Cool Summer Outfit Combo

If you have been following me in my daily outfits for some time now, you may or may not have noticed one pattern. There are weeks when I am confined to wearing long dresses or pants/ trousers enough to cover entire my entire legs. I ain’t sure if anybody else does this as well but there's no special reason to it. It's just that time of the month where I let my leg hair grow for sometime before going back to shorter hemlines. Lol! 

And in these occasions I find myself wearing maxi dresses more often for casual days like going to the gym in the weekends. Before I would usually get comments like, "Where's the beach trip or something?" which makes me wonder why others would confine such flowy dresses to beach or something whereas as proven by this post, a maxi dress paired with sneakers (albeit in my case a white one) is such a cool summer outfit combo. Other international bloggers approve as well. So without further ado, here's a gallery of how I styled my maxis in the past and let me know if I made myself clear. Like if you think my outfits are PAK! Ganern?! =)))))))))))))

Dress: Topshop; Hat/Scarf: H&M; Shoes: Rubi; Bag: Balenciaga; Jacket: Unbranded

Dress: Mango; Scarf: H&M; Shoes: Rubi

Dress: Topshop; Buttondown: Topman; Shoes: Rubi

Dress: Folded & Hung; Jeggings: H&M; Shoes: Rubi

Neckline Du Jour

You know a trend has become a wardrobe essential when a year after you've blogged about it (as seen here), it is still going incredibly strong. I'm talking about the trend that emphasizes the shoulders as the new erogenous zone - the off-shoulder. And what's even better is that, different styles have emerged since then. Since its debut, the craze has evolved to different silhouettes, each of which is just as stylish as the others. 

So when I saw this post about the different types of off-shoulder, I couldn't help but reflect how far have I gotten in uhmm collecting the different styles, lol! But after a careful inspection of a year worth of personal styling, I realized that I have improvised a bit to comply with the other categories of this top as seen below. You can compare my list with the original post as seen here. ;)

Here are the different types of off-shoulder top for this summer season:

Straight Across. 

Top: Zalora; Pants: Dorothy Perkins; Hat: H&M; Bag: Balenciaga

Top: Zalora; Pants: Topshop; Shoes: Mango; Bag: Aldo

Asymmetric.

Dress: Warehouse; Skirt: Unbranded; Shoes: Bebe; Bag: Dorothy Perkins

Full Sleeves.

Top: Zara; Pants/ Shoes: H&M; Belt: Mango

Dress/ Shoes: Zara (also here); Skirt: Unbranded

MAKESHIFT SERIES

Subtle exposure. For this one, I tried to make an off-shoulder top by loosening up buttons of my brother's buttondown and pulling the collar lower at the back :P

Top: Topman; Skirt: Topshop; Shoes: Zalora

One shoulder. In here, I raised the other sleeve up to make a one-shoulder effect. 

Top: Unbranded; Pants: The Ramp; Belt/ Shoes: Mango

Cold shoulder. To make the cold shoulder effect, I layered an off-shoulder crop top in my LBD to produce that tiny skin display as seen in some styles recently.

Top: Topshop; Dress: Unbranded; Shoes: Miss Selfridge

Breakfast Joints II

Welcome to the breakfast joints series! If you're a new reader, you may read up on how this started here. But basically, it's just exploring what Makati has to offer for a semi-foodie like me. *grins*

Wildflour Cafe + Bakery. Okay. You'll often find me bringing my dates here. Lol. Not only it is so close to my workplace, the ambiance is very pleasant too. is very One time, I made him choose between The Wholesome Table (blogged here) or this and it was a good weather to be seated alfresco so he made this choice. I'm a bread lover so I really love that I can always get my cronut-craving satisfied. Dulce de Leche flavor, please? :P I also love spotting celebs here from time to time. Lol.

Top: Unbranded; Skirt: H&M; Shoes: Mango

Top: Zalora; Skirt: Topshop; Cardigan/ Shoes: Mango

Crepe Amelie at A Venue Mall has this rustic interiors that really looks inviting as seen outside through its glass panels. I'm not actually a fan of crepes for desserts but a breakfast crepe with eggs in it? Yeah you got my attention. Lol! I ordered the Crepe Madame and it's so surprisingly good and filling. I was so full again before work that day and as usual I burned it off by walking for 20 mins to my workplace. That's how bad the traffic situation is in Makati Avenue in the morning. But I will definitely be back here for the crepe cakes! It's intriguing from the other food blogger's posts. :P Let you know soon ;)

CaseStyles: White Wide-Leg Trousers

Whenever I think of the most appropriate bottoms to be used in the workplace in the trousers category, I couldn’t think of anything better than the wide-leg ones in plain colors. It’s so classic and simple and very flattering for my frame. When done right, it can elongate the legs, make a tiny waist, balance proportions, etc.

My favorite as of late which is perfect for summer/ spring is this high-waisted flowy ones which I’m making a case in today’s post.  Here’s how I styled them in three ways, particularly in white on white fashion:

Top/ Sandals: H&M; Trousers: Mango; Hat: Zara

Top: H&M; Clutch/Trousers: Mango; Shoes: CMG

Top: Zara; Trousers: Mango; Hat/ Sandals: H&M

Castaway (Burias Island)

I do hereby acknowledge (1) That my second to the last post is about Maldives and (2) That the next post after that is where I mentioned that it’s already the start of rainy season here but

Yeah, I went to the beach again last weekend. *grins*

This time it’s in the less known islands in the South namely, Alibijaban Island (a 15-min boat ride fronting the mainland of San Andres, Quezon Province) and if you have extra time you can tour the surrounding Burias Islands of Masbate (Tinalisayan, Sombrero and Animasola). My impression is that this place has been relatively under the radar which is good for me because I like quiet beaches (guess you can say I’m not a people person, lol!) but with its white sand beaches and crystal clear waters, something tells me that it's going to be crowded like Calaguas Island soon. :( All it takes is that one sensational social media post.

Alibijaban is known for its mangrove forest. We took a short boat ride to view them and swim in a supposedly sandbar but was on a high tide during that time. :-/ Everything is back to basics here (lack of electricity, water rationing, tent living etc.) which is all fine by me . :) This is also where I saw one of the most dramatic sunrise as seen below.

Tinalisayan Island. This island is a bit literally rough around the edges with its sharp rocks along the beach shore but it's a charming island too with an adjacent long sandbar, scenic hill and rock formations. Most of the shoots were done here mainly because it was the first stop in the second day. Haha!

Sombrero Island. This was my favorite actually. Apart from its Maldives vibes from afar, I really like this rock formation upon which this island was named after.

There are also some other islands that we visited where you could do a cliff jump (funny how it's just a common activity for me now :P), Snake Island (stopped by for quick group photo-ops) and Animasola Island (known for its rock formations but skipped because of location). So many islands to explore, the Philippines is truly worth visiting y'all. ;)

Collab

Aaah, this whole social media thing. It’s fascinating isn’t it? It’s a good platform to showcase your interests alright but to be noticed and be tapped as a talent is something even better. And something I never thought would happen to me.

While I was in Maldives, I received an email for a collaboration with a clothing brand in China. They wanted to send me dresses, shoot high quality photos with it and send it back to them (I get to keep the dresses! Yay!). I believe the images will be used for marketing purposes to their online shops. Yay!

What’s fun about this whole project is the challenge for me to make the looks my own given that normally these are not the clothing within my “comfort zone”. I’m actually chuffed about how I styled them so here are the five looks that we shot around Makati one fine Saturday. Oh and don’t even get me started about loving this city on a weekend! J

Look #1 The yellow print suit

Look #2 The chevron dress

Look #3 The Mint Lace Dress

Look #4 The Orange Maxi

Look #5 The studded jumpsuit