In a world where the most monetarily-challenged woman has the option of getting smart haute knockoffs at Target, it's just a fact: Design and function must come together in everything, from delightful matte bullets of M.A.C. lipstick, to sleek and flatty iPods, to kicky Mini Coopers.
What accessory spends the most time near your lovely face? All together now: Your cell phone. From the actual phone to the myriad of tech-cessories, mobile fashion is now the polishing piece of a woman's look. Will you complete your look with a freebie? Or will it be a hot phone with personalized tech fashion to match your style? Let's go shopping and see what's hot.
In 2004, Nokia made a huge leap forward with its Fashion Phone threesome, the best of which was the lipstick-sized 7280. Now fashion designers, not just tech designers, are hot for the trend in cell style, and today's mobile trimmings are as good looking as they are functional.
The phone itself is the most obvious way to display your style sense. The grand dame of designed phones, of course, is the Motorola RAZR, and with the introduction of its slimmer sister KRZR (you can even check your lip gloss in its slick reflection), you now have two well-dressed cells to choose from.
Nokia has released its "fall fashion line" of phones, the Oh L'Amour collection. We've seen a few on the street — they've been available in Asia for a while — and may we say the 7370 (above), with its etched metal front and sexy swiveling keypad, is quite the eye-candy. Another fashion-phone that's hot is the Chocolate by LG. And the new White Chocolate phone is now available exclusively through Verizon.com.
If you can't have the $18,000 phone of your dreams, MS. LOHAN, you can camouflage an ordinary duckling mobile in a swanlike exterior. Many of our very favorite designers (Tod's, Kate Spade) have tragically opted not to make a dedicated cell-phone holster, possibly because cellies come in so many shapes and sizes that it would be difficult to provide something that would please enough customers to justify the production cost. Nonetheless, some bravely step up to fill the void.
Just to get super-meta for a moment, you can accessorize your accessory by dressing up your phone with various accoutrements. The cell phone bracelet or charm can be a more accessible way to take your phone to designer heights, albeit chunky heights.
You can also get non-designer charms, usually with a wrist strap, from just about anywhere these days, like H&M stores. We googled CELL PHONE CHARMS and found that many folks define accessory as a car charger or ear plug — glamorous! Some sites were better than others but Ringaroundthetoe-z.com and Artbeads.com were charming, to say the most.
You can also amp up the color and design of your phone with a skin or tattoo: a removable sticker that wraps around your phone and adds a pleasing plastic feel. Buy them at Skinit.com (their designs or yours) and Shopzilla.com, which has links to carrier packages that enable you to make skins out of your own photos. We also like Motorola's Motostore (Motorola.com) make-your-own tattoo options to refresh your RAZR and inspire your inner designer.
There are tech accessories or tech-cessories, as we like to call them, because that's just how we roll. These babies are better described as games, wallpapers, and text alerts in female-friendly categories of your choosing, and will gussy up a phone on the inside.
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Games!
LimeLife has a hot selection of addictive games — Blackjack, Hollywood Hangman, Solitaire and Word Heaven — that are perfect escapes when you have five minutes. You might think you never have five minutes to play a game, but do you remember last weekend when you were waiting for friends? What do you do during a work break, or while you're waiting in line, or on the train commuting? Exactly. Our games are available on Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Cingular, and T-Mobile. |
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Daily Dose Text Alerts!
And of course, there's content. Content! LimeLife is dedicated to delivering readable tidbits about the good parts of your life. These daily text-messages are smart-alecky, informative, inspired. Whatever you're into, it's here.
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