Nashville: The Trunk Boutique

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the grand relaunch of Nashville's first fashion truck- "The Trunk". Owner Abby Franklin fell upon the genius idea of using a food truck to sell accessories and menswear after failing to find a suitable brick and mortar location for her dream boutique. Abby's unique approach has created a one-of-a-kind shopping experience and a must-visit for any style seeking visitor to Music City. Even CNN recently got in on the action and published an in-depth article on The Trunk.

With the relaunch, The Trunk now stocks an amazing curated collection of women's clothing and accessories along with menswear. Trust me when I say it's amazing. Abby has been a long time stylist to the stars, so she knows a thing or two about fashion.  Her repertoire include dressing Michael Jackson, Prince, Creed, Bon Jovi and Madonna to name a few. In fact she was only in town long enough to see the relaunch her fashion truck before rejoining her husband on tour with Bon Jovi. Talk about being accomplished. 

As for the relaunch, not a detail was spared. From dainty nibbles and bubblies to free blow outs by Lucy's Pop Salon, a little blogger styling session and some photobooth fun. We were even sent home with an amazing swag bag by Pretty Pretty Pop Pop. 

Thanks Abby and Chris for the wonderful event. If you ever find yourself in Nashville, do your wardrobe a favour and stop by The Trunk.

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Friday's Fancies

Signing off early this week in preparation for Chinese New Year. I'm anticipating a day filled with frenzied cleaning and non-stop cooking in time for the traditional New Year's Eve feast on saturday. To anyone else out there celebrating, I hope your weekend is full of good food, good company and lots of red pockets (in the sense that you'll be receiving and not giving, ha!). Here's a few photos to sum up the week. Happy friday!

A new read my wonderful cousin sent over for my birthday, accompanied by the sweetest note. After a quick flip through and I am already mesmerized by Coco's photos and Karl Largerfeld's original drawings. 

Welcome to music city, Nashville. This is one of my favourite views of the city seen from the interstate. It's amazing what a glorious sunset does for the city and the soul. 

Absolutely in love with opaque white mani's lately. They not only match with absolutely everything, but is also flattering on all skin types and provides the perfect contrast to your outfit. The perfect non-colour, no? The colour here is Blanc by Essie. 

Highlight of this week was taking the kids to watch their dad parachute out of a c17. This was the first time they've gone to watch where they were actually aware of their surroundings. Needless to say, the rest of the day was filled with excited chatter about planes and parachutes and dad. 

I recently came across giant-sized Pocky at my local asian supermarket and let me tell you, my world has completely changed! 

In My Suitcase

This week I have been quite absent from the blogosphere. The kids and I are about to embark on a four month trip to Australia so things have been a little hectic in this household. My wonderful sister has kindly traveled 30 hours from Melbourne to Nashville (yes, that's how long it takes!) so I wouldn't have to fly alone with the kids. We depart in less than a week, yikes!

Instead of my usual friday's fancies this week I thought I'd share with you a few outfits I've packed in my suitcase. I choose classic pieces that could easily be mixed and matched together. I also stuck to the 5 piece rule, where I choose only 5 pieces from each category. This helps me be extra selective and ensures that I don't pack. Plus, it's a good reason for me to do extra shopping at my destination.

1. Outerwear
This is my favourite category of clothing. I've packed all my classic go-to pieces here. My classic trench coat, leather jacket, denim jacket, blazer and my all time favourite houndstooth cape.

2. Pants
I've tried to be as diverse as possible with my pants selection. Again, adhering to the 5 piece rule. In my suitcase I have my black coated jeans, floral ankle jeans, distressed skinny jeans, red ankle pants and a pair of sweatpants.

3. Bottoms
Along with pants I also included an array of skirts and shorts. My picks are, black leather skirt, floral midi length skirt, chiffon shorts I bought in Australia the last time, denim shorts, and my pink highlighter skirt.

4. Tops
With tops, I tried to keep things simple and neutral picking out pieces that would work well with all my outfits. For instance, the sleeveless stripe blouse, classic white shirt, silk purple blouse, chambray shirt and a black ballet tee. I won't lie, sticking to 5 tops was incredibly difficult, I may have to make an exception so I can add a few basic tees and tanks.

5. Dresses
I love wearing dresses, they are the easiest way to look put together. It's probably against my better judgement to leave behind all my maxi's, sundresses, casual dress and only bring with me special occasion pieces. Out of everything in my closest I decided to pack my feather cocktail dress, a stripe tweed dress perfect for weddings, a deep red dress for date nights, a corporate looking dress and a black leather dress with lace sleeves.

6. Sweaters and Cardigans
Okay so I probably don't need the sweaters, but if I'm going to be taking outfit photos at my destination, it's better to have some on hand just in case. In my suitcase I have a white cable knit, black knit, and pink stripe knit. I've also packed a mint cardigan and a black peplum cardigan.

The Ultimate Girls Night Out

When I was asked by Hpnotiq to write about what my Ultimate girls night out would be I immediately jumped onboard. As far as full-time mothering goes, it's rare to ever have a minute to yourself but that isn't to say I can't live vicariously through my blog, right? Right? Hpnotiq is hosting the ultimate VIP weekend in Vegas for one lucky winner and three friends! When it comes to contests and giveaways, it just doesn't get better than this. Enter the Live Louder Dance off for your chance to win. Simply upload a video Hpnotiq LLDO - Likeable - Video Upload or photo Hpnotiq LLDO - Likeable - Photo Upload of your best (or worst) dance moves. Contest ends July 23rd so get moving (pun intended).

So onto MY ultimate girls night out. I'm not too fussed with the location, sure Vegas would be nice, but the simple fact of getting out of the house is fantastic enough for me. For the sake of this little exercise let's say I base my girls night out in my nearest big city, Nashville.

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2:00pm   Husband comes home to babysit the kids. A cleaning service team shows up ready to set my house in order while I'm out. A personal chef also arrives to stock my freezer full of healthy gourmet meals. 
2:15pm   A chauffeured limo stocked with cupcakes, macarons and bubblies arrive to whisk my other mommy friends and me to The Hermitage Hotel for some much needed pampering and relaxing.
3:00pm   Check into room only to find out it's been miraculously upgraded to a penthouse suite free of charge. A three-tiered array of afternoon tea delights awaits our arrival. 
3:15pm   Dressed down in our robes, we are greeted by the hotel spa team ready to pamper us with in room manipedis, massages, and facials. 
5:00pm    Feeling refreshed, we dress for our next destination. I'm wearing a Bradshaw inspired puffy skirt, Topshop bralet, Rag & Bone Blazer with Charlotte Olympia sandals and Lanvin box clutch. 
5:30pm    Arrive at Nordstrom for a little shopping spree where our husbands have kindly given us $1000 each in gift certificates (so we don't feel bad about using real money, genius!).
8:00pm    Dinner at the fabulous Catbird Seat restaurant. The manager is besotted by our charm and grace so drinks on the house all night.
11:00pm  The night is still young so we head to Aerial rooftop bar to dance the night away. 
3:00am     Eventually arrive back at the hotel and stumble into bed for a night of uninterrupted sleep. Did I mention the word uninterrupted? 
11:00am  Wake up to a delightful breakfast buffet set up right in our room. Our doting husband and kids arrive to drive us back home to reality.

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Side note: If this were a fantasy girl's night out, we'd also be extras in the sequel of Magic Mike, our shopping spree would take place after hours so we could live out our Mallrats fantasies, our $1000 budget becomes $5000 courtesy of someone other than our husband, and of course Ryan Gosling is our chauffeur/masseuse/personal butler for the night. And all this takes place somewhere fabulous like Tokyo, Vegas or Istanbu. 

The Hpnotiq Live Louder Dance Off contest ends July 23rd. Good luck! 

Thank you again to Hpnotiq for sponsoring this blog post! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. All opinions are my own.