cinematic style - Renee Zellweger in Jerry Maguire

screencaps

There always was something about Tom Cruise. Back in the day, you know, maybe not now (although, really, has he aged at all?). Those boyish looks, that floppy, devil maycare hair, that suave, golden boy charm. He was like that guy in high school that knew he was good-looking and would always give you that smile, the perfect smile, the one that melted knees. I don't know, I guess... I get it. I get the whole Tom Cruise in the 90s thing. And Jerry Maguire is like that typical charming Tom Cruise movie where Tom Cruise plays that typical charming Tom Cruise character. As great as his wardrobe was - sportsjackets and white tee shirts and ray bans - I want to talk about Renee Zellweger's wardrobe instead (the prevalence of Tom in all these pictures is because I got these from a Tom Cruise fan site, my first and last visit, I promise!).

I feel like I'm being drawn to this type of dressing more and more. My hair has been cut again, and it's grazing the top of my shoulders now instead of hanging down over them like before. It's an easy cut, and it goes with easy clothing. Dorothy's clothing is easy because her life is hard - she's got a young child and an overbearing sister and, from pretty much the start of the film, she's relatively unemployed. As such, her daily wardrobe is comfortable, simple clothing; denim jeans with cropped sweaters, fitted tee shirts and capri pants, sneakers and cardigans. I miss this kind of Renee Zellweger (I'm not the only one, Christa D'Souza rhapsodised about Jennifer Lawrence's pillowy Renee Zellweger-esque cheeks in the November issue of Vogue UK) curvy and young and vulnerable, she's quite fantastic in this movie, if a little weepy. I love that classic Rachel way she piles her hair at the top of her head with a scrunchy or a clip. It's easy and simple and without thought, but also, in the same breath, effortlessly sexy. 

That's what is so great about Dorothy's wardrobe. Even in sweatshirts and baggy slacks, even without money or contacts, even with a three year old son, Dorothy manages to get the guy. She has stars in her eyes and she's hopelessly naive - you can sort of see that in her too long pants, or her daggy sweaters - but she still gets the guy. Maybe it's down to the way she always believed in Jerry, or because she stands up for herself when push comes to shove, or because, at the end of the day she's Renee Zellweger. But I like to think that it's because of her simple, easy clothing that never complicates things. Even her wedding dress with that gorgeous high cut on the shoulder, was totally unfussy. You had me at hello.

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what's that jacket?

five inch and up

I keep seeing it on blogs and the gram, on my desktop and on my mind. This would be one for the ages - or at least one for Vienna - the perfect last thing to top of my packing list. I'm keeping crossed that one of these makes its way to me, or I find one hanging on a half-off rack in some lonely corner of a European H&M!

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flame

freunde von freunden

Candles are one of those luxury-necessity things that are extravagant yet totally, completely necessary all at the same time. When I'm all grown up I'm going to have a table in my apartment just full of them - A.P.C, diptyque, Byredo, Maison Balzac - and sometimes, just for the thrill, I'll light them all at once and watch the flames flicker, their fiery persistence and burnished amber hue the truest of all companions.

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bed

"Oh lovers, be careful in those dangerous first days! Once you've bought breakfast in bed you'll have to bring it forever, unless you want to be accused of lovelessness and betrayal."

Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Jean Shrimpton // Marilyn Monroe // Romy Schneider

Today is a day for it if ever I saw one. Think of me today while you sip your tea and nibble on your toast under the warm covers of the bed. I'll be at work at 5 in the morning and thinking only of the money, money, money.

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happy

I had an amazingly happy birthday, spent with all the people I love the most and with my mum's amazing spread of food and general cheer. This year has literally flown by, and I can't believe that just over a year ago I turned 21. Well, that was a great year, but I have an even better feeling for the next one. And what better way to start it than with a three tiered pavlova cake (my favourite!), bunches of flowers, boxes of macarons, and some amazing presents (including a brand new polaroid camera, the Byredo travel perfume dispenser that I so longed for, and The Sartorialist's new book). I'm still getting the hang of the camera, but there's something about that instant gratification of a picture forming before your eyes, milky and washed out, blurry and out of focus, simple and true. Just how all birthdays should be.

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lost

schorlemädchen

The first stop on my trip is Tokyo, but to me it almost feels like a completely different trip. For the first time in a long, long time since I've started travelling by myself I feel something that is approaching - though is not quite fully realised as - fear. In actual fact I think it is probably a cocktail of nervousness and excitement, a jumbled up mess of anxiety over whether or not I'll be able to navigate the city and sheer elation at seeing a place I have, for a long time, had on my wish list. All of this fear is for nothing, of course, because for the most part I will be with my family, and that's the way I want to see it. Sandwiched between my two brothers singing karaoke and slurping at bowls of salty soup. I think I'm a good traveller, or at least I hope I am, but sometimes, especially in a city you have never been to before, what you want most is familiarity.

But despite of this - or perhaps because of it - I am also eager to explore. So, for the last time, I'm going to beg you for some tips for my trip. You've all gone above and beyond with your tips for Austria, Italy, Prague and London, and I thank you. As always I am reliant on this is naive's lofi diary, practically perfect in every way. I'm staying in Shinjuku and would love any tips on places to eat in the area. I have a feeling that instead of addresses Tokyo will be more of the find-your-own-way persuasion. But that's all part of the fun. I can't wait to find my own corner of Tokyo where I can feel just like this.

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what a lark

 "What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. How fresh, how calm, stiller than this of course, the air was in the early morning; like the flap of a wave; the kiss of a wave; chill and sharp and yet (for a girl of eighteen as she then was) solemn, feeling as she did, standing there at the open window, that something awful was about to happen... 

For having lived in Westminster - how many years now? Over twenty, - one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. Such fools we are, she thought, crossing Victoria Street. For Heaven only knows why one loves it so, how one sees it so, making it up, building it round one, tumbling it, creating it every moment afresh; but the veriest frumps, the most dejected of miseries sitting on doorsteps (drink their downfall) do the same; can't be dealt with, she felt positive, by Acts of Parliament for that very reason: they love life. In people's eyes, in the swing, tramp and trudge; in the bellow and the uproar; the carriages, motor cars, omnibuses, vans, sandwich men shuffling and swinging; brass bands; barrel organs; in the triumph and the jingle and the strange high singing of some aeroplane overhead was what she loved; life; London; this moment of June." 

 Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

 Jessica Stanley

I loved what Jessica said about London on the Benah blog. Aside from writing a fantastic guide that is forming the basics (alongside Dead Fleurette's tips) for my upcoming trip, she touched on something that has always - to me at least - seemed so true about London. Having experienced it so often and so vividly in literature when I was younger, in everything from Peter Pan to Mrs Dalloway, Vile Bodies to P.G Wodehouse, my first visit to London was like going back to a childhood home or the summer holiday destination of your youth. Everything was familiar and then not familiar, everything seemed exactly as I had imagined - or had it imagined for me - and yet the city was still able to surprise me. I'd like it to continue doing that for as long as possible, and my upcoming trip seems like as good a place as any to start. So if anyone has any tips for London - places to eat, drink and be merry are most important! - especially in and around the covent garden/soho area because that's where I'm staying, please leave a comment or send them to hryee1@hotmail.com. I can't wait to see even more of this city that has always seemed to me like it could be, or become, a real home.

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cabin porn

cabin porn

This has always been the dream. Really and truly. By myself, water in front and sky above, mountains too if at all possible. I've always thought that if you wanted to write a book the best place to do it would be a cabin somewhere where you were completely alone. In many ways that, too, has always been the dream.

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biggie

source

The first thing I do when I get to Europe is head straight to an H&M store in search of these two things. I've never been the biggest Margiela fan - directional and me are two things that don't really go together - but an oversized pea coat and a turtleneck with sleeves down to your knees? - well that I can get behind (and into, posthaste). 

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the art of giving - Paris

Collage and typography by Talisa Sutton, words by me

This year Talisa and I will be spending our summers (their winters!) in two of our favourite cities, Paris and New York. To celebrate we thought we'd work together on a two-part themed gift guide perfect for lovers of those cities just like us. We had so much fun putting together our gift guide last year that it made sense to do it all over again. We hope you love it too. So, without any more chat, here is part one. Give the gift of Paris this Christmas.

one. Van Rycke 'Porte Bonheur' bracelet, $88 from My Chameleon

Christmas is always about the little things. Little mince pies, little sips of champagne, little children, running around in wrapping paper togas, and little jewels. Van Rycke is the King of the petite present, the definition of a tiny thing that means so much. Any of their string cord bracelets emblazoned with slogans will do - La Vie, Je T'aime, Best Friend (choose wisely according to your recipient) - but our favourite is Porte Bonheur. Let this be a lucky charm in name and in nature for the lucky person who gets this under the tree, and start their new year off with a charming little spark.

two. Isabel Marant 'Vadim' chunky knit, $480 from La Garconne

If she's a francophile - and if she isn't, this is the wrong guide for you! - then she'll love Isabel Marant. But she'll also love angora sweaters, the chunkier the better, for pairing with skinny jeans and suede ankle boots and insouciant, irreverent charm. If she's a francophile she'll love the colour cream; creme fraiche, vanilla macarons, the white-washed walls of a Hausmann-ised hotel particulier. If she's a francophile she'll love a loose, slightly baggy style, all the better for wearing under pea coats and chunky scarves. If she's a francophile - and if she isn't, then this is the wrong guide for you! - then she'll love this sweater with all her heart. 

three. Sans Ceuticals 'Beauty Essentials Kit', $36 from My Chameleon

Some people are lucky enough to be getting a jet-setting trip for Christmas, a European winter or a Japanese New Year. Understandably, budgets can be easily blown, which is why this Beauty Essentials Kit by New Zealand beauty brand Sans Ceuticals is the perfect stocking stuffer for someone with wanderlust eyes. Featuring plane-perfect samples of their cult-favourite range including hair wash and hydratant, body wash and body cream - all packed in a jute bag ready to go! - this essentials kit will be just that. 

four. Tickets to So Frenchy So Chic in the Park festival, from $56 from Ticketmaster

Experiences can sometimes be the best gifts, as a champagne-hued memory lasts forever. This one may require planning; hunting down a tranche of Fromage D'Affinois with the blue vein running through it, finding a good baguette and a good bottle of red, rushing to the boulangerie to snag those last few financiers of the afternoon. But it'll be worth it. Once you and your lover, or your best friend, or your francophile mother, or whoever, really, stretch out along a picnic rug in the grass at Weribee Park, or in the courtyard of Town Hall in Sydney, you'll be treated to hours of French music and the kind of perfect, Parisian afternoon that makes it all worthwhile. Even if you're not in Paris, not yet.

five. A box of Lanvin x Laduree macarons, approximately $35 from Laduree

Sure, if you give this they won't last the day. And it does seem like a lot of money for a cardboard box and 8 little circles of sugary pastry and sweet cream. But oh, what sugary pastry and sweet cream! And what a cardboard box! Designed by Lanvin creative director Alber Elbaz and featuring his trademark whimsical figurines (grand dames and bright young things and even Elbaz himself in his square glasses), the box is a thing of beauty, perfect for storing jewels and trinkets long after the macarons have been devoured. And, well... There are macarons and there are macarons and these are of the latter. Flown in direct from switzerland in such mouth-watering flavours as Cherry Blossom and Violet Marshmallow (if you see the flavours that you want, get them when you can, because not all flavours are available all the time unfortunately! Besides, it can be an early present before the Christmas rush), these macarons may not be as critically acclaimed as others in Sydney, but you're not really giving taste, or smell or sight here. You're giving a dream.

six. Delicacy, approximately $14 from Amazon UK

You could make an event of it - throw in some retro popcorn and a block of the best Mazet salted caramel chocolate ($16 from Simon Johnson, but who's counting) - promise an evening of laughter and tears and Audrey Tautou's beautiful, delicate wardrobe. Or you could just give her the film, wrapped up in tissue paper and placed in a stocking, knowing that if she loved Amelie - and who didn't? - and if she loves Carven - and who doesn't? - then she'll love this movie about love and loss and finding happiness in the most surprising of places.

seven. Little Birds by Anais Nin, approximately $14 from Powells

Why do French books always seem so naughty? Maupassant's George Duroy, smart and beautiful and a friend to all, Sagan's Cecile, languid as a duchess on that beach in the South of France, Colette's Gigi, not the first ingenue to fall in love with her benefactor, but surely the loveliest. But for proper naughtiness you can't go past Anais Nin. The queen of erotica, Anais Nin's Little Birds is probably her most well-known cahier of naughty scribbles. This one is definitely for the lovers.

See part two, New York, here

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cinematic style - Kirsten Dunst in How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

screencaps

I loved this film when it first came out. I loved Simon Pegg, who even though seemed slightly Americanised, was so silly and British I couldn't help but smile, I loved New York, the city I had only just left for the first time at the start of the year and who held a particular hold on my imagination, I loved the depictions of the fickle world of magazine publishing, I loved the banter and the wit and the cocktail drinking. But most of all, most of all, I loved Kirsten Dunst's adorable wardrobe. 

As I mused in a (much) earlier blog post (how things change and how they stay the same!) her style in this movie was such an extension of her off-duty personal style it was almost as if she had styled herself. Of course, in the four years since this movie came out Kiki has changed - she broke up with Jake, she went to rehab, she got a bit of a potty mouth, she started smoking - and her style has gone a bit rough around the edges. Less Lula, more Self Service. But there's something about her - I think it's that coltish grace, that blonde, blonder hair, her particular mixture of froideur and sensuality - that makes her immensely watchable on film and the perfect clothes horse. She wears clothes really well. Always has. I remember adoring her on the pages of my old Teen Vogues, in chucks and bretons with her off-kilter toothy grin. I loved her in Wimbledon in blazers and pretty shirts. I still love her now in trench coats and sofia coppola bags in awful, awful movies.

This movie was all about the shirt. Dunst's character Alison is rarely seen out of one, and her collection runs the gamut of Peter Pan collars, boatnecks, button downs and florals. It was working wear, but with a slightly casual lilt. I think what I like most about Alison's wardrobe was that she never looked dressed up. That was kind of the point, as her character was only at the magazine to pay the bills while she was writing her novel (of course I loved her!). You could tell that from her wardrobe. Her heart wasn't really in it. She paired skirt suits with tee shirts (I tried that one the day after I saw the movie), she wore vintage dresses to fancy events, wore very little makeup and left her cropped blonde mane to its own devices. The result was charming, as Dunst herself is charming - in this movie, in life. It was the look of a New York City Girl who didn't want to subscribe to the New York City regime (yet still reap all of its benefits). It's the kind of career look that I always dreamt of, never corporate, never stuffy, as casual as physically possible. Although the offices of Sharps Magazine was hardly a relaxed office, it seemed like Alison, in her milkmaid braids and baggy silk tee shirts, was just wandering in from the weekend constantly. It was like a whole working week of casual fridays. That has always been my future office attire dream.

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the flower market

Photos by Rachel Kara, words by me. See the full spread on Rachel's blog! 

Last week we went to heaven, and it was only 35 minutes outside of Sydney's centre. Actually, it didn't seem like heaven at first, not with that early morning start, those drooping eyelids, that frenetic rush to throw on a handknit sweater and some strappy sandals while the car waited outside. It didn't seem like heaven without coffee. Maybe that 5 am wake up call wasn't worth it after all, we thought, arms crossed as we crested the highway. And then... There it was. No pearly gates, no shining, godly light, no crown of clouds. Just a surly parking attendant demanding $8 and a veritable army of forklifts, speeding across the parking lots laden with a treasury of fresh produce. A park was found, a path was navigated, and there we were, standing in the soaring confines of the Sydney Flower Markets. 

 It was peonies first. Swelling proudly on the right and the left, more than we had ever seen, shy as a schoolgirl. Pink and purple and the cleanest, purest white, stained with red at the very tip of the bud. Then there were the roses, (oh, the roses!), in every colour imaginable - and some better left unimagineable, blue roses we think not - smelling like turkish delight and Sundays. Flowers, so many flowers, grouped in buckets and wrapped in plastic or bundled with twine in cardboard boxes, filling the room with secret smiles and quietly disbelieving headshakes. We swooned over the field-like spread of hibiscus, the wily, tough bunches of natives, the stalks of sweetpeas, proud and vain (and why wouldn't you be, if you looked like that?) that were so popular with the bridesmaids and wedding planners sweeping through the warehouse in a cloud of Jo Malone grapefruit. It's all too much. It's all too much and we step away, wandering in and out, breathing in greedy gulps of fresh air before resurfacing amidst the flowers, grasping at bunches we want to take home, grasping at everything we find beautiful, which is to say, everything. 

In our imaginations heaven would have been cleaner. There wouldn't have been crushed stalks on the floor or muddy puddles of tepid water or tacky peace-sign emblazoned wrapping paper. In our imaginations heaven would have been less rough around the edges. But. But. Perhaps this is what makes heaven truly heaven? The heat, the short tempers, the sellers who wink and whistle. Paradise shouldn't be perfect, think how tiresome that would be? It's enough - so much more than enough - that the flowers are. 

You could say that Rachel and I are food and life explorers - we go botanising amongst the produce, to butcher Benjamin's phrase - so see us have a picnic,  bake a cake, review The Grounds and have breakfast in New York at Cafe Gitane. More food stuff to come, as always!

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wish

flickr

My real birthday wish this year is for a sleepy-eyed morning, a wake up call when the sun is very high in the sky, and a breakfast tray groaning with plum maple nut crunch muesli, sliced banana, fresh orange juice and a cup of tea. I don't ask for much, do I?

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Mood

 

Kate Moss, simple and true, source unknown // Carly Hunter AW 13 campaign // Eniko Mihalik backstage at Margaret Howell, Vanessa Jackman // Penny Sage AW 13 lookbook, bluestocking deliciousness

Straight hair and big sweaters and no makeup.

 

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really really all gone

Part three. A slice of lemony peach cake (with added raspberries) from my kitchen.

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presents!

3191

I wrote a little gift guide for my favourites over at Benah, and I wanted to share it here. I have so much fun writing gift guides, mostly because it's wishful thinking, and who doesn't love that? I always seem to be making lists around this time, that's the trouble with having both Christmas and a birthday in December. But at least I always start to think about gifting early, and this year I have a mixture of wants and needs, things for myself, things for my life, and things for my mind. I like to have a bit of a mix. (This is also something of a dream list, because I've been taught well by my mum that the best kind of presents are the ones you really don't expect, not even a little bit, not at all. We learned this the year my brother and I both got sheep for christmas. Yes. Sheep. Physical ones, but not at our house, on our friends farm. We didn't really get it at the time, but later in the year the sheeps' wool was sold and we got a nice little paycheck, which was fun. Completely random, but fun. That's my mum.)

See my full gift guide on the Benah blog here

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johnny

one // two // three

No matter what happens, always best with Johnny. Oh Johnny!

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the weekend

COS studio

Washed out and sleepy-eyed, with wet-hair and baggy clothes, is how all weekends ought to look if they possibly can. The perfect saturday is one in watercolour.

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