An Alien in Paris

On antifashion, and its position in fashion

2011-03-04T19:41:00.001Z

Excuse me whie I just take a short break into deeper thought....

Copyright Alexandra Lloyd 2010

The Oxford English dictionary defines influence as “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.”[1] Thus, for it to be argued that anti-fashion has had an influence on fashion in the late 20^th century, two suppositions have to be made; that fashion is impermanent, and so capable of alteration, and that anti-fashion can be separated from fashion, in order to regard change as ‘influenced’ rather than an evolution stemming from within the concept of fashion.

The idea that fashion is changeable is fundamental to our understanding of fashion as it relates to occidental culture; it can be seen as a visual code that we all employ in order to identify ourselves in relation to others. Its significance changes both in relation to socio-political and cultural context, personal experience and in relation to characters that we associate with a particular style of clothing. However, to take the idea that this influence is simple would be to underestimate the complexities of our social relations with each other and would be a failure to recognize the fluidity of our consciousness concerning the manipulation of such a code. Highlighting these complexities, Negrin states, “Changes in fashion cannot be explained simply as a reflex of social and political conditions that exist externally to it...the forms that fashion takes are not purely aesthetic but inevitably carry a particular social and political significance, whether the designer or wearer is consciously aware of this or not. No ‘look’ is politically neutral or ‘innocent.”[2]

Yet given that fashion as a phenomenon is a relatively recent concept, how is it possible that a visual code so significant was not employed before? I would argue that it was employed, although it existed in a limited way, because that which it could signify was limited. It could be argued that vestiamentary signs have always existed, yet fashion as a concept is linked to an increase in social mobility; stemming from a particular breakdown in social hierarchy that came with modernity and the growth of capitalism. Yuniya Kawamura[3] notes that imitation is a characteristic of fashion and that for imitation to exist, a certain hierarchy has to exist to ‘permit’ that imitation. She cites Parrot’s idea that “immobility in the distribution of vestiamentary signs always corresponds to immobility in social structures.” When sumptuary laws were still common in Louis XIV’s France, to take an historical example, there could exist no phenomenon of ‘fashion’- it is too tied to modernity and social mobility. Changes in styling (for instance, the differentiation between the robe française and the robe polonaise) happened over a much longer period if time compared to modern standards, in which the cycle lasts a few months; weeks even. Clothes existed as systems of dress, markers of hierarchy, but the constant change did not exist; the language was almost stagnated.

This would perhaps explain why significant moments in fashion history are often acutely linked to social breakdown, particularly with regard to anti-fashion. In the fragmented 1970s, dress became markedly linked to political affiliations; anti-fashion evolved as an aesthetic association with subcultures and, because it was linked to a breakdown of social order and a fragmented society, it evolved with a sense of pluralism in fashion. In America, for instance, the hippie style evolved as a notably politically-affiliated style. Contra-vietnam, the youth adopted a style that linked itself to anti-governmental resistance; both passive and active. To a degree, this was unconscious evolution, but it can also be noted that Yves Saint Laurent, having launched his more youthful Rive Gauche line, was sympathetic to the Parisian student protests of 1968 and had intentionally designed a collection referencing tribal clothing and traditions; introducing the headband to the 1970s. Even without a specific intention to associate with a political movement, the hippie style of dress was not ‘politically neutral’ (to again reference Negrin.)[4]

The assimilation of anti-fashion, linked to subculture, into the mainstream is linked to the breakdown of social and gender hierarchy and financial mobility, paralleling the legitimization (though perhaps not acceptance) of the political agendas behind the subcultures as political thought. In some ways, the acceptance of the aesthetic value precedes this acceptance, which could be a cause of the constant change in styling as individuals seek to redefine their association by adapting their code to exclude mass society once more. What is perhaps significant is the idea that we identify anti-fashion with the evolution of post-modern society, despite the fact that style-cultures have existed to limited, often politically associated movements within society, predating this period. The Society for Rational Dress, for example, was linked to feminist ideals and specifically linked restrictive clothing (corsetry) to the repression of women’s rights. Simultaneously, bloomers were linked to increased freedom for women with the development of the bicycle and increased physical mobility, and were seen as scandalous. Decades later, with the 1920s and 30s and the influence of sportswear, these changes occurred gradually within society as a whole.

Yet with the 1970s, anti-fashion emerged as a force of change. As the middle class expanded and with the emergence of the youth as market share with the largest disposable income, there was a democratization of fashion as the institutions of fashions themselves adapted to a younger market. The precedent for this was the alteration in the perception of beauty in the 1960s, when youth became beauty, a trend personified by the supermodel Twiggy. A force behind this change was the late editor of American Vogue Diana Vreeland, who used avant-garde stylings in her editorials that rejected mass culture and embraced the youth revolution, rejecting the commercial in exchange for the visionary, as Val weaver notes; “If you look at vogue from 1968, ‘69 and ‘70, Everybody was topless and had blue eye shadow from their cheekbones to their eyebrows. It was very avant-garde, very dramatic, very visionary, very exciting..… It was wonderfully creative and out there and on the edge, but did it have anything to do with 98 percent of women in America? Absoloutely not.”[5]

Anti-fashion evolved with the democratisation of fashion and the social activism of the youth. And yet it is not a position outside fashion. Julia Emberley goes so far as to characterize it as both a product of and necessary to the existence of the fashion system itself; it is the product of fashion’s adaption to a pluraleist society, to the deconstruction of significance and meaning. According to Emberley[6];

“Fashion - the production of seasonal products for mass consumption - is bracketed by style- consumers as mundane, ordinary and devoid of a creative drive desparately needed by the individual-subject searching for personal style. The fashion apparatus and its strategies for producing consumption depend on this "negative" reaction to the products it makes available ; the fashion apparatus operates on the basis of its own denial, producing its own lack so as to (re)produce desire(s) for the image(s) that will fill the whole of the self and its experience of being. Fashion produces the not-being or the anti-fashion subject . “

In her view, we continue to accept fashion as an aesthetic signifier of our individuality (or associations) because fashion offers an escape from homogenous fashion with the idea of diversity, of freedom to rebel against the system. After the hemline controversy of the 1970s, in which people rejected fashion ‘dictates’ and the conspicuous top-down approach of trends, the system had to adapt to survive. In such a way, anti-fashion became fashion; “In the necessary production of its own contradictions, the fashion apparatus holds the subject within a spectrum of choices which close at the extreme ends of total freedom, on the one hand, and absolute control, on the other. ”

An example would be the fashion of any designer considered “Avant-garde” that has been accepted as iconic by the fashion establishment. Vivienne Westwood, for example, is a perfect embodiment of the production of clothing that is seen as shocking and linked to subculture, whilst simultaneously being linked closely to the established industry, against which controversial styles of “bad taste” would seem to rebel. However, I would argue that it is not possible to see the fashion system as so simple that it is possible to rebel against it. We identify the “enfants terribles” of fashion, designers such as Lee “Alexander” McQueen, John Galliano and Jean-Paul Gaultier as such because they subvert the traditional language of fashion, changing that which is signified by the signifier. But rather than speaking a different language, they are the innovators of language; anti-fashion is the use of dialects.

We dress not for ourselves, but for others who can read our specific code. To a certain extent our appearance is the first identifier of us as individuals; we associate vestiamentary signs with political, financial, and social status, but also with musical, dramatic and cultural references, extracting from the rich culture of signs that we could identify all around us. For Emberley[7], “In an effort to retrieve a sense of an original self, the urban consumer creates the self-image of a personal aesthetic, or a style that signals originality, so as to distinguish itself from the uniform conformity

deployed by the fashion apparatus that threatens and succeeds in denying self-knowledge and self-expression.” With the Punk aesthetic, for example, the youth were identifying with conspicuous poverty, linking the destruction of clothing and fetishistic elements with the destruction of social order and the subversion of defined taste. It is not surprising that the movement was linked to anarchic political ideals. Although, to a certain extent, the style culture existed to identify others with shared interests, friends as a tribe, I would argue that it existed to identify potential rather than current friends. Aesthetics are our way to communicate ideas directly and without direct contact; it was not to show friends, who already have established your interests and affiliations (or those which you have had the desire to communicate to them) but to show others who recognize the code. It follows that anti-fashions are dialects, from which further information can be garnered if the viewer has a certain specific understanding.

Guy Debord stated[8], “In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” Fashion is the aesthetic dominating our dress. It is, arguably, our biggest connection to the spectacle, which is the idea of a visual code that has superseded reality and become dominant over it; as we manufacture a non-self with our clothing, we become what we represent. Beau Brummel, for instance, became the epitome of style in his era, because he represented himself as such. All representation is absorbed into the spectacle, to be reproduced by it. Anti fashion too is a representation; it is therefore logically to be absorbed and referred to by the mainstream. This appropriation becomes more and more apparent, the self reference more evident, as we move through post-modern society and as more people deconstruct dress and appearance as a code. The more fashion is examined, the more confused and cross-referential that which it signifies and references becomes. If everything is accepted as a valid contribution to a language, because definition has been rejected in favour of fluidity, then there is an acceleration until, as Debord[9] states, “What appears is good; what is good appears.” Pluralism has developed in fashion because all is legitimized; hence the various coexisting trends that define the fashion of the 1990s until today.

No aesthetic response exists now that will not be absorbed into the fashion system. Grunge, for instance, was a style culture so quickly absorbed into the mainstream (following exposure with Marc Jacob’s infamous grunge collection for Perry Ellis in 1991) that as anti-fashion, its life-cycle of conception, growth, diffusion, legitimisation and reconception was accelerated until the point where it became legitimized on a wide scale before it could ever fully form. It effectively rose straight from a local dress to a nationwide dress, with little adoption by the underground elements of other cities apart from Seattle before homogenous dissemination.

Baudrillard claims[10] that it is the artificial nature of fashion, the idea that it is a ‘pure sign that signifies nothing’ that gives it so powerful an influence. “Passion de la futilité et de l'artificiel qui est plus fondamentale peut-être que la pulsion sexuelle. Dans notre culture rivée au principe d'utilité, la futilité joue comme transgression, comme violence et la mode est condamnée pour cette puissance qu'il y a en elle du signe pur qui ne signifie rien” Antifashion has not influenced fashion in the late 20th century, because it is what fashion has become with the breakdown of definition; it is how the system has manifested in order to survive; All fashion is anti-fashion (a reaction against what came before, manifesting in a climate of appropriation) and so all anti-fashion is fashion. As soon as anti-fashion is imitated it has been adopted by fashion (which uses imitation as a signifier of our aspirations) and so it can only exist before others have seen it.

[1] Oxford English dictionary Online edition s.v. “Influence”

[2] L. Negrin Appearance and Identity (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 50

[3] Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies, (New York, NY: Berg, 2005)

[4] Ibid.

[5] Cited in Carol Felsthenthal Citizen Newhouse: portrait of a media merchant (New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 1998), 190

[6] Julia Emberley The Fashion Apparatus and the deconstruction of postmodern subjectivity in “Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory/Revue canadienne de theorie politique

et sociale” volume XI, Numbers 1-2 (1987). 1

[7] ibid.

[8] Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, translated by Ken Knabb. (Online, 2002) Internet; available from http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/ (accessed 15/12/2010.)

[9] ibid.

[10] Jean Baudrillard, L'échange symbolique et la mort (Paris, France :Gallimard), 145

Some drawings

2010-10-21T12:40:00.000+01:00

Pattern taken from ancient Japanese tomb mural.

The cosmos in her trousers. a very big place for a very small friend.

No I can't explain the octopus i put behind susie....

Original sketch for susie..

halfway point....

Original sketch for Cosmos

Alysha

Anja

Playing with textures 1

Playing with textures 2

Playing with textures 3

Playing with textures 4

Playing with textures 5

Playing with textures 6

Consider this as an i'm sorry i'm lazy i'll try harder but clearly i've been working and eating thai food...

A reccomendation next time you're in paris? Mme. SHawn, a thai restaurant just by Jaques Bonsergent/Republique. Inedentally, there are two just by the same metro stop, one canal-side on rue lancry, the other on rue Yves Toudic. Approved by Teema.

Ah yes. I made enchiladas (the antique 30s dress is... umm..whim)

Pont des arts in the rain...

I blame coco made me enthusiastic...

goodbye.

Post with words soon enough...

Scheduling!

2010-09-12T01:25:00.001+01:00

Illamasqua commision short film for Sophie Lancaster foundation

2010-01-09T23:26:00.000Z

On 11th August 2007, 20 year-old Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend Robert Maltby were kicked, stamped on and left unconscious – for nothing more than looking different. Sophie later died from her injuries.

As a brand that promotes the right to experiment and self-express through the way you look, Illamasqua is committed to changing attitudes towards subcultures.

In tribute to Sophie, Illamasqua has commissioned ‘Dark Angel’ – a short film by award-winning French director, Fursy Teyssier. that’s a haunting rendition of Sophie’s story, featuring the music of iconic British band, Portishead.
The aim of the film is to raise awareness of The Sophie Lancaster Foundation and generate £500,000 to help educate young people about tolerance. Since Sophie’s death, the Foundation has been working with behavioural experts Huthwaite International, to put together an interactive youth workshop that does just that.
But this essential education programme can only be delivered with your help.
Please, please show your support and watch the film.
We’re hoping to reach over 1,000,000 hits, so forward this page and help us spread the message. If you have your own website, blog, Facebook, MySpace or You Tube page, or a Twitter profile, please display a link to the film. For added impact, download a specially designed web banner, see bottom of the page.
As well as being available to view online, the film will also be running on MTV from 26th November – Sophie’s birthday.
Stand up for Sophie – act now and buy an Illamasqua Sophie pencil, wristband or make a donation. £3 from the Sophie pencil purchased and all proceeds from the wristband sales go directly to the Foundation.
Together, we’ll help stamp out prejudice, hatred and intolerance everywhere.
To find out more, please visit www.sophielancasterfoundation.com. Follow The Sophie Lancaster Foundation on Twitter for daily updates on the charity's work at www.twitter.com/SOPHIE_charity

Workout? hmmm

2010-01-03T19:01:00.000Z

PH8 STORES - LOOKBOOK

Just a quick note to say that PH8 is definitely making me double take at gym clothes, wonder who designed my school uniform games kit to look like britney spears (17 y/o) on crack, and question anyoue's excuses for wearing tracksuit bottoms.

Thinking practically....who said what?

2009-11-11T00:43:00.000Z

I am alarmed to announce that since moving to Paris I have bought only two pieces of clothing, and my christmas list this year is entirely practical. If I weren't quite positive that I would have noticed a brain transplant I would definitely consider myself suspicious, especially given my new propensity to come to things on time. It really won't do. Well, it will, in fact, but I still find it rather disquieting.

What I really covet, however, is a Swagga & Soul Florence Frill Jacket.

£435.00 -oh dear lord where to find it...

It took me all of two days to work out that, especially with platinum blonde hair (Which is accepted fine if you're obeying the code/once you demonstrate french ability) bright colours mark you out as a foreigner and Parisian males make a lot of assumptions based on that. Luckily, I don't really have that problem, with my wardrobe. However, there is a uniform in Paris. It's very, very obvious to anyone spending an extended period of time here. the leather jacket is a key component to the whole look. Parisians, young ones, that is, dress down anything with a leather jacket. When headed to crazy dive bars like the Pop In or Zeros, to people watch at fashion parties and underground basement partie in vintage stores in pigalle, to Black Calvados, La perle, Regine... what have you.... the leather jacket is worn. Its weather appropriate. It fits the dark aesthetic..... it's classic. It's a blank canvas. The white tee shirt.

Leather boots. Leather jacket. Scarves. Stripes. Grey, Blue, Black. These are my parisian fundamentals.

Is it not ironic that after my 5 year long search for, eventual compromise and acquisition of the leather jacket, i find several which i would snap up in an instant? I KNEW I SHOULDN'T HAVE COMPROMISED...then again, it has come in useful... this being paris.

£365.00 - also Swagga and Soul

Other, more realistic options (what's the point of them when there's no way in hell i have money or leather jackets falling out of the sky in my general vicinity, despite working 8 hours of overtime on a 5 hour week.....) include All Saints' Altamont at £295

The Topshop Cheat lookover....

Alright ~ I'll link properly from now on!

UO UK - £18.00

UO UK - £28.00

UO UK £17.99

UO UK - £48.00

UO UK - £38.00

UO UK - £9.99

UO UK - £32.00

ok so it's a white shirt, and i slipped it in. But i dooooo need one. Now £14.99 @ UO UK

Additional extras include faux-fur snoods (It's COOOOLD), this baby...

made by I heartnorwegian wood on Etsy ($65)

Zum ZHP005 Violet Headphones (My inherent attraction to things shiny and bubblegum comes through in an acceptable manner; did i ever tell you about the period where i only wore pink and, failing that, dresses? OK, so i'm rehashing the dresses thing but that's because they are the simplest thing to laze in, not requiring any form of co-ordination and producing far less washing; i like to pretend i'm being efficient. And at least i'm not wearing a)pajamas (My other favourite) or b) tracksuit bottoms.

Oh, and AA Tri-Blend V Neck packs in orchid/black/evergreen and grey/indigo/athletic blue wouldn't go amiss...

Other, slightly more fun (read: Never going to happen you poor, deluded young student) wishes include..

A trip to eight London. Where after accosting the designers, begging to be their slave and attempting to thieve all clothing in sight, I would hit up the Zoe, Karen and Flora dresses... I love their clean aesthetic. Because I wear dresses so often, i like watching for things that i could wear again and again and again but have enough interesting detail not to be boring. These fit the bill. So nicely. But not my bill... because i hate art supplies and just spent 15 euro on 3 BLOODY SHEETS OF PAPER. MANDATORIALLY. 3. AND THAT WAS BUYING THE CHEAPO PAPER WE WEREN"T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE BUYING UNLESS WE COULDN'T FIND THE EXPENSIVE ONE.

oh, sorry, did I lose my composure?

Zoe

Karen (mmmmmmmmmm.)

Flora

The sad thing is, these are so terribly IN budget... 250£ for a made-to order dress? (website= http://www.eight-london.com/) Yes please thank you very much i'll be going now before you change your mind...

But i've spent so much money replaacing broken technology, feeding myself and on art materials (Some of which i successfully lost on the bridge between concorde and assemblee nationale... effing traffic....) that I just. can't. afford. clothes. (I WAS TAPING. TAPING. one pair of ballet flats back together.)

lesigh.

Could I justify in the name of charity? Edun x Dazed and confused charity tee-dress. Bamako. (LIMITED QUANTITIES LEFT!!!) €156

Of awesomeness?

C SOCIETY - $199 - Pixiemarket

Of longevity??? (Forget me Not scarf in Blue Deer - €270)

of Addiction?? (to tea)

...No seriously..witness the tea boxes...

On that note.... 3 outfits and an adieu!

(I hate new flickr rushn shushn rotation....)

Tee from Ediot on etsy, then ancient stuff you couldn't buy anymore. ever.

Arthur says goodbye.

Temporary hair cut (Alien gonna dye her hair...)

2009-08-25T15:56:00.001+01:00

Real estate....

2009-08-23T15:21:00.001+01:00

House by the Sea - Limited Edition Print from the myfolklover shop $40

Having safely defeated the faces of evil (see... Parisian real estate agents) I am still being caused to fret by the aftereffects of great battle (see... lease signing/key handover), and have buildings on the brain (and budgets. budgets too!) Buildings on a budget? Perhaps that's why I've been having sudden cravings for structure and geometry that I can control. (See... ordering House of Holland's building, alphabet and panetone tights, and endless doodles of cubes when I'm on the phone)) And lusting after artworks with order in, like so...

At any rate, I've been on an Etsy trawl once more (The POWER of the consumer...vs. the powerlessness of a student faced with real estate) and been finding some structure I could control (were I not paying extortionate rent...) Starting with some beautiful beautiful clothes from desirapesta.

Ophelia royal silk dress by desirapesta 135$

I see order even in disorder.....

Spider top by desirapesta - 58$

Rob Ryan is so ordered. He is a man with an excellet use of xacto knife. Surely. Dig this print...

My Home by Rob Ryan - 455$

I like napkins. I like this necklace. I couldn't say where the association comes from!

Necklace by Tinctory - $96

My obsession with ovesized knits should have been clear with the yookoo chains, but this is awesome too. It's like what would happen if you taught my dog how to knit in the best way possible- chunky, messy, lively and fun.

XL cowl in Vert from Urban Knit - $60

I love cord. Not sure why. Perhaps its because have a fondness for the 90s when I wore pocahontas leggings, hot pink corduroys and Barbour jackets. So this skirt (sold out) from HiAnnie brings back my youth, in a more grown up way (Shmexy).

These next lot are all from chichicraft, empty at the moment but letting you preview collections. Saving the best for last, yay!

I would go into more detail, except that they're mysterious and have no profile information. hmmm. oh well, I'm not really bothered if they're using oompa loompa's, because the clothes are so ppppeeeeerdy..

Excuses Excuses...

2009-08-20T10:46:00.003+01:00

Salutations dear readers! Just in case you think I've become a flake...

(Sorely mistaken, I was always a flake)

A literate flake, but a flake nonetheless....

...I will present my excuses (With the aid of small dog)

I have been sailing....

sailing..... (at night)

sailing....

and sailing! (against my will, stolen away to crew.... like a pirate)

Mayhap I'll be the next Lady Mary Killigrew, captaining a ship, giving a cut under the table to Elizabeth I... who sent her vice admiral to catch her, who happened to be Lord killigrew.... ah...Piracy.

Tangent. Anyway..

TO PARIS I GO (on the 26th)

Where I intend...

to make...You get the picture... right? A big S*****

to be artistic....

to giggle...

to PARTY

PARTY

to pose after party..

and to chill....

With fellow bloggers.

ALL PHOTOS BY ME... UNLESS THEY'RE OF ME.

Postular shaped object.

2009-08-19T11:16:00.003+01:00

My life is a bit chaotic atm. First abroad, now trying to seal the deal on an appartment near St. Denis. But anyway, since I'm being so efficient, I've decided to procrastinate by thinking which shop i could ever buy my entire wardrobe from (capsule-stylin' yo!). Rather than throw myself in with the hoardes at topshop, to risk becoming a spleen with no sense of its ideal, I think i would chug on down to pixiemarket (really, who makes spleen references except weirdos? And someone labelled me a scenester the other day. Seriously? I make spleen references and you think I am down enough to make it with that crowd??? hahaha)

Although I would totally wear all of that, tracking down things on websites worn with other things annoys me (handy links or commentary like mother of all cool boden please?) so for now i would just imaginarily invest in these Acid wash grey treggings? jeggings? w/e. I nominate them leggings. Anyone who feels differently is an arse.
Just FM
$78

Only drop crotch pants to slim thighs in a photograph? ever? Perhaps. All I know is Blue bleach print drop crotch jersey pant with side slit pockets. Bleach? check. POCKETS? check. OK, i'm down. They have pockets.
Rekiem
$93

I love burnout, I hate wondering what to do with my bra. PERFECT! haha. No, secretly its the cape like shape and my childhood urge to be a fairy-princess-spy-superhero-astronaut. Subtlest spy EVER. haha.
Aki
$66

Mayhem slash booty by maud. Provides own ventilation.
Kick ass zip too!
Maud
$179

LBD? Screw that, I'm onto LSD -- little statement dress. This is very little. Don't ask me what AdM stands for.
AdM
$139

Flowery satin jumpsuit with POCKETS. (again, i like pockets.) Sold.
Liquorish
$83

On the site they call this a light denim jodhpur, but i refuse so t do. Breeches? perhaps. Harem pant? meeh.... Tapered?...fine. But jodhpur...for riding horses with???? NOOOO. Did I ever tell youu about the time I worked in Barbour on Madison Avenue? Park avenue princesses would wander in, look st the riding jodhpurs and ask me time and time again if they were some new form of skinny jean (I guess the new one would be tregging). Eventually, I gave up, and just said yes (You know who to blame if in 2006/7 you saw people wandering around NY in riding jodhpurs) Just like giving into the old boys jokes as to whether I came with the store (english accent... english store....bad combination)
Enough with the tangent...
Orphan age
$189

I rarely where tees anymore, and this is largely due to my heckles with necklines (too high round-neck, too low scoop). And prints. BUT I LOVE THIS ONE. Why? 1) neckline. 2) print with glasses on a neckless to dangle in front! genius! I couldn't make this myself! BONUS POINT to Paul the dreamer with glasses (I feel like a game show host)! And I suppose if you only have one tee-shirt, you wouldn't mind the hefty price tag. meh. hefty.
Daydream Nation
$132

Just FM again, with a handy dandy 'Grey-luna' roll-neck. As modelled with above acid-wash leggings. Leggings. Looks comfy. Stylin'. Thin arms balance it well proportionately.
Just FM
$108

Oooh I love those shorts. Maybe I'll bother to track'em down. But this double-breasted bastardisation of a blazer and a tux is the ticket. More pockets...yay! Balances out them drop-crotch. (mmm...comfy....)
Orphan age
$173

FINALLY, on a parisian note... I WAN'T THESE REPOSITIONABLE PURPLE CHALKBOARDS!!

$15.25 =BARGAIN Only shippable to US territories...natch... wankery tools.

Sorry my loves... i've been on holiday for a month (And attacking french real estate agents. It wasn't all fun and games.)

2009-08-01T14:10:00.001+01:00

Teenage unpregnancy.

2009-06-03T11:35:00.002+01:00

Pregnant? I'm not. That would certainly be bad form for a girl in her last year of school, in the middle of exams. But if you are, the folks over at Isabella Oliver have notified me of an interesting sale.

SO if you too dislike wearing tracksuit/jogging bottoms but, unlike me, are pregnant, then apparenty if you enter SUMMER at the checkout you'll get 25% off.
from the 3rd of June (today) until monday. It's not valid for lingerie, and stuff marked as not on sale.

Célébrez l’été en beauté avec -25% sur la collection luxueuse Isabella Oliver Maternité dès aujourd’hui (Mercredi 3 Juin) et jusqu’au Lundi 8 Juin. Utilisez simplement le code promo “ETE” au moment du paiement pour profiter de votre réduction. Le code n’est valable que sur les produits de marquee Isabella Oliver non soldés (n’est pas valable sur la lingerie).

IsabellaOliver.com

Hmmm... Really, I think it would have been much more sensible to tell me about the new 365 collection for happily unpregnant people, although I would suggest that we're more spoilt for choice, and perhaps need less notification. Oh well, those poor people randomly looking up blogs on google to send them promo codes can't always be on the ball, no? I think these coats are rather delicious... from their new not-for-pregnant-people collection (unmaternity?), having snooped around on their websiter (and being the only reason i'm actually posting this since I really doubt my demographic has *vast* amounts of pregnant people, although perhaps mothers or sisters... whatever. it's a coupon code. Who doesn't love coupons?)

I love the sillhouette on that wool-cashmere blend trench-cape. (They like blending things). It cheers me up. Although every time I here wool-cashmere blend I mourn the loss of my double breasted blue mariners jacket, stolen by soeone really really evil. gah. Stupid all-girls school.

How to incorporate small elephants and spider webs into your outfits; sorry, how to wear statement accessories.

2009-05-29T18:37:00.005+01:00

1. Sometimes big things really do come in small packages; elephants and umbrellas would seem to be hard to pack, but I think this will fit quite dearly into my suitcase for Paris, to be layered with Breton stripes, colour blocks of Plum and dark turquoise, and grays. This intricately cut acrylic pendant comes from Untamed Menagerie; $22, and may contain addiction to coffee, cream cheese pastries, and quiet time.

2. Strangulation by octopus is really not a bad way to go. Wow, that's an awful double entendre. I shall go string myself up with silk stockings. Again from Untamed Menagerie, this time $18. Did I mention that they're based in tennesee? Perhaps the moonshine fumes lingering in the air inspired their wacky creations. That or nature, vintage illustrations, chihuahuas, pink hair and the human/octapod anatomy.

...possibly more octapod than human.... $25 and $18

3. We must remember that beauty isn't skin deep, going beyond our mortality, and so accesorize appropriately.... all suicidalshop.fr (32-48€)

4. To reference Therese Desqueyroux, I would add that we're all just animals, sleepwalking into the birdcage, only to find it slam shut behind us. 28,00€

5. Especially where money's concerned, we're never far from a dog fight... 14,50€

6. Always remember to recycle your musical heritage. (Oh i'm just rolling with the bad puns here.) Jodi Bates has designed this series of record bags, which i take it she does after having listened to them (waste otherwise).

7. I did mention recognising that beauty isn't only skin deep, didn't I? These are all Paraphernalia designs, straight out of one Ms. Vanda's studio in Portugal. What, you want something less hardcore? Fine, with a wonderful demonstration of how simple grays, with an interesting texture, will really let the jewellry kick out.

which brings us nicely to no. 8. Ask alice. I'm not sure why I never thought of putting Sir John Teniel's illustrations onto jewellry, because now it seems like the most obvious idea in the world. I'm so jealous of my friend, lets call her P, who has a framed print of his (signed) over her bed. Lucky doll has an antique dealer for a father! The more obvious reference is pocket watches. Which make fantastic necklaces, and timepieces, if they function. If it does not function, for goodness sake take it to a horologist; support your local craftsmen!

9. Awww, cute critters go well with burgundy. Sorry, sorry, I meant dark Sterling silver goes well with burgundy, and dark knitwear. Burgundy knitwear? wow. Genius. Mark Poulin is a fantabulous designer, and this can be found for $26 at Shana Logic (You know, I preffered that place before the name change & movement @pixelgirlshop.com; new site's so damn efficient!)

10. Hedgehogs are badass and cute! a) Pointy b) awwww: it looks like Dobby. you cannot buy this one (find your own. I suggest getting a terrier to for you; they never learn from the spikes) but this is courtesy of izismile.com

Random spots of temporary haberdashery

2009-05-28T10:11:00.000+01:00

I got bored of a Topshop dress, so I grabbed a gold-foil tutu-come-tulip skirt I made a few years ago, one of my mothers many thin black belts, and voila! Perfect procrastination.

I may also resew the zip on this dress of my grandmothers, and wear it to the ball.... fun.

My roots are so huge it looks like I have two different haircolours. Time for the salon, perhaps...

The bad touch...

2009-05-27T16:20:00.003+01:00

Some like to pretend that fashion is for the elite, that it raises us above each other, but what is it, if not animalistic?

Zebra cut out dress - $170 @ Obesity and speed's new online store!

I mean really, it's indulging are whim, that one that all animals have where they want to put on a nice display to show their superiority. (Hey you zebra!)
Why else would my dog attack my clothes, rather than me, when she's trying to show who is in charge? (we live in a dogtatorship, my friends.)

I mean..... how I wish to dress up in salmon (Fish! fish!)....

Tristan Blair Black/salmon Patent kicks AUD$489 @Mintshop.com.au (£239)

Indulge a flourescent pink cuckoo in its whims.

Clock @UOUK

Borrow a nice warm coat

$295 @Bluebirdvintage fur fever

Slink like a snake, and again, and again...

$268 @bluebird vintage

$78 @bluebird vintage

April 77 Acid muscle trews @UOBUK

Try a leopard on for size....

All UO UK Boutique (inc. Peter Jensen, Karen walker, Siwy, Anglomania,Sara Berman)

Back to the snake, yeah?

Both UOUK

It's very predatory to want to be taller....

Erokritos @ UO

Ash High Wedge studded Sandal @UO

To gain air, as it were...

Nike Dunks @UO

To bury your toes in the sand... perhaps requires a more relaxed beast...

Dolce Vita @ UO

But we're hardly the wild thornberries...

More like....the archers?

Just some random artworkssss

2009-05-26T19:17:00.001+01:00

VENICE

The natural lighting's betwixt the two somewhere! Oil on glued up sugar paper. yes. that is correct. Stupid broke art dept.

Art exam piece, so excuse it's shocking badness. I was stressed, on no sleep, and timed. Again Oil on treated paper

An alien's birthday wishes....

2009-05-26T16:01:00.002+01:00

Hmm, its a pity that because of my bike my family will totally be refusing to buy me anything else, so unless I have fairy godparents, my BIG 18th will be sadly sparse, bereft of multiple parcels...

I really wouldn't mind some KTZ Bethan socks...I never make enough play of my legs, which I should, because they won't stay this shape forever.... and only 39Eur, currently around £35, which ain't bad!

This Beautiful image is the alpha accordian scarf- as photod by the australian Style Lines. I want one. It's over @ Alpha for 120AUD, which is a handy £59.

Topshop Liberty print shorts... £32. Oh I so want to be a nymphette. Frolicking and the suchlike.

Les chiffoniers Sequin Blazer.... Ehem400poundsehem @Netaporter

Oh Come on. LOOK HOW SHINY IT IS.

I will be exam presenting myself with Louise Body Docs come my allowance.... Might as well help the company as it rides the wings of the recession, and I LOVE 'EM. I had put them in the back of my mind, but then I was hit by the most extreme style inspiration I've ever had, suprisingly south of the Thames, as I caught the underground to Tooting Bec, that situe synonymous with style or, errrr, the tooting bec athletics track. Whatever, when I got there I was given choclate pancakes. Anyway, so I was on the tube, and on pops this girl who looks fantastic. She was wearing a drapey black jumpsuit, that made her dark skin positively glow, an acidy blue denim jacket, Silver docs with sequins at the top, which the drapey silk jumpsuit was tucked into, HUGE silver disk earrings, and her hair was teased into an afro. She. Looked. AMHAAAAZING.

aaaaah. Dr. Martens website.

Roxy x JBL headphones, $69.95

Apparently, they actually work!

Yookoo cambridge chain - $95

Loooooooong time lusting.

Vintage Steamer trunk - $75

Actually, I could PROBABLY find one in the attic; generations of Boarding schools come in useful sometimes.

The ENTIRE Society for Rational Dress collection. Drooooool

Candela NYC Flats @ Asos Red for £87. Oh yeah baby. Pre-IBIZA.

Passion Frill platform- £95 @Topshop

Minimarket Dress- 2500 SEK (around £211/$305)

Wood Wood Sabine Jumpsuit

Lou Doillon for Lee cooper Artfull stonewash jacket- reduced to £130!!!

And once more, the ENTIRE bluebird Vintage store. HOW DO THEY PULL IT OFF?

Oh dear lord, I'm going to drive myself crazy staring at this lot.

Terribly sorry my lovelies! I've been sitting the most important exams of my life!

2009-05-26T12:27:00.001+01:00

So i'll give you a nice 'un mmmmkay?

Charles Anastase is THE designer for geekchifairytaleglittery people. You know who I mean; Tennessee Thomas (and the entire Like), Alexa Chung, Rosin Murphy, the eponymous hipster; all can be spotted in his mini mini dresses, cardigans and peter pan collars.

Poesy@ TFS

Launching from the world of illustration to fashion 4 years ago, the fame of this French designer's followers still outstrip his own; not for much longer though. He manages to tap that precise vintage air that his muses' esthetic code demands, seeming to have lifted things straight out of the wardrobes of la Marianne Faithfull and la Julie Christie.

We know he'll be around for a bit longer at least; he signed a five year production deal with Pier SpA in september 2008, so we can await the arrival of more ballerina-lolita inspired (Well, I should say, Degas "through the keyhole" like pastel visions of Ballerinas, and lolita) Parisian flare. Soon to be copied by the likes of Topshop and Asos in a highstreet near you!

Definitely key to his LFW shows is the styling, the layering, and the attitude. Pastels layered with darker, more tailore sillhouettes, Breton stripes with the red, and THOSE brown wedges give it a wasson-esque edge that was found in Alexander Wang way back when, before he became the quoting tool of teen vogue acolytes everywhere (Oh I still love you Wang, you know I do... it's just.... You set such a high bar for yourself!)

Making me look forward to paris already.

Did I say will be easily imitated? Let me correct; has been easily imitated.

(All topshop)

And of course, musn't forget asos, eternal ripper-offer of brilliant design themes

Wooo yeah.

How cool would it be to chat with this man who seems to have influenced our trends massively, through subversion?

Words of wisdom: Stamping in flowers does not necessitate stamping ON flowers

2009-04-22T21:40:00.001+01:00

I did talk about hats, didn't I?

Well now I talk about Prints. I swear. NO more hats. Maybe a little hats... Ok, hat with print?

Barbara Hulanicki for Topshop

I diverge. This is not what I'm here for. Well, except for previously stated mission statements, but that's besides the point. The sun is here, I can still see after 6 O'clock, and I'm officially declaring Spring. Even if the director of our school hasn't, and blazers are still mandatory. Nut job.

Spring calls for patterns. Like these loverly laydeeeez photo'd by Nick Wolf on Refinery 29 at the Life Ball (Only one of the biggest Aids fundraisers in the world, dontchaknow).

Why patterns? because I've just unpacked, and my dorm is a melee of morrocan rug, urban outfitters bauble prints, chintz files,, polkadot, butterflies, art Deco and floral. It's a vibe thing. It's self preservation really, I call it the Procrastination instinct. Otherwise known as the i'm-going-to-turn-this-clinic-into-something-liveable-so-that-I-can-actually-work-in-it urge

Again with the Barbara Hulanicki for Topshop!

A very fine revival. Not that Hilanicki wasn't full of vitality, rather that Topshop has picked a winner, with her beautiful illustrations and the clothes themselves leaving them without need of a model; a fine way to deal with the reccession. I would be so looking forward to tuesday if I wasn't flat broke and saving.... leSigh. I want these trousers. So badly. To wear with killer strappy heeled sandals. Or, more likely, barefoot and strolling through the sand in my mediterranean travels before Paris. What I wouldn't give.....

Will someone give birth so I can be a babysitter for below minimum wage? PLEASE?

Zebra Jacket Kimiko Red @ King and Queen of Bethnal Green

Oh, just look at that lying flat, you can see the construction is beautiful. The collar is brilliant. I wouldn't mind wearing that around with my floor length A line black uniform skirt covered in paint. It might toughen and smarten it up simultaneously! The arms! The arms! To arms? To arms(For Kimiko Red, long may Kim reign!)

Dharma Taylor

Dharma Taylor is a london based graphic/fashion designer, and I believe that the diptych of mediums shows in her clothes, which hinge the two together. Both @ Shop172 - 172 Brick lane. An interesting shop; the collections curated by the store owners here are certainly graphic and interesting. If we move on to designers Neurotica, I thing you'll see my point quite clearly. Bodycon, crazy patterns. purrrrrrrrrrfect darlings.

Neurotica also at Shop172

Never one to stick to just the clothes (did I mention hats at any point?) May I now be shot if I forget to mention Kabow!Wow! Whose inspiration range for fauna to fruit formations and jacobian ruffs. Each piece? Beautifully handcrafted from re-claimed materials. How very lala.

(Also, predictably, at shop172)

Liberty print Hightop Nike Dunks @ DSM

I leave you for Therese Desqueyroux. Don't be sad, she's the old new hipster you never even knew.

Plastic waves, sequins and period drama.

2009-04-14T00:26:00.002+01:00

Hats. All I see is hats. First, I stay up Saturday night watching Cranford. Hats. Hats on Judi Dench. Veils. Hats.

Then I'm watching Inspector Alleyn with my grandmother on Easter Sunday. Hats. It is, after all, the 1930s.

I open my new copy of Another Magazine. Hats again. Stephen Jones this time. Brilliant photography.

I come across a turban made from the material for an hermes scarf. It has a matching handbag, run up by Chanel. I'm pretty sure there's a dress somewhere. Only ones ever made in the world.... (My uncle is very persuasive). My grandmother wore it to my father's wedding. Brilliant, isn't it? One more thing... the patten? Hundreds of shoes.

Hmmm....there's a thought...dress made of shoes.....ballet shoes could work.....

At any rate, then I spot this fedora from RVCA ...$42...

I remember I want a stray straw floppy hat, like this Kimchi and Blue one, $28 @UO(us).....

That I wouldn't mind an Asymmetrical Straw semi-Cloche with a teardrop crown...

Black Silk Satin Rose Headband with monochrome sequins. Tour de force

Green Pinstripe silk taffeta bow headband Tour de force

Lets be fun! Oversized, jewel toned, requiring nothing more than courage and attitude. Isabella blow Compared it to therapy, saying, "If I feel really low, I go to see Philip, cover my face [with his hats] and feel fantastic... Wearing a hat is like cosmetic surgery."

There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.

2009-04-13T19:48:00.004+01:00

I've been feeling a tad inspired by the velveteen rabbit the past few days. Perhaps it's the fact that I too am battered and worn following three days of sailing, and can now empathise with the worn-in bunny. Perhaps I'm finally being influenced by the recessionista 'spin' on fashion in an expounding on re-loving sort of way. Perhaps I just suddenly got reminded of when my brother was little, sucking his thumb and stroking the ears of his toy elephant so much that they went smooth and threadbare and as long as the ears of a rabbit. Maybe it's a subconcious craving to see Jake Gyllenhall act with Maggie, or a calling to watch that episode of friends. Whatever it is, I shan't bother pegging it; it might just be that I had the most beautifully illustrated book of it, which I can't track down anywhere, and got reminded of this by internets-trawling. The image above does not do my memory justice. Marissa Lanternam of Marissa's Art does the best illustrations I've seen in a while, but I daren't post the images; she is, after all, a student, and she needs all the copyright laws she can get.

In the spirit of all things looking a little thrown together....

Michael Van der Ham for CSM's MA show

a little stringy....

Derek Lawlord for CSM's MA show

Perhaps a little droopy...

Dress by Bolongaro Trevor s/s 08

or maybe just a little hotch-potch

Marni @WWD

Or uneven...

Susie bubble in Topshop Unique

I present the Alien being lazy. (In every sense of the word; this must be a month old.)

Barbour is badass.

I leave you with a film reference that references my reference.

People cannot be truly loved if they are too sharp and shiny. (Get the reference?)

[an ammendment to the reference to a reference: and yet I will still walk towards the shiny.]

A brief pausular shaped object.

2009-04-06T23:34:00.001+01:00

Dramatic news...

I, the alien (soon to be of Paris)...

seeing as it is spring,

Will be heading out...

To sea for a few days...

Pray for me?

Nah, don't bother, I'm a chiller...

A total chiller!

Don't fly away...

(you're wondering how I took these, aren't you)...

Coz I'll be back...

In three days.

All photos by me. Except the ones of me; I'm not that brilliant.

Est-ce que je puis me maquiller? Bien sur! Quoi... possédés par surprise??

2009-04-05T23:34:00.001+01:00

Wow. The alien does do makeup. Although, it is rather limited, seeing as her makeup bag was stolen by some deviant thief or other a couple months ago, and the price of replacement is crippling.

WOUAOH! Elle peut se maquiller. Bien qu'elle n'ait pas des reserves illimité, puisque quelqu'un qui était rusé a volé sa trousse de maquillagé il y a deux mois, et alors elle doit les remplacer au prix coûtant.

Et les remplaçants?

Sukicolor tinted moisturiser -> It''s a lifesaver. SUbtle, doesn't cake, smells delicious, mineral so its good for sensitive skin, creamy because normally mineral foundation is powder, and dries out your skin.
Sukicolor eydefiner in smoky gray colour.(Brilliantly named...smoke) it's gelshadow/liner/brow. Mineral cream makeup. All of their stuff is mineral/organicky shizzle.
Paul and joe (Disney ltd. edition) blush. Amazing. It's just their face Colour B (002) but it smells amazing, is the perfect pink, and goes on with a proper puff and has the cute bashful skunk from bambi on the box.
Sukicolour eyeliner/multi purpose brush, for the eyedefiner stuff. it's shadow liner/brow again
Too faced leopard bronzer. amazing. It's brown but mixed with pinks and beige (it's pressed in a rather alarming leopard print) but it means it comes out well for my pale skin)
Bourgeois blacky purple eyeshadow in the ltd. edition old school tin.
Korres Mango butter lipstick in 'pink'. Really cool shade. So softening.
Loreal bare naturel mineral foundation in 410 (Ivory white) that I had to get my brother to import from across the pond since they don't make it that pale over here in brittania. Naturally, it shattered everywhere due to the stupid stateside packaging redesign, so It explodes in a cloud of POOF! Every time I wish to open it. *sigh* It is good though. Especially as I'm so pale at the moment that even the stunningly brilliant sukicolor tinted stuff makes me look a tad orange. I want a holiday.

And what I retained, due to me always leaving stuff in my handbag from laziness?

Benefit BadGal Lash
Lancome Black Eyeliner
Bobbi Brown Golden Shimmer brick (THANK GOD)
Mac eyeshadow in goldmine frost.

Pale pink dior lipstick (218)

Maybelline moisture surge in BonBon Caramel (mocha-y colour)

M-A-C m-a-c red lipstick
Clinique Honey blush

The pink is what's worn currently. Lips- pale pink, then mochhay on top, then daps of goldmne frost eyeshadow. Yeah, on the lips. (and eyes). I use a paintbrush. One made for acrylics. It's easier to do a smoky eye with, at any rate... Top lid, grey sukicolor gel eyeliner. Mascara. Dab of gold eyeshadow again

You forget how expensive that **** is. Seriously. I almost cried at the bill for that lot, and i didn't even replace half of it. And just some of what was lost.... *sob*. I got half of this on discount from being nice to the counter girls in bloomies and bringing them so many customers (english girlfriends staying over). And in america where its half the price. Here's a quarter of the losses...

This sheer Benefit Shangri-la hot pink lipstick. awesome. Discontinued.
Perfumeria Gal Madrid Lipbalm in Grosella/red currant. So. Amazing. I have to import it from the states in industrial quantities for the female half of my family. Amazing. (http://www.beautyhabit.com/gal_lip.html)
Stila eyeshadow in kitten
Lilac Dior lipgloss/ Pop lipgloss (pop my bubble)/bobbi brown lipgloss (petal-3)
Jemma Kidd makeup school Black eyeliner (so. good. Glides on. no more, sadly)
Diorshow mascara (freeeeeeeeee saaaamples!)/Benefit BadGal lash/ Lancome hypnose
Benefit Showoff in bambi
Tarte lip/cheek stain in blushing bride
Discontinued clinique blush

Incedentally, there was this survey in britain where they worked out that the average girl spends £2,373.84 spent on toiletries (i'm assuming including facewash/shampoo etc.) in her CHILDHOOD (so...that must be....5 years of actual makeup wearing?). woooooh. Although, I guess that the average teenager has in her makeup collection minimum of 100 pounds spent, even just if they buy high street...more if they go for stuff like benefit/mac. ach

Today, I wear a men's cardigan backwards, C.R.A.F.T Jeans, and report black (muddy) suede booties. Men's cardigans backwards make the best slouchy jumpers ever. How quirky. Oh yes. I was multitasking by cooking lunch. How Very modern bloggeuse.

Big people, little people, Lilliputiens and stylish chains.

2009-04-05T00:06:00.001+01:00

In this instant, I wouuldn't mind playing gulliver..... Yookoo

Called Atanta's "Knitting Wunderkind" by Vice magazine, Yookoo (who is, I believe, pictured) has been chipping away at fantabulary keck-knitwear, at a rate of knots. Too bust to take anyone on, this one woman, one shop set-up has been raking in orders (recession? whowherewhatty?) and, beneath that elfin crops lurks a human-machine that's been churning out oversized chains, Chunky capelets and Giant soopascarves.

By Giant, of course I mean 7-8 feet long....

No wonder she wakes up with cramps... or, as she so succinctly puts it, "me and my carpal tunnel thank you" [for your orders, presumably). Now having received street level recognition (people stopping her in APC to have a gasp) the knitter is, in fact, resorting to guarding her yarns and patterns fiercely. But, in actuality, she's moving into sewing. The ateliers better watch out...

Susie Bubble in Yooko's cambridge chain

The Mothership in sweet pea

I would also just like to point out the beautiful photography; lighting, composition, and the creator-model. All makes for a brilliant setting. Check out the colour combinations in that last image!

She also gives etsy the best "Tell us a bit about yourself" answer ever:

I don’t mean to scare anyone here, but, to be honest, I spent a larger part of my childhood preparing for this question. I used to dream of being on Nighttime Talk Shows and having a host lean in and say, “tell everybody about yourself.” My father said that it was the type of question that meant you had finally become someone of note.
Ingrid Bergman was someone of note and would always poise when answering this question. I would poise, too. I would try, but I probably wouldn’t make it far. I would end up jack-laughing throughout the entire first segment. Catching the Giggles. I’d try focusing on the bridge of my nose to keep from laughing. My father said all Nighttime talk show hosts have miniature buttons in their desk to cue commercials when guests weren’t working out so well. I imagine my persona being very button friendly. And it would be pushed.
And there I’d sit. I would have blown it. Now the entire world would join me in knowing that I was not the type of person that entertains such questions. I wasn’t Ingrid Bergman, or Simone De Beauvoir. And I was in nobody’s note. I was Yokoo, and I made scarves, some of which were chunky.

Brilliant.

The Bubble again

Also in my etsy favourites at the moment are Portland designers Emily Ryan (very affordable, cool) and Holly Stadler.

Stadler's designs start off as trimmings; literally. These can include "faded velvet ribbons, edwardian lace, the beaded applique of a 1920s dress" and "aurora borealis rhinestone buttons". Interested in looking at the aging of fragile fabrics, she keeps things modern in the designs themselves, incorporating these raw materials; sustainable production indeed. Basing herself from the Seaplane boutique/lounge/gallery (complete with music and art installations, launching oregons finest on the word) each item she produces is one of a kind, tailor made or limited edition. Now that's special.

La Sylphide Capelet

Another thing? Custom-made-to-order listings. Such as this Gem silk lace dress and antique lace cape....

This all goes on While i wile away my time waiting for Kate Towers to post a new item (she has a baby, I suppose it's excusable....)

TIP OFF #1:

Check out http://ccwearschanel.blogspot.com/ for her amazing interview with artist Mark shwartz

Pattern, Picture, and Principals

2009-04-04T21:13:00.008+01:00

I love finding random artist inspiration trawling on the internet. I came across prints by Japanese artist Shintaro Miyake (such as the one above, Someday, the truth will (2008, Acrylic and pencil on paper), and instantly felt the need to wear this crazily-floral patterned butterfly sleeve minidress, that I found in a topshop bargain sale (£6!!!!) at the beginning of last summer. Miyake, born in uses paintings, sculpture, photography and performance art to create childish and dream-like fairy tale images, with hints of traditional Japanese art. I love all of it! Especially the long tongued Youkai above.

At any rate, I'll return to an old favourite for the design world, and see what I can pull up in terms of inspiration, shall I?

Detail of Sea Serpents IV (Klimt)

Since we're going with this, I'll look at Klimt's colourwork shall I? Sex and sexuality is the obvious core of Klimt's work; women his preoccupation. A rather "pudding-faced" man, he nonetheless seemed to be magnetic, having fathered at least seven children despite still living with his mother and spinster sisters. (Must be the same magneism that...well...Lucian Freud). At any rate, his paint work is sensual, his colours vivacious, and the aesthetics inspiring, still as groundbreaking today as in 1897 when Klimt was one of a group of artists wanting to break free of the stuffy, constricted Old Vienna that had formed them. (and, undoubtedly, added to the quality of their work) They established “the Secession” (stylistically allied with Art Nouveau). Soon everything from fashions to furniture changed as the artists experimented their way through. Klimt was the first president of the Secession and led the way in a most sartorial; he favoured long, voluminous indigo smocks with embroidered white epaulets.I'll have a go at tracking down some easy luxury, eh? And while I'm at it, anything indigo that one could move in. For instance, such a jumpsuit (really, I'm not obsessed with jumpsuits. Ok, maybe a little, but it's because I don't own one! yet.)

Costume national Jumpsuit @ Luisaviaroma

I come back to Costume National time and time again... for window licking. Don't you love that the french call window shopping "leche-vitrine"? You can just see les petits enfants du bois with their noses pressed up at the window of the patisserie. Or spying on something particularly interesting...

Anyway, moving on..... (I do tangent, you must forgive me). Perhaps we'll rhyme? I present a look from Society for Rational Dress (Such a brilliant name.) Dazzling. I want to meet this girl and take her out to coffee and talk about Klimt.... yes ok so I know she's 'fictional and infact a model, but anyone this well styled *must* be interesting.

(look! I even got the blues and burnt orange in there. SFRD fall 09, you are a saviour)

It's ironic, as thore clothes would make me behave in a most irrational manner. However, the name is actually a cultural reference, dating back t the Victorian suffragette/women's rights movement (I should muse as to whether I should switch the movement back to "Sister Suffragettes!" from Mary Poppins). The rational dress society was the Eglish equivalent of the bloomer movement and, founded in 1881, it encapsulated its directive in an article in the Society’s Gazette:

“The Rational Dress Society protests against the introduction of any fashion in dress that either deforms the figure, impedes the movements of the body, or in any way tends to injure the health. It protests against the wearing of tightly-fitting corsets; of high-heeled shoes; of heavily-weighted skirts, as rendering healthy exercise almost impossible; and of all tie down cloaks or other garments impeding on the movements of the arms. It protests against crinolines or crinolettes of any kind as ugly and deforming….[It] requires all to be dressed healthily, comfortably, and beautifully, to seek what conduces to health, comfort and beauty in our dress as a duty to ourselves and each other.”

Nifty historical information, that. Oh, one does like to drop all over the place in this blog.

Now, moving on to his fondness for gold and silver, I would just like to put out there, that everyone's so obsessed with Balmain's jackets that this little beaut has dropped right by them...

Balmain boucle Jacket @ Luisaviaroma

Oh, and his Japonisme....

Jean Paul Gaultier @ LuisaViaRoma sale

Patterns patterns. The man knew a good pattern. Talking of patterns, Suno, that Kenyan label I mentioned here? Well, it was founded by Max Osterweis, a filmmaker in his 30s based in New York City. He was was so horrified by the violence that ravaged Kenya's following the messy election run (understatement), that he decided to try and introduce industrial contracts to artisans in the slums, starting Suno. His statements completely match my own ideas regarding the best solutions for africans themselves in the long term, saying "Writing a fat check doesn't always help... I wanted to create long-term employment and also set an example to show that investment in Africa need not be about building more safari lodges." Designed by Erin Beatty, a Parsons New School for Design graduate, the collection uses vintage Kangas and Kenyan-crafted fabrics and designs, but it is not going to be a kitschy "ethic collection; every silhouette had to work first in plain black, wearable to an art opening or the red carpets of NYC.

According to Time, he's right on trend...

P.s. AONY has now been reincarnated for a full week! 2 posts a day... aren't I nice?

Filling in with spontaneous (not so much) brilliancy!

2009-04-04T04:26:00.002+01:00

Bad experiment gone wrong. I WAS trying to challenge myself though, by attempting to work out total shredded material, in mediums that I couldn't shade with (only shape and form) -I.E Fineliner

Iris Van Herpen s/s09

Oh .......tollywash.... I don't have the picture anymore.

*pause*

ummmm. oh well. here's a link to a post with the same collection, you'll get the drift.. It makes Balmain look tame.
http://tobaccoandleather.blogspot.com/2009/04/iris-van-herpen.html

Another one. This is photographing really badly because the tones are so light, but whatevs. (oh I sound so mature. Don't I just?) In this, I tried to do the whole skin/lips using just yellow and purple, and only loose outlining, to contrast with the really graphic superhero-type makeup. (ooh wow, complementary colours...subconscious colour theory?) They make up the body of the picture, except some hints of blue and wisps of brown.

And, once again proving I cannot hold a thing straight:

Dammit, why am I doing this when I should be painting venice? ART EXAM SKETCHBOOK NEEDS TO BE DONE AND YOU ARE PLAYING AROUNG WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND DOODLES AND FINELINER.

Well, if you aren't aware from following that link up there, Iris Van Herpen is insanely cool. A dutch designer, her lookbook, in between fall/winter and spring and summer, is interspersed with such jollies as "Mummification" and "Chemical Crows" with highy conceptual photography. Excellent. (I have a fondness for cross-the-media. Which is why I will be forcibly making Hedi Slimane Godfather to my children. If I don't have children, then it'll be the Debut collection/painting series/illustrations to novelwitty novel//photcopying machine/coffee making machine (hey, got to think small occasionally too.) At any rate, back to Iris. Graduating from Arnhem Art academy in the Netherlands, she hit the blogosphere by producing such innovative silhouettes as, well, this...

no one will soon forget her collections, with their textured, sculpted (Built? They are on architectural proportions), woven, shredded and whatnot pieces, and the dramatic hair and makeup (I'm seriously supressing the urge to all out Soulja boy. Superman! Camoflage! it's like the sexy marines crossed with the fantastic 4!). Made from materials like leather, iron, brass, chains and ‘hair’ (hair? Seriously? Oh well, I suppose that's what baby alpaca is....and cashmere), the clothing, though often highly impractical (see-standard sizes in doorframes) can also be suprisingly wearable. See below, rather than above.

Pictures via fashionIndie

...and with that, I leave you. as there is no good reason for me to be awake.

"Never mind, dear, we're all made the same, though some more than others." -Noel Coward

2009-04-03T16:24:00.002+01:00

Nots: Turn off music by going to bottom of page, then click.

Oh what a man. What a man what a man. I mentioned my love for Noel Coward yesterday, did I not? At any rate, and some point soon, no doubt, I shall become depressed by the state of the fellows I know today and invariably start stalking Fred Astaire dancing with firecrackers on youtube, and decide that I need to run off with a 40s Cabaret act. *Shrug*. Or a dandy. I can be their beard, as the high chance is they won't bend in my direction. At any rate, I feel like I should loll around with vogues in cigarette holders, being wittily entertained, as I drink too much coffee and admire the shape of men's hats. In fact, I think I should just become Diana vreeland, and surround myself with white peacocks at friends' clifftop morrocan palaces, commanding everyone at Vogues copy department to write in quill pens. Wintour's got nothing on laVreeland. laVreeland stuck backplasters on Jack Nicholson's naked bottom ("wonderful condition! I must say your chemistry is really good! Plump and pink.") in crowded restaurants. Which incedentally, allowed him to carry on filming the Shining. Perhaps it would be more contextually appropriate for me to wander around admiring men's bottoms? Oh the thought...

As I sit here, I muse that, if I am to continue being lazy and using photobooth, I should at least become superbly flexible like Dree Hemmingway.

And steal her coat, shirt, jeans and shoes. I would say hair but... yeah. (TFS via KnightCat)

At any rate, I'm feeling some oversize menswear, truly inspired tailoring wouldn't go amiss, always with the feminine, the feminine. Oh dear, this is reminding me I need to re-sew the sleeve of my Silk tuxedo shirt, my favourite, which a friend ripped at a gig in November. Ripped more, I should say, as it was quite artfully ripped before. Now it just looks slovenly. A vintage silk Turnbull and Asser... *sad eyes*

Yves Saint Laurent

But of course, these must be paired with killer shoes. I'm thinking spiky heels, cages, anything goes.

Pyramid-high sandal boot at topshop boutique

Georgina Goodman- Nicole Sandals

Candela NYC @ Asos Red

At any rate, today I'm taking my inspiration from Paul smith, and cooking.Why? Black, gray and red. 1) I love the look of red peppers as they fry. There's something about smooth Chilli red on rough black skillet 2) Paul smith paring red jumpers with grey suits. It always works.

Je te presente... (to prove that I do, in fact, wear trousers)

Try to ignore whatever the hell my hand is doing. It's white hard to get in frame in 10 seconds.

"J'ai beaucoup de chance, je suis souvent heureuse. Je ne me rappelle que du dernier bonheur" - Doillon

2009-04-03T00:46:00.002+01:00

Nanker_Phledge @ TFS

I've realised that I'm in a very Doillon-esque mood around now. Lou doillon, incaase you didn't know, is the MAW (Model, actress, whatever) daughter of Jane Birkin and director Jaques Doillon. She had pegged rock chick style by the age of 9 (Indian leggings under short dresses, worn with Grateful Dead T-shirts and rollerblades, and long dreadlocks). By 11, she had had her first tattoo inked. That's proper hardcore. Anyway, a creative partner at denim giant Lee Cooper at the minute (not a bad acolade, considering it's one shared with JC/DC), and a darling of French theater, she is mother to a small child, and the bearer of many amazing hats.

Luca* at TFS

5 or so years ago she dropped Paris upon the death aged 20 of Anno Birkin, her cousin. Milla Jojovich, Birkin's friend, embraced her, saying ‘Leave Paris, come to New York.’ So that's what she did, with a one year old child in tow. Jojovich wanted Doillon to see the clothes at the infantile Jojovich Hawk, apparently. But they spend more time "talking about incredibly geeky things like physics and what we’ve just read in American Scientist."Who knew? The power of the MAWs is astounding. At any rate, the Lou Doillon netflix list is. On the multi-talented front, I'm really digging her collection for Lee cooper. Check it... It's largely inspired by 1921 Chaplin movie 'the Kid'.

At any rate, She seems to be full of wonderful anecdotes, stories, and helpful strikes of brilliance. And amazing hair; apparently, Birkin (Jane) taught her to wash it as little as possible, and rinse it with coke for that tousled amazingness. (I suppose it does smell better than beer). She's been there, done that- fallen on the Missoni Catwalk, because she was in a giggle fit as she was put on after gisele with her mile long legs. Perhaps she's more english in that regard- humour here tends to be the laugh at yourself kind; in France, it is more laugh at others. Just look at the popularity of Canteloup and "La revue de presque" (Of course, this is a MAHOUSSIVE generalisation.) At any rate, she seems to get on in New York better, being the self proclaimed oddball of the stunning and stylish Birkin broad. I quote "This is a place where anything goes, and no one cares or judges. I go out in my enormous hat, dressed as a boy, with a fake moustache and people say, 'What a lovely moustache!" She has also proclaimed that if she were to meet her young self, she's quite sure the be-dreadlocked one would be slapping her for becoming so bourgeoise. Ah well, come dice Il Purillo; "Non posso mica essere simpatico a tutti" (Can't possibly be nice to everybody)

At any rate, her style? She still gets dressed to Rock and roll in the mornings, although she has given in to the appeal of designers, whom she went out of her way to rebel against in her teenage heyday. Favourite designers are among Ann Demeulemeester, Maison Martin Margiela and Tsumori Chisato, and Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier and John Galliano for haute-couture. SHe's also the muse for Givenchy; not bad. Although, I wouldn't mind being Her grandmother on the muse note; Muse to Noel Coward. Brilliant. Did I mention how much I love Noel Coward? A comic genius. I Could send hours youtubing 'Nina from Argentina' and 'Mad Dogs and Englishman'. And his clothing? Impeccable.

BAck to the point. What made me realise this secret, latent inspiration? I found an ancient photo of me chanelling rock-chick-chic. Otherwise known as Groupie Goes Opera. If you could see properly, that coat is Burgundy Jumbo corduroy, and it has a tie waist belt. Like a giant dressing gown. It is appropriately and affectionally named "The pimp coat". One day I will post a greater view of its pimpaliciousness. Unfortunately, any photos I do have of it, I would not show my parents. And that is my rule of thumb for the internets tubes.

Actually... here's one that I can live with... a tad too candid, but still.

What am I holding? Oh. Right. Umbrella.

At any rate, Back to the present. Beyond the lust-worthy jackets of darlingLou, as she will now be known, Is my own fun time playing. On l'appellera.... la deuxième partie de OGG.

Vintage Mink capelet thingy. Extremely long blue tangle of beads- who knows? It was a 13th birthday present. 'Velvet' Navy wrap dress with cap sleeves, Cabled tights from pretty polly, Asos heels. There is a reason behind the two watches- I'm keeping my dad's Audemars piguet running, since it's on one of those mechanisms that wind using movement.

I'm decidedly sans-maquillage for a rock chick, but hey- I might look like a crazy person (more of...) if I wandered around my house in party mode.

Whaling away at the mission

2009-04-01T23:25:00.007+01:00

I am a culinary genius.

I just made the best pasta sauce ever using:
1 onion
1 clove garlic
2 rashers bacon
oregano
Basil
Peppadew pepper things. (around....6?)
seeds of change cherry tomato and parmesan sauce (like...5 tablespoons. Oh I dunno. Until the rest was coated)
Tomato puree (small squirt. shhh. i was improvising)
teaspoon [bitter, homemade] marmalade (!) {it adds a somewhat smoky quality to the sauce. goes well with the bacon}
3/4 teaspoon sugar (have to balance out all that tomato)

Pretty much added it to the olive-oiled skillet in that order. and then water, to let it reduce. And then grated a TONNE of cheddar on top.

Haha. that was more of a mental note to myself, wasn't it? But it really was tasty. I can reccomend it

Anyway. Healthy, happy, 'n well fed. And wearing a whale print dress. My fringe dried strangely this morning. So it looks like I'm n the 60s, somewhat.

Great cut for giving you curves. Not so great for slopey shoulders like mine, when the sleeves have a tendency to slip down...

Excuse the photobooth. Yes, I do have a fairly fun DSLR that I would be larking around with, except I've locked myself in to do revision, and I'm not up to that much contortion at the moment.

Having thoroughly worn myself out with my own latent activism (Just where did YOU come from? Eh?) I now go back to my dire for rampant laziness. I think, in these terms, I would say the Scandinavians do it best.

Wood Wood Sabine Jumpsuit

Having said that, lazy styles aren't exclusive to Scandinavia; not by a long shot. It just seems to help.

Minimarket Dress- 2500 SEK (around £211/$305)

Minimarket Box pants @ Mint & Vintage 900kr (£76/$109)

All Mint & Vintage. 270-1900kr. From right, c/w - Edun, Les Petites..., Rutzou, Rules by Mary

We'll try France shall we? I am going to live there, after all. Loose tailoring is the thing he french do well. I mean, there's something just so Garance worthy aabout a woman in men's trousers, in pleats, in great tailoring. Tailoring techniques then? Try it loose...

Paul and joe sister @ Asos

Pleated...

Poleci @ ASOS

Shirred....

Ichi @ ASOS

Gathered....

Totem jumpsuit @ Asos

Trimmed...

Belle & Bunty For ASOS

and, finally (with some tongue in cheek) Ruched...

Sass and bide PVC Blackrats @ ASOS

I'm not sure how, but that turned fairly one-piece intensive somewhere in the middle there. Here, a dress, to balance it out...
(...piped. HA, you thought I would't find a technique, didn't you? I Didn't do textiles for nothing!) Dontcha love the clashing primary florals with the plain black piping? Another thing... I don't actually really like ASOS, I'm not sure why I got stuck on it... laziness, I suppose.

ASOS Zip Front Flower Print Dress

Proving the Brits can pull it off in traditional style, we have Motel(rocks.com)

The 'Kate' dress-motelrocks.com (Bargain £49)

And of course, NY Kings of casual cool, Obesity and speed.

Thus continues my mission to proove that Uggs and looking like Hilary duff is not a requirement of being a slob.
Misfits sweater from Obesity and speed

It's appropriate dammit. It's individuality; I shake my controversy stick.

2009-04-01T18:23:00.010+01:00

Oh how I love Sandals. Love love love. Love and envy. Because of course I'm bitter and flat broke at the moment, and saving up for a bike for Paris, and saving up for living in Paris. Because, it would probably be tragic if I became the bag lady with 100 pairs of Marni lucite heels in my bin bags. Actually- shoes make the outfit, so I suppose I would be a styling bin lady. And I could live in one of these.

Oh Tyra. oh the insensitivity. Loves it.

My sandal envy is rather insane though. it's getting out of hand.

Sea of Shoes' Jane's beloved Ann Demeulemeesters

Louis Vuitton sandals- Amber Rose on Jak and Jil

I do realise that we are in the midst of dire economic (..environmental, socio-political, culture-changing) circumstances at the moment. But, one still finds the eye drawn to vanity and fripperies and very nicely made shoes. And anyone who says they aren't to anything, that is to art, or literature, or nice pots and pans, perhaps rugs, curtains, boat gadgets, music; I believe that those people are one o two things. And that would be 1) liars, or 2)robots.

Why else, in the middle of the blitz, would people painstakingly dye their legs with tea and then attempt to draw seams up the back, to make it look like they were wearing silk stockings? Why was there even a black market in silk stockings? Naturally, darlings, it is because people always want to be able to identify themselves. It's a basic human instinct. In the age of internet, you see people trying to "unique-ify" themselves in every which way. Joining forums about collecting tea-cozies, tracking down obscure 20s speakeasy singers and idolizing them- its all the search to be independant. In our parents time, they didn't have this. There were 4 television channels, everyone had the rubix cube, the yoyo. These phases. They still had them, sort of, in the 90s. But not touching everyone. Not to the same extent as say, 60s/70s.

My mother remarked the other day, when she went to look around Chelsea (the art school), that what was odd, was that everyone was trying so hard to look different; all these teenage girls (and boys) trying to hard to be unique, that they all looked the same. Like gossip girl characters or something. That made me laugh. We're all the same, aren't we, this generation. Some succeed; look at susie bubble. But then, they will invariably have copycats. (Sienna miller, Cory Kennedy, we've seen it all before....)

Yes, OUR trend is individalism. Rather, its not a new trend, but its one that the age of multiculturalism and technology has liberated. It's always been there, this impulse. This strange psychology and wish to make a mark on society.

Ah, sweet individuality. How wickedly you evade us.

One of the reasons that my (veryshortlived) filler-in blog was called red lipstick and macaroons? I shall share a story with you. Putting on lipstick is something I rarely do. More than lipgloss, I'll give you that, but still. Rare. But there's something about lipstick that reminds me, even amid waxiness and clown-like smudges, that I am a girl (Albeit not one good at putting it on herself. Other people's makeup? I'm fairly whizzy. Mine? Oh dear god someone call an ambulance, a clown escaped). But anyway, reminds me that I am a woman. Female. There's something romantic about good old-fashioned red lipstick. My grandmother, my mother, my maternal grandmother whom I never met. They all wore it. Perhaps I have a crazy great great uncle somewhere who did too? But reading this, I guarantee, to any female, it's the lipstick that hits you. I can't put myself in these women's shoes, but the lipstick? The soap? Yeah. It gives a connection. A point of empathy. I present an extract, in fact, from the diary of Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin DSO who was amongst the first British soldiers to liberate Bergen-Belsen Concentration camp in 1945...

I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywher, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen.

It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing could save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference.

Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated.

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Heartbreaking. No?

This will sound heartless and, in actuality, it suppose really is. (But not out of any malicious intent, Lord no.)
But normally, I have to stop listening when people start talking about these things. It's a form of self-protection I suppose; you can never really comprehend the magnitude of such horror. In history lessons and the like, it's quite common to detach, to talk about these things in abstract terms and euphemisms that couch the travesties that have passed so that they are not quite so soul destroying. Selfish, Human nature, isn't it? And it becomes so that few situations could actually put the horrific tragedy of Holocaust in scope because we're so used to hearing about it in numbers, statistics and euphemism. It's only when you see those shoes piled up at the Holocaust Museum, when you see something so mundane, but in such numbers, that the soul crushing comes to me. Because that makes these people from generations past, well...human to me. That sounds disgusting. But that's what made it hit home. So, this lipstick story really stuck with me. I realised just how important and integral a sense of individuality is to us, and from that, design, self expression. These women had been living as numbers. And that was my little ode to them. To their individuality.

The macaroons part was less emotional. Really, it was because I really, really, really like macaroons. Yummy, huh?

So I challenge you to say that our appearance is meaningless. Frippery. It's not. Not to us. This credit crunch is certainly changing the Fashion Industry, giving it a 'conscience' as it were. But it will survive. We need it to. Change? Certainly. Years of inflation have, well, inflated the ego. But now we have adaption. Global fashion executives (e.g. MaxMara) are forging ties with artisans in East Africa, trying to provide an upswing in employment in the Nairobi slums; and the ethical conscience is costing them; credit lines don't work in Kenya, where interest is so high that its standard to pay in cash, and the slum women are to savvy to accept a deal which says "I'll pay you when I get paid". Look to other brands like Suno for up and coming fashion grads partnering with local development projects in Kenya.

Suno Graphic print dress.

They don't want pity-buying. They're proving themselves, these artisans. They're showing that with training, they can match any country in the world for quality. They're working their own way. Isn't that the best kind of help we can give then? Because I know that I want that dress no matter where on god's green (turning brown and blue) earth it was made.

So yes. I will lust over my shoes (Or, rather, not my shoes, Jane's shoes.) And I will continue to do so, way down the line, till the point where I'm corrupting my small granddaughters to love ruby red shoes, and the young boys to steal grandpa's cane.

I will do so, whatever the weather. Unless, of course, the world explodes. Famine, overpopulation, overfishing, war, climate change. I would say 50/50 we survive the end of the century? Aparently, Martin Rees - Lord Rees - President of the Royal Society and Astronomer Royal, agrees with me. (or I with him?)

This crazy weather...

2009-03-31T18:27:00.007+01:00

Just last week I was wrapped up against hail..

....Is making me act somehat crazy. I've been baking this morning, (Crazy no.1) only to find out that the oven was broken, call an oven technician, and have to REFRIGERATE MY BATTER. noooooooooooooooo. (It was already mixed). (crazy no.2=overly emotional reaction)

Crazy no.3= Did I mention what I was wearing? Yeah. um.... 40s dior.

Decided to change before the electrician called.

Anyway. The sadness of my cupcakes being postponed has pushed me into clothes watching. Having hooked-n-eyed myself into a teency weency boned corset for that thing, understandably I've been loking at more comfy options. Circa debut Alexander Wang.

Etsy.

Babooshka Geometric Oversized Boyfriend Cardigan in charcoal grey

From babooshka, the "BEST OF PHILLY". An awesome designer playing with proportions in a very wearable way. ($12-90) I love the proportions...don't you? Interesting proportions, sleeves and the suchlike, can really just bridge that gap between "Immalazybetchannidunwannawearnuffinkthathurts" and just damned cool. Wonder if they ship international...doesn't say. Too cool to care. tis all in the attitude... filters into the clothes. Also the colours. Minty fresh is just right for spring... and they have some tomato red. Hm...tomato and mint salad....

Again Babooshka. Mint Jubilee Cotton Paper Bag H/W Mini

Then again, the draping's all too important. Check the sillhouettes. uhmazing. Then you can be lazy as you please. Vintage is always good to look for draping. Jaymee purcell from the hands of SOS queenka's ATLANTIS VINTAGE

Jaymee papell Ruffled Dress - Atlantis Vintage

Don't you love dresses? THe utimate in laziness. always wear them around school, always get asked where I'm going. As if I need an excuse.... One piece of clothing. No coordination neccesary, except perhaps with your shoes. You can, essentially, wear just two items of clothing (One, if you're feeling scottish). It's not exactly the sunniest here in england, so I am wearing shoes with my Velvet (The brand, not the material) Jersey wrap dress,that I changed into after having decided that innet city electricians may not appreciate Me wandering around in Vintage Dior, and Vintage Dior may not appreciate oven grease.

Damn, I'm flexible.

So. Examinig dresses as the ultimate form of getting away with laziness, I present our good friend Dries Van Noten. Reduced By half to $436. I wish I had just $1 that wasn't owed to my mum for college apps/visits/train fares...

Back to the more affordable. I don't proclaim to be much of an Ebay fiend, I can barely find a thing, if I'm honest (No patience). So, I was quite pleased with myself considering potential future hauls from Bluebird Vintage, especcially their Jumpers and dresses.... oh to be lazy and only wear one piece of clothing.

All bluebirdvintage

Also to watch for? Their Tweet collection of Playsuits. Rolling out s/s 09. Here's a screenshot. It's the best I can do.

But, check this dress on their Ebay store:

Hopefully I've inspired you to slob around a tad.

I'm off to see if the oven's fixed.... turrah

Explanations, life, life, explanations. Still no explanation for, of or about life.

2009-03-30T21:05:00.009+01:00

I have found the new meaning of life, it's kshocolat, and it doesn't do spelling.
And I ate it in one.

Right, so, I've locked myself in in preparation for exams.

If i look shocked, its of from lack of makeup, hair, of the fact that I'm wearing a men's tee with a smily face on the front and generally not being a fashion ICON like i would be if I weren't well.. here. It's because...8 posts in two days? Either I'm prolific, which we know I'm not, or procrastinating. It's the latter, by the way. ( Vorrei posticipare! vorrei! vorrei!)

That, or it could be my dad's theory that to much screens turns you into a gogglebox. Which always seems very unthreatening, like being turned into a smurf. And so, instead of being shock, you are slowly witnessing, in real time, the doomed fate of every teenager of le monde occidentale.

But anyway, back to work advoidance (I mean this both literally, and in the sense that I change the topic back towards it.
This is a page of my planner, (homework diary, whatever. It's a moleskine softcover 18 month page-per week. They don't make it in soft cover anymore... I'm mad.I like it being bendy. Oh well, doesn't finish till December, perhaps I'll start a petition for bendy covers to continue? Anyway, fairly standard.
You can really tell those last few weeks I was starting to get restless, due to the progressive size and intricacies of my doodles.
From one doodle a day (ish)
To progressively large, shaded in fineliner, (and morphed from a garance illustration)To drawing with left hand, and holding the pen funny To using my pentel squeezable fillable watercolourpen/paintbrush thing to smudge.

Yeah, I would say I was bored.

Adding fuel to the fire.... Or taking it away, I suppose

2009-03-30T19:47:00.003+01:00

(Click to zoom) Clockwise from top left: Electra Amsterdam Alexander Girard "tree of life" edt. TV spread, Snake Bike lock-Fred flare, 3G Bikes Flamingo, Pinup-ridingpretty, The ditty Bops album cover, bicyclecape-cyclechic, Ann demeulemeester scarf, Carrie bike basket, Pin up image-ridingpretty, Cyclechic cherry blossom pannier, man on a bike, ann demeulemeester talon-heeled boots, Cyclechic tartan box bag and helmet, Yellow electra amsterdam tulip, red electra amsterdam Alexander Girard, Cyclodelic brabad (for handlebars).

Bikes are so hot right now, they on FIAH. I'm waiting to see Kanye pedal on the ltd. edt. Chanel bike, perhaps Gucci, perhaps early tiffany.It doesn't take a genius to work out that recessionistas (I shudder at the term) and eco-warriors (Another shudder) Have made bikes very visible in recent months, but wouldn't you say that they're just doing something that most people should be doing anyway? Not that I don't admire them for their advocacy, but rather, I marvel that they're even considered abnormal. Surely it's just logic? Bikes are pretty, fun, practical and a cheap way of getting around, but I'm not going to preach. Instead, I take the view of Copenhagen Cycle Chic, who claim that rather than there being a large number of cyclists in copenhagen, there are simply alot of people in copenhagen who cycle; in their heels, in their suits. Normal, everyday people. Not crazy warriors. And you don't have to kit out in lycra, nor know who made your brakes. (Just how to tell if they've been cut)

Check out Riding Pretty, who makes helmet covers, like so...
Even better with a matching cape...wouldn't you say?
At any rate, very Karl lagerfeld

She has been known to rock a sherlock homes look...

But, with cyclodelic opening at topshop, with agyness dejn and her bike popping up every which way I turn, and with my plans for transport in paris very cyclo-centric, I can't very well just ignore it. I am, after all, trying to choose a bike.

MAYBE ONE OF THESE?:

All holytaco.com/celebrities-riding-invisible-bicycles

Ok, enough humour. The bikes:

The electra Amsterdam "Girard tree of life" or

The Electra Amsterdam "Girard madonna" or

The Electra Gypsy or

The Electra Amsterdam Tulip or

THe electra Ladies Nexus or

The PAshley Princess sovereign (old skool) But in regency Green
or

Pashley poppy or

Velorbis Victoria Ladies Classic or

3G flamingo

or. get this. 3g bike with rocket lights:

I should probably stop before I persuade myself into swomething like this that clashes with a) holiday b) Orientation week. I could probably fit in the july one, but raising £1,300 by july would be...tricky, what with exams and all. Who knows?

Take me higher

2009-03-30T04:26:00.005+01:00

Nina Hjorth-Why shouldn't I admire the architectural/structural/aesthetic genius that is Nina Hjorth?

I believe I have height envy. I want to be short. Not 5'10. Short. I want to wear heels. I want to have an excuse to wear heels, and not have to dodge the flaying hands of my best friends, most of whom happen to be around 5'3, and who claim that I'm not allowed because it makes them feel short. oh. Thanks. SO what, I never get to wear pretty shoes that elongate the leg and are the only thing that fit my excessively high arches? (Yes, in a bizarre twist of creation, the mos comfortable shoes for me have the highest heel.) I Want to wear Charlotte Olympia, and rush violets on the street with plum coloured spikes.

Not just that.... I want to wear Nicholas Kirkwoods.

With bleached out two-tone jeans by Siwy @asos

HEll, I want all of SOS's shoes. The ann demeulemeester's. But also these givenchys especially. I mean, her shoe collection warrants contact fom kanye. Oh wait that already happened.

Seaofshoes.typepad.com

At any rate, my snakeskin-print cage sandals are the first step in my pretence that I Am short. By september, and Paris, I shall leave flats in the art room, where they belong. And bike- hah, beat that. You were going to comment on the cobbled streets.

I want to jump into these ripples of petit filous...

2009-03-30T01:44:00.000+01:00

ok, yeah, so the lime green pannier isn't exactly blending in, but firstly, it's straight out of robert ryan, seconsly, robert ryan reminds me of birdcages. birdcages remind me of Prague. Prague reminds me of dusky colours. And it's awesome?! The Carrie basket. google it.

When will it be summer? I was reminded by the dusky pink in that last post, coupled with the petit filous pot I'm eating, of Comme des Garcons, and then the sheer amount of antique colours out there on the runways. Brain connections, eh? Although I'm told its the colour of the Sky in Paris, I also believe its the same colour as the mold I found in the Washing machine detergent drawer. Meh. Mould can be so on trend. Actually...think about all those crazy colours and crystalline patterns... *Archives mould as source of inspiration* I should probably point out that noone's been living in this house since december.

thecherryblosomgirl.com

As noted, pastels seem to be everywhere Fall and winter. And of course with pastels in mind, you have to head to the cherry blossom girl. You just do. It's like birdcages and Prague. DO you really need an explanation? Could I even give you one? Answer: Unlikely. Anyway, her photoshop must be on permanant vintage setting as, whilst documenting her life, style and times, everything is bathed in a soft glow. Beyond that, I want her sofa.... Her closet too wouldn't go amiss.

On to greater things. Prada's inspiration for the MiuMiu s/s09? exploring our european heritage. Possibly because there's no unified italian heritage? (Far too revolutionary and divided. Italy's a baby, in constitutional terms). Though fading dusty colours they hark back to a distant time, when the chemicals on photographic paper decayed in such a pretty manner, (Now its more likely that someone's put lined paper in the printer and caused a jam) the silhouettes present are decidedly modern. Architectural, almost. Like old cartography. I want a dress made out of old charts, screw newspaper dresses. (although, as far as they go, I wouldn't mind one of these...

reminds me of Barbara I Gongini A/W09

So, the pastels.

Comme des garcons:

Miu Miu

Prada (DUSKY LEATHER GLADIATOR SKIRT! HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET TO SAY THAT?)

LV

Christopher Kane

Erin Fetherstone

How does she pull off a skinhead????

In conclusion.... I want spring to come so I can whip out these babies....

Peace out. Notice the rosy glow given by poor lighting and photobooth. Not only mould, but industria school lighting too!

one fine spring day in the woods

2009-03-30T00:16:00.000+01:00

A ditty: Photo credit to me, or my friend p*, whose face you shall not see.

oh, and Blondie is me...

*for the ones with me in. The floor length black skirt has a rational explanation, by the by. I have to wear one most days too.

A little colour theory....

2009-03-29T23:36:00.000+01:00

What happens when you mix Balmain with maths? And not the obvious, (see geometry, structure, and shape) But histograms? Colour theory is what happens. From this:

into a colourful histogram. Fun fun. 3D Histogram is an open-source web app, developed so that people could have a better understanding of colour in design, and what colours went well together. A great tool to remember for eventual colour theory classes, decoration schemes, or critical analysis of paintings. apparently, it shows the overall color composition of an image by "placing cubes in a 3D space whose X, Y, and Z values correspond to the R, G, and B values of the color being graphed." But, to make it simpler for those who can't quite visualize using just concentration of the blighters, each cube is "painted with the color it represents, and then sized according to its relative frequency in the image." If all else fails, it's pretty and multicoloured, and it moves.
So... next time I decorate a room, perhaps I'll use a Christopher kane dress?

I feel alive! Modernists and pirates ahoy.

2009-03-29T19:31:00.000+01:00

Once more, for your viewing pleasure, I tackle the mess that is my life and attempt something productive. However, you'll have to bear with me. There's a lot to catch up on. Did I mention I'm moving to Paris come september? Yes, once more I migrate, this time away from the student wasteland that is the city I currently habitate, and off to the 15th arrondissement, 15 Rue letellier, Parsons Paris, to be precise.

....Allow me to feel just a little pleased with myself.

Anyway, so I now push on you Emily Ryan, a designer producing amazing silhouettes out of Portland, Oregon. Someone "continually inspired by 1920's couture, science fiction, and Japanese fashions" is, in my book, someone to definitely keep a note on, especially when she can pleat like THAT. I've never so much wanted to wear all grey. The structuring on her garments is intense, fascinating and makes you wonder; the best kind of structuring to have. It ends up as a strange cross between le corbusier and something frothy and playful, like a couer de pirate video. A definite achievment. Prices range from $78-$700 (And, looking carefully, I would say that's directly related to manpower/time spent making the piece)

Barbarella on birds, origami on a dress, the spinning center of the universe... on a dress

And finally, a "Coeur de Pirate" video: