gallerinas!

i work at a gallery in berlin


i work at a gallery in chelsea


i work at a gallery in paris


i work at a gallery in francine's soul


i'm french!

(images from lagarconne)

i had no intentions of posting today but i saw this on jakandjil and was immediately beamed into space, did a quick orbit around the sun, danced around a blazing fire with some unicorns, etc. i literally entered another dimension. actually i think i am still there.

the first pic of the cuffs that stack up the arm reminds me a lot of these robots my brother used to put together as a kid. does anyone know neon genesis evangelion? EVANGELION! well they come in this box and you assemble the robot and attach the color stickers like a paint by numbers kind of thing so it looks like the robot on the cover of the box. terrible explanation. BUT I'M IN SPACE! i used to obsess over getting the stickers on the robot juuuuust right. you can't peal them off and try again. you only get one chance. it's really devastating actually. anyways, the arm cuffs look like the robots before you slick on the stickers. nude and muted and baby cyborgy... like a lee bul sculpture...



the red jewled/embellished bodysuit is a little too princess amadala (?) for my tastes but i love a deeply saturated ruby hue. and the white furry-ish jacket underneath with the gold studs is just... ahh. it epitomizes everything i want and have been thinking about.

woah did i mention this is GIVENCHY COUTURE? i didn't even! blasphemy!

(jakandjil has more)

I was pretend online shopping while my mother was reading next to me. I was yammering on about how I never had anything to wear. I tend to "yammer" about things I feel this wicked world is viciously keeping away from me! Like more clothes! The clothes I need to have and belong to me. She read me this excerpt... I think she was trying to tell me something. I am going to ignore it for as long as possible.

"Clothing was magic. Casey believed this. She would never admit this to her classmates in any of her women's studies courses, but she felt that an article of clothing could change a person, literally cast a spell. Each skirt, blouse, necklace, or humble shoe said something -certain pieces screamed, and others whispered seductively, but no matter, she experienced each item's expression keenly, and she loved this world. Every article suggested an image, a life, a kind of woman, and Casey felt drawn by them. When things were difficult -and they couldn't get much worse- Casey went to buy something to wear. When she had very little cash, purchasing a pair of black tights or a tube of lipstick from the drugstore could help her get through a slump. Casey and her college friends were ashamed of shopping. Smart girls who read books weren't supposed to be materialistic (her fellow economics majors pegged consumers as mollified idiots, and as for religion, they invoked Marx's phrase the opiate of the masses), and although female intellects cleverly discussed sensuality and tactility in art, smart women were not supposed to like culling or gathering more dresses. But Casey knew well from having been on both sides of the counter that even bookish girls liked to go to shops and be thrilled by a red tweed skirt or a black cloche. And equally true was that smart firls wanted to be beautiful in the way beautiful girls wanted to be smart. Size fourteen bibliophiles could love clothes as much as size two heiresses who shopped to fill their time. Everyone scrounged for an identity defined by objects." (free food for millionaires)

Yeah, whatever MOM. I am SICK AND TIRED of you waxing on about how you wish the KELLY you got for christmas was actually a BIRKIN! Your closet is literally bursting with lanvin, the hinges are shaky! everyone look at this pretty picture and immediate forget the excerpt above!

(oooh "bursting with lanvin" sounds so poetic don't you think?)

beautiful clothes should be beautifully photographed. i like the photographs just as much as i like the clothes.

rodolfo paglialunga's first takes at vionnet. i remember vionnet attempted comebacks many times but i guess nothing ever stuck. i only mention this because i read that paglialunga was miuccia prada's right hand man for nearly 13 years. dear jesus! i feel like we are already bff's and i can trust him with my inner most darkest secrets.

it's a 6 look peep into what's to come in the fall but i quite like these four looks. it's a very "mature" look, too mature for my tastes now really, but i hope i can wear these clothes someday. the model looks like a pilgrim.

(images/info fashionologie)

a really big post on shoes

i woke up really early this morning and had nothing to do. so i looked at shoes. lots and lots and lots of shoes. i combed through all of my usual spots and picked the best out of the bunch. this is the cream of the crop. the creme de la creme. they are the chosen ones.

colette has a really good selection of footwear. i mean really good. little romantic, poetic, whimsical, delicate foot sculpture good. but i guess that's pretty obvious. i didn't even check if they shipped all the way out here. that wasn't the goal of the mission. this is purely for ogling purposes. behold... a visual feast!

brightly colored slippers



blacks



light


earthy


really scary looking shoes


some are easy to figure out in term of who the maker is but i am too tired to write it all down for you. just guess. and i guess hope for the best. good luck!

(images luisaviaroma, colette, netaporter)

for sarah and the rest of us mere plebians

face the facts: you will probably never EVER in your life get your hands on the much talked about gorilla print dresses above. only few will ever have the pleasure of wearing, let alone owning, these pieces. when these kind of frustrating situations arise, and they do from time to time, i just resort to fondling them as much as i can at barneys. i don't need to own them, just let me feel them up a bit. oooooh.

but luckily for us christopher kane has decided to make t-shirts too! now we can all be special! i don't need no dress! i've got a t-shirt!



but face the facts: you will probably NEVER ever get your hands on these t-shirts either. all those bitches who had enough mulla to buy the dresses just swiped the last of these off the rack. and you know they bought more than one because they were so "cheap" and "such a steal!".

it's ok. don't worry! just go to a gift store at any zoo and i'm sure you'll find something like it. it will even have a crazy marble motif, probably some mustard coloring, and something obnoxious like BRONX ZOO stamped on. but it will be so ironic everyone will think you are so cool! isn't that great?

(images luisaviaroma, netaporter)

exblosive wear (not bear)

christopher kane's first ever resort collection features prints of nuclear explosions. WOW. i read that he found the images on the UK Ministry of Defense website. i love them really. the images are really pretty. though i have to say i am a little disappointed in the shape of the dresses. and the overall lack of blue that seems to make the third dress on the right really exceptional. there's not enough blue and too much mustard. wow i hate mustard. i think that's why i hated louis vuitton spring '09 so much. not that i like louis vuitton really in any way. but mustard! why?

the dress in the middle on the bottom row, the "shrapnel" dress with the swatches of silk is really beautiful. i like how he expanded on the whole war theme. but everything is all really delicate. and the crinkly leather zip off/on jackets! i love them! it seems a lot of people who are making clothing nowadays are on some sort of hunt for the craziest print they can find and manipulate it in a really subversive way. but i wonder if this is just a weird strain of that lightning bolt fascination everyone had last year.

i knew i wanted christopher kane when i first saw a photo of this jacket in i-d magazine last year! it makes me feel really girly inside:



(images from style)

rag and bone

blue and gray together never fails. i love the raw looking denim, it looks so light and airy. something i've only encountered with japanese brand jeans. and APC i guess. though sometimes raw denim can seem like the fabric equivalent of really tough jerkey. the thought of raw denim on my tender winter thighs is frightful. you've got to beat it a couple of times after it comes out of the dryer. this is actually the number one reason why i hate winter: putting on pants in the morning. whether they are jeans or wool pants or even a nice soft silky feeling fabric, it all just makes me want to barf. but these look really summery, no wonder they are for resort 2010. also those ankle boots will probably make any ensemble look awesome. i guess the denim on denim might seem daunting to some people but i've always loved a good canadian suit. even the really hick versions can seem cool in a way.

(images from style)

this lookbook puts all other lookbooks to shame

the time to report on this s/s '09 collection has long passed, but i just recently discovered this lookbook at prada and cannot love/stare at it enough. it's just too beautiful for words. while most lookbooks from other designers feature one or two models and a boring white background, prada manages to push the envelope once again. why not? they keep pushing the idea of what a "brand" is and how it reaches the average consumer. this isn't just a clothing brand, it's more an experience. the prada experience! aaaah!

the look book allows for a really comprehensive look at the collection and how and where the inspirations stemmed from. i hate the word inspiration but for now it will do. when i first saw it on style it was described as "primitive"... i thought the models looked like roman busts, with their heads hair-spayed into oblivion and the very sculptural rumpling and crumpling of the garments. they looked like marble statues. and i guess "primitive" is the right word. it's historically ancient and ironically, so fundamentally Italian. in some ways the only word to describe it is original. the canon of western art history as we know it was established from this era of classical sculpture. the birth of modern europe. that's the interesting thing about the word "modern". other than it's function as historical marker, it also includes the temporal. this collection is about the modern european aesthetic, informed by that other, previous modern european aesthetic. miuccia prada always finds a way to reference the historic and it is never kitsch (not that kitsch is necessarily bad) but bold and manages to really stand on it's own.

i really love how they manipulated each image, sometimes it can seem pretty obvious but i think it really blurs the line between reality and imagery. the lookbook was a collaboration with AMO (part of Rem Koolhaus's OMA, who is Prada's go-to architect). I think AMO mostly does design collaborations and research.

i know i sometimes overthink Prada. but i just love her! i want miuccia to wrap me up in a blanket and sing me a lulaby!!! if you haven't seen the interview with her on cnn you must!

here, i've made it easy:

when cool girls get together

saw a little snippet or what is it, blurb? i don't know, this little piece of video on Swedish design firm/collective FRONT on the discovery channel randomly. they are just a bunch of really hip girls, making really cool shit. this is fuel for life. and so Scandinavian, isn't it? look at how cool they are, drop-crotch/harem pants and all. some stuff that comes out of Scandinavia is so cool that it just boggles my mind. how can you guys be so cool all the time? how do you manage being so consistently hip? that's a lot of pressure. i just want to go to a strip mall in jersey!

their website, designfront, has a pretty comprehensive archive of everything they've ever done together.



this piece is called Mooi Blow Away Vase. "The digitalized version of a Royal delft vase has been given new parameters for the material and is there after exposed of simulated wind." I''m not sure whether the vase was or will be fabricated in this new wind-swept look but i sure hope they do. I've really loved blue and white porcelain/china for some time now, willow patterns and all. I don't know if it has anything to do with toile de jouy, mostly found on teapots and such items. but they china always reminds me of it and vice versa. i just love a good pastoral theme! i've been collecting toile festooned things for some time now, like ribbons and swatches and wall-paper samples. they serve no real purpose, i just like to look at them from time to time.

most recently, i was goofily delighted to find such prints on jeremy scott's s/s '09 collection. instead of the more conventional provincial scenes laden with milk maids and rustic yet handsome looking shepards, his patterns depict eerie trolls on swings. kinda fun.




i don't know if i would ever wear toile embellished clothing though. i've recently discovered that there is a fine line between things that are just really beautiful and things that should be worn. nevertheless i like his take on it- it's a little too obvious sometimes but he is definately an interesting postmodern designer who likes to play with kitschy references...

moving on... this piece is from a collection called Design By... "Objects where a part of the design has been determinated by external factors and series of events which have affected the design process at random." there are a whole lot more than just these four, like Design by Sunlight, Scanner, and Explosion, but these were my favorite.



the first black table is called Design by Mechanics. from what i gather the table learns to walk on its own, or at least the legs are jointed in a way that allows the table to move by itself. it reminds me of michel gondry's segment in Tokyo, called "Interior Design", where i think the girl slowly becomes a wooden chair. i haven't seen it yet but have been reading up on it a lot.



check out the trailer. the second piece is called Design by Motion. that's pretty obvi, the vase is falling down. but it is beautiful nonetheless. the site states that traditionally in movies, "vases are doomed to break" so it's a part of the vase's function. pretty coooooool. the third one with the lamp is pretty hilarious. it's called Design by Gravity. it serves its purpose when you are there and falls asleep when you are not. haha. the final one, Design by Pressure is just a bunch of really delicate branches morphed into the shape of a coffeetable with high pressure. the shadows on the floor are pretty...

this one is called Design by Animals. "Wallpaper, hooks, lamps and other everyday objects designed by rats, dogs, snakes and beetles. We asked animals to help us. "Sure, we'll help you out" they answered. "Make something nice" we told them. And so they did." haha, aren't they whimsical? be my best friend! you need an asian!



I'll start with the second piece, the coat hangers. snakes would squeeze pieces of clay and voila! coat hangers! cute. the red table has insect paths created by various insects, like ant trails or something. the lamp is a "mould made by a rabbit hole". the "wallpaper" was done by rats. it reminds me of Elana Herzog's work that i first got a chance to see at the Museum of Art and Design show Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting. doesn't it look similar? except herzog is the rat and she can get really obsessive.



the cool girls at work on Sketch Furniture:



the finished product:



FRONT has basically found a way to make free hand sketches of furniture in the air come to life. check out the video below. your brain is going to explode!



i know this post wasn't very much about fashion, but i've been thinking, if you don't like this kind of stuff, probably you are a loser of some sort and don't understand good fashion anyways. haha, just joking, actually not really at all. i love them and i bet they're really good shoppers as well!

moremoremore

balenciaga prefall '09

givenchy prefall '09

alexander wang prefall '09

fur sleeves, fur mittens, fur leg warmers... fur fur fur

FUR!

(images from style)

more prefall

marni prefall '09.

burberry prefall '09. i really don't care about burberry at all, not in any way, but look at those pants!

miu miu prefall '09. i feel like you only have a ten to fifteen year time period to appropriately wear miu miu. the clock is ticking.

no cool photoshop things. my trial period has expired. oh no! now my miu miu period will expire! more to come...

(images from style)

head-butt

i heard on cnn that that guy from 24 head-butted one of the proenza schouler designer. that's really strange. and even stranger on cnn. but at least they make pretty clothes. i've actually never been compelled to buy something proenza though i've tried on a couple of things. i always find that with smaller but well known brands like these, stores never carry what i really want from their collections. in my opinion they always carry the watered down stuff that's easy to wear for everyone but no one really wants that much. the prefall '09 collection is pretty much awesome. these are some of my favorites. especially that cobalt blue leather jacket with gold skirt. i find prefall is always way more accessible from an outfitting point of view. sometimes collections are too concerned with theme and overall presentation. which i love. but also i just really love seperates that i can wear.

(images from style)

my own

these pretties are my ld tuttles. enjoy. excuse my wolfboy toenails.