MY FAVOURITE THINGS | sweet leaf bath co.

i've changed up my personal care regimen somewhat recently and have been trying to use more natural products.  i've been using kiss my face conditioner for my hair, i've been using olive oil  to moisturize my skin and hair and castile soap to cleanse my skin and hair. once i find something that i love i tend to stick to it and often do not open myself to try out new things but there was one day when i discovered sweet leaf bath company.

i stumbled upon sweet leaf via a post on hip & urban girl's website about their winter beauty round-up where they listed a lip balm in a 100% compostable eco tube. they had me at compostable-how could i not give it a try? i ordered the lip balm along with some soaps which lead to my order of their shea butter which lead to my order of their scrubs and i have been ordering from sweet leaf ever since because i have been loving every product i have tried from them.

their products are handcrafted in small batches using pure, organic and fair trade certified ingredients; they're hand blended with pure essential oils, preserved using natural methods; there are no petroleum-based ingredients, sulphates, detergents, synthetic preservatives, colours or fragrances.  and they're canadian! i love to support canadian.

below are some of my favourites that i continually order on a regular basis.

beeswax lip balm in a 100% compostable tube.

shea butter, unrefined, not bleached and in a compostable container.
it offers natural sunscreen protection equivalent to an spf15.

this java bean scrub is fantastic. filled with dead sea salts, organic fair
trade coffee beans and a lot of other nourishing goodness.
the best part is if you use this in the shower there is no need to use
lotion after because it leaves your skin perfectly moisturized.

it's hard to choose one favourite soap because all of them are great.
and all of them are free from synthetic fragrances, dyes and additives.

you can find sweet leaf bath company products at select shops and organic supermarkets across canada. you can also buy their products online (and they accept paypal!) at sweetleafbath.com

CUTTING EDGE | dress to kill magazine

the spring issue of dress to kill magazine is out! actually, it's been out for about 2 or 3 weeks but i'm just getting around to posting about it now. i've been procrastinating. sorry.

the theme for this season's issue of dress to kill magazine was futuristic and minimal. since my styling preference with accessory editorials leans towards the "more is more" taste i did find this story  to be a challenge, even more so than the le rouge est le noir story from winter. choosing only 3 items that compliment and match each other while balancing and arranging them on the geometric backgrounds was like putting together a puzzle. in the end, photographer joseph saraceno and i created some fantastic images that the magazine loved. the fashion contacts  that i work with also loved it and gave me great feedback. one emailed me stating "tricia!! that made my week.", which in turn made my week.

cutting edge, dress to kill magazine spring 2013

photographer, joseph saraceno

styling, moi

bag, louis vuitton | shoe, salvatore ferragamo | bangle, hermès

SPRING CLUTCH | 1883 magazine editorial

last month while styling an editorial photographer joseph saraceno and i decided to do a mini creative shoot on the side to update our books. we had the time, we had great product and one can never have too much new work in their books, published or otherwise (of course we did not use the same items that we already photographed for the other editorial - that would be a no-no). as with any creatives i always like to try and see if it can get published. there are countless publications, both print and online, that are always looking for submissions. london-based 1883 magazine ended up publishing our spring clutch story and they also published a beauty story joseph shot too. it's not our first time being in 1883; we once did a fashion editorial on a skeleton that they loved enough to print, but we were too late so it was published online instead.  i'm glad that 1883 picked up our work again and hopefully there will be more of our work, online and even in print, in the future.

spring clutch, 1883magazine.com spring 2013

photographer, joseph saraceno

styling, moi

TARGET | spring flyer

it's not very often that i post about the catalogue or e-commrce that i style for. most of the time it's because i do so much of it that i forget to look out for the final image, not only to see the end result but also to add to my book! thankfully i caught the page that i styled for target when in was in minneapolis last month.

the trip to get there was bananas. flights kept getting cancelled, i would get moved to another flight only for it to be cancelled or delayed; it was a nightmare. though i was to fly out on sunday to begin working on monday i actually never made it to minneapolis until monday afternoon. yeah.

thankfully my nightmare trip was no indication of how my week would be. it was nothing but good times, a great crew and good product to work with. i got a whole page to myself, which was awesome, and it turns out that they liked me enough to book me again, yay! fingers crossed this trip will be a lot more seamless than last time...

still life/off figure styling by me | still life/off figure photography, tom sadowski

MODEL WATCH | lauren english

last season i had the pleasure of working with model lauren english for VAWK's spring/summer 2013 runway presentation at world mastercard fashion week. as fashion week in toronto draws near again and the wish list is revisited to cast the fall/winter lineup of beauties, there is a chance that lauren may not be available. why? because she rocked the runways in paris fashion week for designers like céline, paco rabanne and loewe, opened for acne, closed for maison martin margiela, had a semi-exclusive for balenciaga, not to mention an exclusive in new york for alexander wang. i'm not shocked by her success (just look at her! those cheekbones...) but i was shocked to find out that VAWK was the only one to book her last fashion week! 

well good on us for booking her when we did (and while we could). i can't wait to see where lauren's career takes her.

lauren english | elmer olsen | img

X-MAN | fiasco editorial

a few weeks ago i did a men's creative shoot with photographer dan lim. our objective was to do something that wasn't too edgy but commercial friendly, with an editorial twist, for our books. i think i was crazy for doing this shoot on the very same weekend i was styling for dress to kill magazine, but because i did this shoot on the very same weekend i was styling for dress to kill magazine i had more clothing options to chose from.

our model was sutherland's xander budnick, one of the sweetest models i've worked with. i do find that male models in general are easy to work with but on top of that xander was very laid back and comfortable in whatever i put him in (like the baseball cap that was a bit too sung or my vintage boy london watch, fitted for my wrist, that he made it fit on his. total trooper! i loved his "make it work" attitude).

we did a total of seven looks that day but i have learned from experience to never shoot your favourite look first. let the first look be a "throwaway" meaning a look you're prepared to part with and edit out. sometimes the model has to warm up a bit in posing and understanding the direction that is being asked of them. this was the case with this shoot. not that xander wasn't skilled, because his posing was on-point, like, j.crew-stylish-commercial-effortless-happy-breezy-you-make-this-look-easy on-point, but it wasn't the direction for this particular shoot. thankfully i had the swipes i collected for reference on my ipad and i described the desired body language and facial expression as emoting a "sexy beast" attitude, like i'm-handsome-i-know-it-as-i-stand/sit/crouch-in-some-nice-threads-looking-like a sexy beast. and xander gave just that. every time i saw a shot on the screen that i liked i would just refer to it (or  to him, rather) as "sexy beast".

and that would be another reason why i enjoyed working with xander that day: he first gave catalogue but he is equally capable of giving editorial and he handled the art direction of the photographer and the stylist that day without ever getting frazzled. the end resulted in an approachable editorial with some edge that got picked up by fiasco. yay!

x-man, fiascoplus.com march 2013
photography, dan lim
styling, me
grooming, ashley gesner (p1m.ca)
model, xander budnick (sutherland models)

HONOURABLE MENTION | abel muñoz

sometimes when you style an editorial pages get cut, reshoots are requested. edits happen-it's normal.  this shot didn't make it to the dress to kill shoot i did for their winter issue but i love it so much i wanted to share it.

photographer, joseph saraceno
styling, me
shoe, abel muñoz

hand treated leather, abel muñoz

A BEAUTIFUL DEATH | editorial

the final instalment of editorials from my last days at FILLERmagazine is one that was shot by the very talented and very popular zhang jingna.  this was the second time jingna worked for FILLER. i had first came across her work on model mayhem years ago (i know, mm, but if you dig you find the treasure) and i had suggested that she be contacted about working with the magazine.  thankfully she said yes but unfortunately i had to say no about working with her due to another booking i had the only day she was available (I WAS SO BUMMED! #CAPSLOCKNECESSARY). 

being the busy woman that she is, constantly travelling for bookings, i was over-the-moon excited that we got her to shoot for the magazine a second time. though i was not the biggest fan of the concept of this shoot there was just no way i was going to miss out on another opportunity of working with jingna. she was an absolute delight to work with, very quiet and down-to-earth. we got along really well. we got along so well that when she was staying in new york for a month she asked me to visit so that we could shoot some awesome creatives together. i couldn't make it work that time but thankfully she is now based in new york so working together in near future is just a 9 hour drive away, or a 1 hour and some change flight-whatever my travelling budget will allow.

a beautiful death, FILLERmagazine fall 2011

photography, zhang jingna

styling, me

art direction, ryan johnson

model, amanda peat (sutherland)

[check out jingna on episode 6 of asia's nest top model]

MY FAVOURITE THINGS | sweatshirts

but not just any kind of sweatshirt and especially not the kind you work out in.  i still would not be caught wearing sweatpants in public (with the exception of checking the mail, which i did today) but recently sweatshirts have become very in style, specifically the adorned type.

patterns, prints and all sorts of embellishments are making these cozy tops look cool with jeans, cute with skirts and workplace appropriate (depending on your workplace it may only be for casual fridays). though i don't own any of the below styles i have already acquired a beginners collection of sweatshirts and i will continue to acquire more until my heart is content (which will be never) or until my closet is full (which may be soon). 

left to right by row:
kenzo at net-a-porter | kenzo at opening ceremony | brian lichtenberg at jades24 | peter som at moda opernadi | mural at nordstroms | pull & bear | chichwish at ustrendy.com | sisterhood at conleys.de | marc jacobs at moda operandi | runawaydreamz | topshop | brian lichtenberg at jades24