Everything Glitters

Streetwalking, Paris
Makes you feel dull in comparison.

X Ray Vision

Nina Ricci, Avenue Montaigne

One at a time

Rose Bakery, Paris

Center Fold

Past few days. Draw your own conclusions! Hint: Bagel Bites.

Hibernation

I've been out of sorts in the best kind of way now that my job is my own (1 week and counting!). And not by a computer for a while, imagine that. The first real snow, numerous attacks on the Element, and me on the tramp by AJB.



and a soundtrack: click here

"Well, I don't think so, they're not here very often"

Sigur Ros - Við spilum endalaust - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

Film Strip

Miuccia Advice

"I'm tired of being so sweet," declared Miuccia Prada. "We women should go back to strength—and the sober side. Stop trying to appeal to everyone, and go out into the world."
[Fall 2006 Collection]
My favorite pair of shoes--towering and comfortable--a gift from the gorgeous and lovely Kalina, is from this collection. I look back on this season now, with a newfound reverence--no gimmicks, no elaborate references, just beautiful elements of a wardrobe. A woman who takes herself seriously, unwaveringly, is the most powerful thing--and something others love to trample on. Stop pleasing others. Beautiful parkas, knits, furs, and pencil flannel trousers help!

Kalina went out into the world, or rather, she left New York City for another part of the world. She doesn't realize that this was very brave and inspiring to me. This post is a highly-tangential-inter-continental vote of confidence that Kalina is going to come out on top. And a lot of the trick to growing up is that you can't sweet-talk your way there--that it's hard and isolating and a hotbed for self-doubt. I'm about to head to Los Angeles, and whether it works out or doesn't, it's important to remember to be your own thing and know it. Such a moody wardrobe for L.A. huh? Well I have to represent New York, in all of it's layering, blackgreytanbrownbeigenudeputtyeggshell glory.

Flounce= Flutter and Pounce

Photographer:Alex John Beck
Model: Skye Stracke

After this shoot, and my breakthrough- "I can now die happy and fulfilled since I have fondled an entire rack of vintage 70s YSL safari suits"-moment in the Exquisite Costume basement, it got me thinking about my quest for certain vintage items that I have dedicated my life to (yes, high aspirations for this School of Foreign Service graduate). These include (but are not limited to): 1920s Velvet dresses, a YSL Le Smoking jacket, Victorian army boots, the perfect striped navy breton top, Argentinian riding boots, a '70s trench, a scarab ring, and a buttery leather briefcase with a messenger strap. I'm sure there's more--everytime i see a french film, another gets added to the list. What are your vintage quests?

Band Meeting. Present.

Just got back from a shoot this past weekend. Lot's of music (inside-outside speakers). Exquisite Costume is my favorite vintage store in the city and they let me pull from their basement. It was just color, air, feel and lots of other moody fabrics from decades past. Here's some b-roll, as usual.


(this was purchased by me at cost $30. It's from the 1930's and all torn up, in the best way)

Ed's Picks

Please bear with me: I'm having a beauty moment.

Andre has repeatedly suggested that given my current milieu, I should share some of my favorite products. And I am in no way the epitome of groomed perfection--i tend to think a bit more along the lines of the rumpled hair and pared makeup if at all whereas other people in my office are bona fide experts. But I also don't make a concerted attempt to look unattractive.* Maybe this is self-indulgent or not, I have no idea and no sense of who reads this, but I promise you I try A LOT of products and end up giving nearly everything away except for the few that really really work. I know one day this perk will come to an end, and so here are the products I will actually spend money on. So in no particular order, here goes. The proverbial contents of my medicine cabinet. And please forgive my tone if it becomes magazine-y and gushy like a middle schooler. It kind of comes with the territory.

Nail Polish:

Grunge by Rescue Beauty Lounge is a greige with a hint of nude-lilac and i have about 4 bottles, in case it ever gets discontinued. Kind of corpse-like, a bit matte, and like the chic-est coolest color to exist, ever, in history.** Ji Baek's line of polishes for Rescue Beauty Lounge really have the best, edited colors I've ever come across--like if you are looking for a teal, it will be the perfect teal, not seven shades approximating the one you really want--and they last much longer than most other brands you choose for color over quality (i.e. most luxury nail polishes sadly--Deborah Lippman's polishes, M.A.C., NARS, even Chanel). Though with Nars, I am willing to put up with the chipping because Hunger is an amazing orange-red, (named after the Deneuve-Bowie vampire movie). So yeah, regular rotation between Grunge and Hunger. And honorary mention for You Don't Know Jacques by OPI which is a khakier, darker taupe and also very good-looking.

Skincare:
Weleda's Skin Food was actually recommended to me by a model i worked with--kind of the secret, ubiquitous product in all makeup artist's bags. It's a really thick, natural, citrus-y smelling intense moisturizer that i started using in the summer, however counter-intuitive. Although its for dry skin, which i don't have, i use it daily--it gives your skin this dewy glow that i haven't seen any other product replicate. It might be too heavy for some people, but I really like it and it's also inexpensive. I feel like it's healing, though that might be my immediate reaction to anything found in the organic aisle at Whole Foods. On the other end of the spectrum is the SkinCeuticals CE Ferulic Serum. I'm not going to even mention how much this costs--its billed as the one antioxidant anti-aging serum that works wonders and i've been using it for two years and i think it works really well...I once (ONCE people, just once) got a facial and the facialist Joanna Czech told me i had amazing skin and i was lucky i didn't smoke.*** But the truth is just after using it, the terrain of your skin is unearthly smooth and pores don't exist. But for the same cost as ten tanqueray martinis (with three olives, up), well, the choice is yours... You could make up for the cost by washing your face with good old Cetaphil or Dove soap. Tried and true. These are the three things I use every day.

Mascara:
I've had to test a whole lot. I've found--and most everyone i work with agrees--the absolute best, most worth-the-price mascaras are: Lancome Definicils for day (fanned out, defined, long lashes), DiorShow for anything where you want dark, full, and glossy lashes in a more obvious way. Both don't really smudge and wash off without putting up a huge fight.

(This post will be continued)
*See link on Lidov's perfectly articulated Thoughts on Hipsters. Totally on the mark.
**The depths of my obsession with this color have been chronicled. And here
***I have since, quit.

Magic Eye

I'm of the belief that there's two camps of high design in fashion.* One's reductionistic--the stripping of all froth and excess down to the elements: wearable, effortless, beautiful, impeccable construction. Just think- Yves Saint Laurent, Raf Simmons, Yohji Yamamoto, Martin Margiela--and of course their offshoots (the perfect tee shirt crew). They strip style down to its most basic, beautiful, and exalted function: living.

Then there's the other approach, what I've read described as "Arch Style."** The mad geniuses like Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Rei Kawakubo, Philip Treacy, Thierry Mugler, the couturiers. Fashion is to be pushed, molded, obliterated, and reconceived. Style is not for living (or necessarily wearing), it's about life.

Of course, designers can weave in and out of both camps, and the usual, if not always fulfilled expectation is that they can do both. The emphasis of late, since the recession, has been on the former camp. But i have to say that despite my personal preference for the simple, Alexander McQueen's collection was the apex of Paris, so beautiful, inventive, and forward thinking was it. The kaleidoscopic reptillian prints, the shoes that looked, in Cathy Horyn's words, like "the hulls of ships," and the narrative of evolution: the interplay between nature and technology.






















These are images from Style.com but do yourself a favor and go to the NYTimes gallery, where you can focus in. Simply mindblowing.

* By all means, if you disagree with how i've divided the above, or have other names to throw in the mix, please please do!

**Articulated by photographer Tom Hines in a Dossier article

Lush Color

It's odd when you find yourself drawn to polar opposite agendas. My palette is rigidly muted. My favorite colors are black, grey, ecru, putty, greige, nude, and every such variant. But i find myself often collecting and crushing on images with the opposite, lush, candy colored, impossible-to-resist ROYGBIV ethos. I keep them these tacked up on boards and glue-stuck in little notebooks. Here are a few. Could there be anything more childishly obvious and heart-achingly lustworthy? I think it's instinctually appealing. Like bees to a buttercup.








(from Luxirare)




(from The Selby--Christina and Swaim Hutson)





(still from the first film in the Trois Coulers series, Bleu by Krzysztof Kieślowski.)


(photographer Alex John Beck)




(Le Ballon Rouge, 1956 and Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge, 2008)


(Laduree macaroons)


(sharpies!)


(best of beauty!)

Colors arranged like this are often cues for my own shutter as you can tell my a lot of the photography i've featured here. You need only look! But here's an example:



The blog MY NYC IN COLOR also has so many divine photographs of new york alive with color, along this vein, you could spend hours feeling breathless over it. I couldn't even start to post all of the images i like, and it would ruin it to isolate them from her insightful writing, and discerning edits.