collections

If you're as obsessed with DesignSponge as I am, you've probably already seen this post about the home of artist Sophie Blackall. Among other things, she does these amazing illustrated versions of missed connections from craigslist.org, which you can view on her blog here. Anyway, I just love her apartment. I'm really into typologies and apparently so is she, with all the different types of mirrors and dolls and antlers and things she has displayed. The color palette is wonderful too. I love the aubergine bedroom!

O

M

G

Seriously though, I was just wondering, can I wear dark purple lipstick and green eye makeup? Can I bleach my eyebrows? Does that sound crazy? It sounds kind of crazy. This editorial (from Vogue Italia) is making me think crazy thoughts.

november gear

Rachel Comey knit hood

Pendleton vintage wool cape

Wiksten-Made dress (ps - amazing blog)

Billykirk & Opening Ceremony satchel

Cronert wool over-the-knee socks

Frye boots

happy halloween!

The beautifully creepy, always elegant Theda Bara.

tudors

This Tudor-themed editorial from the most recent issue of Dazed & Confused magazine is amazing. It's so dark and Shakespearean. I love the somber mood juxtaposed with the extravagance of the clothing. And that dark red lipstick is wonderful. 

peggy

The amazing Peggy Guggenheim!

In Venice. 

In a Poiret gown, photographed by Man Ray in the 1920s.

and a Peggy Guggenheim-inspired editorial, shot by Karl Lagerfeld, published in Harper's Bazaar

no. 6

When I got home last night I opened my laptop only to discover that someone (probably my friend Caitlin) had been using it, and had left the website for the wonderful No. 6 Store open in my browser window. It was like being visited by a magical internet blogging elf or something! I have something great to blog about and I didn't even have to do hours of scouring the internet. People should come over and use my laptop more often.

Apparently No. 6 is a vintage store that also carries independent contemporary designers, and now they have their own line. Their lookbook is amazing! I love everything but my favorites are the mixed-print dress toward the bottom and the last black dress with the neat deco sleeves. It's very Busby Berkeley. The setting is beautiful too. The golden color of the grasses really compliments the color palette and mood of the pieces. 

Jeffrey Monteiro, fall 2009

Captions not needed.

Is there anything Rachel Comey can't do? I've been into her for a while but, for whatever reason, while I'd seen most of the individual pieces in her fall collection I'd never actually looked at the runway shots. I'm in love! Seriously, the headscarves! Could anything be more perfect? I just love the way the bright, seemingly-out-of-season florals go so well with chunky, neutral knits and mensweary trousers. I think it's so 90s (I consider that a good thing) but not in an overpowering way. I'm happy because I feel like while I probably won't be able to afford too many pieces from Rachel Comey, this is a look that I could really easily work into my existing wardrobe. And I don't even think there are words for the way I feel about the wine-colored lipstick. I'd sleep in that shade of red, really I would.

por fin!

I've been checking the Lyell website every day waiting for the fall lookbook (I need a life, I know) and it's finally here! And even better than it was in my dreams - tap shorts, scallops, tweed, silk, star-shaped neckline embellishment (again!), pleated pants, peter pan collars. I'm living and dying with this.

cramazing

Even though I look at all the spring shows, I decided not to write about them for two reasons. 1) Everyone else is already writing about them on their blogs, 2) It's fall and therefore I want to think about fall, not spring. But when I saw the new Miu Miu, after staring at this collection agape for several minutes, I decided it's too crazy/amazing (cramazing?) not to post about.

The prints! The trousers! The cut-outs! The navy and black together at last and looking great! The collars!

I'm in love.

You should check out the full show on style.com, or wherever. Some of it also has this weird crystal/sequin thing going on, which I'm still sort of confused by, but is totally worth taking a look at.

(pictures from style.com)

wary meyers

I'm doing that whole thing people do where they've graduated college and suddenly are like "oh crap, I'm kind of an adult, I should get really into interior design now." I look at home design magazines in the grocery store and browse online for furniture I'll never be able to afford. It's somewhat of a sickness, actually. The houses I've lived in on my own have always been well-put-together (I think) given the fact that I rarely have two coins to rub together, but I dream of someday having a pocketful of cash and a few weeks to scour the countryside and put together my dream house. 

Thanks to DesignSponge I discovered the work of the husband-and-wife design team behind Wary Meyers Decorative Arts (aside: why are husband-and-wife bands/design teams/trapeze performers/etc always the coolest?!) They do a lot of really awesome things like paint and write books about DIY and they live in Maine - the great state I am moving to this spring and am completely obsessed with. Anyway, I digress. They also are amazing interior designers! Look at their house!

It's so well-curated! And what I really love about it is that it is grown-up and sophisticated but has a really fun 60s/70s element to it. I hate rooms that look too serious and modern. My parents self-identify as minimalists so the houses I grew up in were very sparse and modern and involved a lot of polished concrete, black slate, big windows, and you're not supposed to touch anything. That is beautiful in it's own way, but I sort of gravitate to the opposite of that -- rooms with a lot going on, a lot of different textures and colors, objects that seem explore-able and touchable, rooms that seemed lived-in and historical.

Anyway, you should look at their website. They have a lot of different projects there as well as a great blog about their inspirations, work, and search for neat things for their house.

mind your manners

I love Juliette Hogan's simple, ladylike fall collection, which is entitled "Mind Your Manners." I like how it looks noir and jazz-age influenced, but still really modern at the same time. 

it's autumn, love

Happy October! Fall to me always feels like change, probably because I became so used to starting a new school year and all the new faces and transitions that brings with it. I am going to be starting a new job in the middle of this month, which I'm super excited about. I'm going to be working at the new restaurant of Baltimore's Visionary Art Museum. The restaurant serves Prohibition-era cocktails and classic American food, but with a farm-to-table philosophy. I think it's going to be a lot of fun!

I'm in love with these amazing, perfectly autumnal drawings by Julianna Swaney, who is an artist living in Portland. I want to buy everything she makes (etsy store here) and have it tattooed on my body, seriously. 

her drawing blog

her etc blog

I'm also super into the simple but very fall-appropriate designs of Dainty June. A floral corduroy dress sounds very good to me right now!

bow

You don't need me to tell you how perfectly amazingly perfect this Diana Orving dress is. Well, it's on sale here. For seventy seven dollars (!!!!!) If you're a size one. So, if you're a size one, I strongly recommend you buy this.

Actually, I really like Diana Orving, who I believe is from Denmark. Her fall collection has some great pieces, but the runway styling, which you can view here on her website, to me is just confusing and weird. Some of the models have a little black paint or something smeared on their arms and legs... it looks like their bike chains fell off and they got a bunch of grease on them trying to change it (don't you hate when that happens?) All the pieces are very simple but she somehow found a way --which involves awful leggings and weird bits of chiffon sticking out-- to make them seem scattered and hard to focus on. Then again, I haven't had a coffee yet this morning. Here are some of my favorites, which happen to also be the ones that didn't fall victim to weird styling.

(I just think this amazing top deserves so much better than leggings. A skirt! Hotpants! Frilly underwear! I don't care, just not leggings. They make everything look so sloppy and Staten Island to me -- no offense to anyone from SI, but you know what I mean.)

sugar shack sunday

(the garden, a.k.a. Sugar Shack Farms, looking a little end-of-summer shabby)

Today has been a pretty grey and low-key Sunday so far (but with the promise of a fun party later tonight!) I dug through my and my roommate's closets until I put together something I hadn't worn before. People have been suggesting I do outfit posts since I started this blog, so I figured today is as good a day as any to start!

vintage floral crop-top, belongs to my roommate

off-white cardigan, roommate's, from Anthropologie?

J Brand jeans

1970s Ralph Lauren woven oxfords

vintage wooden necklaces

And another one, but just because because I like this picture of my living room. That's my taxidermied turkey up in the top left corner. That globe used to be my mom's, and so did the 20-volume The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau set on the bookshelf.

makool loves you

I saw this great online store, Makool Loves You, linked to on one of my favorite blogs, All the Mountains. It's all handmade, mostly Portland Oregon-based designers as well as some original designs. There's a store in Portland also, so if you live there I guess this is old hat to you. But I love some of the things they have, especially the khaki bow skirt. 

goth magic

I totally stand behind this new US Harper's Bazaar Tim Burton editorial. Those giant skeletons are so cool. I've always had a soft spot for goth. When I was visiting my family this Christmas my mom told me I looked like "goth Peter Pan" and I took that as a huge compliment. But I guess my interpretation of goth is much looser and more subtle than this. It's more in the Wednesday Addams, Edward Gorey vein, whereas this editorial is way more over the top, like a Japanese gothic-Lolita style. All I know is I remember seeing Beetlejuice around the age of 6 or 7 and thinking "Ooh, that Lydia girl has the right idea." I have a few "subtle goth" outfits planned for this fall, and they all include this amazing (but possibly slightly psychotic looking) wine-red lipstick that my roommate has. I want to start posting outfit photos, so hopefully I'll remember to do that at some point in the near future. 

At any rate, some of these pictures are just wicked.

spent!

Who would have thought crazy old ladies at the bus stop would make such a good editorial?

from Pop Magazine, Fall/Winter o9.

new nadinoo!

One of my favorite new labels, Nadinoo, designed and handmade by Nadia Izruna (I wrote about her wonderful designs in the spring also) just posted the a/w 09 preview and I'm super excited!

It's so 60s and feminine! And it actually makes me wish I had long blonde hair, which I don't think I've ever wished for before.

Nadinoo website

Nadinoo blog, which I always discover new and amazing things on!