Beach Vida Bling

Emma Stern Nielsen in 'Beach Vida Bling' for Amuse Society 

photographed by Harper Smith

 styling by Conor Graham

make-up by Droo Mascarinas 

hair by Stacey Tam

You know when you come across one of those brands that you're instantly obsessed with?  Meet my latest label crush Amuse Society.  They seduced me with an Instagram feed full of cleverly curated coolness and I've been stalking their feed ever since, counting down the days till their site launched in full yesterday.

It's easy to see why the brand has such an appeal to me, the creators Mandy and Summer describing their aesthetic as one that 'channels a rock muse on a beach holiday'.  Rock chicks and beaches??  In the infamous words of Ms Zoe, "I DIE".  Some of the items on my wish list would be the slogan tanks and sweats, those high waisted striped bikini bottoms and the sequin joggers but realistically there's nothing I wouldn't smuggle in to my wardrobe given half a chance (and you know, 30c and some sand and sea!)

They count some other of my personal muses amongst their 'society' too:  British model and general babe, Joanna Halpin, photographer Kayla Varley and the recently discovered (by me at least) bad-ass stylist, store owner and mommy, Ascot Friday. Coupled with a super hot look book shot and styled by a couple more of my faves,  Harper Smith and Conor Graham and featuring beach bling jewellery from other awesome designers such as Luv AJ and Vanessa Mooney, it's a little slice of sun kissed beach heaven in the middle of this grey British winter of ours.

Mandy, Summer, if you could just send me one of everything (and maybe a plane ticket to Cali) that would be great, thanks.

Check out all the goodness here!

images via Amuse Society

Beach Bum

Zippora Seven for Elle France, September 2012 

photographed by Edouard Plongeon

This editorial has been sitting on my desktop for quite a while now- about 2 months to be precise.  Woops.  However I just had to share it.  I love the contrast of all the heavy knits against Zippora's bare skin, barely there bikinis and and beach hair.  It's a story that perfectly captures the transition of summer in to autumn.

images via Fashion Gone Rogue

And Breathe

Margaux Lonnberg by Warren Guetta

images via Tumblr

Beach Bunny (Bambi Love: Part II)

more Bambi lovin'....gah! She is amazing!

pictures via J'Adore Wildfox, originally from Grazia?

Sun Stroke

"Stretching out on the rock, body taught,then relaxed, on the altar, I felt that I was being raped deliciously by the sun, filled full of heat from the impersonal and colossal god of nature.

High, bonewhite, I had been washed by the sea, cleansed, baptised, purified, and dried clean and crisp by the sun. Like seaweed, brittle, sharp, strong-smelling- like stone,rounded, curved, oval,clean- like wind, pungent, salty- like all these was the body of my love. An orgiastic sacrifice on the altar of rock and sun,and I arose shining from centuries of love,clean and satiated fro mthe consuming fire of his casual and timeless desire."

"A wind, salty and moist, blew damply in my hair; through a great glinting mass of it I could see the blue twinkle of the ocean. The sun seeped into every pore, satiating every querulous fiber of me into a great glowing golden peace."

pictures from weheartit, flickr, third picture by Jason Lee Parry via Knight Cat.  Extract from 'The Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962'(Faber 2001) from her summer in Massachusetts, 1951.