Hope everyone's enjoying their holidays! Here are some more shots of our trip out to the desert in Dubai - we even managed to get super close to some camels! It was a little scary actually. I hear they spit.

Here I'm wearing a dress from our line, Haute Heritage, and it's available by request.

Enjoy!
xoxo

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all are enjoying your holiday season.

While on our recent visit to Abu Dhabi, we also visited the gorgeous Yas Hotel for brunch. Fantastically modern, you may recognize it as the venue for this year's Formula One races. It's the first hotel in the world to be built over an F1 race circuit and marina. It's even more gorgeous when its LED system is lit up at night in changing colors from purple to red. Check out the photos from our visit below!

Also during our visit to Dubai, we got a chance to do some dune-bashing on a desert safari. Basically dune-bashing is getting in an SUV truck (like a Land Rover or 4Runner) and taking it up and down the sand dunes at high speeds. Sometimes it's scary because you actually feel like the car will topple over and you'll end up rolling down the dunes. But thankfully that didn't happen here :)

Once we made it to the top of a large dune, we got out of the trucks to enjoy the sunset and even managed to get in a little sand-boarding. I got behind the camera this time and took a few shots of everyone and the beautiful scenes around us.

Enjoy the pics!
xoxo

The Grand Mosque is one of the greatest architectural wonders of Abu Dhabi. Built in 2007, it holds the record of the 8th largest mosque in the world and boasts being made of marble stone, gold, and semi-precious stones. Inspired by Mughal and Moorish architecture, one instantly recognizes the dome layout and floorplan similarity to the Badhshahi Mosque in Lahore, while the archways are easily reminiscent of the Alhambra Mosque in Granada.

We took a day trip to visit the mosque during our recent trip to Dubai. You can take a look at the pics below! 

Hey everyone! Stop one on our Mid East/South Asia trip was Dubai, where we visited my sis. There, we went out to the desert for a dune buggy excursion one day. The desert is absolutely beautiful - vast and seemingly endless, with delightful clusters of roaming camels along the way.

But dune buggying was an experience I wasn't expecting. I thought it would be pretty harmless - like go-karting, but that it really wasn't. The dunes are deceptively steep and the terrain rougher than you think. It felt like I was going to wipe out a few times (I lost control and was suspended mid-air more than once) but I still managed to hold it down. My brother wasn't so lucky - he crashed his dune buggy twice and received a pretty bad gash on his hand. But it was still a lot of fun racing each other up and down the dunes! I'd recommend it to anyone who can handle a car pretty decently and wouldn't mind getting roughed up a little ;) 
 

Look at them go

Smiling and celebrating that we made it in one piece!

Just a normal fall day in the District this weekend. It was exceptionally gorgeous out, so we took advantage and scoped some nice places to shoot outdoors. One of the nice things about living in DC is there are so many interesting backdrops to shoot at - monuments and memorials galore, and of course all the beautiful museums. I'm looking forward to shooting at some of these places very soon.

The dress I'm wearing here I found randomly in a cousin's closet (she didn't want it anymore) but I thought it had lots of potential. Again, I'm wearing it with pants because it's just too cold to wear something baring my legs right now, and I'm not insane to try.

One look making its way back from the '90s is the dress-over-pants. Remember this baby?

Gwen Stefani, c.1998

Well, Gwen's style isn't the only thing that's improved since then. The dress-over-pants look is making a comeback, and this time it's sophisticated and sleek, thanks to the likes of Helmut Lang, Rag & Bone and Rebecca Taylor:

(... and Givenchy and Haider Ackermann while we're at it).

Hate it or love it, you have to admit: at least it's one way to carry your summer wardrobe into winter! For example - you might remember this dress from TSM's feature in the Washingtonian this summer:


To take your winter wardrobe into summer, you can wear a dress like this with a pair of sleek, slightly flared pants and a sweater thrown on top, and voila! You end up with an entirely different outfit, and one that's completely winter appropriate to boot:



To make this look work for you, here are some simple tips to keep in mind:

1) Keep the dress at knee-length or higher. A knee-length hemline will maintain the leg and waist proportions of your body. Anything longer tends to look awkward.

2) Keep the waist defined. With so much fabric (dress plus pants), you want to be sure to create shape somewhere. Instead of wearing a shapeless shift dress, try one with an empire-waist or one that will make it easy to define your waist with a belt.

3) Stick to darker tones. For winter months, stick to a neutral palette (like greys, blacks, and browns) to make you feel like your dress is made for winter, instead of being a horribly-misplaced dress from summer.

And now for your Thanksgiving enjoyment, here are some photos of well-coordinated decor. Since most of us are spending today indoors anyway, why not feast our eyes on some good decor (since we'll be feasting our stomachs anyway ;)
 
For a sleek black, white and gold palette, check out this great example. The matching glossy black door arches and bookshelf add a glam look to the room which is carried through to the black granite floor. The gold accents in the vases, picture frames and chair add an element of luxury, augmented by the crystal chandelier. Finally, the sequined black-and-white chevron throw cushion adds some much-needed pattern and texture to the room.

Ralph Lauren

For a brighter, more classic look, check out this example alternating gold and seafoam seamlessly. This room is all about the dramatic gold ceiling-to-floor curtains and square moldings.