Our Eid...Day #1

We had a lovely long weekend celebrating Eid this weekend, with plenty of opportunity to overstuff ourselves with food! It was nice to spend the day dressed up, especially with the weather being nice and sunny, and everyone being free for the weekend.

This is what I wore on Eid, which was a pretty mint-coloured kurta with silky pants. My sisters and I didn't get time to order anything online so had a look around the shops, and I ended up going with this outfit that my husband actually pointed out on a second visit to the shops! You can't tell properly but this is a shimmery gold tone to the fabric for a two-tone effect. I loved the colour palette of this kurta, lilacs, gold, silver and mint which for perfect for the warm weather.

I bought this outfit from a small shop in Ilford Lane, East London called Laaj London, which is a fairly new shop (Facebook page here and Instagram page here), where they had a range of different colours. The kurta was quite reasonably priced and fit perfectly, and I thought it was a pretty decent find among the madness of Eid shopping!

We started off Eid with lunch at my mum's house, which is always a tradition for us, as it's the one place myself and all of my siblings descend to get together, enjoy our mum's food and get all of the kids together. Unfortunately I have absolutely no pictures of the food, as we were pretty hungry and I forgot to take any! But just assume the food looked as amazing as it tasted!

We then decided to do something a little different for the evening, with a barbecue hosted by my brother and sister-in-law at their house. My sister-in-law had hired a bouncy castle for the children (which was fully enjoyed by all of us!), and we spent the evening chilling out with family and enjoying the warm evening.

If you know my family, you'll know that the toddlers in my family always steal the show - with credits for their dresses to my mum! The toddlers all wore matching floral dresses (the one in the middle had the dress too, but she wore a lilac dress to match all of her other cousins!)

This year I joined in with an online Secret Eid, which was really fun - there were over 40 participants, and it was fun to see the gifts everyone got! I opened my Secret Eid on Eid day and loved what i received - candles, an engraved personalised bookmark, travel mug, book light, chocolates and a gorgeous box that it all came in.

I also received some beautiful presents from my sisters, including these gorgeous purple heels, and a whole treasure trove of makeup, chocolate and jewellery from my eldest sister.

We finished off the day with a seriously chocolatey cake made by one of my sisters, which was as chocolatey and rich as it looks!

It was a lovely way to spend our Eid, and one which was special because all of the family which got together, which can be rare for all of us! The only thing I wish we had photos of was the outfits for the ladies in the family - we were too busy chasing after the kids and stuffing our faces!

OUTFIT OF THE DAY: The Mint, Pearls & Gota Dress

Now that spring is here in full force, and it's slowly getting warmer, my wardrobe is rejoicing - I'm finally getting to pull out some of my prettier, lighter outfits. I recently got the chance to wear this outfit below, a mint-coloured dress with gota work (gold pieces of cloth sew onto the fabric_, pearls and metal work all over - sounds like a heavy outfit but it wasn't!

I bought this outfit a few years ago before I was married from Pakistan via a Facebook group (which is no longer active, sorry guys!) for a very reasonably price, and then forgot I had it. I managed to find it again last year after some wardrobe-clearing, and put it aside for the warmer weather.

This is the outfit below, I love this shade of mint and feel like I don't get to wear it enough - it's perfect for spring season and feels pretty girly on. I also like the fact that this outfit is nice and floaty, which felt great on! I really like the gota-work on the outfit, which gives the outfit a shimmery-look, without making it feel heavy. It's a really traditional, old-school style of work but I think it's also pretty classic, and it works well with the pearls on this outfit.

This is what I wore with the outfit, I slightly over-loaded it a little with the gold, but I do like the end effect. I wore my wedding necklace for a more blingy look, and a plain gold clutch and sparkly heels - can't go wrong gold accessories!

This is me wearing the outfit, which felt very girly and floaty on - I really like the colour, although it took me while to find a matching scarf! I also like the length of this outfit on me - even though it is a longer shape, it worked with the cut of the outfit.

Outfit - Facebook group

Necklace - Pakistan via KaprayShapray designer

Clutch bag - DKNY

Shoes - Call It Spring

Hijab - Queens Market

I'm looking forward to wearing some of my older pieces for summer again, especially as some of them have a pretty classic look to them so don't go out of style. I loved wearing this outfit because of how ideal it was for the warm weather, and it feels like I don't have enough outfits in this colour. I'm sure I'll get a chance to wear this again soon - maybe with bright red lips this time?

OUTFIT OF THE DAY: The Teal & Cream Gul Ahmed outfit

I haven't been wearing as many Pakistani outfits in the last month or so because it's been pretty cold,  and we haven't had that many special events like weddings. Whenever we have had events, I've ended up wearing pretty maxi skirts and dresses which I can dress up, or comfy outfits for most of the events and functions I have attended.

I do have a few warmer outfits which I've been able to pull out though, like this outfit by Gul Ahmed, which is made of a thick cotton fabric which is almost like khaddar, a thicker cotton material. I mainly bought this outfit because I loved the intricate cream embroidery on it, and the beautiful pashmina which went with it which gave it a slight contrast.
I also loved the button detail on it, which makes it feel a little smarter.

The outfit came with plain cream churidar pants, but I opted to wear this outfit with a Khaadi trouser which you can buy as seperates - I thought the lace detailing at the cuff went better with this outfit.

This is me wearing the outfit, I'm sure you can tell how comfortable it was! It was also warm enough for me to wear in the winter weather, although I did jazz it up with some high heels! I loved the deep blue of the pashmina with this outfit,it added some more colour and prints to the outfit, even if you can't see the beautiful quality of the pashmina material.

Outfit - Gul Ahmed

Trousers - Khaadi

Clutch - New Look

Shoes - Kurt Geiger

Although the latest trends in Pakistani fashion leans towards shorter hemlines and tapered (or even flowy!) trousers, I think that this outfit still looks pretty classic, and the trousers go pretty well with it. As much as I love following the latest trends, I do also still love my long kameezes, especially since they are so flattering on the figure, and I think I'll get plenty of wear from this outfit yet!

Our Eid...Day One!

Eid was a really nice affair for us this weekend, mainly because it felt quite easy-going for us and we all spent a good amount of time relaxing, eating and spending time together - there's usually a lot of rushing around with various people having to get to in-laws and relatives houses, which didn't feel so bad this time!

Here's a peek at what I wore on Eid, a jade coloured jacket suit by Pakistani label Zainab Hasan, with criss-cross designs and floral embroidery all over the jacket. I had originally intended to wear this outfit on the main day of Eid, and didn't really think I would buy anything new for Eid, mainly because everything was pretty pricey and I didn't see anything I love. More on this soon, but I saw this in a shop (while I was meant to be looking for something else!) and fell in love with the outfit, then talked myself (using my sister as a sounding board!) into buying it!

This is me wearing the outfit (and posing in my mum's garden!) - I loved LOVED how light and comfy this outfit was and how easy it was to wear - I didn't wear a lot of jewellery but I did pair with sparkly heels and red lips to finish off the look.

I had done my own mehndi the night before on my hand (I wanted to get my husband to do my right hand but he just said he would write the alphabet on my hand so I decided to leave it!). I didn't know what bangles to wear so opted for a pretty kundan bracelet and a floral shaped ring, both from Bees, given to me by my husband when we got married as part of my bridal trousseu.

I wanted to make the patterns more intricate and neater than it ended up, and it looked a little wonky. but I liked the colour anyway!

This is my eldest sister's mehndi which she had gotten done as well, I love how neat it looked and the fact that both hands were symmetrical. My other sister had also gotten mehndi done but I forgot to take a photo of hers!

The ladies were, of course, dressed up in beautiful outfits, I didn't get everyone but here's a few -  my sister in the hot pink and blue ombre suit got her outfit stitched (amazingly enough, in time for Eid) which looked really pretty on her, and my sister-in-law wore a gorgeous hot pink, black and white Zainab Chottani jacket suit which I loved. My niece, on the right, bought a beautiful satin printed kurta, which I loved - her mum replaced the boring buttons with beautiful emerald and white stone buttons, which was a really lovely detail.

The babies, as usual, took the main stage as divas - these are what the younger four nieces wore - I love the mix of colour and styles and the fact that they were all such lovely, summery colours.

We also had some yummy treats to enjoy (I also took about three cupcakes home to eat as well, then had to find my husband for them) - the cupcakes were made by one of my sisters, while the fresh-cream cake was given by a cousin of ours. We also had some very yummy food made by my mum, but I actually forgot to take photos of these for once!

I also wanted to show the eye-makeup I had, which I did mainly using the Urban Decay Naked palette. I initially wanted to do a smokey eye, but i loved the glowy pink look of this look so left it was it was, and paired with a matte scarlet lip, Mac's Russian Red, for a dramatic look.

We had a really fun Eid, and it was a peaceful day spent with family and toddler babies, not to mention a bucket load of chocolate (which I really missed during Ramadan!)

I hope you all had a great Eid (regardless of the day you spent it on!) and got lots of presents and/or money, lots of food and that you all looked beautiful!

OUTFIT OF THE DAY: The Mint Green Maxi Dress

I've had this dress for a while, and haven't gotten much wear out of it for a while (by which I mean, at least a couple of years!) and remembered it while going through my wardrobe a week or two ago. I bought this outfit from Bombay Looks based in East London, which carried this outfit in quite a few colours - I seen a variation of this through the last couple of years in the shops, and I think there's still similar looking maxi dresses in the store now.

I was quite pleased that it still fit me (it was a little loose on me when I bought it), and it's in a lovely shade of mint/sea-green which is a perfect colour for this season and for summer. The best thing about this dress is that even though there's not a lot of work, and it's not heavy, the skirt has a lot of material and it's very swishy. It also didn't need anything underneath as it came to below my ankles and the dupatta which came with it came in handy to wear as a hijab scarf.

Here's me twirling around, I was trying to show much much volume the skirt had, and how flattering it was - it really felt effortless on. The dress was originally sleeveless, so I had long sleeves sewn on in the same colour, which really made a difference to the dress and gave it a more modest look - which I was relieved with, as there are some sleeveless dresses which just don't work with sleeves!

I'm sure you can tell I had a lot of fun wearing this dress, and took the opportunity to do a few girly twirls in it. I love the fact that it elongated my figure as well, making me look taller and slimmer, as well as the fact that it didn't need much accessorising at all.

It's not often I get to wear maxi dresses, and I'm sure I'll be getting more wear out of this during the summer - this shade of green is very on trend at the moment, and it's very easy to wear. I usually have a separate dupatta with my outfits as well as my hijab scarf, but with this dress I didn't feel the need, it felt more of a Westernised dress and was quite flowy enough that it didn't need another scarf!

KAPRAY SHAPRAY: Beautiful Creams, Golds and Blues by Muse

I've been looking at more simpler designs more and more, lately. Here's one reason why - these beautiful dresses and kurta shirts below by the wonderful Muse. I'm a big fan of off-white and light blue (what my mum calls ferozi) together, because it's such a lovely colour combination. 

The designs below have added some light-gold work as well, and I think it works well because it gives a pretty, fresh look which feels very in, without trying too hard. It's definitely inspired me for some looks in the summer-time, I've been looking for pretty designs like these which are all about a simple cut and pretty colours.

My favourite out of all of these is the first one, I can really imagine it being an idea outfit in the summer which needs no added glamour or embellishment, just throw on some pretty heels or sandals and you're done :)

All images from Muse Facebook group