confirmed flight Emirates EK 435

Bec & Bridge:
we didn’t know how to send the jeans. instead of a courier company, we used Australia Post. we found a place that sold boxes, they packaged the jeans in foam balls and i remember someone phoning us up after that delivery, “we just received your jeans in the most atrocious packaging ever!” we literally had no idea – we didn’t even know if we were meant to charge freight or if it was free into store. the standard is that the stockist pays for freight.
iIf the stores want your designs badly enough, then they will agree to your terms. in the beginning, our terms were COD (cash on delivery) but now, as a bigger company with bigger orders, our stockists are on thirty-day account. – p5
when you are a start-up label, price point is hard to get right. you have to know your market and what labels you want to sit alongside and make sure your price your product comparatively within that group of designers (and that you produce a comparable product). – p13

Senior Buyer, David Jones:
when you have the buyer on the phone, if the buyer is unaware of the brand, then you need to demonstrate where your brand sits in the market and the relevance the brand has for the buyer. research the customer and where you think your label can fit into the business. ask for the buyer’s email address and follow-up with an email thanking the buyer for their time and attach your current lookbook or ‘hero’ images of the collection. if the buyer is impressed with your lookbook, they will contact you to make an appointment for a physical showing. – p41

Therese Rawsthorne:
it took me a long time to figure it out because i didn’t know anybody that worked in fashion and didn’t have any exposure to the fashion world. being from the country, people went into quite practical pursuits – that whole other world (glamorous careers in the arts and creative fields) was seen as something that wasn’t real. – p70

Alvin Manalo, Saint Augustine Academy:
the first place to start is Ragtrader, if you are Sydney based, pay a visit to E&M Greenfield in Surry Hills. there you will meet lots of young emerging designers who are usually happy to share their contacts. – p132

Event Director, IMG Fashion:
think outside the square when identifying potential brands to target. align yourself with a brand that doesn’t have the opportunity to talk to the fashion industry, but still has a likeminded demographic and target market. for example, we had a women’s ready to wear brand (they had lots of floral dresses in their collection) partner with 'love and romance' book publisher, Mills and Boon – it was the perfect match and both brands got a huge return on the sponsorship. i think too often brands decide, ‘we need a vodka sponsor or a luxury car sponsor,’ and they focus on saturated categories that are targeted by all the big labels – so think outside the square! – p149
the seating plan is a political minefield! i would encourage brands to work closely with their PR and our seating director on their seating plans. a few rules to get you started:
1. don’t have rival magazines seated opposite each other. try to scatter them around the seating plan.
2. if you give one key title five front row seats, be prepared to give all the other fashion titles five front row seats.
3. if you want more floorspace and decide to pull out the front row seats, don’t have the seating plan start with row B. make sure you rename it row A, because when key buyers and media look on their delegate pass and see they have been given a row B seat (not know there is in fact no row A), they might not turn up! – p153

Director, MCM PR:
the editor, associate editor, fashion news editor, market editor and fashion director. the most important people are in the front row – editor, fashion director and fashion news director – and anyone else from the same publication sits immediately behind them. – p285

Fashion Editor, The Vine:
tomorrow i’m viewing the collection of a new label that i had never heard of before last week because they did two things: 1) they got a retailer who i know and respect to contact me on their behalf and ask if it was all right for the designer to contact me directly, so i was expecting the email and 2) the designer sent an email and then called at the end of the day to check that i had received the email (the email had automatically gone into my junk folder). he introduced himself on the phone; i quickly took a look at his email, was impressed with what i saw and said i would be in touch to make a formal appointment to view the collection. having someone who is respected in the industry vouch for you is the best and fastest way to get an in. – p314

- Get Your Break: Fashion Designers - Samuel J Folder (Ed.)

Priory of Sion

'it is life's great paradox, but there's nothing i prefer more than a game of scrabble..but nothing i prefer less than my opponents, who are always accusing me of putting out words that aren't real.
sure, if i put down a word and you haven't seen it before, it must be because it's not real. there's no chance there's a word you haven't encountered before, you know everything, you're the font of universal knowledge, you're a walking Funk and Wagnalls you arrogant fricking a-hole.

anyway, what has all this got to do with religion? well, if i'm playing a game of scrabble and i put down the word Rabbi, no-one's up in my face, no-one has a problem. even though it was originally a Hebrew word, they correctly identify it as a foreign word that's been absorbed into English. yet if i put down Qibla, which is in the Oxford English Dictionary, suddenly everyone's getting huffy, flapping their arms about, running around the rumpus room sending scrabble pieces flying everywhere, 'John there's no such word as Qibla'.
let me tell you what Qibla is. Qibla is the direction of the sacred stone in Mecca to which Muslims turn when praying. i mean a billion people on the planet face Qibla five times a day but no, you're right, you never heard of it at Xavier College, so it's not a real word, not like Eucharist.

but what really annoys me is as you can imagine most of my friends are left-wing pinkos and on any other issue would be falling over themselves to accommodate the richness of multicultural diversity. you put down Qibla and suddenly i'm playing with Pauline Hanson. i tried to explain it's an Arabic words, 'oh we live in Australia, we don't speak Arabic here we speak English.' listen hippy, when you break through the fence at Woomera Detention Centre and whip out the scrabble board, they're going to want to put down Qibla.
until next time, go to hell.'
- John Safran

this blog hasn't become a journalistic Gaga-bashing display on purpose

'hopefully, you've been following Lady Gaga's mostly preposterous columns for V Magazine. it's been a chance to see the world's favorite sensationalist evolve, like a college freshman, from the hungover self-righteousness of her first column, to second-semester signs of budding critical thought.

her latest sermon is on the perniciousness of what she calls "Extreme Critic Fundamentalism" — a type of harmfully negative fashion journalism practiced, solely it seems, by beloved front-row curmudgeon and New York Times scribe Cathy Horyn. Gaga opens with a question: "Doesn't the integrity of the critic become compromised when their writings are consistently plagued with negativity?..when we can predict the same predictable review from the same predictable reviewer?" it's a valid query and the answer is, "of course." thing is, in targeting that question toward Horyn and her kind, Gaga has missed something important.

in fashion coverage, cheerleaders outnumber qualified critics 100 to one. the Internet is heavy with posts and pieces heralding the genius of this designer or the transcendental beauty of that product. rigorous appraisals of fashion are rare and precious.

despite Gaga's claims to the contrary, Horyn is educated exquisitely in fashion, art history, economics, and many other subjects that make her an outstanding critic. she can be as effusive in praise just as she can be damning with words (both Nicola Formichetti and Gaga herself have felt Horyn's sting). as well, these Extreme Critic Fundementalists — as Gaga calls them — are some of the few people who take fashion seriously, who demand more from it, who, sometimes just through the act of writing, can compel a designer or brand to grow artistically. rather than upending talented creatives, critics provide an intellectual framework for improvement and innovation.

Gaga is obsessed with citizen journalism, with "the range of artistic and brilliant intellectuals," she hears from every day on Twitter (is she looking at the same Twitter we are?) democratically she asks, "Why have we decided that one person's opinion matters more than anyone else's." the answer is, we haven't — not really. the world is free to (and usually does) ignore Horyn and stock up on all the dreck it wants. but sometimes, when looking at something new and ambitious, it helps to have a true expert in the room, someone who expects more, someone who knows bullshit when she smells it. whatever Gaga says about her, Horyn has an excellent nose — one we trust and value.'
- In Defense Of Cathy Horyn: Lady Gaga Please Sit Down, Gabriel Bell

and we still gather infinite momentum

'i admit, there’s some people smart enough to understand science and the big bang and all that stuff, and therefore have enough insight and knowledge to be an atheist. but lets face it, you’re not one of them. why? because you’re a humanities student with an arts degree.
let’s not play any games here: if i came over to your house right now and asked you to explain exactly why the Big Bang Theory is more rational than Genesis, you wouldn’t be able to even stutter out resemblence to an answer. so where do you get off sniggering at Christians like they’re stupid and you have some amazing insight?
sure you bought a copy of Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time, but i think if you waddle over to your bookshelf, you’ll see that the bookmark is exactly where you left it 9 years ago - on page 3. face it, you’re too stupid to be an atheist.'
- John Safran

going to see Sir Lucious Left Foot tonight / now we're Gnarly like Barkley

Dries Van Noten heels from SS11. very exciting.
+ about 1/3 as shiny in actuality..but i used a flash to show the fantastic metallic sheen on the ankle strap + heel.
being a size 6.5 they are a little toe-crunching as my feet are unfortunately a little more wide than usual but still small in size.. regardless, i'm still very happy with the pristine 2nd-hand condition that they are in + for the price i managed to get them for.

XXXXX

'i'm inspired by my kids who keep forgiving me for all my frailties. next week my parents celebrate 65 years of marriage. how much I learn from watching them. my brother is a teacher and has been for years. he loves what he does and cares about his students. i wish all teachers were like him. i hope i can touch young lives like he does. my mother-in-law is like the sunshine. i've never met anyone else like her in my life. she's one of those petite women with the majesty of a lion. Esther Jungreiss is also a petite woman who carries herself with majesty and grace. she survived a concentration camp as a child. now she lives a life of giving. her light is brilliant. her stories are profound. i know people who have adopted downs syndrome babies and are raising them up in a loving family environment. their strength inspires me. i'm inspired by the people who send in secrets to the PostSecret project and the people who respond to them.'

XXXXX

'on September 3, 1973 6:28 pm and 32 sec, a blue fly of the Calliphorides species, whose wings can flutter 14670 times per minute landed in Saint-Vincent Street, Montmartre. at the exact same second, outside a restaurant, the wind was sweeping in under a tablecloth, causing the glasses to dance without anybody noticing it.
at the same time, on the fifth floor of avenue Trudaine, Eugène Koler, erased the name of his best friend, Émile Maginot, in his address-book after coming home from his funeral. still at the same second, a spermatozoon containing an x-chromosome and belonging to M. Raphaël Poulain was reaching the ovum of Mrs Poulain, born Amandine Fouet. months later a girl was born: Amélie Poulain.
Raphaël Poulain doesn't like peeing next to somebody else. he doesn't like noticing people laughing at his sandals, or coming out of the water with his swimming suit sticking to his body. Raphaël Poulain likes to tear big pieces of wallpaper off the walls,
to line up his shoes and polish them with great care, to empty his toolbox, clean it thoroughly, and, finally, put everything away carefully. Amélie's mother, Amandine Fouet, doesn't like to have her fingers all wrinkled by hot water. she doesn't like it when somebody she doesn't like touches her, to have the marks of the sheets on her cheek in the morning. she likes the outfits of the ice-skaters on TV, to shine the flooring, to empty her handbag, clean it thoroughly, and, finally, putting everything away carefully. Amélie would like her father to hold her in his arms from time to time. but the only contact they have is during the monthly medical check-up. moved by this intimacy, the little girl can't stop her heart from beating wildly. as a result, her father believes she suffers from a heart disease.'
- Amelie film transcript


via

(C)reeps beware! (R)eally kaleidoscope eyes (A)lcove appreciator (C)hilly chin (H)oratio hope

Proenza Schouler SS10 clutch


a comfortable university outfit for a rainy day:
Emma Rea shredded bodysuit, chain store skirt (i have a new found love for this awkward, ankle-bearing length), Forever New belt, Rick Owens jacket

currently reading: Fernando Pessoa - The Book of Disquiet

realise, also, that i do not pity you, since i'm calling you, and do not respect you, since i'm waiting for you to come. and yet i call and wait.

'eternity eludes us. at times like this, all the romantic, political, intellectual, metaphysical and moral beliefs that years of instruction and education have tried to inculcate in us seem to be foundering on the altar of our true nature, and society, a territorial field mined with the powerful charges of hierarchy, is sinking into the nothingness of Meaning. exeunt rich and poor, thinkers, researchers, decision-makers, slaves, the good and the evil, the creative and the conscientious, trade unionists and individualists, progressives and conservatives; all that's left are primitve huminoids whose nudging and posturing, mannerisms and finery, language and codes are all located on the genetic map of an average primate, and all add up to no more than this: hold your rank, or die.
at times like this you desperately need Art. you seek to reconnect with your spiritual illusions, and you wish fervently that something might rescue you from yoru biological destiny, so that all poetry and grandeur will not be cast out from the world.
thus, to withdraw as far away as you can from the jousting and combat that are the appanages of our warrior species, you drink a cup of tea, or maybe you watch a film by Ozu, and place upon this sorry theatre the seal of Art and its greatest treasures.'
- p94

'i press the start button, sip my jasmine tea. from time to time i rewind, thanks to this secular rosary known as the remote control. and here is an extraordinary scene.'
- p95

'the death of Pierre Arthens has been wilting my camellias. i open my envelope and read this little note written on a business card whose surface is so glossy that the ink, to the dismay of the defeated blotter, has bled slightly underneath each letter.
Madame Michel,
would you be so kind as, to sign for the packages from the dry cleaner's this afternoon? i'll pick them up from your lodge this evening.
scribbled signature.
i was not prepared for such an underhand attack. i collapse in shock on the nearest chair. i even begin to wonder if i am not going mad. does this have the same effect on you, when this sort of thing happens?
let me explain.
the cat is sleeping.
you've just read a harmless little sentence, and it has not caused you any pain or sudden fits of suffering, has it? fair enough.
now read again:
the cat, is sleeping.
let me repeat it, so that there is no cause for ambiguity:
that cat comma is sleeping.
that cat, is sleeping.
would you be so kind as, to sign for.
on the one hand we have an example of a prodigious use of the comma that takes great liberties with language, as said commas have been inserted quite unnecessarily, but to great effect:
'i have been much blamed, both for war, and for peace..'
and on the other hand, we have this dribbling scribbling of vellum, courtesy of Sabine Pallieres, this comma slicing the sentence in half with all the trenchacy of a knife blade:
would you be so kind as, to sign for the packages from the dry cleaner's?
if Sabine Pallieres had been a Portuguese maid born under a fig tree in Faro, or a concierge who'd just arrived from the high-rise banlieues of Paris, or if she were the mentally challenged member of a tolerant family who had taken her in out of the goodness of their hearts, i might have whole-heartedly forgiven with guilty nonchalance. but Sabine Pallieres is wealthy. Sabine Pallieres is the wife of a bigwig in the arms industry, Sabine Pallieres is the mother of a cretin in a conifer-green duffel coat who, once he has his requisite diplomas and has obtained his Political Science degree, will in all likelihood go on to disseminate the mediocrity of his paltry ideas in a right-wing ministerial cabinet, and Sabine Pallieres is, moreover, the daughter of a nasty woman in a fur coast who sits on the selection committee of a very prestigious publishing house and who is also so overloaded with jewels that there are days when i fear she will collapse from the sheer weight of them.
for all these reasons, Sabine Pallieres has no excuse. the gifts of fate come with a price. for those who have been favoured by life's indulgence, rigorous respect in manners of beauty is a non-negotiable requirement.
at this critical moment in my indignant ruminations someone rings at my lodge.'
- p106

'Levin delights in the forgetfulness that movement brings, where the pleasure of doing is marvellously foreign to the striving of the will.
freed from the demands of the decision and intention, adrift on some inner sea, we observe our various movements as if they belonged to someone else, and yet we admire their involuntary excellence.'
- p119

'two reasons, to be exact, both related to Ozu's films. the first had to do with the sliding doors themselves. from the very first film i saw, Flavour of Green Tea over Rice, i was fascinated by the way the Japanese use space in their lives, and by these doors that slide and move quietly along invisible rails, refusing to offend space. for when we push open a door, we transform a place in a very insiduous way. we offend its full extension, and introduce a disruptive and poorly proportioned obstacle. if you think about it carefully, there is nothing uglier than an open door. an open door introduces a break in the room, a sort of provincial interference, destroying the unity of space. in the adjoining room it creates a depression, an absolutely pointless gaping hole adrift in a section of awll that would have preferred to remain whole. in either case a door distrupts continuity, without offering anything in exchange other than freedom of movement, which could easily be ensured by another means.'
- p148

'they could tell a little cloud from Siberia was hovering over the head of our fat French teacher. in reality, i've never read a thing by Jakobson, obviously not. though i may be superbright, i'd rather read manga or literature. but Maman has a friend (who's a university lecturer) who was talking about Jakobson yesterday (while they were indulging in a hunk of Camembert and a bottle of red wine at five in the afternoon). so, in class this morning i remembered what she had said.
at that moment, when i could sense that the rabble were growling and showing their teeth, i felt pity. i felt sorry for Madame Fine. and i don't like a lynching. it never shows anyone in a good light.
and on the way home i thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.'
- p156

'framed in the door, motionless, her hair clinging to her face, her dress soaked through, her shoes caked with mud, staring lifelessly, stood Lisette. how did my mother know? how did this woman who, while never mistreating us, never showed us that she loved us, either by deed or word - how did this coarse woman who brought her children into the world in the same way she turned over the soil or fed the hens, this illiterate woman, so exhausted by life that she has never even called us by the names she had given us - to the point where I at times wondered if she even remembered them - how did she know that her daughter, half-dead, neither moving nor speaking but merely staring at the door without even thinking of knocking, was just waiting in a relentless downpour for someone to open it and bring her into the warm room?
is this a mother's love, this intuition of disaster in one's heart, this spark of empathy that resists even when human beings have been reduced to living like animals?'
- p283, The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery

foxes

reading at the moment:
The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery, (re-reading) The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch, How to be Good - Nick Hornby
also recently purchased: Atonment - Ian McEwan, Death in Venice - Tristan Tonio Kroger

>
i saved an absurd figure of $1500 or so on this jacket, if i recall correctly. after having seen it showcased (in a manner exceedingly more beautifully than in these photos) for a little while now, i was intrigued, though the more i wear it the more satisfied i become. i have never had a staple jacket that i really enjoy and feel is appropriate for a slew of different occasions, but this Rick Owens number seems to be ticking a lot of boxes for me right now.:


'and i would get u from the floor while you looked on, your face deliberately twitching in imitation of my tic nerveux. but never mind, never mind, i am only a brute, never mind, let us go on with my miserable story.'
- p218
'but who would upset such a lucid dear? did i ever mention that her bare arm bore the 8 of vaccination? that i loved her hopelessly? an inquisitive butterfly passed, dipping, between us.
here is something i composed in my retreat:
wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. / hair: brown. lips: scarlet. / age: five thousand three hundred days. / profession: none, or "starlet".
where are you hiding, Dolores Haze? / where are you hiding, darling? / (i talk in a daze, i walk in a maze, i cannot get out, said the starling).
where are you riding, Dolores Haze? / what make is the magic carpet? / is a Cream Cougar the present craze? / and where are you arked, my car pet?
who is your hero, Dolores Haze? / still one of those blue-caped star-men? / oh the balmy days and the palmy bays / and the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!
oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts! / are you still dancin', darlin'? / (both in worn Levis, both in torn t-shirts / and i, in my corner snarlin').
happy, happy is gnarled McFate / touring the States with a child wife / plowing his Molly in every State / among the protected wild life.
my Dolly, my folly! her eyes were vair, / and never closed when i kissed her. / know an old perfume called Soleil Vert? / are you from Paris, mister?
dying, dying, Lolita Haze, / of hate and remorse, i'm dying. / and again my hair fist i raise, / and again i hear you crying.
wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze. / her dreamy-gray gaze never flinches. / ninety pounds is all she weighs / with a height of sixty inches.
my car is limping, Dolores Haze, / and the last long lap is the hardest / and i shall be dumped where the weed decays, / and the rest ir rust and stardust.
by psychoanalysing this poem, i notice it is really a maniac's masterpiece. the stark, stiff, lurid rhymes correspond very exactly to certain perspectiveless and terrible landscapes and figures, and magnified parts of landscaped and figures, as drawn by psychopaths in tests devised by their astute trainers. i wrote many more poems. i immersed myself in the poetry of others. but not for a second did i forget the load of revenge.
i would be a knave to say, and the reader a fool to believe, that the shock of losing Lolita cured me of pederosis.
my heart was a hysterical unreliable organ.'
- p293, Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

i've been particularly inspired by Taylor Tomasi-Hill recently.