I AM BAHRAIN'S TOP STYLIST 2013

Hello Luvies,

Great News! YES I won! I am Bahrain's Top Stylist 2013! Amazing news and I'm sooo happy and excited!! =D Bahrain's Top Stylist was a competition organized by bdaya where contestants have to style a black dress that can go from day to night. Simple? yah right, that's what I thought till I actually started putting an outfit together, trust me its harder than you think when you are not adding or taking anything out of the outfit i.e flats for the day and heels for the night, nope! it has to be ONE full outfit that will be worn basically all day.

I asked my bestie Nadia to be my model and dressed her in a black high-low hem dress from Mango, A cream vest with beaded shoulders from China, A beaded collar I bought from the exhibition, an orange and pink envelope clutch, black wedges, simple stud earrings, and pearl bracelets. I went for the art of contrast trend but added my own personal style "pop of color" I just love adding pop of color to an outfit, it really makes the outfit stand out. For the make-up I went with simple shadow and burgundy red lips. I wanted the focus to be on the outfit, and with the pop of colour already in the clutch, I didn't want the make-up to be distracting, after all this is a styling competition. I got a little help and some tips from make-up artist Jennifer Perrin who I bumped into backstage, she was very sweet and really helpful!

sorry for the poor photo quality, still waiting for pics from the media

Now while I was styling Nadia, one of the contestants did not have a model and I was asked if I could be her model since the dress she had was roughly my size, so aside from the stress of styling my own model I was now also a model for another contestant. I agreed to be her model after finishing styling Nadia and strutted down the runway myself haha (I changed right after)

Me and the contestant who styled me Badriya Tublani

Now after all the models (including me :p) strutted down the runway, the judges deliberated and my style (Nadia's outfit) was chosen as one of the top 3 to move on to the next round,  along with friend/fellow blogger Duaa Zainal from i-speak-fashion and Haifa Mansoor.

The top 3 contestants went to round 2 and we were challenged to style the black dress again but this time with bizarre materials and in 3 minutes!! The materials were:

• A piece of fabric
• Rope
• Safety Pins
• A huge flower clip
• A fishnet
• A pair of scissors

Now the judges were nice enough to allow us to pick one of the other contestants (we were a total of 20 contestants competing) to help us style this black dress with these bizarre materials, I picked the lovely Georgina from Blonde in Bahrain she was such a sweet heart and we really worked well together and well our 3 mins of styling bizarre materials into a black dress worked because I WON! =D The way we used the materials: Fabric as waist belt with a bow in the back, rope on top of the waist belt with the pair of scissors acting as a side pin on the belt, I used the fishnet as a scarf/necklace with the safety pins attached to it acting like little pendants dangling down, and the huge flower clip was used on Nadia's wedges! and the result? WINNER! I am truly blessed and beyond ecstatic at winning.

Me and the lovely Georgina!
Photo courtesy of blondeinbahrain

My prize is with Shaikha Farah Al Khalifa's boutique Green Diamond, styling the boutique's window display for two seasons, having a fashion line of my own design produced and displayed in the store, a cash prize, and being a judge at Bahrain's Top Stylist 2014! I can't even begin to explain how excited, happy, grateful I am for what I have won! I simply cannot wait for all of this to begin!

Receiving my prize from Shaikha Farah bint Khalid Al Khalifa
Photo courtesy of blondeinbahrain

I do have to say the competition was challenging, all 20 contestants did an amazing job in styling the black dress and Duaa and Haifa did well on this challenge round too, I wanted to congratulate everyone that competed, we all played a part in forming this lil fashion industry that I see forming in Bahrain, I am excited to see it grow and to see great things from these girls in the future one day.

Well done everyone and thanks to bdaya and Green Diamond for this amazing opportunity.

From Left, Haifa Mansoor (3rd Place), Duaa Zainal (2nd Place), Anada Scarves Owner Nada Al Alawi  (Judge), Me and my model/best friend Nadia, Green Diamond Owner Shaikha Farah bint Khalid Al Khalifa (Judge) , and Fashion Blogger Donya of The Purple Bow Tie (Judge).

P.S. I will be doing another post with more pics so stay tuned :)