Inspiration of the month: Bulgari

Weighty, distinctive and architecture-inspired designs, peppered with gold links and colourful gems - it's no wonder this brand is one of the most memorable. Our inspiration of the month: Bulgari has a history of making eye-catching and stunning collections, and their latest designs are no exception.
The Colour Collection features the perfect delicate jewellery to team with your Spring wardrobe. The three-row design is made of 18kt yellow gold, and features a feminine pearl clasp to ensure it fits you perfectly. Green tourmalines, amethysts, blue topazes, isolates and peridots add some shimmering colour, and pave diamonds add a luxurious finish. Bright colours are perfect for wearing with lighter clothes through the Spring and Summer, or adding a touch of fun to a Winter look. The delicate bracelet makes the jewels center-stage, and complements them perfectly.

History and vintage lovers will adore the Monete collection, which combines rustic European coin designs with that trademark Bulgari style. An 18kt gold thick chain is eye-catching on its own, but this one is decorated with pavé diamonds, circular detailing and pavé diamonds. The pendant itself is an antique silver coin, encased in a pink gold. We love the unusual historic vibe this piece gives off, perfectly combining Roman glamour with modern styles.

It's not just the modern Bulgari pieces that will catch your eye. Every vintage jewellery lover will remember the famous Bulgari bracelet snake, which has since been designed in many colours and gems. From the coiled detail to the textured shape and clever use of coloured gems - red snake eyes, anyone? - this is one piece that you'll never tire of.

The watch itself is hidden away inside the snake's mouth, keeping it protected, and ensuring functionality doesn't affect the glamorous feel of the bracelet. We love Bulgari's take on nature-inspired jewelry, and the mixture of colours and textures works perfectly.

Love of the week: Pastel Colours

This Spring, the catwalks were like walking ice cream parlours. Think of the colours of summer fruits mixed with cream and you have this season’s pastel palette. Blush pink, baby blue, lemon, peach, pistachio – the Spring catwalk look harks back to Grace Kelly and the 1950s, while looking completely modern.

Designers have taken design classics and prettied them up in pastels. A chambray shirt worn with jeans is a summer staple, but this year Stella McCartney has used chambray for patterned tops and dresses, as here: 

Slip on this Stella McCartney's dress with Trisori's Cayman earrings for the perfect casual look:

Everyone needs a pretty, sleeveless Summer dress. This one, by Jonathan Saunders sums up the pastel look with its simply gorgeous blend of colours.

The subtle shading, the fitted waist, both say ‘this year’. Wear it with Trisori's Secret earring in Aqua Chalcedony for the perfect sophisticated look:

Alexander McQueen has also gone for a simple, fitted look with this beauty, in palest pink silk. It has all the simple yet glamorous perfection you'd expect from the team behind the Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding dress.

Pair this lovely dress with Trisori's Capri ring in rose quartz for a classy look:

Three looks. One casual, two smart; all styled to put you right on trend. Just think ‘a whiter shade of pale’ and you’ll be there. Now I’m off to search out something in my favourite pistachio …
 

Tropical Prints: The Sunniest Trend

With the incredible sunshine we were treated to this weekend it feels like the perfect time to get stuck in to the best of the sunniest spring/summer trends. While Hawaiian prints were once exclusively the domain of garish polyester shirts, this season the fashion houses have reworked and reclaimed the tropical print. Hooray!

For me, the easiest injection of tropical print to any outfit comes in bag form and this season we can take our pick from an array of Hawaiian inspired bags.

This canvas and leather tote from Proenza Schouler ticks all my boxes. A fun but grown up day time take on this trend, and big enough to hold multiple pairs of sunglasses!

From Marc by Marc Jacobs, the Havana backpack is cute and quirky and one of the most fun filled summer brights that I’ve seen this season...

...and for the evening you can’t beat Jimmy Choo’s classic Candy clutch in sunset print.

With the likelihood of a traditionally disappointing British summer on the horizon, I for one will be snapping up the chance to bring a bit of tropical sunshine to my summer wardrobe, come London rain or shine!


Aisha

www.trisori.com

The Girl in the Yellow Dress

It's great when you discover something a bit off the beaten track which makes you feel a little smug knowing about it, being able to talk about a must see production that your friends haven't heard of which makes you sound oh so cultural. At least that's what I feel and I love being able to recommend somewhere small and quaint which can really use the word of mouth recommendation.

The Girl in the Yellow Dress by Craig Higginson is just that on show now at theatre 503 in Battersea - upstairs in the Latchmere pub on Battersea Park Road - having transferred from Salisbury Playhouse. So you can relax in the pub before with a a couple of drinks and grab a bit to eat and mull over what you think happens next with your friends over a pint or two afterwards.

Clifford Samuel plays a french-congolese student who falls in love at first sight with an English tutor, wonderfully rendered by Fiona Button, who has put up notices at the Sorbonne. After convincing her to give him lessons, the play sees the pair embark on a tumultuous relationship. the production has you gripped from start to finish and leaves questions hanging about the pair.

It brings out the brilliant acting by each demonstrating their capabilities. No doubt they will go on to great things. But catch them now in this and you will not be disappointed.

Tickets cost 14 pounds.
http://www.theatre503.com/

www.trisori.com

Best Make-up Base

 

I always wondered how some women always look perfect from day to night. Keeping your make up immaculate for 10 hours has always been the hardest task for me. Last week a very wise friend suggested I try L'or Radiance Concentrate With Pure Gold Make-up Base. Trisori wanted to share this little secret with you!

It's a concentrate for the face that contains pure gold complexion-perfecting flecks and it's truly worth its weight in gold.

The 24- carat make up base smooths fine lines and provides an even under makeup. The foundation is applied afterward and stays on perfectly for an entire day. Absolutely genius!

Love of the week: Madonna's I fucked up

She is always reinventing herself. We are used to her being the chameleon of pop music but we would have never expected her to write an album like this. The album constantly refers to her relationship with Guy, her divorce and it describes the emotional journey she went through in the past few years.

We selected a song for you from the MDNA  album as it sums up her album in one single title.

Enjoy this song. It's our love of the week!

www.trisori.com

Mad about clutch bags

If you want to update your spring wardrobe, there is nothing easier than buying a new clutch bag. You can pair it with your existing outfits and it will give them a little twist.
Here at Trisori's headquarters, we selected 5 on-trend evening clutches especially for you:

I am totally in love with the Bottega Veneta one. Perfect in every occasions and also fits the bright colours trend. Please, can I have it?
www.trisori.com

Cucarachas

Mexican is a speciality is hard to come by unless you know where to go. Although most Mexican restaurants that you get in central London will be more of the tex-mex variety - a fusion of classical mexican dishes adapted to suit the British palette. They also seem to all be served in the traditional american style - consisting of large portions. You wouldn't actively seek out somewhere which translates as cockroaches but having recently had a fire and reopened I was worried that it had gone foerever as it has become a go-to place when I'm in need of a good margarita.


It's a really good filling cuisine when you are super hungry and although it has a reputation for being unhealthy if you go for cheesy, guacamole laden dishes but actually can be quite the opposite providing you with healthy satisfying meals with essential fatty acids and some of your five a day portions. Take peri-peri chargrilled chicken atop sizzling cajun vegtables, drenched in the peri-peri sauce, served with mexican rice and a 'cuban' bean salad. A treat for the senses listening to the hiss of the vegetables and breathing in the aroma of chilli mingling with herbs and spices in all its bright array of pretty colours - multi-cloured peppers and chillis, green coriander, yellow rice, brown beans.


A classic and hot faviourite is chilli beef - minced beef laden with onions, peppers and chillis perched on a mound of mexi rice, surrounded by triangles of tortilla chips - more authentiically known as totopos - not dissimilar to the little chilli bowl starter or the nachos with chilli beef where you also get the additional extra of guacamole and salsa as well as sour cream and manchego cheese. There are dozens of options to choose from for whatever you feel like from fajitas to chimichangas and quesadillas, from grills and mexi-burgers to salads and seafood.


The meal is perfected with well mixed cocktails and the offer of a variety of mexican beers - incuding the favourites sol and corona. Having tried a watermelom margarita I can't look back - it reminds me of my year away in Spain when the local barmen would always make me strawberry margarita if I didn't know what to order. But I have to branch out and try some new ones - with blueberry, mango and pomegranate available. The traditional flavoured water is very thirst quenching if you don't want alcohol - you won't need to order two at the size of these!


www.cucarachas.co.uk 1 Battersea Rise, Battersea,London SW11 1HG
Tel: 020 7978 7900
email: info@cucarachas.co.uk

www.trisori.com

Apples and pears and I'm not talking stairs

This week I went to check out the latest offering from the Polpo group - Mele e Pere. I had been dying to try this place - being a big fan of Polpo but slightly put off by the non-booking system and tables squished so close together you elbow next door on your way to the loo. Everytime I tried calling before though I couln't get through - I think the wrong nmber was listed. After I found the place - I walked past twice mistaking it for somewhere else as I was looking for a smaller entrance - I was amazed by how airy and light it was - especially for a basement. With so much space between tables and the diners in that lunchtime - no conversations to be overheard here!


The quality of the decor is matched by the cuisine or rather the decor pales into insignificance in the face of the dishes. Each one delighting the senses. From the appearance of the bread basket with the freshest, tastiest different varieties - a soft focaccia, crunchy breadsticks, you're spoilt for choice. Each morsel bursts with flavour - the Sardinian ham melts in your mouth, whilst you could taste the sunshine in the peppers bringing out the best of the buffalo mozzarella salad; also a treat for the eye with all those bright colours.


Then the raviolini were like no other I had ever tasted stuffed with ricotta and veggies, drizzled with pesto. Just the perfect amount to satiate the appetite. I also tried my friend's risotto with lamb neck and mint - an odd combination for a risotto but which oddly works well together with soft rice and tender lamb.


After this and washing it down with a beautiful verdicchio there was no more room for pudding. A pity as Jay Rayner - who I was surprised to not see there normally seeing him in the newest restaurants - had already been and written about Zabaglione - one of my hot favourite desserts that is so simple but perfect if done well.


A versatile place - with a lunchtime set menu as well as pre theatre menu, pastas and bigger mains. I will be bearing this plce in mind for future, especially lunch meetings.

Mele e Pere, 46 Brewer St, London, W1F 9TF 0207 096 2096 info@meleepere.co.uk

www.trisori.com

Uniting and Reuniting at the Bistro?

This week I agreed to catch up with my friend at the newly opened Bistro Union around the corner from her flat in Abbeville Rd. From the creators of Trinity in Clapham old town, the bistro purports to be a more relaxed local place to grab a bite to eat. The decor and atmosphere is certainly so - with unprententious furniture and a laid-back back feel to it. Like a few other places that have opened up recently, the bistro has a bar where you can sit and enjoy a few drinks and fresh traditional nibbles, like sausage rolls, scotch eggs and pork scratchings and apparently you even help yourself to your own cutlery from the drawers in front of you.


Being around the little tables was comfortable enough to be conducive to sitting around chatting, even if somewhat a little too squished together. The waiting staff were really lovely and friendly though, going a long way to making up for the food and sometimes lack of flavour. Drinks also helped to ease the pain of this a little - I was impressed with the array of interesing and old-fashioned cocktails on the menu with a beautiful gin cucumber and ginger ale number taking the heat off the long wait til our food arrived. The house wine is also to be commended - none of that cheap-drink-only-to-get-drunk stuff. Unfortunately the bread wasn't up to much being a little stale and the butter neither.


We were just on the cusp of ordering a couple of those little snacks when our dishes arrived but we were shocked when the toad-in-the-hole plonked down was completely charred on top. We were unanimous that we wouldn't dare even serve this to our friends at home, let alone in a restaurant (at £11). The second waiter concurred (as I think the table next to our elbows did too I suspect) and whisked this away to be replaced with another and took it off our bill. Sadly the next one served wasn't really up to much either. The plaice was tasty but the flavour paled by the fact I kept on getting mouthfuls of bones. The greens and chips were nice accompaniments, although the addition of lots of garlic in the greens wasn't as good a pairing with the toad-in-the-hole
per the waiter's recommendation. With simply written menus, you don't find out these things until they are too late. Raspberry ripple ice cream was a nice ending, quaintly served in a little jar with a screw top.


After discussing the food and our impressions we heard next-door complaining about theirs to the waiter - the distinct lack of meat in the cottage pie for one. As we finished our pudding, this table by our elbows asked how our food was. She had been planning to bring her friends here for her birthday but was put off by the portions and at those prices. (around £15 for a main plus 12.5% service) They were promised that these were just teething problems, but how can you be so sure? Surely this should be over after their 'dry-run' period?

Well I think the moral of the story is don't try these places too soon - but not too long after they've opened either (the good staff by then have flown the nest). I'd go back for drinks and snacks but not hurry back for the mains too soon.

www.bistrounion.co.uk

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