The Inevitable

John Galliano - I know for Galliano fans, every show has its magical moments but this one centred around 1920s con artist Maria Lani was especially pictoresque (picture frame...geddit...).  Trend headlines?  Probably not but then again that isn't really what Galliano is gunning for.  I just know there were definite tingles felt at the Opéra Comique that day.   

 Alexander McQueen - Sarah Burton hailed a softer but no less dramatic mood at what will be a new era at McQueen.  It's sort of childishly exciting to see how Burton responds to this flux and of course to be beady-eyed on Burton's collections, whilst never being able to forget what was it that made an Alexander McQueen collection extraordinary. 

I'm about half a day late on the deadline for all 'Let's look back and ponder' review, best of, and round-up posts.  I'm supposed to be getting started on the 'Let's look forward to', predictions for the new year, crystal ball-type posts.  Except I'm rubbish and can't actually pre-empt time.  I also haven't quite let 2011 sink in yet and I'm unable to let go of /10 when writing dates, even if today's particular date notation is a ridiculously memorable one. 

More importantly, in the whizz of last Paris Fashion Week descending into a blur that was never actually reflected upon, I forgot to properly thank backstage photographer Morgan O'Donovan for going through the Paris show rounds with me, putting valuable images to my text as well as providing a vivid backstage insight that breathes a different life into front-on-views and stony expressions of catwalk images.  Sharing an apartment for fashion week, along with Streetpeeper's Phil Oh, we'd come back late each night exchanging metaphoric war stories - Phil about the battleground that is the Tulieries Garden where 150 streetstyle photographers descend upon one human subject, me with undeserved pithy cries of trying to make five shows, four appointments and evening events on time and Morgan with a deserved whinge about bullish security guards at backstage entrances, odd accreditation processes and the general macho one-upmanship present amongst front of house and backstage photographers.

It's all a collective momentary moan that is quickly forgotten though because *palm face*, it's our supposed profession/vocation and of course, we secretly love the scrum of it.  Therefore it's on to the obligatory and now tardy 'Best of Paris' post that I very nearly omitted for fear of its predictability.  On this blessed 1/1/11 though, when nothing much is going through my head except for "Wow...Channel 5 decided to show THAT cheapsville Titanic film?", I'm going to allow a 'Best Of' post to slip through. 

Rochas - !!Slinky PJ's meant for the outdoors alert!!  Dolce & Gabbana's S/S 09 pyjama-filled collection has had a more varied trickle down effect that means this Rochas piece is causing the likes of Topshopto get in on the PJ action.

To Phil and Morgan: More of the same come March, guys?

Dries Van Noten - It's exceedingly clever of stores to be selling the new Dries collection as per how it was shown on the catwalk - as in watercolour, floaty tops contrasted over a crisp white shirt.  It tricks dumb-arses like me into thinking that a Dries crisp white shirt is superior to my existing perfectly-ok white shirts as well as coaxing me into buying the floaty feminine frippery piece that sits on top of it. 

sleeping beauty

6.12.10

i have found meaning

J.W. Anderson's SS11 collection lifechangingly came to my attention via Maddie and I think I have finally found everything I ever want to be, that is to say, compiled of and exuding perfect hippie/Weetzie Bat/teen angst/murky/good ugly/bittersweet/ladies of the canyon/witch vibes. The thrown togetheredness of various references suggest that every piece was picked up at a different stop on a road trip or were homemade and have been happily lived in. Matching up such different textures and prints seems random but each layer serves a purpose, preventing the styling from getting sloppy, and details like the skirt pleats keep the pieces from teetering into easily-found-in-thrift-stores territory.

It reminds me a lot of this hippie goddess girl I saw in the hall the other day wearing a long black velvet dress and clogs and a woven backpack and I really wanted to know what she was doing in school because it was obvious that she should've been traveling in a painted van or something, but at least this way I'll probably see her again and will have the opportunity to ask if she'll carry me around in her backpack and let me smell her hair, whose scent I imagine is probably a cross between jasmine and hibiscus with a dash of mint. I think the odds of her letting me be in her painted van club are even more in my favor if I tell her that last part!

joel sternfeld

elizabeth hoeckel

locker

of the holy blood


1976 crochet


still from proenza schouler's the patent ps1


gabriel orozco and a page from my journal with the lyrics to "old age" by hole glittered on it

grace miceli

frida kahlo's sun and life

blackmagicalcat

4.12.10

candy store cat lady

Lady Miss Kier's ring game channeled through blue plastic thrifted belt and Goody daisy hairclips, the Edward Scissorhands (yes, this is a constant reference for me) neighborhood channeled through the hand-me-down skirt, Twiggy & clones sweater game channeled through sweater dress from PollySue's Vintage, and librarian cat channeled through purse I got as a gift and I Love This Kitty pin from artenergyalchemy on Etsy.

The shoes are a combination of all, and were sent to me by Kron by KronKron. By KronKron by KronKronKron. Kron.

Pros: Bows! RUFFLED SUEDE! All fun and girly but not vomitly so, thanks to the color palette. Surprisingly walkable, and they're even too big for me.
Cons: I'd prefer a platform whose color doesn't feel so random in relation to the others.

Unfortunately I had to opt for more walkable shoes when I wore this outfit to my friend's play last night, because LOOKY:

It's so pretty! Sure, the walking-to-school-at-7:30-A.M. version of me might beg to differ, and oh, you know, throw her backpack down in a fit of rage every few steps or so, but look at how it glimmers from just the right angles!

I'm way too into artenergyalchemy, which is where I got this little glitter cat. Good thing my ears aren't pierced or it'd be an easy way to go broke. Though maybe I could self-pierce them with the Jack Nicholson Shining ones, and blood would gush out of my ears due to my insanitary job, but it would look cool because then it would just drip off the sides of the tiny axe charms as though it had just finished off the family!

What? Something about blood and murders? That wasn't me! Divert your attention and stop getting suspicious! Look, a cat! I hear you like those on the Internet!

1.12.10

he believes in beauty

I had Bjork and Gwen on the mind yesterday morning. (Better quality of Venus here but the embedding is disabled, grumble grumble.)

Bindis, braids, t-shirts, semi-sportiness, something slightly off kilter. Also, how lifechanging are both of these songs and videos?

Thrifted Gap tee, mesh marshmallow (meshmallow?) Comme des Garcons skirt from last year's Barney's Warehouse Sale, and Jil Sander sandals (Jil Sandals?) for the sportiness, and a tiny sweater (hand-me-downed) just seemed necessary. The bindi came from a set I got for Jul (this kind) a few years ago. Unfortunately I had to wear boots instead of sandals to school. That's funny, weather! I don't remember granting you permission to shed your dandruff all over my beloved fall leaves! It was pretty perfect for the first night of Hanukkah, however.

My friends told me the patch is from Girl Scouts but I wouldn't remember because I was a horrible Brownie and really lazy and would just ask my parents to buy a couple boxes of Thin Mints and then feel disappointed in myself when the other girls proudly accepted their CD holder wall-hangings and I was stuck with a dopey stuffed animal. I still have that stuffed animal. And probably the Thin Mints, somewhere, too.

Seriously though -- Brownie patch on a sweater!! Why didn't I think of that? I need to find my sash and rip off all those bowling patches. That was the other thing I did as a Brownie.
The ladies at Pamflet (which I've written about before here) had a bit on the Just a Girl video in the new issue which I happily received in the mail in the other day. More favorites bits of mine are on boys not crying, nuns and nuns in culture, vanity, indie boys-to-men, and, yeah, a spread on fashion bloggers, and I'm in it, but I genuinely like the issue! Nuns and vanity! Looks like it's going to be their last issue for a while but they'll keep fighting the good fight online. Still, I recommend a print issue. It's barely $3 and you can buy it on their site.

30.11.10

sleeping beauty

Ugly nature and the supernatural were displayed at Chris Habana's SS11 presentation and I was obviously smitten. My favorite pieces, like the gold nails necklace and thorns bracelets, were the ones that looked less like jewelry and more like randomly found bits of ugly nature themselves. Some fancy cubic shape happenings helped to modernize the rest of the collection but I don't think it was necessary, as those really felt like shiny new jewelry and mildly disrupted the old and dusty vibe that the other pieces had. The combinations of pearls, chains, and crosses brought to mind a much darker Sleeping Beauty, like these pieces had been locked in an attic and got all possessed by spirits and the like.

Is this like a noxzema commercial or what

I have nothing xmas-related to offer at the moment since this year has been a bit Charlie Browny, but I am, as always, thrilled to go on about fabrics that look like school supplies. Especially Cher Horowitz's school supplies

 Versus SS11 got me really excited about Christopher Kane's ways of making the line the perfect little sister to Versace. It's playful and not explicitly ~sensuale~ but includes nods to its birthmother (yeah, I just made Versace its big sister and birthmother, I guess it's Faye Dunaway in Chinatown) with neon bodycons. The prints might be some of my favorite of this season because they have a, for lack of better word and because I'm always making excuses to talk like Paula Deen, dollop of irony. Like, I just want them to cover my pencil cases and textbooks and the inside of my locker. And it wouldn't be bad to own them in clothes form, too