play with me BARCELONE

street style's caroline

street style's caroline

nancy needs to calm down

I watched Kids and The Craft these past couple days and I think they may have played a part when I put together this one, unconsciously:

Excuse the facial expression. Smiling makes me look like a Justin Bieber catbutt, and a straight face makes me look like a frumpy troll. It is a lose-lose situation, Justin Bieber Catbutt vs. Frumpy Troll. But I have maybe just thought of the greatest WWE match to ever take place?

Things that "Justin Bieber Catbutt & Frumpy Troll" could be:
-greatest wrestling match ever
-love affair of the century
-the title of a Haruki Murakami novel, if it had one more pop culture reference

Sweatshirt (cropped a bit by me so it would meet the highwaisted jeans perfectly) from the wonderful Lyz and Josh at Obesity & Speed, hand-me-down Nikes, and Proenza Schouler + J Brand jeans. I guess those are all my idea of "cool." The witchy bag from the folks at Hayden-Harnett is kinda The Craft-y. It makes me really hope I find a group of witches once high school starts in LESS THAN A WEEK, GAH. We had orientation yesterday and I was lost and confused. The year hasn't started yet and I have ALREADY angered security guards and teachers. Which is where the one comforting thing about Kids can be found -- at least I'm not that bad, right, ha ha? Ha?
But I suppose I am not very weird, either:

Enid speaks the truth. These shoes got me way too much cool cred in gym class this year.

The overly kind Proenza Schouler boys, who are maybe Santa Claus, sent over these Proenza Schouler + J Brand highwaisted jeans. They are AWESOME. They make me like wearing pants. The graffiti jeans were one of my favorite parts of their Fall collection because they added a more (and I hate this word, because it sounds like something my dad would say before following up with a desperate, "Am I hip with it??") street element to the other clothes that were more sweet and schoolgirl-like. Also, I will bet you anything that Teen Vogue will have some kind of DIY once these hit stores. Also, these pictures don't totally capture the colors -- the blue is a bit more purple.

The Marc Jacobs sunglasses are from Louise and I added them because I like imagining that this outfit's character has one pair of sunglasses they just pair with everything. They don't totally go but it's nice to set things off. Speaking of Marc, I stopped in the Chicago store the other day and the people were so cool. Normally boutique employees are snooty or mad if you try stuff on without buying anything, but these people actually said, "Well it's still fun to try stuff on!" after I whined to Ella and her sister about how close yet so far this gorgeous wool skirt was. The clothes are SO nice in real life. I think one of the biggest critiques the fall collection got in the blogosphere was simplicity, so I will tell you right now, the details and quality are too special and amazing.

Other things about the store:
-Smelled the new perfume -- oh, sorry dudes, cologne -- called BANG. Kind of forgettable? I started thinking about how to describe it moments after smelling it and already couldn't remember what it was like. I think it just smelled a lot like cologne.
-More about the employees: one woman asked what I got at Borders after seeing my bag, and we talked about Industrie magazine (which is SO GOOD and will get its own post.) She recognized me, but from a friend's Facebook photos, so I don't think they were being friendly because they knew about my blog.

If you read this whole thing, you are very patient.

fashion film winners

The A Shaded View on Fashion Film contest has closed, and I chose my winner:

It speaks for itself, but I'll explain my choice a bit: It's wonderfully sensory. The schoolhouse (church? either way, creepy) felt suffocating and the outside like fresh air, and the clothes are to credit for this along with the music, camera angles, and acting. All of this matters, because fashion itself is about more than clothes. The context of a dreary schoolhouse doesn't make the white dresses glamorous or anything, but they give them a lot of character. It's not an advertisement anyways, but if it was, I'd be more intrigued by that idea than one about showing how cute they are. I also like that it creates both a mood and a story.

Diane Pernet, my fellow judge, chose this cute and funny Hedi Slimane tribute:

Thanks to everyone who submitted their work -- it was so hard to choose but I really enjoyed watching them all!

resort part five

I thought I was done with Resort, and it's sort of pointless to write about now, but these last few are just too good.

Proenza Schouler

UM, are you there Jah, it's me Ras Trent?! No? Maybe? Well, if he was more stylish. But the Proenza Ras Trent still reads Judy Blume, because there are such good cutesy touches to these looks, like the collar peeking out from a sweater and what look like friendship bracelets. The rest of the collection is less stoner-y, but these were my favorites. Don't judge me.

Christopher Kane

I gave Kane a way hard time last resort season for not taking an idea as interesting as pictures of bomb testings in 1950's America to a more conceptual level, but I have fully converted to his ways with photos (resort collections aren't supposed to be conceptual anyways. Lighten up, June 2010-era self!) Nebula prints have been done before, but the shapes add a lot. I like the weird punk-fairy vibes at the top-right, and the space-hippie vibes second from the left on the bottom, and the safari-astronomer vibes to the right of the space-hippie vibes. Vibes, man. Vibes.
Also the fluffy shoes. I would sit in a giant swivelly chair and pet them, if I owned them. Plus they help to differentiate the idea of nebula prints from something futuristic or natural; they're wonderfully tacky and feel sorta Clueless (Dionne, maybe Ambular, not Cher.)

Alexander McQueen

A resort collection that is designed to sell isn't the one to use to evaluate Sarah Burton's new job as creative director at McQueen, but it still excites me for the direction in which she's taking the label. I won't be disappointed if the coat in the bottom left is any kind of indication; the shape is one McQueen never really touched, but the symmetrical embroidery calls to mind a number of prints from his previous collections.

Missoni

I am always up for a really awesome photo print as in the cases of Christopher Kane or Risto Bimbiloski, but it's also cool when optical illusions are created with weaving or embroidering or stitching or what have you, as is the case here. I like the idea of wearing something that looks kinda magical from far away but whose individual threads are each visible up close. The bangles ruined some of the looks for me but I don't care because I've been hypnotized by those pants, top left.

The Complications of a Swan Song: Alexander McQueen Fall 2010

I’ve tried to avoid writing about Alexander McQueen’s Fall 2010 collection for a while now. I felt upon first seeing it that it would be best to let it sit with me before finding and voicing my thoughts. At the time, I couldn’t look at it as a collection, period, not long after his suicide.

It is now half a year later, and I don’t feel any differently. His death is something that I, like many people, still can’t believe. It’s simply not real to me; I can’t wrap my head around it, and I probably never will. So I have to wonder: is it possible to look at these clothes without considering the circumstances under which they were shown? I say that I waited because I wanted to see the collection as something that walks by itself. But I’m not sure that I can do so without seeing a dreary shadow following closely behind.

The fact is, this was the collection Alexander McQueen was in the process of creating before he killed himself. We would find meaning in anything that had been sent down the runway. After working on this post for an hour, with lots of backspacing and rethinking, and having only two complete paragraphs, I’m still not sure of the best way to evaluate these photos. So much is missing -- the setting he would have preferred, the looks he would have envisioned for the models, and even a number of garments, some deemed inappropriate to show as they were demon-themed. I guess I’ll just feel it out, foggy and cracked as my lens may be.

This has been said before, but the collection did sum up Alexander McQueen’s many years of design perfectly. There was wit in the way the image of a feather wing shaped an arm, and emotion in the white half-wrinkled, half-pleated fabric that covered one back. Through beautiful prints, familiar images -- the kinds that come to mind when you think of old paintings in museums -- were shaped to his liking and given another dimension, something McQueen always did with colloquial beauty. The colors were royal -- blood red, white, black, gold, and silver, with green and purple making appearances only in the form of jagged jewels. Poetic insect-like draping and folds balanced out intricate beading and embroidery to create stories within fabrics. A statuesque woman in one dress weeps with a white crow over her shoulder and a hand to her chest.

As always, you look at it and just think about how amazing it is that a human made this.

And that’s about all I can say. I won’t go digging for meaning. It might just be impossible for me to separate the many layers that glide along the floor in the form of a gown from the many layers of the dreary shadow that follows.

Enlarge to see the looks, though I recommend clicking here for high quality.

we can have real fun

I am trying to enjoy the last of these summer days. Meanwhile, enjoy some Prada lips, First Kiss stories, and Bratmobile.

writing this post was just so exhausting that i can't even think of a good title. and it took me seven minutes to write this one.

This is the kind of outfit that literally falls apart as you walk. It is a pain in the ass, and like, the way the pink dress at the bottom is going way too low is really bothering me right now, but at the same time, these heavily layered outfits that I have to constantly fix and aren't the most flattering are still my comfort zone. Dressing this way is such a great shield and I can't wait until it's not infinity degrees so I can get back in the overdressing every day zone.

So the references here: this Japanese street style photo, this cigarette carton, this girl's pink hair and cat and pink dress with cats on it, Ouija boards, this creepy cat, and CL's dress and pink fairy guitar strap on a seafoam green guitar. I guess like...fairy incense-smelling witch satanic cat hippie granny? Sounds about good to me.

Oh, this is random, but my talk at IdeaCity from back in June is now up. I'm afraid to watch it but if you're interested, it's here. I wrote about it a while ago, here.

And now the longest outfit credit list/breakdown ever:

This brooch used to be my grandma's and was added because it kind of reminds me of that cigarette carton. Same with the vintage bolero. The pearl necklace, which also used to be my grandma's, is for the sake of the granny vibe, and the Forever 21 feather necklace is for the hippie.

T-shirt is from the folks at Blood is the New Black. Satanic kitty! That sounds like an awful band name, but is not bad in t-shirt form. It was a bit too oversized for my liking so I cut a bit off the bottom.

This hairclip Monsoon Accessorize sent me is to counter the feather necklace and the colors are right. This coin purse thingy is from a family friend from a market and I added the ribbon.

The mint green shirt is a hand-me-down, added for Courtney's guitar. That off-white pleated dress is a gift from Fred Flare and is one of the only simple things I can wear without guilt because it's just so prettyyyy. Added with Courtney's dress in mind. The bow skirt is a gift from the ladies at Polly Sue's Vintage, added because its colors sort of tie in all the other ones in the outfit, and for the layering proportions. The print is kind of rad with the clogs, too. The pink mermaid-ish dress is vintage.

Miu Miu clogs from Bergdorf Goodman, added for the hippie vibe, the colors, and to counter the illustration from the bow skirt. I can't remember where this horn bracelet is from but I added it to make the outfit more gritty and less saccharine. The watch, like all my watches, doesn't work, and I got it at a local store when I was little.

That was so exhausting that I'm going to use it as an excuse to do nothing for the rest of the day.