The One Item on my Christmas List

Nadine

Sketch by moi. Click to enlarge.

The Colder Months

Ophelia showcases things I adore this season. Original painting by John William Waterhouse.
Click image to enlarge.

Halloween (Late)

What's shakin', bacon?
Here's my late, thrown-cobbled-together Halloween post which includes some barely Halloween-themed crap that I found fabulous.
To begin with the obvious, here are some pictures of my costume and my EPIC jackolantern.
Did you take a hint from that last post as to what I dressed up as?
It was the random picture which didn't really fit in style-wise with all the rest....
You know... maybe my costume worked well enough that you can guess. The hair wasn't completely accurate, but very fun to wear.

Still not got it? Ok, if you don't get it after this, you are probably either an infant, a lobotomy patient or dead. And I do have my right arm, although it might not be immediately obvious. The jacket was my dads. Ergo, massive.


Are we clear? Ok. I'm glad you're not dead. So, that was great, even though no one in this brain-dead suburb actually knew who I was. Such is the plight of the music-lover. At least I wasn't Pavarotti.
Here are some of my other photos.


Chiswick by night -- quite beautiful in a coked-out, fuzzy sort of way. At least, this picture is. I'm kinda obsessed with flash-at-night photos... they're so mysterious...


My aforementioned amazing jackolantern -- its Marylin. She's even got the smoldering thing going on.


Just thought I'd through this in -- a picture I took for a school photography competition. The theme? Food. That, my friend, is a fruit pastille, and some odd-looking constructions were required to keep the light at that angle.
I actually had kind of a dumb Halloween. I got sick in the middle of the sleepover I was attending, so, suffocating on the smell of garlic bread and Sour Gummy Worms, I went home, but not before nabbing the hosts "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". Yes, I'm a nerd. Shut up. Nerds are RAD.So, I didn't get much trick-or-treating done, but my bro had a ton of candy which I proceeded to help myself to (when the bout of illness had passed). Such stealth. Thank God he doesn't go near this blog.
Loving this shot of Eniko Mihalik for i-D magazine (in Jil Sander dress). The dress material is amazing. I'm really loving dresses in particular at the moment mainly because you can through them on and look amazing without giving too much thought to the look. The juxtaposition of textures and the slightly wild, unraveled feel is astoundifying. Yes, I know that isn't actually a word, but sometimes one must reach into the realm of the nonexistent to describe something so awesome without cussing. Trust me, its hard. Like also that she isn't put together at all. I love a bit of gamine, wild-eyed, delicious craziness to everything. Plus the colour... this takes it to a whole new level.
Amazing triptych aspect, gorgeous vêtements, spectacular lighting. From i-D.

Until next time,
EC

Stuff That Inspires (tackydom)

An opportunity for you to rest your eyes and brain and not have to process words. Gaze here at beautiful images. And also, I'm trying to blog more... lets see if that works out.

Lady Behave from VulpineVideo on Vimeo.

Film courtesy of Bella Freud's website. I wanna go to that etiquette school.


Lindsey Wixson as Bébé (style.com)



Eniko Mihalik photographed by Derek Kettela


Joan Jett. Duh.


Bottega Veneta ss11 ready-to-wear


Monarch butterflies at night, courtesy of 'Monarch Guide- Enjoying and Conserving Monarchs
and their Habitats'

Valentino ss11 ready-to-wear


Alexander Wang ss11 ready-to-wear


Galliano ss11 ready-to-wear


Kenzo ss11 ready-to-wear

I'll do a Halloween post at a later date. Meaning, tomorrow or the next day.
Hope you likey.
E.C.

Wunderland

Hi, sorry about the delay. I was taking an extended vacation from all obligation, which I think is acceptable, right?

Anyway, I thought yesterday after watching Gossip Girl about how much I had missed and shuddered, so now I am back at mon ordinateur for an update, and these are my findings.
And by the way, I know I haven't posted any of my own outfits in positively aaaaaages, so I'll see if I can do that, but my camera is stone age, so don't get your hopes up. Naw, just kidding. But I still hate my camera.
I had a browse on style.com....

This is Wunderkind ss11. It is also the most amazing collection ever, although I overuse that phrase to the point that you should just ignore whenever I say/type it.
But seriously, they're cherries. CHERRIES. Printed on chiffon. How much more adorable can you get? I also love the cute Dutch-maid hair, even though its kinda strange, in a good way.

But, you'll notice, as you have probably noticed my obsession for Lolita-esque clothes with a tough undertone, that these garments are exactly that. The cherry chiffon is layered with shades of gray, making it bittersweet, and the shapes alternate between flirty 50s-style circle dresses and loose, tomboyish getups, and also tight, structured trousers, amongst other things.
The layering is not always present, but it reminds me of a beautiful image in the Friedrich Christian Flick art collection, which I'll see if I can fit into this post.

There are variations in the attitude of the clothes: some are pure, childish, buttercream sweetness, whilst others are much more mature, sharp and hard-edged.

This is one of the latter.
The collection then progresses to psychedelic bright blooms (as seen above) on all manner of backgrounds.The shapes become less floaty and more edgy, incorporating a myriad of fabrics into the mix in true Wunderkind spirit, giving the second part of the collection a more pronounced modernity. The prints also become progressively darker, and power-suit shapes start to creep in. I'm still partial to the cherries, though.

I think this has been my favorite collection in the past 3 months -- it has absolutely everything I love, from cherries, flowers and chiffon to "BOOOM get out the way" shapes.
And another thing on the spatial aspect of this whole affair:
There's something about the pairing of a sharply tailored jacket, a voluminous mini and sky scraper heels.... which is why I think this is the piece with the most attitude and fearlessness in the whole dang thing.


Maybe its about stylizing the human figure, or the instant masculinity of the shoulders (not that I'm saying that men are more powerful than women -- HELL no!)... maybe its just the whole darn amazingness of... everything!! GAHH I'M OVERWHELMED

PS. The lace up shoes are pretty awesome also, and the color of the aforementioned jacket is the absolute epitome of pulchritude. I was gonna do Mohapatra ss11 too, but I'll do that tomorrow.


E.C.

New Stuff

Ready-to-wear baby!!!

Excuse the idiotic 90210 reference. Not that I actually watch the show, or anything.
No way! Ha....ha.....So, moving right along. This is part one of many parts soon to follow all about the new Ready-to-wear collections (thanks for the pics, Style.com, babezz).And by the way, I am sick, which is why I have time to blog on a Thursday. It is also unfortunately the reason that I have lost my voice. So I am going to have to do all my usual vocal expostulations that I usually do while blogging in my mind, or, if that gets too strenuous, on paper (or screen, rather).
First up: Rachel Roy.


I was flipping through the slide show of the collection going "shett man this is boring" (in my head, of course, not my current hoarse, disturbing tracheotomy-esque whisper. I wouldn't want to frighten the black cat that is, at this moment, staring into my window. No joke). This collection consists mainly of one-toned, flowy evening gowns. While this is definitely not a bad thing, and I do love long flowy evening gowns, shett man, I'm bored with them. And I know I have the attention span of a lightning bolt, to quote someone (I forgot who), but so does the public, unfortunately. But as I was about to kill the slide show, I stumbled upon these two nuggets of sartorial gold. Literally, they are both gold. In the above photograph, it was the blazer that caught my eye. And is that a transparent belt I see before me? If mine eyes do not deceive me, yes, it is. I'm not wild about the pants, but the blazer looks like something I would wear if I were a very powerful chief executive in a very powerful company and had just come back from vacation in Berlin and Ibiza, and had only just had time to wash the funkayy green hair dye out of my hair. Gaze with awe upon the way the way the neckline gives way the tan line. Too cleavage-y for a first-day-back at work? Shut up.


My favorite thing about this one is the barely-visible shirt (pretty much the opposite of the other outfit). This combined with the rest of the outfit, the sunglasses and the model's lack of makeup (or visible makeup, anyway), not to mention the simple center-parting, say: "I am so much more bitchin' than you many lady-clones because of the fact that I don't feel the need to squish my boobs to gross proportions, hairspray my tresses into Snookiedom, and I won't even deign to look upon such vulgar things, and therefore I will wear John-Lennon-y glasses and avert my hipster gaze. This also gives me the privilege of being able to use 70s slang without reproach (unlike the author). YAY FEMALE EMPOWERMENT". Yes, novice, clothes can be that expressive. And also a little full of themselves.

--------> ANNA SUI


I really didn't think I would like this collection very much at first, because it seemed kinda like a parody of, well, say, the last Dolce &Gabbana collection (the one with all the denim and stuff). Also, it was too busy for my taste. But I do like the choker on this one, and the shorts paired with something more more subtle would be sheer hottness.


But I definitely came 'round when I saw this frilly frippery (in a good way). I just... love it. Its kinda hard to explain. I've always been one for nude lace in moderation. It reminds me a bit of a sexed-up Wendy-type nighty. My scenario is if Wendy went "Uchh this long skirt is so dang irritating *rips it off*. Oh well, now I'm in my undies, but in Neverland nobody cares, right? And I might as well pull on these sturdy boots if I'm gonna be grappling with evil fairies and such. OK, Peter, bring on the fairy dust."


There are several reasons I love this so much.

- The printed chiffon is is psychedelic in a way you never see in the 21st century. Or at least I haven't seen it this year. God knows Alexander McQueen, bless his eternal soul, had it all up on the runways in 2008.

- The boots, I want them. They look so comfy and and well-made and leathery and cowgirlish and I am gonna unearth a certain pair of tan leather boots my grandma handed down to me this winter.

- Lindsey Wixson is modeling it and she is the most adorable little thang. Plus I love the hair in this collection. It probably took about 5 hours to achieve, but it looks so easy and carefree and happy. And I love it. Wait... did I say that already?

- The blouse is poufy. Enough said.

- SHE IS SMILING!!!!! I haven't seen that sort of unabashed, roguish grin on a model in donkeys' years. That's a British expression for a very long time. I'm talkin' like a native, huh?


These boots are made for beating heels any day.

This dress is pretty simple, so it would be applicable in many a situation. Love this hair too. Its so... long. Not so keen on the sandals, but liking the feather necklace.
Until next time!
EC

TREASURES

She loves to talk on the phone

while washing the dinner dishes,

catching up long distance or

dealing with issues closer to home,

the reconnoitring with the long lost

or a recent so-and-so. She finds it

therapeutic, washing down

the aftermath. And that feeling

she gets in her stomach with a loved one’s

prolonged silence. And under the sink

in the dark among the L-pipes, the confederate

socket wrenches, lost twine, wire lei,

sink funk, steel-wool lemnisci, leitmotifs

of oily sacraments, a broken compass forever

pointing southeast by east, mold codices,

ring-tailed dust motes from days well served,

a fish-shaped flyswatter with blue horns,

fermented lemures, fiery spectres,

embottled spirit vapors swirling in the crude

next to the Soft Scrub, the vinegared

and leistered sealed in tins, delicious with saltines,

gleaned spikelets, used-up votives. . . .

In the back in the corner forgotten

an old coffee can of bacon fat

from a month of sinful Sundays,

a luna moth embossed, rising—a morning star.

--Catherine Bowman

GROWING//ALBERTA FERRETTI

A lot of people think that Alberta Ferretti, though an icon, is perhaps a little behind the times with her simple, classic, Grecian-inspired dresses and clean shapes. Most people I know who are under the age of 40 think this, in fact. People nowadays want fast, flashy, flamboyant fashion; they want to be zipped, scraped, sprayed, slicked, pinned and sucked into 'hip', young, sexy minidresses that 'say' things like 'flirty', 'fun' and 'not afraid to get up on the club stage and belt out ABBA or Cyndi Lauper'. Well, OK, maybe not the latter -- and don't get me wrong; there is nothing (and I repeat, NOTHING) wrong with donning that cute pink mini with the cutouts from Topshop now and then. But don't you ever long for the good ol' days when there were no statement jewelry pieces, no goth-chic, no sky-high platforms? 'Cause that's what begins to bother me after a few seasons: the fact that the bare bones of style have been concealed with layers of frou-frou and sequins. And it is oh so nice to be back where we started again.

What always strikes me about Ferretti's clothes is that the sweeping gowns in particular seem to be shaping and molding themselves to the wearer's physical and mental contours -- meaning, be it Taylor Momsen or Tilda Swinton, the dress seems as though it has been expressly made to fit their style and personality.

While some of the dresses are more architectural, like the one pictured above with its linear and geometric appearance -- pleats thrown into sharp relief, an interlocking pyramid pattern subtly revealed beneath the bust, a diagonal trim -- (notice, though, that it still retains a certain fluidity, asymmetry, a certain feeling that Ferretti has made her own), countless others, mostly of the more flowing type, seem as if they had taken root and sprouted out of the models' skin and can change, on a whim, into a completely different garment, or rather, a garment that says something completely different.

Take the dress pictured above as an example. With the scooped, folded sleeves and collar opening like a flower bud to reveal the perfect amount of skin -- so as not to seem prudish and neither sleazy -- followed by the main part of the dress, simple so as not to distract from the genius of the neckline and hemline, but still intricately ruched at the sides (as the wearer moves about, these little details would become more noticeable), and finally, the wispy hemline, delicately skimming the kneecaps but revealing a good couple inches of skin, and hanging slightly askew, and having the same effect as the neckline. This designer has found the perfect balance between sexy and sophisticated. But of course you already knew that.

The more I look at this, the more I love it. A periwinkle-blue pillar of a gown, simple enough, but revealing a playful flash of collarbone here, and a glimpse of leg there...

This piece stands out, although it isn't one of my favorites. The shape is amazing, but I don't think the fabric suits it.

A stately dress of midnight blue, topped off by a darling little capelet-thingy. LOVE IT, enough said.

I could rant about how exquisite this is, but I would just be repeating myself. I'll shut up now.

But one more thing -- I just love the way the satin and the way its crimped, I guess, works with the light -- a waterfall of stripes.

Thank you, come again.

EC