensions. They are dynamic, fluctuant… aerial.

When I saw them in person I fell in love even more, if that was possible! You know my love for white shirts mostly because they are the easiest way (yet super chic) to pair with vintage pieces in daily wear (at work essentially, like I do). But I’ve always seen them as a vehicle, if I can say like that, to introduce vintage without shocking too much (I call it “I’m being myself, but I am a team player” attitude!). Balossa’s FW2015 collection just opened my view on white shirts because the attention was all on the shirts! Not a vehicle, but a real statement: I wear a unstructured shirt therefore I am! There is no space for other pieces when you wear a Balossa shirt!

This is what happened with Indra Kaffemanaite, the soul and incredibly talented designer behind this brand of these amazing shirts: this is her first collection and she told me that after working with a Japanese designer, she completely changed her mind about the white shirt and started imagining and designing these wonderful pieces of art that you can find and buy on their site. She told me that for her the white shirt continues to be the most surprising piece ever: it is practical, easy to wear, sexy and cool- but she gave an honest new life to our favorite piece!  Vintage in a completely new and modern version!

Green light to a new style made of volume, games and artistic details… modern lines, asymmetries, draperies, cut-outs, plunging necklines on the back, softness and sculptural, Balossa shirts that can be formal or sporty, but always incredibly sexy with great personality.

How could I resist? Of course, I’ve already chosen my first Balossa, can you guess?

The Ladybug Investigates: WHITE Milano and Coontemporary Mood During Milan Fashion Week

Last month I had the chance to have a closer look at Milan during Fashion Week. I already knew that it wasn’t all about fashion shows and amazing parties, but I finally got a glimps of the affairs happening around this important event that make a whole city change for 7 long and busy days!

For example the fairs and presentations and the pop-up events with emerging brands and handmade artists.

I spent an entire Sunday around via Tortona visiting Coontemporary Mood and WHITE. These two events, equally different, are an example of what you can discover during Fashion Week in Milan.

Coontemporary Mood is a special pop-up event completely dedicated to creativity in art, fashion and design.  It’s where 25 emerging brands and artists are selected to expose and sell their creations. This year was its third edition and I loved it not only because of the many beautiful things that I saw but also because I am such a fan of young emerging brands: their creativity and their artistry is a gift and it is always such a great discovery for me when I meet a new handcraft artist. During my visit I fell in love with Stefania Nicosia’s soft leather clutches and with two jewels makers: Metalíca Creazioni and MarinaMa Creazioni.

Metalíca makes wonderful and impressive handmade jewels mostly in bronze and brass with different types of stones; I was amazed by the eccentricity of the design and by the use of the materials. MarinaMa makes handmade luxury jewels and I was dying for her earcuffs and necklaces!

The White Show in Milano on via Tortona is a completely different event: it is a tradeshow, an International contemporary fashion showcase with a great selection of designers from all over the world both emerging and well settled. WHITE is open to buyers, offering them a mix of the most interesting brands and designs from International contemporary fashion. WHITE is considered an innovative container of ideas and services in the fashion scene and also within the Milan metropolitan environment.

The new trends and product for the SS2015 were presented and I fell in love with this big box full of clothes and accessories to come and of new brands that I fell in love with!

Let me just give a special mention to G.Kero, a French Brand that I discovered at WHITE that I adored… let’s call it love at first sight; I was totally amazed by their prints and patterns!

For the day I wore a Topshop silk navy shirt, a vintage skirt from EBV Everybody’s Buying Vintage and Topshop shoes and bag. I added one of my favorite handmade pieces: a statement necklace that I bought this summer in a craft market in Singapore.