a night to remember

Photo by Ismael Llopis Navarro

This night, although I no longer wish to in any way promote the brand that invited me, was very special for a particular reason: I met the person I hope to spend the rest of my life with. If anyone had told me, as I sat around a table with three new acquaintances, that less than a year later I'd be living with one of them, have been on the cover of a magazine with another, and been to the police station to report the bat-shit crazy behaviour of the third... I would have thought "life is about to get interesting!"

the most morbidly beautiful holiday in the world

I'm the Grinch who stole Hallowe'en, but I love love love the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. I've written about it before; how I find the celebration of dead ancestors in a happy way to be a refreshing and wonderful thing, how I would kill for some of the beautiful skeletal lady ornaments you can buy (but only the really expensive ones, please), how the colours and music and joy of the occasion are overwhelming, how wandering around Oaxaca throughout the festival in 2009 was utterly magical, pimped-out tourist trap though Oaxaca is. If I ever manage to dress up for Hallowe'en ever again, I'm going as a Catrina Mexicana, though my friend Amandine said she did one year and the face paint itches like you wouldn't believe.

So I couldn't not share these stunning Day of the Dead inspired photos by Xenia McBell. There are a few more on her site... check them out!





P.S. I did a post about the time we went to Oaxaca for Day of the Dead a few years ago... here. I subscribe to the "no regrets" philosophy, but if I have one regret, it's that Albert and I didn't buy a DSLR and learn how to use it while we were living in Mexico. Oh well, next lifetime I guess!

P.P.S. the mini shrine I made that year is here...

summer can't come soon enough

The last few days in Barcelona have been almost summery during the daytime hours (so naturally this weekend I'm headed to Germany where it's 10 C and raining, bah. Summer is by. far. my favourite season of the year, both socially and fashion-wise, and though I'm not the first to post some of these summer inspiration looks, I wanted to weigh in with some fashion-related inspiration.



By far my favourite Summer collection and lookbook this year is Family Affairs' S/S line "Les Vacances." I always feel as though their pieces weave a delicate and considered path between adult and youthful, retro and modern, and I think this collection is their best to date. I'm not normally very into models or lookbooks either, but there's great ease and charisma to the stylings, and I realy can imagine wearing all of these clothes on the scorching days and balmy nights I'm waiting for...





Lazarri was a new brand for me (thanks Ale for alerting me to them), and well, they have a whale print. Although I feel like I want to move in a slightly more simple and "acting my age" direction this year, those whales are not helping in the least. The collection is also rife yellow, my favourite summer colour.



I preferred last years Sessùn summer collection, which had a perfect, sold-out white dress, but they are always masters at a cheerful brithday-party aesthetic, and I find myself visiting their website just to listen to the summer mix-tape they've put together....



...and last but not least, I'm loving Alexandra Grecco at the moment. It's not about any specific collection or year, but aspects of all of them. I love the easy marriage of 20s-style silhouettes, hints of the 60s and Mexico, and a pared-back Brooklyn cool. The below video by Celia Rowlson-Hall is a few years old, but I think it does a wonderful job of capturing not only the clothes, but a free and easy lifestyle that is synonymous with summer. I'll be having sliiiightly less sugar in my coffee though!

One Sunday from celia rowlson-hall on Vimeo.

a soft-focus dreamland: audrey grace magazine

I was thrilled to receive a copy of the Audrey Grace Magazine in my inbox a couple of days ago. Put together by Jaclyn Bethany in support of her pop-up boutique by the same name opening in New York this Friday, it's a delightful hommage to all things candy-coloured, or sparkly, or romantic (with the occasional prom-worthy dress thrown in). I adored Jaclyn's beautifully styled editorials (such as the one featuring a sherbet-haired Hannah Metz that I'd already been drooling over on tumblr). The magazine also features original art and interviews with designers, photographers, artists and bloggers--including me! I can't even say how thrilled I am to be keeping company with Alexandra Grecco, Erin from Calivintage, Rosalind Jana and well, everyone else.

For those of you in New York, you should certainly drop by the pop-up shop, which is taking place starting Friday on the Highline! If you want to attend the launch you can RSVP here. It looks set to be a fun event, with wine and a band. The shop itself is running through to the 28th of March. If I could go, I'd almost certainly be purchasing my one-item for March there...

Open publication - Free publishing - More audrey

Click to see the whole magazine

Jaclyn also writes that if you wish to buy a hard copy of the magazine, you can contact her at jbethany(at)fordham(dot)edu

revisiting the glamourous 20s

Word on the street has it that the style of the twenties is going to be huge this year, and I for one couldn't be more delighted. Although the famously shapeless, drop-waist look we immediately associate with the era can be difficult to pull off, there's a lot of other inspiration to be had from the fashion, art and literature of that time.

Spurring on the resurgence are recent films Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's tribute to and send-up of nostalgia, and The Artist, and Baz Luhrman's already hotly-anticipated version of The Great Gatsby, due out in December. Style-wise, The Artist was fantastic, and it also featured looks from the early 30s, when the severeness of the twenties' silhouette had relaxed a little, but when exquisitely-detailed simplicity was still the order of the day. I would wear Berenice Bejo's white dancing dress and dainty headpiece, below, in an instant.





Partly, the twenties are a satisfying decade to contemplate from a safe distance because the celebration of youth and exuberance was so overt, and yet always tainted slightly in retrospect by the knowledge that this was hedonism before a fall... with a decade-depression and the rise of fascism hovering in the wings. The American twenties are presented as being all jazz, dancing and sparkle (actually quite an accomplishment considering it was the era of prohibition) but reading the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald one is immediately aware of the pretense, closet alcoholism, fear of aging and even mental illness lurking behind a sea of golden-haired girls and rich men. It's the paradoxes of the era, and the joy and cynicism in equal measure, that makes them so magnetic...

inspiration: russia in colour, 1910

Something a little bit different today... I've had these pictures bookmarked on my computer for over a year now, but fall seems like the perfect time to post them somehow. Photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took these photos on a tour of the Russian Empire only a few short years before the revolution. What's revolutionary about the photos however, is that they're in colour. So often we look at old pictures through a black and white filter that is as much mental as visual... I'm sure I'm not alone in half-believing that the past must have existed in black and white, and that has a distancing effect. Here, in colour, these long-dead Russians from an entirely changed world seem so much closer to the present; colour lends their faces contour and contrast, I can almost imagine myself teaching English to the gentleman above...

There's some pretty fantastic fashion inspiration to be found here of course, in the form of velvet, colour and embroidery, but these photos also leave me inspired and enthused for my life... they remind me to be more curious, to read more, to see the world with technicolour eyes.

More photos and information on this series can be found here

tropical wonders

here


here and here

You may have noticed there's a bit of a palm tree motif to my last few outfit shoots (and one more to come, I might add) This is very deliberate. I'd say there's been two main themes this summer to my tumblr inspiration board: bucolic lakeside images that bring to mind my childhood summers in Ontario, and pictures of tropical locales with palm trees. We'll get back to the lakes in a few weeks, but for now, since it's apparently already winter in Northern Europe, I'm going to reminisce on the tropics. This is definitely not a part of my childhood, the first time I was in the tropics was a family trip to Cuba at the age of twenty (hooray to being a scrounging adult child)!

I recently read this post wondering about the new found popularity of flamingos, and in a fit of two-in-the-morning academic fervour, commented that I felt flamingos to be popular because they merged pink 1950s kitsch with a stylized Art Nouveau silhouette (I know, I know). But I think it's undeniable that there's a tacky and a classy way to see both flamingos and palm trees... they're ridiculous, they belong on Hawaiian shirts, but they also bring to mind the back-in-vogue joy of Carmen Miranda wearing a fruit basket on her head.

Okay, I'll get back to my thesis now (ugh). But here are some of my favourite recent tropical or tropical-esque photos.


here and here


here


here and here


here


here and here


here

P.S. My last tropical outfit post for a while should be coming either tonight or in the morning. : )

the devil's in the details

from A Fine Day for Sailing


from The Clothes Horse

I seem to be pretty neglectful of my blog this week. And I'm actually really happy about it. Summer has arrived to Barcelona and is working its magic; I've stopped caring much how I'm dressed (simple pretty dress and ridiculously broken Victorias and doing me fine). It doesn't even occur to me to enter shops; I float around in a sunny dream.

Nonetheless, for those who aren't currently going as scruffy-minimalist as me at the moment, I think the real key to summer dressing is in tiny details. The first picture, apart from being a simply gorgeous picture of Islabell and taken in Turkey (!jealous!) shows the simple effect of a striking nail polish. And a cute coffee cup. And I would kill to be that photogenic. I love Rebecca's minimalist but quirky necklace, and again, the nails.


from Resplendent Tranquility
I wish my hair would do this....


from Strawberry Koi
And I love that the detail of this hat is at the back.

What are your favourite details for elevating summer looks? (I so don't believe that fall and spring with all their layers are the best time for style by the way; I think summer is pretty much perfect).

hits of the spring

Or, Oh! the never-ending pain of very expensive white dresses!


from Liebemarlene

So, the weather is still distinctly spring-like around here, but it's June, that means I refuse to wear tights as a matter of principle, and it must be time for a spring wrap-up. Top prize goes to Rhiannon, above, of making my white eyelet-loving heart do a little dance, but there was lots of stiff competition.

I simply envy:

from A Curious Fancy and Kennedy Holmes

I've had both of these saved for so long. I save pretty much everything Ragini posts; it was only a question of deciding which look to showcase. And Kennedy's 1950s beaded cardigan is pretty much the perfect spring layer: light, fun and warm!

Perfect Simplicity:

from The Other Emily and Tick Tock Vintage

Spring and summer are all about simplicity, but for me, summer is loose simplicity, and spring is slightly more structured. I loved Emily's neutrals paired with perfect peach espadrilles, and Veronika's seamless chic and blouse with the lovely neckline

Crop tops and funky sunglasses:

from It Girl, Rag Doll and The Styling Dutchman

I'm still not sure how me and my stomach are going to fully embrace this look, but somehow, it's going to happen. I really want Emily's John Lennon sunglasses and both girls tops.

Shifty:

from Mousevox Vintage and Tipa Tipa

Rachel looks lovely in a colourful shift and oversized hat, and Monique really goes the extra mile in this beautiful dress, perfectly accessorized, that she wore to her bridal shower.


from Lulu Letty
Last but not least, I think Maria's monochrome dress+wall+pug look speaks for itself!

how i long to look this summer part 2

the sartorialist and nadinoo


steven alan


it girl rag doll

I've been tumblr-ing lately. I started it a few months ago but didn't use it much and was determined not to be one of those people who is addicted to it... but I am anyway. In fact, I think tumblr has been amazing for helping me see exactly what it is I like. Which, for summer seems to be yellow (no surprises), simple, simple simple dresses (which I don't have and therefore am coveting but will not be buying--why does simplicity come with such a large price tag?). I'm also pretty partial to John Lennon sunglasses, shoes that I could chill with Picasso in, and infectious happiness of all kinds.

You can find my tumblr here, if you're interested, and I'm also now on twitter, although I'm a bit clueless and unimpressed with twitter. ; )


rckshw on flickr


It Girl, Rag Doll and Pushing Daisies (I'm watching Pushing Daisies again--really one of the best shows ever to be unfairly cancelled)


Yehyeh Grace