That was far from true in the case of the Vena Cava show. At the end of it, all I wanted was a book on the Memphis Group.
And the liquid-like silk of their dresses.
Photos via
Friday, September 10, 2010
Favorite of the Day: Vena Cava
I rarely find myself all that interested in what designers list as their inspirations. At times the references are so obscure and the connection to the clothes is so flimsy, that I find whatever planted that kernel in their mind to be unnecessary for my understanding of the collection. In fact, it can often get in the way.
That was far from true in the case of the Vena Cava show. At the end of it, all I wanted was a book on the Memphis Group.
And the liquid-like silk of their dresses.
Photos via
That was far from true in the case of the Vena Cava show. At the end of it, all I wanted was a book on the Memphis Group.
And the liquid-like silk of their dresses.
Photos via
Friday, September 3, 2010
Showtime
I measure my time away from New York in various ways. Months. Seasons of Gossip Girl viewed. Number of hot dogs not consumed during numerous wanderings through SoHo. Glasses of Pinot Grigio not poured.
Fashion Weeks missed.
I draw inspiration, for what I write and how I dress, from observation. It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me that the notes I took throughout school never progressed far beyond a series of bullet points. I gained more from actively listening. Facts and figures stuck in my brain, and mindlessly scribbling them down never helped me retain them. In a similar way, seeing things in the flesh, drinking them in and spending time with them, has been one of the most important ways I’ve learned about clothes. About fashion and dressing and style and all of those words that seem to mean the same thing but are vastly different.
New York City proved its own source of inspiration on a fairly regular basis, but it wasn’t the same as being surrounded so fully as I was then. During those seasons where I got to attend very few or no shows at all, sitting in Bryant Park with an iced coffee was enough. Doing that thing where I stare at people’s shoes. Taking in the quirky and over the top and eccentric alongside the minimalist and reserved and subtle. Standing on a subway platform with my heels in hand and watching a model remove the makeup from her face. It gave me a chance to experiment with my own choices. To find new combinations for things that had been sitting in my closet for ages. I complained and griped and seriously considered throwing my eyeliner on an open flame much as I had contemplated burying my Calculus textbook years earlier, but it was all part of the learning experience. The complete and total breakdown that sometimes occurs before epiphany.
And so I miss it. I can sit in my leggings and eat snacks and watch shows with my computer on my lap, but it doesn’t compare to the energy that flows through a space as the lights dim and then rise again. I don’t smell the just applied coat of paint.
My ears don’t ring from the ferocity of the bass.
Fashion Weeks missed.
I draw inspiration, for what I write and how I dress, from observation. It shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows me that the notes I took throughout school never progressed far beyond a series of bullet points. I gained more from actively listening. Facts and figures stuck in my brain, and mindlessly scribbling them down never helped me retain them. In a similar way, seeing things in the flesh, drinking them in and spending time with them, has been one of the most important ways I’ve learned about clothes. About fashion and dressing and style and all of those words that seem to mean the same thing but are vastly different.
New York City proved its own source of inspiration on a fairly regular basis, but it wasn’t the same as being surrounded so fully as I was then. During those seasons where I got to attend very few or no shows at all, sitting in Bryant Park with an iced coffee was enough. Doing that thing where I stare at people’s shoes. Taking in the quirky and over the top and eccentric alongside the minimalist and reserved and subtle. Standing on a subway platform with my heels in hand and watching a model remove the makeup from her face. It gave me a chance to experiment with my own choices. To find new combinations for things that had been sitting in my closet for ages. I complained and griped and seriously considered throwing my eyeliner on an open flame much as I had contemplated burying my Calculus textbook years earlier, but it was all part of the learning experience. The complete and total breakdown that sometimes occurs before epiphany.
And so I miss it. I can sit in my leggings and eat snacks and watch shows with my computer on my lap, but it doesn’t compare to the energy that flows through a space as the lights dim and then rise again. I don’t smell the just applied coat of paint.
My ears don’t ring from the ferocity of the bass.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Flip Flop
As we find ourselves in day I don’t know how many it’s been, but it’s fucking hot of this heat wave, I’ve continued to think of fall. I spent most of yesterday having daydreams about the type of weather that would allow me to wear my chambray shorts with brightly hued tights (mustard yellow or dusty rose) and ballet flats. Two days earlier, my glove obsession reappeared out of nowhere. Well not nowhere. These helped.
As did these.
Yet last week, near the tail end of the rains, all I wanted were sundresses and shorts and the espadrilles that I’ve gone all of spring and summer without wearing once.
It’s the feeling of the season. That restlessness that comes as everything moves between changing and staying exactly as it was. I, and everyone else who spends an abundance of time talking and thinking about clothes, have a tendency to overuse the phrase transitional piece. Those items, the sweater jackets and booties and medium-weight knits, are really pieces that fit everywhere and nowhere all at once. That deal adeptly with the sometimes schizophrenic tendencies of the wasteland that exists between seasons.
We hate the heat, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Photos via
As did these.
Yet last week, near the tail end of the rains, all I wanted were sundresses and shorts and the espadrilles that I’ve gone all of spring and summer without wearing once.
It’s the feeling of the season. That restlessness that comes as everything moves between changing and staying exactly as it was. I, and everyone else who spends an abundance of time talking and thinking about clothes, have a tendency to overuse the phrase transitional piece. Those items, the sweater jackets and booties and medium-weight knits, are really pieces that fit everywhere and nowhere all at once. That deal adeptly with the sometimes schizophrenic tendencies of the wasteland that exists between seasons.
We hate the heat, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone.
Photos via
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Curator
This morning, while listening to a Pandora station that flitted between The National, Noah and the Whale and Arcade Fire, I sat on the floor fighting sneezes and sorting through piles of clothes in search of my fall pieces. It was a calming way to spend a rainy morning.
I spend most of September fighting the urge to buy an entirely new wardrobe. Sweaters and coats and boots seem to call out to me as I wander through stores. As the years have passed, I’ve gotten better at ignoring these bank account draining impulses. But every fall some things need to be discarded while others need to be found.
I made a little list in my head. In front of me were the minis in corduroy and denim and wool. Tights in pink and mustard and metallic silver. The many pairs in black and gray. More argyle knee-highs than I remembered owning. Skinny black cords. A faux-wrap black sweater and a simple white v-neck one. The gray, green and black sweater dresses.
There were obvious gaps, even if I’d only made it halfway through the hunt. The sweater search never materialized last winter as I instead settled on layering. I could do with another pair of cords to compliment the cadre of denim that I own.
Shorter boots would nicely offset my knee-high pairs. A pair of non-denim, non-cord pants, an item I can’t remember purchasing in at least the past three years due to an allergy to chinos and the reality of working at casual workplaces, creative workplaces, or no workplaces at all, were likely a necessity at this point.
Flat oxfords could prove a nice, cold weather alternative to my ballet flats.
But I eventually tired of thinking about what was necessary. It was rainy and cold. August, the worst month of the year, was moving at too slow of a pace. No one seemed to be in a hiring mood this time of year. I stretched out on the floor, stared at the ceiling and thought of this.
Photo via, via, via, via
I spend most of September fighting the urge to buy an entirely new wardrobe. Sweaters and coats and boots seem to call out to me as I wander through stores. As the years have passed, I’ve gotten better at ignoring these bank account draining impulses. But every fall some things need to be discarded while others need to be found.
I made a little list in my head. In front of me were the minis in corduroy and denim and wool. Tights in pink and mustard and metallic silver. The many pairs in black and gray. More argyle knee-highs than I remembered owning. Skinny black cords. A faux-wrap black sweater and a simple white v-neck one. The gray, green and black sweater dresses.
There were obvious gaps, even if I’d only made it halfway through the hunt. The sweater search never materialized last winter as I instead settled on layering. I could do with another pair of cords to compliment the cadre of denim that I own.
Shorter boots would nicely offset my knee-high pairs. A pair of non-denim, non-cord pants, an item I can’t remember purchasing in at least the past three years due to an allergy to chinos and the reality of working at casual workplaces, creative workplaces, or no workplaces at all, were likely a necessity at this point.
Flat oxfords could prove a nice, cold weather alternative to my ballet flats.
But I eventually tired of thinking about what was necessary. It was rainy and cold. August, the worst month of the year, was moving at too slow of a pace. No one seemed to be in a hiring mood this time of year. I stretched out on the floor, stared at the ceiling and thought of this.
Photo via, via, via, via
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Schooling
I've reached that point in the summer when I start to think about back to school dressing despite the fact that I've been out of school for over five years.
Because every schoolgirl needs knee-high black boots to go with her sweater dress and ribbed tights.
Photos via, via
Because every schoolgirl needs knee-high black boots to go with her sweater dress and ribbed tights.
Photos via, via
Thursday, August 5, 2010
The Heat
Any will to write has been lacking recently. All I can think, and feel, is the heat. I distract myself by calculating the perfect fan sitting distance and listening to 90s pop hits. Moving is difficult. Dressing even more so.
Everyone in Boston has fallen back on their warm weather staples. Denim shorts or skirts with tank tops for the women. Cargo or chino shorts with polos or tees for the men. Flip flops all around.
I open my closet, and my clothes conjure thoughts of suffocating before I reach the bottom of our stairs. The thick belts I pair with my dresses resemble heat traps. Cardigans and light sweaters mock me. I think that I should start investing in some basic tees. Then I remember that I already have enough tees. I simply choose not to wear them. On me they read as lazy as opposed to casual and effortless.
On Tuesday, I pulled on my denim capris. My brain, barely functioning in this humidity, decided that something that rests that close to the skin can’t hold heat. I chose not to question that dodgy piece of logic. My eyes drifted to the linen sweater casually lying in another corner of my room. Only days earlier, as what I believed to be the first hint of autumn entered the air, I had worn it out while getting a quick drink. I closed the closet door. Finally my eyes landed on a forgotten piece hanging in a different part of the house.
Bought last year as I wandered through Gap, it was a shirt worn almost too often after the rains fled last summer. I have shrunk and the shirt has not, and I, so concerned about things fitting properly, had stopped wearing it. But it was never meant to be a perfect fit. Paper thin and prone to stretching as the day wears on, it had always hung off of me a bit. I pulled it on.
It proved to be the perfect choice. Light and loose yet somehow slimming. Cool and airy.
I've begun to wonder if I should have invested in multiples.
Everyone in Boston has fallen back on their warm weather staples. Denim shorts or skirts with tank tops for the women. Cargo or chino shorts with polos or tees for the men. Flip flops all around.
I open my closet, and my clothes conjure thoughts of suffocating before I reach the bottom of our stairs. The thick belts I pair with my dresses resemble heat traps. Cardigans and light sweaters mock me. I think that I should start investing in some basic tees. Then I remember that I already have enough tees. I simply choose not to wear them. On me they read as lazy as opposed to casual and effortless.
On Tuesday, I pulled on my denim capris. My brain, barely functioning in this humidity, decided that something that rests that close to the skin can’t hold heat. I chose not to question that dodgy piece of logic. My eyes drifted to the linen sweater casually lying in another corner of my room. Only days earlier, as what I believed to be the first hint of autumn entered the air, I had worn it out while getting a quick drink. I closed the closet door. Finally my eyes landed on a forgotten piece hanging in a different part of the house.
Bought last year as I wandered through Gap, it was a shirt worn almost too often after the rains fled last summer. I have shrunk and the shirt has not, and I, so concerned about things fitting properly, had stopped wearing it. But it was never meant to be a perfect fit. Paper thin and prone to stretching as the day wears on, it had always hung off of me a bit. I pulled it on.
It proved to be the perfect choice. Light and loose yet somehow slimming. Cool and airy.
I've begun to wonder if I should have invested in multiples.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Back Issues: Vogue, September 2004
The oldest magazine in my arsenal lives in an old dresser. It shares space with various historical and political books from college, long forgotten DVDs that I’ve never felt the urge to search for, and many other magazines.
The September 2004 issue of Vogue must have been bought either right before, while on my trip to, or during the first week of my last year of college. It was a tri-fold cover featuring the biggest models of the time. Though my almost obsessive reading and collection of magazines was only beginning, I knew that such a sight was a rarity in general, much less on the all-important September issue. Actresses of various levels of fame, or infamy, now hold court.
Daria, Natalia, Gisele. Isabeli, Karolina, Liya. Hana, Gemma, Karen. Most of these names probably mean little to you. They meant little to me at the time.
The cover itself was enough of a reason to hold onto it.
The magazine was heralded, in large typeface, as the biggest ever. A phenomenon that had been occurring for years prior and would reach its apex in September of 2007. The ads at the front of the book seemed endless as I flipped through the pages for the first time in years. The last set of Tom Ford for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent campaigns starring Daria and Gemma respectively. Bai Ling featured prominently in a Saks Fifth Avenue advertisement as opposed to on the pages of Go Fug Yourself. Many of the ads had one or more of the women featured on the cover in them. Their appearances lay somewhere between coincidence and well thought out advertising plan.
Mostly the magazine reminds me of a time before everything shifted. I was preparing my medical school applications. I was steeling myself for one final year in a place I had grown to loathe. I was mistaking my fear about the future for excitement. And for all of that anxiety, there was no better salve then slipping into the over the top luxury of that magazine. Ten commandments for every women to live by that fall welcomed you to the fashion-heavy final fifth of the issue. Tackle chores in sequins. Wear the trousers. Bone up on the classics. Don’t leave home without your “face”. Make yours mink. Kick up your heels in a racy cocktail frock. Buy yourself your first real evening dress. Thank your lucky stars when it’s a bad-hair day. Say sayonara to strappy sandals. Ransack Grandma’s jewelry box. Some of them make me chuckle in that way that relics of the recent past sometimes do.
In the editorials, Karolina did a handstand in Alexander McQueen.
The models lounged in Theyskens-era Rochas and pre-contemporary Helmut Lang.
Everything radiated lushness.
For me, it is a touchstone. A reminder of when this all really started. Despite the other small awakenings that occurred during those collegiate years, this issue marks the most important one. The flashbulb. The genesis.
Photos via, via, via
The September 2004 issue of Vogue must have been bought either right before, while on my trip to, or during the first week of my last year of college. It was a tri-fold cover featuring the biggest models of the time. Though my almost obsessive reading and collection of magazines was only beginning, I knew that such a sight was a rarity in general, much less on the all-important September issue. Actresses of various levels of fame, or infamy, now hold court.
Daria, Natalia, Gisele. Isabeli, Karolina, Liya. Hana, Gemma, Karen. Most of these names probably mean little to you. They meant little to me at the time.
The cover itself was enough of a reason to hold onto it.
The magazine was heralded, in large typeface, as the biggest ever. A phenomenon that had been occurring for years prior and would reach its apex in September of 2007. The ads at the front of the book seemed endless as I flipped through the pages for the first time in years. The last set of Tom Ford for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent campaigns starring Daria and Gemma respectively. Bai Ling featured prominently in a Saks Fifth Avenue advertisement as opposed to on the pages of Go Fug Yourself. Many of the ads had one or more of the women featured on the cover in them. Their appearances lay somewhere between coincidence and well thought out advertising plan.
Mostly the magazine reminds me of a time before everything shifted. I was preparing my medical school applications. I was steeling myself for one final year in a place I had grown to loathe. I was mistaking my fear about the future for excitement. And for all of that anxiety, there was no better salve then slipping into the over the top luxury of that magazine. Ten commandments for every women to live by that fall welcomed you to the fashion-heavy final fifth of the issue. Tackle chores in sequins. Wear the trousers. Bone up on the classics. Don’t leave home without your “face”. Make yours mink. Kick up your heels in a racy cocktail frock. Buy yourself your first real evening dress. Thank your lucky stars when it’s a bad-hair day. Say sayonara to strappy sandals. Ransack Grandma’s jewelry box. Some of them make me chuckle in that way that relics of the recent past sometimes do.
In the editorials, Karolina did a handstand in Alexander McQueen.
The models lounged in Theyskens-era Rochas and pre-contemporary Helmut Lang.
Everything radiated lushness.
For me, it is a touchstone. A reminder of when this all really started. Despite the other small awakenings that occurred during those collegiate years, this issue marks the most important one. The flashbulb. The genesis.
Photos via, via, via
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