Netherland on 23rd Street

I have serious style envy like the next person who works at a magazine i.e. Emmanuelle, Vannessa Traina, Chloe Sevigny. I devour pictures and style.com slideshows and tack inspirational clippings above my desk and aim to create beautiful images. This is all well and good, but not quite central to my idea of a whole life spent in this field. Actually there are very few people in my industry whom i look up to or correllate with any serious personal ideas of success. Or that I really relate to. Everyone in fashion feels they have to embody and inhabit what they do**, and i've never wrapped my mind around that. That is, except for Sally Singer, over at Vogue.



I've probably read every interview with her--the woman has a serious academic background. And her husband? Joseph O'Neill, author of one of my favorite books, Netherland, a very thoughtful and restrained depiction of post 9-11 New York City. And also, a very thoughtful and restrained depiction of a failing marriage, so clearly, i feel like i know Ms. Singer very well (since i'm sure some of the character traits are based on reality).



And then there's her awesome home in the Chelsea Hotel, as photographed here by The Selby. A last remnant of a bomehemian ideal that doesn't really exist anymore.



I think she's a really great example of someone in fashion who clearly loves it, outrageously respects it, and has found a way to construct her life with it but not by it. Note that her shoes are amazing.



If you ever see me, ask me about her kids....

**This is especially salient if you've seen the 60 Minutes special on Anna Wintour and the Vogue offices that aired last week (watch it here). Or if you've happen to see an advanced copy of the September Issue. It's completely mind-numbing how removed from reality that enterprise is----and how cultivated image is completely, unironically supreme.

Teaser

Here's one shot I styled from a recent shoot in Baltimore. Let's call it an outtake since i'm not sure if it'll make the final edit. Photography by Cesar Vega.

Like a Tree

Breathing through it's spectacles?

Nina Ricci's never-produced monstrosities. Like a dripping Dali clock.

Like a Furry Compass

I want to dress like this everyday. Cannot take credit for the analogy--Ms. Olivia's got it pegged.

I know it's just a little touch, but I've been liking buttons all the way up to the collar, it's a very clean aesthetic that looks so good if you can pull it off. And the sensibility goes with my new non-nicotine using ways! Who needs to be downtown filthy dirty smoky (sigh). When you can be buttoned up and obnoxious over how you don't smoke and how much glorious snobbish restraint you have. Hey--i need some cache to hold onto.

But seriously, as you get older, it's weird to realize you have less and less little watershed accomplishments to be proud of (probably because there's less punctuation in your time). No report cards, no end of semesters, no rights-attained-at-seminal-ages. Just lousy "new years" which is totally offensive since its two weeks before my birthday and who wants to hunker down and be good then? Nope. So quitting smoking randomly in April is something i'm very proud of. And thanks to my parents for offering me the beach instead of cancer.

Oh. That doesn't mean other times i don't want to dress like this. Because i do. Just chewing a lot of gum and occupying my hands with something else.

Obamaesthete

Is it wrong if my first response was actually "hubba hubba"--and i have no idea what unearthed this deeply lost phrase from the depths of my mind. But good lord....why all men should take styling notes from the President.

Also, I went to the Times talk about Michelle Obama with Thakoon, Maria Cornejo, and Narciso Rodriguez yesterday--moderated by Cathy Horyn. Here was my write up for Allure

I guess what was most interesting, besides what I wrote in the above link, is that all the fuss surrounding her choices, I feel, in fashion circles, has very little to do with the garments themselves--which for the most part are perfectly lovely, usually interesting, and mostly flattering--but rather the fact of the choices. Or rather, the choice in opposition to the expectations. It sends all sorts of subliminal messages that really enforce the ethos and branding of the administration: youth, awareness, ingenuity, change. These smaller designers, like Maria, whom i completely love and actually do support with my $, are the recipients of a certain prestige simply by the fact that 1. Michelle chose them out of obscurity and 2. chose them over the norm. She'd make a great magazine editor with this power...she understands (and is a part of an administration that understands) that the tiniest choices of style and presentation can actually transmit tacit, yet very strong messages. But it is delicate and one day J.Crew can be applauded as the "every woman" and the next day, it can seem patronizing....

Also, Maria Cornejo is pretty much the most beautiful, sophisticated woman i've seen in a long time, and her mannerisms are so effortlessly classy and gracious. It only reaffirms the girl crush: I love her silhouettes, loved her show, love her team (wonderful people), love her husband (photographer Mark Borthwick), and think her son is the cutest thing in existence. And she was wearing these amazing sandals, which i first thought was Margiela but then realized they're from her own line.

Photo from The Moment, NYTimes, pulled from the White House's Flickr account. Because, you know, the White House has a Flickr account....

On Beauty

"There's no accounting for taste," it is said. Actually there is every kind of accounting for taste, but there's no accounting for beauty. Beauty sails past the office in the brain where accounts are kept--and where failed beauty accumulates...

These works lack sufficient capital investment in the coin of meaning. They are glamorous rather than beautiful: hedonistic and only too confident of pleasing, like people who pride themselves on being irresistible. Beauty isn't beauty if it doesn't inspire awe for a specific proposition about reality. Beauty makes a case for the sacredness of something--winning the case suddenly and irrationally. It is always too late to argue with beauty."

Peter Schjeldahl, "Beauty"
The New Yorker

Subway Run

The beautiful Annatruus at 4:30am, reawakened by the Squirrel Nut Zippers on an empty street in Baltimore, awaiting her 6" sub.




All good photos should evolve from hunger and the irresistible desire to dance.