sections from Front Row with Tim Blanks - October 2010

'the world loves a good fairytale. the teenagers love Twilight, music's got Lady GaGa. we have Avatar, Inception.. there's something irresistible about a dream state. fashion's fairytale is haute couture, the twice-yearly parade in Paris of outifts that have as much to do with the practical concerns of everyday dressing as a chinchilla coat in a sauna. a fairytale is supposed to cloak a germ of instruction - there's a moral to this story - which is one reason why couture always brings on a bout of media breast-beating about its relevance. a dying art? its already stone cold, cry the doubters.

it didn't used to be that way. there was an era when the Countess Mona Bismarck had even her gardening clothes custom-made by Cristobel Balenciaga, the greatest couturier of them all. those were different times. now, depending on who you listen to, haute couture is a laboratory in which an ever-declining number of designers experiment with ideas that htey will translate into their ready-to-wear. or its a loss-eader promotional vehicle for designer fragrances, where there is still some real money to be made. or its a clothing resource for a few hundred wealthy women around the world. or its still a fairytail that is sustained by fashion's faith in the beauty of decades-old craftsmanship. or its a gorgeous zombie.

i used to cover couture regularly for television, and it always yielded a telegenic spectacle that knocked the major read-to-wear trend of the day into a cocked hat, on screen at least. so that was my own purely selfish reason for appreciating the four or five days in Paris when Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino, Emanuel Ungaro, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier, among others, would parade heights of extravagance unattainable at any other stratum of fashion. i hadn't been to the couture shows for a few years until this past July's presentations for autumn 2010. i'd love to tell you i come to praise couture, not to bury it, but the thrill had gone (along with a number of those names whose shows i used to attend).
execept, that is, for John Galliano's latest couture collection for Christian Dior.
Flowers were his theme, and it was the perfect marriage of designer and inspiration, given Galliano's native flair for colour and shape. there all sorts of reminders - petals and fronds and ruffles - that nature is unmatchable for special effects.

Galliano offered daywear, too, in the sense that there were jackets and skirts in which you could perambulate through a hotel lobby without scarring the horses. there's always wit in the window-dressing of any Galliano collection. this time, Stephen Jones wrapped the models' heads in florist's cellophane and the belts looked like the raffia that ties a bunch of flowers - such playfully humble accompaniments to clothes that cost a queen's ransom. Galliano nails that notion so well: in this pragmatic day and age, haute couture is designer playtime, the one moment when commercial considerations, the dreaded cost effectiveness, for exmample, can take a back seat. but playfulness was in short supply over the rest of the couture calendar. Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, for instance, offered a masterclass in the extraordinary techniques, fabric treatments and embellishments that are the traditional stuff of haute couture. a gown in Chantilly lace appliqued with leather that was a tone-on-tone duplication of the pattern of hte lace was utterly, impressively obbsessive in its detailing. another lace dress had taken six months to make. in these years of fast-food-fashion-everything, such conspicuous consumption of time and effort has evolved into a strut for couture's luxury cred, almost an end in itself. i think that's kind of decadent, but Tisci's fascinated with decadence. and he's not alone. maybe that's why couture endures, if not as an actual code of dressing, at least as a form of popular entertainment.

Karl Lagerfeld can lay claim to being the last real grand master of couture. so he understands all about creating a wardrobe that should technically dress a couture client for every conceivable exigency in her life. and he has always done this with an enviable lightness of touch. but this couture collection was heavy, almost morbid in its palette and elongated proportions. it took me by surprise, and i found that rather seductive.

i've been saying for quite a while that the future of fashion will belong again to the tailor and the dressmaker, as people search for somethign that is truly informed, special and personal, rather than the product of a huge fashion concern. perhaps that presages the end of couture as we know it now. but it will never be "The End".'

•(red-e too war / Josie ‘i just linked myself’ Edwards, Timba ‘computers are whack’ Smits

'LEGO, Birthday cards, microsleeps, drunkenness, sobriety, overwhelming cities, wrapping paper, punctuation, the scent of used book stores, smiling at strangers, writing letters (among so many other things), knock knock jokes, Italian futurism, femme fatale, postmodernist, mermaid, loveyoumoon, waxwayne, thesis, monotonous, idea, fumemployment, vehemently, manufactory, nicola, nicolour, menageries, November 1997, ubiety.' thoughts not my own.

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'when Summer starts, there are suddenly an awful lot of very pretty people dressed in Summer clothes, which are sexy in a different way from Winter clothes. and i find myself swinging wildly back and forth between thinking, 'calm down, Joey. these are real people, who should be treated with respect. i wonder what she thinks of that book she's reading?' and half a second later thinking, 'i want to spend the rest of my life just kissing that one spot on her neck oh god oh god.''
– www.asofterworld.com


'my Mum used to have this loaf waiting for us when we got home from school. when we were older, we’d let ourselves in with a key hidden inside a fake rock in the front yard. we grew up in St Kilda and there was an asylum nearby. sometimes when we came home from school, a man from the asylum would be sitting on the front porch with his suitcase, trying to convince us that he had bought the house from Mum and that we didn’t live there anymore. but we always got past him and to the yummy afternoon tea inside!
- p84, Anna Krien - Date and Nut Loaf recipe, Afternoon Tea cookbook by Frankie


'i would guess in a world of billions of people conformity is a necessity to run a smooth functioning culture. everything is directed at sameness. uniformity is security. but sometimes polyps develop in the ___ of ___, and i just might be one of these distracting anomalies. i wouldn’t dare hide behind the cloak of artistic privilege myself, and especially classify all other artists as mavericks. being an artist and associating with artists for more than fifty years i would have to confess many artists are simply close followers. artists tend to huddle together under the safety of movements and trends, they milk the prevailing crazes dry. of course this isn’t true of all artists, but the rare original few are generally sidelined until they eventually surface. with all due respect, i myself can't avoid nonconformity, its not an affectation with me, its my psychosis. i am a born recalcitrant, and unfortunately an unrepentant miscreant. ‘recalcitrant’ is the military term for those who cannot be brought into line, a reactionary malcontent. i know this because i faced this problem in military school as a child. if that wasn’t enough i show all the symptoms of being an unbridled ‘miscreant’, an old biblical term for someone who has been miscreated, an incorrigible person. i don’t revel in my personal anomalies, i just keep them in check. that is, until a pencil or brush gets into my hands. at this point i seem to exalt through my compulsion (in my mind anyway).
i see this in other artists.
this is the malady of true ____ such as painters, sculpturs, writers, poets, musicians, actors and other people who are driven to do things that aren't socially accountable. in my opinion however, one thing to be cautious about is this ____ ____ mind is only two degrees away from the criminal mind. ____ ____ many cases they overlap. this is not a chance coincidence. irregularities in any system causes problems, problems ___ work out accidentally for the good is in fact evolution ____ ____ grants its favours only through the benefits of mistakes. i would say, if it had been a perfect world we would never have gotten here.'
- Robert? Williams, 06/04/08, Monster Children? magazine


'if you go into a war zone with a camera and manage to come out a) alive and b) with a roll of film, then you’ve qualified as a Photojournalist. this is the kind of artform that calls less on ego and more on instinct. danger isn’t necessarily a prerequisite. maybe you only go as far as the local swimming hole, or a drive in. either way, your images capture and record a series of a moment in time. frequently, these shots are featured in the monochrome pages of a paper, only to disappear the next day. some are never published. this is why the Reportage Festival exists, to exhibit a wider body of local and international photojournalistic work.
now in its eighth year, the 2008 showcase travels from a rioting Pakistan, by Tijuana prostitutes to a Melbourne drive-in. the well-versed eye of festival co-founder Stephen Dupont was charged with guest curation along with Jacqui Vicario. Dupont has captured his fair share of stories, from India's fading steam trains to Port Moresby street gangs. the following five stories grabbed our guts and taught us a thing or two about photojournalism.
in northern Scotland, Agnes Rose Willmington lived at this address for over forty years. during this time she only spoke to one other human being, her mother, who died in 1951. upon Agnes’ death in the winter of 1979, authorities found in the old house: over 1,000 bibles, 297 prayer books, 50 statues of Mary, over a 1,000 crucifix’s, and 70 mason jars filled with urine and feces.
conceptually and visually, this is a compelling work, a modern-day version of 17th-century Dutch vanitas paintings, which remind viewers of man's mortality. when i suggest that the piece resonates with religious references - blood, death and renewal - he does not demur.'
- www.reportage.com.au/festival

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'i’ve heard of a Chinese folk belief that we have a certain number of days allotted to us in our lies but any time spent fishing doesn’t count. its an appealing notion, the idea that some activities are outside time.'
– p45
'their first child was born a year later and died from pneumonia the year after that. that would hollow a face.'
– p48
'London was beautiful yesterday. the sky was like a painting, perfectly still, scudded clouds against pale blue, and i walked a long time, pounding out the post-24-hours-on-a-plane blues. passed by the Royal Academy and saw they had an exhibition called Rembrandt’s Women so i went in. it was the perfect antidote.
i walked out afterwards in an exalted state - a kind of alchemised melancholy – which i stayed in all day and all through the gig last night, and which lent a back note to my singing.
he paints age and beauty, health and decay, sagging bellies, cellulite thighs, blotches on the skin next to bejewelled fabrics and threaded gold, the dark thread of hair trailing down from the navel to the mound of Venus; a woman peering out of a canopied bed, pulling back the curtain with her large clumpy hand, with a tendy, steady gaze that says, We are one.
there was a painting of his mistress later in her life when she was beginning to get ill that ripped my heart. i wanted to put my arm around you and stand in front of it together. instead, in my weird jetlagged state, i just stood there and wept – for her, for him, for you, for us all. i miss you like sleep. - P'
– p114
Sonnet 147:
my love is as a fever, longing still
for that which longer nurseth the disease;
feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
the uncertain sickly apetite to please.
my reason, the physician to my love,
angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
hath left me, and i desperate now approve
desire is death, which physic did except.
past cure i am, now Reason is past care,
and frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
my thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
at random from the truth vainly expressed;
for i have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
- William Shakepeare
'no-one ever did themselves any favours putting their lyrics next to Shakespeare’s. but its you, sweet reader, not me i’m doing the favour for. songs often remind me of other things after i’ve written them. you don’t start with somebody else’s poem or song and try to rewrite it, but years later, maybe, you come across some lines that bear a resmemblance. had you been carrying them unknowingly? or are there only so many themes and only so many ways to arrange words and images? anything you write of any pith you can be sure to find in Shakespeare eventually. if I could be re-incarnated backwards – if one’s solid flesh could melt and resolve into something old/new – i’d gladly re-fledge with those upstart feathers.'
– p234
'one evening in the Hunter Valley, as i was halfway through singing ‘Everything’s Turning to White’, a flock of seven snowy egrets flew across the sky above the huge crowd, large birds radiant in the setting sun as they carefully stroked their way back to their nesting grounds. golden days.
you never know what’s around the coner, though. as Leonard (Cohen) himself says, ’the older i get, the surer i am i’m not running the show.’ the wheels keep turning.
i opened once for Ani DiFranco in Madrid. the venue was a noisy rock club filled mostly with loud-takling ex-pat Americans. it was one of those nights when youre singing and thinking to yourself, What the fuck am i doing here? who talked me into this? one of those nights when you have to square your shoulders, take a deep breath and say to yourself, Sing to the people listening. they’re out there. they just don’t make as much noise as the people talking. sing to the shy Goths.
– Paul Kelly, p422, How to Make Gravy

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''i’m no good at art, i can’t draw’ – it’s a common refrain, too common. many high school art teachers have a lot to answer for in my opinion for perpetuating the notion that if you can't render something lifelife on paper, then you can’t ‘draw’ and so, by inference, you aren’t any good at Art. sure the great masters, da Vinci chief amongst them, prided themselves on being able to pencil something almost perfectly anatomically correct, but, as society has evolved, so has Art..
‘i could have done that’ – it’s a common refrain, too common. perhaps you could have painted Mondrian’s squares with some masking tape and primary paints on a $10 canvas from Chinatown (and come up with a titled such as ‘Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red’), but you didn’t. neither did you sign the base of a porcelain urinal with the moniker of your alter ego and submit it into an Art exhibition, as Duchamp did in 1917. both these artists broke completely new ground and, while definition of art is certainly not ‘something that's never been done before' (and attempting to tackle it here would be biting off far more than can chew), there's something to be said for being able to imagine that which has never been seen before. indeed that’s surely a better criteria for an artist than ‘a good drawer’ in my sketchbook.'
– ‘Well Drawn’ by Kate Bezar, p40, Dumbo Feather magazine


'ultimately i believe we’re all very selfish until we have children. children force you to consider them just by the nature of your relationship to them, and the fact that they rely on you so much.'
- Matt Grant (founder of Peat's Ridge Festival), p17, Dumbo Feather magazine


'it felt natural to work with Jonathan. a lot of people say to us, ‘how can you work together and live together?’ the way we look at it is that this way we spend the best time in our day together, rather than coming home tired and spending the evening together as most people do. we spend our most alive and active part of the day together. '
- p41
'yes, for me, being creative is such an internal process and when you become a mother you don’t have time for that internal process. zuddenly you have this other person you hve to look after. it took me time to adjust to that. for me, to not be able to create would mean death. nobody can tell you about being a mother, but i feel like an aspect of me - i know this sounds negative, but its actually very postive – a part of me died when i gave birth. i’m not romantic about being a mother because i think its an incredibly hard thing to be a mother and to work and to balance everything. i have to create time for myself by waking up really early so i can do my yoga practice and have two or three hours in the morning before it all starts. also with a child i’m really looking forward to educating him..he’s now almost two, and its fun; its brought me out of myself.'
– Nipa Doshi, p47, Dumbo Feather magazine


'it’s a challenge, but i have the same philosophy with everything i do and that’s to put all my energy into it regardless of what it is. you know, it’s the 21st Century, if you are not getting paid that’s ridiculous, right? i just curated a magazine with fellow designer, Deanne Cheuk, in New York and the whole ceonceprt was about that – people whoe work both in the arts and commercially. the process is seamless..
what do you think is design/illustration’s place in the world? you know, does it matter?
well i do believe that art matters. you have to believe that things matter, regardless of your interests. i’m very aware that everything as we know it will all be gone one day, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to use my time on this planet as I feel to be important, at least on a small level, i’ll leave the rest up to the sun and the solar system.
– Chris Rubino, p58, Dumbo Feather magazine

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i believe myself to be a small amphibian. / i have sequipedalism.*
i fell over in the shower and a lemon went up my bottom. / my car wouldn’t stop.
i don’t know why you won’t believe me, i’ve worked for days on that excuse.
i didn’t. i wouldn’t. it was HER. / my goldfish is psychotic.
i’d love to help you, but i’m actually quite spectacularly self-centred.
it’s not that i don’t find you enchanting, you just remind me of Ernest Borgnine.
i have a tendency to Isochronal Biperdal Vectitation.**
my pants were unusually tight. / my pants, as it happens, are on fire.
my axolotl died. of course i’m sure. i shot it.
there is a boiled egg stuck in my ear. / i would, but i’m a Pisces.
i would love to help with housework, but you’re so good at it, it’s like watching the creation of Art. another beer would be good.
i would go for a run, but don’t want to frighten my lungs.
i can’t leave the house; i had cosmetic surgery on the weekend and now i look like Melanie Griffith.
at the time, i was captain of the Australian Cricket Team and i just couldn’t get away.
psychologically, it’s important that i’m late so that you feel more strongly about wanting me to arrive.
i hit every red light on the way here. (and now my car is covered in dents.)
i must have blacked out – either that or my skivvy was stuck on my head.
i have a flat tyre and i lent my spare tyre to a friend who was making a swing.
i think i’m dead, but i’ll call you tomorrow and let you know when i’m sure.
* tendency to use long words.
** walk using both feet.
- Kaz Cooke, Little Book of Excuses

the grey album

every step calculated, balanced.
stride.

(swagger).


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what i aim to look like this Summer:




i catch my breath every time i see this image.. so luxurious. i'm so glad that the Olsen sisters (Ashley especially) have got their designing shoes tied on tight:

image via

Azzedine Alaïa: the Master of the Female Form

segmented, via.

one thing alone identified the dress as an Alaïa; well, two things. even without the cold gleam of the First Lady’s arms, it provoked the idea that a woman tends to look her most beautiful in clothes that make her look strong, not glamourous or sexy or powerful. there is a difference. those with a vivid memory of Stephanie Seymour squatting in Richard Avedon’s 1994 portrait to plant a kiss on her favorite designer, her naked buttocks leaving her Alaïa chaps with the whooosh of an automobile in a snowbound slide, will surely debate the point that strength is the essential ingredient of an Alaïa.
and maybe so. maybe the notion of strong-looking fashion, based on concrete methods and examples rather than abstractions and ironic statements, is dying, and there is nobody around with the grit and stamina to map the geography of a woman’s body, as he has done for last 45 years. ballet has its technique and physical rigors. painting has its schools. american music has its places of the heart, like the Delta; cookery, its ingredients and careful preparations. fashion, though, gets its power and unanswerable logic from the female body, and, at roughly 70, Azzedine Alaïa is its undisputed master.

the standard pattern of a designer interview is to give you emotional turbidity. (John Galliano, on a 2003 Dior couture show: 'i want to feel it. i want to rip and tear it and cut it until the pain is in the dresses.')
Mr. Alaïa would show you how to make the dress and shut up about the rest. not talking about it is also a way to avoid a falseness — the falseness of thinking poetic language can be applied to dressmaking. at some point you have to decide what color 'pain' is, and whether it should have long sleeves or short.

like other types of craftsmen who perform the actual work themselves — aside from designing every style, he does all the pattern-making and fittings — he’s happiest when working. he works all the time. and since he has always lived and worked under the same roof (for the last 19 years on rue de Moussy, and for much longer with his partner, Christoph von Weyhe, a painter, and a variety of dogs and cats), this is no problem. his ideal assistant is someone just like him. 'he wants someone who understands his way of thinking, someone who makes him happy when he’s working and gives him feedback,' said the designer Sophie Theallet, who worked with him for a dozen years.

also useful to his fashion education were the few years he designed costumes for the dancers at the Crazy Horse. 'i learned a lot about women’s naked bodies at the Crazy Horse,' he once said.
yhou could certainly find interview subjects with more to say about themselves. but as far as he is concerned, everything that is worth knowing can be observed. you just have to watch him work, and wait.

- Cathy Horyn, 8 December 2010, New York Times

the story delves between two linear timelines, one in the 1970s the other the 1990s, and explores elements of drugs, murder and quantum physical philosophy

had another epiphany dream last night. divine manifestation. the sudden realisation & comprehension of the (larger) essence & meaning.

has been months since the last.

have been having less and less – a sign of maturing & accounting more for own actions, or of an eventless life ?

similar to a mini self-religion - full of morals, warnings, reminders, pseudo fortune telling of what will happen if certain path is chosen / act in a certain way / forget to do something for someone..

only usually happen before / after personal or social events.

was reminded this time to give more, expect less - not live purely on own time and own requirements; take into account the other’s needs, wants, desires.

perhaps just reading into symbolism of dreams too much.

the f word(s) - fashion vs feminism

some sections from Valerie Steele’s 'The F-Word', originally published in Lingua Franca (1991):
the F-word still has the power to reduce many academics to embarrassed or indignant silence. some of those to whom i spoke while preparing this article requested anonymity or even refused to address the subject; those who did talk explained that many of their colleagues found it 'shameful to think about fashion.' one professor explained the 'denial' of fashion this way: 'people say that they don't care about fashion, but that may be because they aren't self-conscious enough to envision a personal style. style is what most academics don't have.'

academics may be the worst-dressed middle-class occupational group in the United States. but they do wear clothes. so i set out to discover what professors choose to wear (the clothes don't grow in their closets), what they think about fashion (even when they claim not to think about it), and, well, why they tend to dress so badly.

THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM:
certain widely held (but little examined) philosophical and epistemological assumptions militate against on-campus sartorial nonconformity. in academic circles, many professors say, clothing is perceived as 'material' (not intellectual) and, therefore, 'beneath contempt.' there is a sharp division between 'the life of the mind and that of the body'--and as a result (one professorial source quips) academics tend to have 'bad bodies, and no one dresses well.'
according to John Brewer, a professor of history at UCLA, 'to dress fashionably is to be labeled frivolous, to seem to care about the body and, therefore, by implication to downplay the life of the mind. most colleagues view sartorial interest and especially sartorial 'play' or facetiousness with a mixture of amusement, condescension, and fear. dowdy is safe and serious; bad dressing, one of the last ways in which academics can project the illusion of other- worldliness.'

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some sections from Elaine Showalter’s 'Better Things to Do', in Media History 6.2 (2000):
as an academic who occasionally publishes in women's magazines, i've learned first-hand that they are both widely read and openly disparaged by my feminist peers. i suspect that my contribution to Vogue fell into the category of the 'humour column' described by Lisa Nevarez in this issue of Media History. certainly it was self-deprecating, but even so, some of my smart women readers in this academic world were not taken in by its humour, page placements, or cosmopolitan sophistication. they were adamant about their belief that i should have 'better things to do' than to write for these magazines, and their insistence that they had better things to do than read them, and would not have even read my article except in the line of feminisit theoretical duty. why are 'intelligent, successful' womeon so guilt-stricken for self-righteousness about reading women's magazines? why do those who work for them write for them, subscribe to them, and study them continue to feel apologetic and defensive? there are three reasons, i believe, why women's magazines, a force in shaping women's political and social culture for centuries, should elicit such mixed, and moralistic reactions.

first of all, the prose in women's magazines is brief, or at aleast brevity is favoured instead of expanse. as feminist critics since Virginia Woolf have pointed out, there is an unconscious psychological association in people's minds between the length of a work and its intellectual stamina.
second, magazines carry advertising, and for many feminists, they are much more guilty than, say, academic journals, of associating their readers and writers with the corrupt worlds of business and commerce. when i wrote for Vogue about enjoying paper dolls as a little girl, i was accused of supporting sweatshop labour. in other words, any woman involved with women's magazines is suspected of being either a victim or an oppressor of the commerical systems that allegedly compel us to consume.
third and most important, the concept of women's play is still underdeveloped. that reading magazines, trying on make-up, or doing needlework could be relaxing, pleasureable, or amusing for busy, bright, successful women seems to go against an unstated belief that women should always be working - caring for others, improving themselves, and casting a rosy glow of morality on all about them.
i myself believe that when i am reading Vogue i should not have to be worrying about whether i have 'better' things to do, and that pleasure and play are as necessary for women as for men and children.

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some sections from Emily Raine’s 'The F Word', in Worn: Fashion Journal issue 5 (Fall/Winter 2007):
fashion has always been treacherous terrain for feminists. they must caerfully negotiate critiques of the toll fashion sometimes takes on women's bodies, wallets, adn self-esteem, while recognising its capacity for pleasure, power, and entrepeneurship. while they have proven quite skilled at attacking fashion's many shortcomings, i have consistently been saddened and disenchanted by their failure to notice its many benefits.
feminism has a long history of disdain for clothing that is expressive, decorative or extravagant - in short, everything about fashion that is fun.
the fashion-conscious feminist is made to feel double shamed for having twice betrayed the feminist cause: first for falling into the old patriarchal trap of mugging for the objectifying sexual gase, then again for enjoying it.

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some sections from Susie Lau's 'Haters Gonna Hate' post, on Style Bubble (22 January 2010):
so i pick up my daily Guardian for the bus journey, rip into the G2 supplement first (doesn't everyone?) and was confronted with this article that i could feel would make me irrate before i even started scan-reading the text. 'Why I Hate Fashion' by Tanya Gold, whose writing i actually normally get a few chuckles out of. there are all the hazardous assumptions that a lot of mainstream media perpetuate about fashion as this 'evil' entity that i didn't think someone like Gold would well..continue to perpetuate.

as far as i can surmise..Gold has distilled her hatred of fashion because of the following..
..Carrie Bradshaw's love of shoes..
..a girl falling over in her heels in between two trains and dying..
..a model having a horrendous time in the industry..
..her hollow feelings of buying something expensive and designer..
Are we not missing a few things here? Gold's hatred of fashion is based on high heels, mal-treated models and gross consumption, when fashion and style (i'm lumping the two together because i'm thinking Gold hasn't made a distinction between the two..) is SO much more than that..

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some sections from Tavi Gevinson's 'Why I Don't Hate Fashion' post, on the Style Rookie (22 January 2010):
this morning Tanya Gold published an article in The Guardian entitled 'Why I Hate Fashion.' i can't say i fully disagree with everything she said. i hate the size issue, i hate the commercialism, i hate 14-year-old models being told to lose weight so they can look sexy in a dress made for women twice their age. the problem, though, is how she is so general-ALL of it is uncreative and evil, apparently. but it's a broad subject. criticising parts of it (poorly, might i add) is understandable, but putting Yohji Yamamoto in the same category as a magazine about cellulite, dating tips, and makeup is not. oh, and speaking of Yohji Yamamoto? he hates fashion, too. oh, and speaking of makeup? neither editors Katie Grand, editor of Love, or Anna Dello Russo, editor of Vogue Nippon, (you know, Vogue, the magazine Ms. Gold said she spits at and sometimes rips up) wear any.

you know, in the beginning of The September Issue, Anna Wintour says she thinks some people mock fashion because they are intimidated by it. and she's right. yeah, it's snobby, but you know what? so is turning up your nose at a runway collection because you thinks it's weird and you just don't get it. this, in fact, makes the nose-turner-upper not too different from those horrible 'fashion' magazines - dismissing something because it's strange. how very narrow-minded.

Ms. Gold speaks about how she discovered fashion at 13 and then dressed in a way she knew she was supposed to dress. 'how i enchanted. how i belonged. i thought i looked just like the effortlessly beautiful girls at school. except i didn't. and, very soon, i realised that i didn't. all that weekend job money and childish angst and still i looked like me. that was the first seduction – and the first betrayal.' i don't believe Ms. Gold 'discovered' fashion; she discovered middle school and teenagerdom. she said that before that, she dressed as Andy Pandy and was happier. i find the idea of dressing as Andy Pandy pretty awesome. it's creative and it's fun, and that sounds fashionable to me. what Tanya Gold and many others, including myself, hate is the everyone-has-to-look-the-same-and-also-sexy philosophy, which is NOT fashion.

i think that the problem with fashion isn't fashion, but how others decide to see it. the same 'fashion' magazines that offer advice about pleasing men might decide that fashion isn't for overweight people, but it's Tanya Gold's fault for believing it, and if she really wanted to have fun with clothes she could. same goes for the idea that clothes HAVE to make you look sexy. not if you don't want to! isn't that amazing!

i invite these folks to read a constructive runway review by Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan, Suzy Menkes, Hilary Alexander, or Lynn Yaeger. look at the works of Comme des Garcons, Rodarte, Issey Miyake, Alexander McQueen, or Vivienne Westwood, at the very least. read a magazine that has not one word about plastic surgery or dieting, or at least, ignore those parts and appreciate the art (Lula, i-D, Russh, Dazed and Confused, Pop, Love, Vogue, Bazaar, W, to name a few). be open-minded.

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some sections from Lisa Armstrong’s Times (UK) article, 'Fashion is Still a Feminist Issue' (3 March 2010):
so it looks as though, in 2010, even lipgloss is political again. on Women’s Hour the other week, Jane Garvey asked whether it’s possible to wear lipstick and be a feminist. not that old canard, i thought. don’t people realise that sometimes what seems oppressive — high heels, corsets — can also, for reasons of status and (self) control, give great pleasure?
can’t they see that fashion and beauty are two industries in which women operate on an equal (or possibly superior) level to men? just look at Helena Rubinstein. Or Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder, Coco Chanel and, more recently, Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg and, for that matter, Donatella. on the other hand, women on the lowest rungs of the fashion ladder — in the sweatshops — might not feel so empowered by their labour. or perhaps they do — knowing that they could have even more exploitative jobs, in the sex industry for instance.

the power to unsettle is good by the way. part of fashion’s job is to challenge society’s norms. sometimes it does this in the only way it knows — pendulum swings that last one season. it’s hard to say whether Prada’s latest demure, almost prim (and all the more erotic for it), collection will stick. Marc Jacobs pulled off a similar trick the week before in New York and the fashion editors, for the most part, swooned. grown-up, covered-up clothes at last. only Luke Leitch, my esteemed colleague, demurred. didn’t i think, he asked, that all those folds of fabric might, actually, be anti-feminist, or at least anti-female, or at least anti the female body? i haven’t decided, but at least fashion is asking some interesting questions.

a weekly clearing out of my 29-page to-do-list word document / is covered by ocean is covered by air

on blogging:
use lists.
be topical - write posts that need to be read right now.
learn enough to become the expert in your field.
break / announce news.
be timeless - write posts that will be readable in a year.
be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
share your expertise generously so people recognise it and depend on you.
write short, pithy posts.
don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
write long, definitive posts.
be sycophantic. share linklove and expect some back.
tag your posts.
coin a term or two.
do email interviews with the well-known.
use photos. salacious ones are best.
be anonymous.
start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
point to useful but little-known resources.
digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
edit yourself. ruthlessly.
be patient.
give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.

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Joey is a firm believer in the idea that if you can't be a good example, you have an obligation to be a horrible warning. he writes the comic. he has a degree in linguistics which really only comes in handy when smart-asses try to correct his grammar at parties.
- asofterworld.com

28 year old Charlie Salvo and 26-year old Luke Walker are menswear designers for Lanvin. Luke is from the Midlands and Charlie is from Chile by way of Sweden. the jolly duo met in Lanvin’s studio in Paris and sharing a love for sharp tailoring and eccentricity became firm friends ever since.
what do you love most about each other? L: his not-so-secret toy obsession.
C: that he thinks he lives in a different era.
what do you love most about fashion? L: its heritage. and its hysterical. C: the emotion it gives.
what do you love most about life? L: the wind, it makes me feel like i’m 7 again, and strong cheddar. C: eating chocolate and riding my bike.
describe your personal style.. L: anachronistic. C: John Maikovich meets Veronica Lake.
David-Ivar Herman Dune is a 33-year old singer/painter from Israel. he’s pictured here with his good friend and partner in crime, 35-year old Lomographic Ambassador Peter Boesch from Lustenau, Austria. when they’re not working, Peter likes to entertain David by playing records.
what do you love most about each other? D: his love for life, the joy he feels about little things, his kindness and his taste for Bruce Springsteen. P: his unbound enthusiasm and curiosity, his attention to detail, how smart and simple he is to be with. we went through some rough periods and David was always there for me.
what do you love most about fashion? D: the shoe designer Marion Hanania.
P: craftsmanship, materials, classics.
what do you love most about life? D: i love that there’s a word for life in many languages, and that we can use that word to refer to the most complex, wonderful, miraculous and beautiful thing. P: the vast wickedness of the human imagination. think fetish sites, Large Hadron Collider, Wes Anderson and my friends. i am privileged and grateful to have them.
describe your personal style.. D: that would be an odd and self-absorbed thing to do. P: gentleman farmer with a Bic Quatre Couleur. which probably is my equivalent to the Alan Partridge Blazer Patch.
- i-D Magazine

you never know where falling in love will take you. for history’s quixotic poets and artists, it may have been the cause of eternal anguish, yet for love-strcuk Danish creative Henrik Vibskov, it proved to be the catalyst for a dream career in fashion.
‘there was a girl i fancied who planned to go to London’s Central Saint Martins to study fashion, and i just said, ‘yeah, me too,’ remembers Vibskov. ‘so i called Saint Martins and got an interview appointment the next day, i prepared a file during the night, jumped on the plane, and got into the course.. i also got the girl actually.’
– Indigo Clarke

they loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the 'blaze of passion' often falsely ascribed to love. they loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet. perhaps their surrounding world, the strangers they met in the street, the wide expanses they saw on their walks, the rooms in which they lived or met, took more delight in their love than they themselves did.
- Transcendent Experiences: Phenomenology and Critique, Louis Roy

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they explored separate interests: Architecture for Ashley, Photography for Mary-Kate. but where they met then, and still meet now, is at fashion, and that’s what they’re here to discuss. The Row consists mainly of expensive knit T-shirts with fancy French seams, and a few minimalist separates, like a well-cut blazer and a tight, banded miniskirt in the style of Hervé Léger. the palette is as minimal as the collection: black, white, cream, gray, the occasional shot of red, and the label itself, a small, easy-to-miss gold chain embossed THE ROW. it’s like the Olsens themselves in its simultaneous desire to be both noticed and hidden. she suggested additions to the line, like oversize man-tailored pants. they like simple, somewhat anonymous pieces and loads of accessories. a tiny leather jacket with little ruched sleeves.
'i was studying Architecture and Psychology and i loved it, but i kept thinking about t-shirts and how to make the perfect one. it was my dad who said, ‘you should do it.’ w
whether The Row will attract the customers who buy Alaïa and Ghesquière is an open question. all of their peices are classic and basic. you could live your life in that whole collection and never need anything else. it's genius.
oh and dont forget to mention that the girls have also been enducted into CFDA (council of fashion designers of america) which pretty much validates their work and shits on whatever it is you think you're talking about.
'what it always comes down to is simple, clean lines and beautiful fabrics,' Ashley Olsen said at a promotions event in Dallas yesterday. 'the whole collection is based on fit and quality.'

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to do:
- styleportfolio.com., juanvidal.net., artdesignfashion.com/portfolio + /textile.,
- Smiths & Winehouse cds.,
- more black opaque stockings.,
- more uni basics.,
- grey (? - ~AP's) / sheer(? - ~Therese Rawsthorne?) blazer.,
- 'confront what disgusts you'.,
- Unearthed High bands.,
- youtube: sunn 0))) – belulrol pusztit part ½ & blog images.,
- Domayne – homewares and furniture shop f valley 1058 anne st level 1 homemaker city.,
- find a perfurme,
- the 'nix-fix-quick-and-tasty' salad contains: rocket leaves, feta cheese, cranberry bits (craisins!) and some chunky spinach and chunky pumpkin dip as le indulgent dressing,
- printscreen of Gossip Girls' wedding scene = flowers on backs and legs of chair at wedding ceremony
- to google: 90s fluoro lisa frank images
- hot Sandy from Grease outfit at the end of movie (take note of form., etc. eg.)
- look up: the Illuminati.,
- General Pants bubble site – get own,
- blog: 4th Dimension.,
- Ben Folds live myspace vid songs onto ipod,
- message ZC: i just remembered walking along Strand in Tville out to dinner, you called from Dallas Green

aesthetically displeasing

i wore this to do a spot of shopping and errands in town yesterday on my monthly day off.

the leotard is Emma Rea from a brilliant Bessie Head shopping trip in Brisbane a couple of months ago - it is so beautiful and fragile, i've been scared to wear / wash it so far but i felt that the time was right. it is less sheer in reality, but i think with my choice of bottom-half clothing some people in shops mistook me to be on a break from work. i certainly would not be wearing that leotard to work, at least not in this city. the taboo factor would be through the roof.
the clutch is crotcheted Samvara.

below is a more recent addition to my corporate outfit schedule - as previously noted here - for the workplace.. i have found myself becoming more and more uninspired in finding new outfits / ways of layering for work, though i guess being completely surrounded by men (apart from one other woman) in strict work uniform has not aided the matter a great deal.


the photo quality in the following photographs is extremely poor, but i have always been in a hurry each time - which explains the lacking in any sort of better looking, flora-related scenery..also, when in need of mirror shots i much prefer a non-flash / slightly-blurred option over an evident reflected flash equivalent. for the quality of the other bedroom photos i have no excuse.




the image on the left is a side project that i was working on a couple of days ago.

i was hoping to create a fairly simple cuffed-up long sleeve shirt - completely sheer but cut in half diagonally on both the front and back with a change in fabric - one a spotted black soft tulle, the other a plain black sheer material. i tried not to rush it, but the overlocker was misbehaving so that caused a number of negative results..


i culled and rearranged my magazine collection a couple of days ago. i saw a Selby photograph of an area in Alexander Wang's studio(?) a couple of months ago and have been meaning to replicate it ever since. he had stacks of books / magazines carefully laid out on a white bookshelf - there was lots of open space, and an apparent 'cleanliness' to the layout. i try to keep my bookshelf fairly clean and uncluttered like his, but it can be hard.
i have been really appreciating Twin, Bon and The Gentlewoman magazines of late. i usually just go to Borders when i am chasing international magazines - it requires little thinking on my behalf and i nearly always find something new during those visits.