walk across the room like naomi campbell.

Huh. Decided to go to shows today after all, although my passes are for thursday and friday i went in on general admission tickets to see Antipodium and Illionaire.  By the time we arrived, fresh from uni and looking like impoverished students we learnt that there had been a huge power cut in the morning right before the Zimmerman show, and it had put the whole schedule off kilter. Fine by us, Wild Fire was offering cheap $10 cocktails with delicious honey infused vodka, ginger liqueur, lemon jush, mint and crushed ice. It was yummy and refreshing, exactly what was needed to pass the time before the Illionaire show.

To be quite frank, i wasn't impressed at all by Illionaire. It's a street label, and yeah i know it's hip and trendy and all the cool kids love it. But for me the whole thing was a huge shambles. The models were all very inexperienced, practically sliding down the catwalk, thrusting their legs forward and chest back in, order to balance themselves, but making them look very very silly. Then a girl tripped, but covered it. Then another tripped and started LAUGHING. I'm not even kidding, she was laughing as she walked off. I was so stunned. Maybe it's their first FW, and they're new and they're not taking it seriously, and it's just a bit of money, but for the buyers, editors (hello glynnis trail-nash!) and designers (and you, sarah jane clarke and heidi middleton), it is a very serious week. They should show some respect and maintain a straight face. Anyway rant over.

 

Basically the clothes were one big rip off from other designers, Australian designers even, there were some Therese Rawsthorne frill appliques, some Josh Goot watercolour tye dye, and worst of all, a series of dresses in technicolour satins whose prints and panelling seemed lifted directly from Erdem SS 09! While i understand the importance of translating the overseas trends to an australian market and for the season in which australians could conceivably where them, it is also important to achieve original design, in my opinion.  The atmosphere was great though, and it was fun to watch, the audience was quite small and all seemed to be enjoying themselves, and at the end the whole ceiling erupted with gold confetti, showering the models and causing some trips, and really making the whole thing seem exciting. 

The Antipodium show was excellently styled, and after having gained fame through patronage by celebs like Alexa Chung and Pixie Geldof, it was so popular the whole room was packed, very very very hot and there were spectators lining the four walls. I'm glad to say that they didn't disappoint, the styling was wicked, the clothes were great, and the whole thing was a knock out. There was a lot of sheer, henry holland-esque sheer pants with spots of opaque on them, and some really loose but not ill-fitting silhouettes that i happen to love, with batwing sleeves, pale blue denim and a general it-girl vibe. I loved the Antipodium collection that included the celestial prints (now on sale in David Jones), and there were some great prints in the collection too, a lot of purple and yellow. 

Best, and most funny, of all were the tampon necklaces. Think you misheard me? You thought wrong. These necklaces were tampon collections on chains, although i dont think they were real tampons, i think they were perspex or some kind of metal, i couldn't quite see from my seat. They were great though, very tongue-in-cheek, expect lots of it-boys to have them round their necks in no time.

Oh, and not a fall in sight.

All in all a good day, with sightings of Margherita Missoni wearing the most gorgeous bright blue and white dress, The Sass and Bide duo, Kirrily Johnston, Wayne Cooper, Myf Shepherd (!!!), Ruby Rose with her girlfriend (a stunning blonde), Christina Hendricks from Harpers Bazaar in Balmain and Gareth Pugh boots (AH!) and, of course, another glimpse of the Sartorialist and Garance Dore. You could sense the tension as they came down the elevator from the bar, looked around at the assembled bar, and then walked away towards the opera house. Every girl in the room was quivering in their stilettos, hoping that they would be noticed and singled out for a photograph. No such luck for any of them, but it certainly was fun to watch them pretend not to notice Garance and Scott, laughing loudly, flipping their hair and fiddling with their phones. 

Also, since i've been twice now in casual casual outfits i think it's taken the edge off thursday and friday for me, which are my serious days with an ACTUAL pass haha. I'm going to wear a long, fluid silhouette on friday, i'm thinking my long black zimmerman negligee and josh goot skirt underneath with a stripy top or long sleeve tee underneath my mad cortes BRIGHT ORANGE silk jacket with collar detailing. A jolt of colour and pattern amongst the sea of black black black that is fashion week at the moment. Everyone, and i mean everyone is dressed the same, and it gets a little bit boring after a while. They all look great, don't get me wrong, but there is absolutely no colour. THe most exciting thing for me today was a kate lanphear-obsessee in a belted army shirt and stilettos with mini basketballs for heels. Talk about daring! 

What fun! Can't wait for tomorrow (screw uni, this is much more important).

the end of the illionaire show and all that lovely gold confetti!

mmmmm pushka. 

the models getting their make up OUTSIDE (???) before antipodium

wore: APC top, sportsgirl jumper, vintage skirt, marni bag, ballet shoes (not in picture). 

X

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Surreal, but nice.

Despite not having tickets or passes today i ended up at two shows, Camilla and Marc and Ginger and Smart, both Australian designers whom i respect, especially G&S, and both of whom lived up to my high expectations. 

Basically i was at the park hyatt visiting my second cousin before she goes back to hong kong, and was walking towards circular quay to go to uni when i ran into a girl i used to work with, who used to regale me with tales of when she was a freelance stylist and designer before freaking out, packing her bags and travelling for 2 years. I hadn't seen her since i left the shop where we both worked, and it was great to see her again, and apparently she is a stylist once more. When she learnt i was going to go to uni early and sit in the library like the nerd i am before class started she grabbed me and dragged me, kicking and screaming, naturally, into the shows, where i got my first taste of fashion week!

And let me tell you, it was delicious. 

Camilla and Marc, a deliciously girly label that offers up concoctions of sinful romance and innocence, was a feast for the eyes in mostly pastels (pinks and blues in particular) and beautiful pale greys. It borrowed quite heavily from Stella Mccartney with these cuffed trews and oversized pastel blazers, and then from Balmain when it sent out some inextricable distressed denim shorts and exaggerated shoulder-ed jacket in gold lame, but there was also some moments of original brilliance in the, long, loose, languid dresses and skirts in pale blue semi-sheer crepe de chine underneath the hard macs and trench coats partnered with chloe/marni esque patent leather wedges or leopard skin booties. 

The only problem for me, after this feast of softly draped and exquisitely fluid clothes for the chic Parisian (or parisian-phile), came a series of dresses in black with, quite frankly, some tacky stripes across them and paired with, of all things, charcoal leggings. The whole thing was such a departure from the quiet beauty of what had come before i was shocked, and when paired with the leopard skin booties it all became too much. But aside from that it was a lovely collection filled with covetable pieces. 

After this i saw Garance and the Sartorialist shooting a gorgeous kate lanphear-ite complete with bleached crop, distressed tee and blazer in front of the opera house. I had a bit of a starstruck moment and stared for a bit and then continued to dip my champagne cocktail on the observation deck haha. It was very surreal, but wonderful to see Garance in person, she is so stunning. She had these awesome stiletto heels on and a pair of cuffed loose trousers with a blazer and grey scarf, and all this beautiful curly hair. I'm so jealous!

Then came ginger and smart, Caz smuggled me into the third row with her, where i was sandwiched by her buyer friend and stylist boyfriend. It was all crazy, but they were lovely if slightly intimidatingly beautiful/stylish people, all making me wish i had a working camera. Anyway, we waited for a while in the darkened room, and then out comes these sheer harem pants or whatever and i was like... oh dear... but the collection as a whole was quite nice. 

It was desperately trying to be hip and tough with these leather-look leggings, biker embellishments and black black black (the editors will love it! more on that later), but there were some lovely josh goot-esque prints in there, and one particularly stunning maxi dress in a rainbow of colours with this kite/diamond print (go colour! see below). In fact all of the dresses at the close of the show in a Dries Van Noten like colour blend in unbelievably light silks were just gorgeous. The collection didn't really pull together as a whole, it was a bit over the shop, but if you pared away some of the over-the-top pieces, and the downright ugly (sheer harem pants, i ask you!) you were left with some beautifully constructed dresses with exposed zips on the front, and of course, great shoes and bags (not a leopard bootie in sight!)

The thing i love most about ginger and smart is that they ultimately design for themselves (Alexandra and Genevieve Smart) and they aren't really swayed too much by trends. They are pushing for the rock chick thing because they like it, they've been trying to reach a level of hard and soft that has eluded them for about 4 seasons now. It's not so much about what overseas designers are doing, like at C&M with the broad shoulder, it's about designing beautiful, interesting clothes. 

Anyway, to end i'll just say that i did feel like the odd one out, and not just because i technically didn't have a ticket. Thinking that i would be going on Friday i had reserved lots of my outfit for then (haha) and so was wearing my h&m duster trench as a skirt, teal stella mccartney for target top and a hot pink overshirt from nicola waite, with the marni bag (it's my uni bag haha). 

I was different, firstly because i wasn't in heels, but also because i wasn't in all black. Everyone, and i mean everyone, that i saw there was decked in head to toe black, high high high heels, lots of leather, studs, short hemlines, low necklines, a bit of fur (it's not that cold!), blazers/vests, a few hats, black knits, aviators and a bevvy of brightly coloured bags from YSL, Fendi, Marc Jacobs and i definitely saw at least one blood red birkin.

They looked great, the opaque opaque tights all of them were wearing made their legs look sky high, as did their louboutin stilettos, and they all looked like they could have worked for vogue paris. But after seeing look after look of black roll past it tended to get very monotonous. I was excited when i saw someone dressed in colour, even if it was neutrals, greys and browns. 

Clearly none of these fashion editors and buyers read my post about colour. :)

So it's resolved me for Friday, as well as taking some of the edge off. Since i was there in a less-than perfect outfit without heels i'm not so fussed anymore about what to wear for the shows on Friday (we're now going to the early morning young designer shows too woohoo!). I do know that i will wear colour though, specifically my Mad Cortes Jacket/Top/Overshirt thing (it defies description haha). I think i'm going to wear it over the long zimmerman negligee and josh goot skirt underneath. I'm still undecided as to the top to go underneath it. I'm tossing up between stripes, block colour in grey or green, or black. Hmmm... decisions decisions decisions. 

Anyway, my outfit non-black outfit for today and my accidental shows:

I'll try and do some outfit posts with my possible fashion week outfits for friday and saturday. But right now i have lots of uni work and i have to calm down from today's accidental excitement haha. Hope you are all well!

X

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Blue Monday (in the best possible way)

Exciting news, i'm going to fashion week! I've been given tickets to the Fashion Palette Convention on May 1 and 2, and am also going to the Cassette Society Show on May 1 afternoon with my best friend in the whole world, who is an aspiring designer. 

Cassette Society is her cousin's label, and we are both shamelessly exploiting family connections, but who cares. I'm just excited to be attending my first real fashion show, in my first real fashion week. Ah! And for a label as cool as Cassette Society too, who designs the kind of achingly hip streetwear that you wish you could pull off, but you just happen to be too short, too big, and too boring. The kind of stuff that Pixie Geldof and Harley Viera-Newton and Coco Sumner wear as they strut around London-town (or NYC) being incredibly hip and insouciant. And the face of their campaign (not in these images) is Zippora Seven, who you might remember from my post on 'youth', as incredibly deep as that sounds. 

[cassette-society.com click to enlarge]

But, now onto more important things, i'm going to need outfits. 2 in fact, and possibly 3, one for the after party on Saturday night for Fashion Palette.  Help, please!

Also, i have a question to readers, i am searching for teen vogue, mostly the 2006 and 2007 issues. I am willing to buy them. Also, vogue girl Australia either one of the first two issues (there were only 2, i think), which featured Mischa Barton and Gemma Ward (i think...). If anyone could help me out i'd be really grateful, Ebay has not been very forthcoming, it has mostly the recent ones which i have. I think i am going to write my first major media assignment on the teen vogue phenomenon. 

Thoughts? I had a huge collection of teen vogues when i was in year 8 up until around the end of year 11, at which point i thought i was too old for it all and threw them out. I only realise now what a quietly sophisticated magazine it is, and very shrewd as well, it's willing to put Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus or whoever on the cover to sell the issues, but will promote indie musicians and arthouse actors and actresses within the pages. It has also been fairly instrumental in forming the foundations of many a major US Model's career (think Ali Michael, Chanel Iman, Karlie Kloss, Even back in the day i remember Cintia Dicker and Stam being thrown across like no tomorrow), and has been the showcase of many interesting photographers. 

And, of course, the editorials are often impeccably styled. There is a real sense of fashion whimsy, of not taking the whole thing too seriously, of a refreshingly naive look at the whole fickle world of clothes... a real ingenue's outlook, and not the contrived one you see quite often in magazines. And i have a sneaking suspicion that it's target audience is a fair bit older than what most people think it is. 

Thoughts? Care to share your opinion of Teen Vogue? 

Also, i just got onto bloglovin', and i'm really loving it so far. Can't believe someone like me who loves all these internet procrastination tools didn't know about it until now. :) 

I've added a link in the sidebar to follow me, if you would so choose! 

Follow my blog with bloglovin´

 

Also, one more thing hahaa, i got tagged by the yellow elephant, but i just did the survey a couple of posts ago... so i thought i would make another survey now with silly questions in it for you all to fill out:

if you were a liquid beverage... (pink champagne or ice tea)

if you were a fashion house... (marni)

 

if you were a vice... (smoking... ah!)

if you were a dessert... (chocolate cloud cake by nigella lawson mmmm)

 if you were an item of clothing... (a long, floor length, structured skirt)

if you were a subject... (history)

if you were a flower... (rose ^_^)

if you were a colour... (purple)

if you were a precious stone... (diamonds, darling!)

if you were a chocolate bar... (ooh, nutty and smooth like snickers hehe)

if you were a book... (sense and sensibility)

if you were a decade... (1930s)

if you were a city ... (paris! or maybe london ah its so difficult haha)

if you could be anything for a day... (i've always desperately wanted to be a bird... just for a day to see what it would be like to fly!)

X

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colour me happy

'Colour is my day long obsession, joy and torment.' 

Claude Monet. 

This may seem a fashion anomaly, but i love colour, even though i mostly wear neutrals. I suppose that is the case for most girls, wishing they could be Margherita Missoni but only managing to get as far as Mary-Kate Olsen. Some say it's all about playing it safe, and while there is a degree of safety associated with blacks, whites, browns and greys, it is not wholly about being boring and normal. For me it is that i genuinely appreciate the way blacks and greys and browns look together, dark and sinuous like a cup of coffee. I do have a lot of coloured clothes, which i have been wearing more and more recently, but it is always a pleasure to reach happily for my neutral basics and slip comfortably into something classicly chic. 

Simple and banal as it might sound, colour requires more effort. And when you're ineherently apathetic like me, and have so much work you think you're going to drown in it, it just becomes a lot easier to dress without having to think about whether or not this colour goes with that. 

But, as i was thinking today after handing in a slew of assignments and for the first time in a while feeling a little free from the shackles of the syllabus, should this necessarily be the case? We are constantly told by parents, magazines, fashion forecasters and department stores that certain colours just don't GO with each other, and that you should never wear pink and orange, blue and green should never be seen, that colour on colour is often too much, that you should never wear different shades of the one colour all together.

It strikes me as fairly stock standard to say that perhaps we shouldn't follow fashion's rules, i highly doubt anyone with their own blog is a slave to the fash pack, but i think this is an extreme case of breaking out from their advice. And i know it must seem bizarre to receive this advice from somewhat who, admittedly, doesn't wear that much colour herself (although i am trying to integrated more and more into my wardrobe, as can be seen from recent pics)... But i think that colour on colour, and in particular the different shades of colour all together, can be a striking, vivacious and exuberant look, perfect for capturing that summer effervescence and even better for lightening the mood of the dreary, windy winter we in Australia are plunging headforth into. 

Not content to just tell you, i want to show you. But lacking the amount of colour necessary to make this idea work within my wardrobe, i have turned to polyvore, and fabulous future me. So if you don't believe me, believe her. She does work for Vogue and goes out with a fabulous actor hottie. 

Do it for the clothes!

Monday: YELLOW SUBMARINE

'look at the stars, look how they shine for you, and everything you do, yeah they were all yellow.'  

Coldplay, Yellow

lanvin bag, oscar de la renta shoes, philip lim top, vera wang skirt, missoni duster coat.

You don't like Mondays, and it has nothing to do with Bob sodding Geldof and the Boomtown Rats. It's to do with all that residual anti-establishment fervour still infecting you from your anarchic punk-rock teen years. You hate the constrictions of the working week, and strongly believe in the way they do things in spain, frequent fiestas and malleable working hours. Usually, in your early monday morning stupor you would throw on as much murky grey and charcoal you could find and stumble into work, grumbling about how terrible your life is. But today you feel you need a pick me up of the sartorial kind. On goes every single shade of yellow you can find in your wardrobe, from goldy hues to flaxen shades, bright lemon yellow and then veering softly into a pastel and khaki. As you stride into work, confident grin on your face, you stop the fashion assistants in their tracks, some of them squinting to see who would wear such a colourful monstrosity on a monday. Maybe it is a little bright, but then, so are you. 

Tuesday: PALE BLUE EYES

'linger on your pale blue eyes...'

preen coat, vivienne westwood shoes, richard nicoll shirt dress, dries van noten skirt, dries van noten overshirt, ysl muse bag. 

The brightness of monday always fades away once you reach tuesday. You always seem to have more work on a tuesday, more things to do, less time for yourself. And you're not saddened by it, and you are definitely not frantic like a frenzied orange. You are, instead, intensely and unashamedly collected. Calm. Cool.  And when you dress in the morning it's with the lyrics to 'pale blue eyes' by the velvet underground in your head, a quietly melancholy song, soft and dainty, and very very dignified. As you pile on your dries and richard nicoll and preen in the palest of the palest shades of pastels that is exactly how you feel. A little bit blue. 

Wednesday: PURPLE HAZE

'purple haze all over my brain... whatever it is that girl put a spell on me.'  

Marc Jacobs, Dries Van Noten, luella skirt, mulberry bag, marni shoes. 

You waltz around London on a wednesday in a purple haze. Historically a colour of royalty due to the exorbitant expense of the dye, today it signifies a kind of youthful playfulness in its palest lilac shades and conversely a sombre and mature sophistication in its deep wine coloured hues. Purple is an equivocation within fashion, and boy don't you love it all the more for it. And you can't decide whether you're being the effervescent youth in your luella purple mini, or clever and oh-so-cool fashion features writer in your sky high purple marni platforms. All you know is that you're having fun. As you laugh at the top of your lungs people look your way, and are instantly charmed. Such is the power of purple. 

Thursday: PRETTY IN PINK

'isn't she pretty in pink?' 

Jil Sander coat, Richard Nicoll dress, Jimmy Choo bag, Fendi shoes. 

You feel weird, at first, bringing a beach bag to an evening party, but you were determined to dress entirely in hot pink, this is a benefit for breast cancer research after all. When you arrive you see a sea of sombre suits, all with a pink ribbon pinned to the front. You wonder whether your brand of support, read: head to toe pink, pretty as can be, is too much. But the women gather around you, complimenting you on your fashion cred and style savvy, and later on that night you win best dressed, a prize rewarding you for your daring with a weekend getaway in Scotland. Fabulous. Life really is much better in colour. 

Friday: GREEN WITH ENVY

'Mother Nature is calling to you, so put on your green shoes.' 

Burberry Prorsum trench, Marni dress, Marni bag, Dries Van Noten shoes. 

Green is a very tricky colour for you. On paper it should work, you have the right kind of colouring, the dark hair, the piercing eyes, but whenever you put something green on you look weird. Like a vegetable. And not a lithe, spindly asparagus either, but a stumpy, frumpy broccoli. So you duly avoid green at all costs. However recently you have been aquiring all sorts of green clothes, in particular this Burberry trench made from netting and embroidered unbelievably with raffia flowers. You had to have it, and you have to wear it to the garden party of your photographer friend. What then blooms, pun intended, is a search to find the perfect accompanying outfit. When you emerge from your wardrobe in head to toe green, albeit with shots of brown in your DVN shoes, you marvel at how you went from hating green to loving it all in one day. But, you do look good. And you were playing Cyndi Lauper while you were getting changed, and you couldn't get the refrain out of your head... 'put on your green shoes...'

So, go forth, faithful readers, and colour! 

X

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i'm the first to admit that i'm still pretty young...

I was tagged by Sophia from A Day in the Life of a Fashion Student, with a quiz questionnaire that asks you to not only respond, but rework...

The rules:

1. respond and rework: answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own. 

2. tag eight other people.

What is your current obsession?

dries van noten, teen vogue, karlie kloss, my full bank balance (thankyou, work), not having any uni work, cinnamon donuts. 

What is your weirdest obsession?

Sitting on the left side of the bus. - this was sophia's answer, and i am the exact same! weird! Also, having to have things in odd numbers. If there is an even number of fruit in the fruit basket i take one out and eat it haha. 

What are you wearing today?

in a nod to luella-esque, pretty girl frollicking in her garden styling, liberty-print vintage dress, lace top, socks, sandals, trench coat and lots of necklaces. 

What’s for dinner today?

Whatever is in the cupboard at babysitting. :)

Why is today special?

TGIF

What would you like to learn to do?

speak german.

What’s the last thing you bought?

60 dollars worth of magazines. :)

What are you listening to right now?

Blue King Brown. :) 

What is your favorite weather?

Although i adore the cold there is something to be said for the lazy, hazy heat of summer. 

What is your most challenging goal right now?

Not judging Uni by its cover. 

What do you think about the person who tagged you?

we have a shared love for Olivier Theyskens, and both are firm believers that he is straight, thus making her my soul-sister in the world of fashion right now. 

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?

Either a picturesque english cottage complete with wisteria and lace curtains, or an apartment in paris complete with floor length mirrors and intelligent french boyfriend. haha.

What would you like to have in your hands right now?

A Chanel 2.55 bag, sadly that will have to wait. 

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?

I don't know why, but for some reason today i'd love to spend an hour in Venice. I just feel a little bit like a sojourn in Italy. 

Which language do you want to learn?

German and Spanish. Oh and Ancient Greek. 

What do you look for in a friend?

Invincibility.  

Who do you want to meet in person?

I'd love to meet Grace Coddington and Stella Tennant. These two women i find endlessly fascinating, and irrepressibly graceful. 

What’s your favorite type of music?

Anything with a beat. 

What’s the favorite piece of clothing in your own closet?

Impossible to narrow it down, really. I love all my clothes equally, although i love some of them more equally than others. :)

What is your dream job?

Fashion Feature Editor for Vogue UK. Sorry, Harriet Quick. 

Any favorite models?

Lily Donaldson, Catherine McNeil, Abbey-Lee Kershaw, Natalia Vodianova, Stella Tennant.

If you had $100 now what would you spend it on?

Magazines, you can never have enough.

Favorite designers?

Marni (consuelo castiglione), Dries Van Noten, Stella Mccartney, Vanessa Bruno, Olivier Theyskens... 

Fashion pet peeve?

When people take it too seriously. It is undoubtedly a beautiful, mind-reeling thing, but it is certainly not a matter of life and death, even for those who are most obsessed. 

Style Icons?

Alexa, even though i don't dress like her that much anymore, she is an archetypal example of someone who doesn't take fashion too seriously, Taylor Tomasi from Teen Vogue, Yasmin Sewell... 

Describe your personal style

I'd like to say defying description, but it's just hopeless mish-mash at the moment, colours and long, loose, languid silhouettes, floor length skirts, mixing colours and textures and everything and anything all together. Experimentation is the key. 

If your personality was a Magazine, which one would it be? 

Teen Vogue, i like to think that i'm exuberant and bubbly and whimsical and bright just like it is. 

The New Romantics

Models: Ali Michael, Jenna, 2 male models

Photog: Nick Haymes

Magazine: Teen Vogue April 2007

[tfs]

Tag: 

Cappucino Bar

Discotheque Confusion

Inky Lips

Lovely Disco

The Yellow Elephant

Young Shields

This Organised Chaos

Notebook Doodles

X

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we'll always have paris.

'An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.' 

[tfs]

Clemence Poesy embodies for me that insouciance that is so typically french. She is beautiful in a nonchalant way, she is quietly, but intensely intelligent, she dresses in a very messy, but inherently chic style, and she has that hair. Golden and glossy. It reminds me of that Yeats poem, 'whoever loved you for yourself alone and not your golden hair?'

On another note, i think i've used that quote as a post title like 20 times... you know what i have on my mind! 

when can i go back?

X

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that's what friends are for

[josh goot skirt, zimmerman negligee, topshop tee, mad cortes jacket, marni bag]

Cobrasnake? Dirty Dirty Dancing? 

No, just another night out with my friends. 

Although, it must be said, some of them could be models. 

I like to think we're cool!

X

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happiness, as bittersweet as a glass of chocolate and as tortuous as the heart.

'If I only knew your name

I'd go from door to door

Searching all the crowded streets

For the place that I once saw

If I only knew your name

I'd go from door to door

Tell me have you seen the girl

I've met just once before

One Night of Love

Nothing more nothing less

One Night of Love

To put my head in a mess

Is that you on the bus?

Is that you on the train?

You wrote your number on my hand

And it came off in the rain.'

 A shim-shom-shamble of a post, i'm feeling happy and contented this tuesday, listening to one of my favourite songs on repeat, chewing happily on a cream cheese smothered bagel, enjoying a day off uni, and staring obsessively at this photo of alexa chung. 

[twitter]

a shim-shom-shamble of an outfit that looks just perfect. A cute little tea dress with lace cap sleeves, a resin belt, super high chunky platforms and a little crown of fabric flowers. The styling had nothing to do with her in all probability, it was for a magazine shoot after all, but she lends it her inestimable and incomprehensible personal brand of cool that i'll never get tired of seeing. What a class act!

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The love song of J.Alfred Prufrock

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question…

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep… tired… or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

The love song of J.Alfred Prufrock, T.S Eliot

This poem, by T.S Eliot, is long, granted, but it is not difficult to read, and i urge you all to have a look at it. I find it beautiful in its simplicity at times, for it is composed entirely of the musings of a man past his prime and wondering if he has achieved anything in his life at all. It is an examination of the frivolous and ephemeral of life, which i suppose is what fashion and beauty really is, and wondering what is more important, a beautiful, empty life or a meaningful but grey one. 

It is a very sad poem, the ending in particular alludes to how Prufrock will never have the ability to be loved or become more than himself, a man who can measure out his life in coffee spoons. And the opening italian lines are a quote from Dante's inferno, roughly meaning 'never from this dark abyss has anyone returned.' 

So should we question out obsession with fashion and aesthetics, or should we revel in its frivolousness? Can we find meaning in the ephemeral? Or is everything too fleeting, even life and thought, to discover truth... 

Existential monday, kids. It's making a comeback.

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It's a sunday kind of love...

A lazy sunday, spent lying around in bed with the remainders of easter chocolate and a stack of completely frivolous films to watch calls for a little post on tim walker. 

As you may have noted from the copious amounts of walker love (including the post on easter below!) i am a bit of a walker fan. What i love most about him is that he seems to encapsulate exactly what it is that draws me most to the world of fashion, which is that fashion is, ultimately fruitless, it's imagination and ideas, read: style, that will stand the test of time. It's a very french way of viewing things, but then also intensely British in a way, what with it being the home of eccentricity and all that. 

His sets are always crafted to perfection by Vogue UK's set designer Shona Heath who manages to give Walker a background that is as fantastical as his imagination and yet still infinitely as glamorous as is required by a fashion shoot. His choice of models is always impeccable, and he has a thing for the red heads, (Karen Elson, Lily Cole and Olga Sherer), but has also shoot gorgeous editorials with models like Erin O'Connor, Gemma Ward, Coco Rochas, Agyness Deyn and Jacquetta Wheeler.  He is oft-imitated (the Elle US March 09 shoot with the red ballet shoes springs to mind), but never surpassed in terms of pure whimsy and fantasy. 

Having said all that, i think that if you stripped away all the wonder about the sets (giant tin soldiers! a frazzled helena bonham carter in front of a huge TV, caterpiller suits and the like), the often larger-than-life styling (remember coco rochas' bubble dress from hussein chalayan?) i just really love the way he shoots. He is equally as good at taking the long, outfit shots that everyone adores as he is at taking the intimate, portrait style shots. And, in fact, he is that good a photographer in my opinion that you don't think he's deliberately taking photos just to showcase an outfit or a model. Sometimes with fashion photography you think it's all about the clothes and nothing else. 

Indeed fashion photography necessitates a certain degree of obsession about the clothes, obvious i know. But i think the best fashion photographers treat the clothes as merely another subject within the frame, including model and set and atmosphere. They create a parallel universe where the clothes you wear are as powerful and as important to life as your face, your personality, your environment, your situation... This kind of parallel universe is the sole reason why i read fashion magazines. They are escapism of the highest and most fabulous order, and allow me to revel in a world, even just for a minute or two, that can be as crazy and wild and chic and silly as i like. 

He also has a really interesting shooting style. His slightly saturated shots are calm, even when something absolutely crazy is happening in the image (e.g jamie bell and sherer leaping in the air while spraying blue paint in vogue uk dec 08). And calm in a comforting, magical kind of way. As in, don't worry, there's a giant plane in your living room, but everything is alright. 

Chocks Away

Photographer: Tim Walker

Model: Lily Donaldson

Publication: Vogue UK March 09

Source: click

There is something magical about this shoot, and not just in the idea of a 1940s war-time gal carrying on with her life while a plane smokes away in her parlour. I think it is Lily's ability to epitomise that english rose so perfectly, and the wonderful styling that hits 1940s without being costumey, and still manages to serve the purpose of showcasing the new seasons, which is essentially what a shoot in the march issue of a magazine is supposed to do. 

That shot with the match burning away in her mouth is one of the most quietly beautiful things i've seen in vogue all year, and manages to transcend the novelty of THE prada crumpled silk suit to become something entirely different. 

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