discover

All photos by the irreplaceable Rachel Kara, full spread, as always on her blog

How should a person be? It's a question we've been asking ourselves since visiting the Girl & Graaf store on Bondi Road a few weeks ago. Alongside deliciously crisp salted caramel macarons and coffee from Panama House, Lauren and Simon - the sunny duo behind Girl & Graaf, online and IRL - seemed to have all the answers. A person should live in a way they love, they should love the way they live, they should always keep their eyes open, they should travel earnestly, ridiculously, spontaneously and copiously, they should use their hands as well as their hearts, they should smile easily and laugh often. Perhaps it's a Bondi thing. We're rarely there but whenever we are we are bathed with sunlight and fresh fruit and yoga-glow. It might be a Bondi thing but it's more probably a Girl & Graaf thing. 

The store is so white, and so light, and so fresh and so clean. It smells like Swedish dream soap and fresh paint. It's filled with the stuff and things you want to become your stuff and your things; falcon enamelware mugs for the kitchen (and filled with honey, ginger and lemon for the bedroom), Poplin pyjama sets for sunday mornings, tuscan aprons in soft cotton for sunday afternoons, Sugar Paper notecards because you want to bring back everyday correspondence, photography prints of far-away locations because you're a dreamer at heart. We've grown to love this store quickly and with a reckless, unconditional fervour. I think it has to do with finding people who look at the world, and all the stuff and the things in it, in the same way that you do. Who know the value of building something from scratch, of making it work, and of a glass of red wine at the end of the day. 

In their own words, Lauren and Simon of Girl & Graaf: 

What is lifestyle? Lifestyle is the way you choose to live your life. It’s something deeply personal that should reflect your true values. Anything less and you’re cheating yourself. 

What is travel? Travel is the best education you’ll ever get. 

What is love? Love is something you earn. 

What/Who is Girl& Graaf? Girl & Graaf is the story of our life so far and the life we hope to live in the future. When you look at Girl & Graaf, you’re looking at us and all our dreams rolled up into a neat little ball.

Girl and Graaf, 189 Bondi Road, Bondi

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the gang

apiece apart fw 2013

Winter is all about hanging out in a gang with your friends in oversized sweaters and big hats, drinking tea by the pot-ful and gossiping about boys and teachers and teachers who are boys and professing to hate hate hate the rain when really you can't wait to turn up the collar of your coat and get just a little bit wet.

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escape

Zara Mirkin // Glassons Blog

So recently I've started sharing with people I've only just met one of the more embarassing/ridiculous/awesome (depending on the audience) things I've ever done. When I was 11 I made a Lord of the Rings movie with my friend. As in, we remade Lord of the Rings, the fellowship of the ring. The entire movie. With just two people (and occasionally her dog). We did this scene (by her pool, with some well-timed splashing), we did this scene (with a strategic red scarf and an overcoat), and yes, we did this scene (with lots of costume changes and one overenthusiastic moment of axe-breaking). What can I say. No-one is ever really born chic. 

Yes, isn't it cliche to say that you love New Zealand because of Lord of the Rings, but I often find that cliches have their foundations laid in rock solid fact. Where in the world can you find the diversity of landscapes, the cinematic sweep of mottled skylines, the surf and the sand, the ice that pools at the sea, that you can find in New Zealand? I'm going for the first time over Christmas and my birthday and I cannot wait. I'm excited for shopping and eating my way through Auckland, for going to some of the place and doing some of the things that Lin recommends, for seeing all of that beauty, all of that escape.

I love the new Glassons look book for that reason. It's getting me excited for overalls and sneakers, for mountains and mountains (and mountains) and hair tucked behind my ears. I'm ready for travel that isn't so much about ticking things off a list and following a guide book as it is about really, truly seeing things.

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the park

The Analogues // Nidhi 1 and 2

I'm writing a paper on Central Park this semester and it's incredibly sad, because it focuses on a moment of rupture rather than one of celebration. One particular historical moment when this 'park for the people' suddenly became a contested space, a dangerous place, a theatre for violence and despair. Looking back through the newspaper archives is eerie, considering how when I lived in New York I never thought twice about crossing the park at night, never once worried for my safety as I spread myself out on a bench and drank a large mug of matza ball soup quickly, burning the roof of my mouth. Central Park was actually one of the places I relished, somewhere I would escape to from school, where I would read books and wander and know without a shadow of a doubt that I was in New York. Because it's not just a park, it's the park. It's hard for me to disengage from my own thoughts and feelings of the park as one of the places I most associate with happiness in New York - with ice-skating at dusk with my best friend, with being reckless and drinking black coffee and smoking cigarettes in the cold, with skipping class and sharing tuna baguettes and jam donuts in the shade of a cherry blossom tree. I know the park as something so incredibly beautiful, so incredibly lovely, so incredibly alive. Which it is, of course, despite everything. I need to go back. I can feel that longing deep in my stomach. I need to go back.

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wanderlust

bawkbawkbawk // schorlemadchen // like life (the beautiful madeleine's blog, one of my faves)

The world is not enough.

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flower love

Rachel Kara via Broadsheet

It's a question I've often asked myself: what makes Rachel's pictures so good? Because they are, they really, truly are. Good in a way that kind of defies belief sometimes, because, and I am testament to this, what she captures in her images isn't just so much the 'moment' or the 'instant', what is happening in that very second that the shutter clicks, but rather the atmosphere and feel of the entire day, the entire story, the entire life. Everything she does rings with that quality of wholeness that I just can't find a better word for. Completeness. An image in its entirety, which is to say it's not really an image at all, more like a continuous, fluid moving picture. In that sense her work is very cinematic. These pictures are the perfect example of this. Little Flowers have a wonderful story - delivering bunches of the best blooms daily for $25 - and Rachel just gets it. Makes me interested to know more but also makes me feel like I know enough to head on over to their website and book a bunch of flowers just for fun. And, if anyone was interested, they deliver to Sydney Uni and I'm there Monday-Wednesday, just doing my thang, you'll normally find me in a forgotten lecture room in the quad, and I really, really like flowers.

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today

1 // 2 // 3

Today is getting shit done day. No ifs ands or buts about it. Rug up in a puffer vest and big scarf, bring supplies of chocolate and small change for a cup of tea, fill your bag with a hundred books and head off to the library. Don't go on facebook. Don't go on instagram. Don't go on blogger. Just read, read, read. Not because you have to (but you do), but because you want to. See the difference? You want to do your work because it needs to be done. So just do it. Get shit done.

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once you pop

Closet Visit // Inside Closet // Jeana Sohn

you can't stop. because one is never enough.

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the next party

petite kitchen

Okay that's it. I've made up my mind. Instead of the fancy dinner party I planned on throwing - just for kicks - I'm going to have a breakfast instead. I'm going to invite friends over and cook from some of my favourites (Nigel, Nigella and Sophie, of course) and treat my guests to muesli and muffins and mugs of tea and neverending gossip because breakfast is the best, most heartwearming, most exciting of meals isn't it? Because you have the whole of the day ahead of you, because it could go any way, because nothing is impossible after you've had muesli and yoghurt, because it might make you feel like james bond for a day, and who doesn't want that? This is happening.

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disappointment and delight

"The modern strawberry is a tale of disappointment and delight. I have learned to treat each punnet of really good berries I encounter as a box of fleeting, precious jewels, a treat to be enjoyed with unalloyed pleasure; no cream, sugar or splash of Beaujolais, just the warm berry in all its scarlet glory. That perfect fruit is a rare find, but once you chance upon it life seems, for an instant, to stand still. Eyes closed, you are briefly lost in buttercup meadows, with bees buzzing on the heavy afternoon air. You need to make much of a truly excellent strawberry when you find it.... Once a year I find myself falling for a cardboard punnet of misshapen, organic fruits the loud scarlet-red of a Ferrari. It is then, breathing in their honey-sweet scent, the prickle of their yellow seeds on my lips, that I wish they could always be like this." 

Nigel Slater, Tender Volume 2

The Design Files

When is a strawberry just a strawberry and yet simultaneously not a strawberry at all, much more than a strawberry, really? Only in the hands of Nigel Slater. Some people in the world just get food. Nigel is one of them. And when you find people who get Nigel as much as you do (your mother, you friend, the proprietor of your favourite canteen) then you need to hold on to them for dear life, because you know that these ones are true keepers.

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cinematic style (sort of) - men in uniform from various

Tom Cruise in Top Gun // Liam Neeson and Bradley Cooper in The A Team // Jake Gyllenhaal in Jarhead // Josh Hartnett, Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin in Pearl Harbour // Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman

Who doesn't love a man in uniform?

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cannes cannes cannes

zimbio // grazia uk // le fur coat

There are possibly only two reasons for the fact that I am one of the world's most hopelessly devoted film buffs. Firstly, my mum's Vanity Fair subscription, which kept my elbows-deep in Hollywood drama from the ages of twelve to sixteen. And secondly, the Cannes Film Festival. Teen Vogue used to cover it in the breathless way that only Teen Vogue can ("Kirsten Dunst, her honey locks back to strawberry as she films the latest installment of Spiderman, was every-inch the Sofia Coppola heroine in a backless pistachio satin sheath dress at the premiere of Marie Antoinette!"), and for a teenager that's pretty powerful stuff. There was always a cinderella moment, a belle of the ball (Diane Kruger in that mercury dress!), a class clown, a European up-and-comer (Cannes is, after all, where the world first met Brigitte Bardot) and the hangers on in haute couture. There's something about the excess and the elegance of throwing together world-famous stars and world-famous supermodels and world-famous beautiful people in one gloriously naff Riviera setting and pressing play. You never know what's going to happen. All you know is that the men have to be in tuxedos, even the paparazzi. My life dream is to go to Cannes one day. Until then, well, this year's festival starts today.

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the dream

Rachel Kara
 

A few weeks ago Rachel and I went to Palm Beach and had smoothies at The Boathouse and took our sweaters off and greedily bathed in the sunlight and dreamt of a life lived at the edge of the ocean, north of the beaches. In more ways than one it was so sweet. See the whole post here.

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the everything

Vanessa Jackman // Garance Dore // Margaret Howell S/S 2013

Show me the girl who wouldn't give it all up for the perfect pair of overalls and I'll show you a liar. 

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the home

eefje de coninck

Maybe because I'm facing the prospect of never leaving the house ever again (honours year is slowly taking over my life and I fear I will become a hermit by October), but all I can think about lately is the home. What it's going to look like, what I want to put in it, who I'm going to share it with. I went to Ikea the other day and bought a beautiful bedside tray table, and I filled with all of the things that I normally just throw on the floor (hair ties, books I'm reading, punnets of strawberries) and I think it's not a bad start on the road to this.

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homespun

 I wrote an article on the lovely, down-to-earth, soon to be of New York, New York knitwear designer Katherine Mavridis for Broadsheet. You can read the interview and see more of Rachel's - as per usual - completely breathtaking pictures here. Very soon I'm going to be able to share more of our work together, and I just can't wait. We've been sitting on it for a while now and we're bursting at the seams to show it to people! Watch this space...

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