E L L E R Y

One of my favourite designers is Kym Ellery (Sydney). Her clothes have the most swell details and embellishments, with an emphasis on shape and form, masculine and feminine contrasts and juxtapositions of structure and drape. These are from her latest collection, A Tribute to Doctor Strange. I really love the top jacket, with the shoulder claws.

All images from http://www.frontrowdiary.com/

Welcome to Florida

Another great film by Jim Jarmusch. One of his first in fact. Stranger than Paradise (1984) helped to define the independent American cinema movement in the mid to late 80s. Before the term indie was used to describe any offbeat or quirky film, these directors were true independent artists who were not funded by massive corporations with Hollywood money, but nevertheless created intelligent, self-reflective films on a small budget as their little babies. Also, the woman Eva has this amazing nonchalant attitude while she travels across Florida with two hipsters from New York, its great.

Yes, you can

Lykke Li is so cool.

Places I would like to be

In the fifties experiencing 3D movies for the first time, making out with my quarterback boyfriend / San Francisco in the sixties, amongst the protests, the liberation, the revolutions and the new found freedom / Listening to Patti Smith and Television in the seventies, getting amongst the NY Beat generation sharing an apartment with brick walls and wooden floors with my stovepipe and Chucks wearing lover.

Images unknown   

Margot

 

Margot from the Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson) is just one of the greatest characters. She has so much style. I want to be her, bar the depressive nature. Camel coats, black eyeliner, a constant cigarette, a mousy blonde bob and a secret love affair. Her character is apparently based on 60s icon, Nico, who is also amazing. So that fits.

Images unknown, I wish I had of gotten the name of this artist   

Daisies

   

Daisies is a spectacular 1966 Czech film, which follows Marie and Marie as they create chaos, cause ruckus and rebel against the world they live in.

The film is saturated in glorious shots and cinematography, each frame immersed in colour and lovely decor and the complete oddness of surrealism

I strongly recommend it.

Words and Words

Some people are so good with words. Like these little notes of inspiration - they just appear so innate to the person who has written / spoken them.
I would like to be good with the written word. I think they express so much more than the spoken word.

Images from http://julia.blogg.se / http://somuchtotellyou.co.nz/ http://yespleasemademoiselle.blogspot.com/

Odd Blood

Awkwardly obsessed with and cant stop listening to Yeasayers new album, Odd Blood. Shame they dont make many videos for their work, step it up guys!    

Love, Knowledge and Pity

Bertrand Russell – What I have lived for. (British Philosopher and Logician)

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
 I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
 With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
 Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
 This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Bertrand Russell is one of my favourite Philosophers. Not only because I have mad respect that he (and Frege) revolutionised 20th cent Logic (which had ceased to evolve since the time of Aristotle), but that he was so passionate about his life and his work and the value of Philosophy in general. Amazing. 

Polars!

Global warming, oh no!

Here is a good article from the New Scientist which explains what would happen if the world stopped eating meat and animal by-products (which is closely linked to the issue of greenhouse gas emissions) 

It is indeed a complex and contemplative life with so many granted options and moral dilemmas and absurd conclusions to take into account. So much to know.  

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727691.200-veggieworld-why-eating-greens-wont-save-the-planet.html?full=true

Catch the Light

Feathers and fur, swaying dream catchers, dim light at dusk, Native American emblems, turquoise stones and wooden beads, wild animals, flowers on hills, dinky old sheds with dull windows, long straw grass and summer, road trips on desert roads, friends and sand, purple and blue hues... all the things that emerge when thinking about an idealistic home town.

Images unknown

You’re Beautiful

You’re beautiful because you cry at weddings as well as funerals.
I’m ugly because I think of children as another species from a different world. 
 You’re beautiful because you look great in any colour including red.
I’m ugly because I think shopping is strictly for the acquisition of material goods. 
You’re beautiful because when you were born, undiscovered planets lined up to peep over the rim of your cradle and lay gifts of gravity and light at your miniature feet.
I’m ugly for saying ‘love at first sight’ is another form of mistaken identity and that the most human of all responses is to gloat. 

Ugly like he is,
Beautiful like hers,
 Beautiful like Venus,
Ugly like his,
Beautiful like she is,
Ugly like Mars. 

A beautiful poem by English poet, Simon Armitage. This is only a snippet from about half way through (but I think by far the most adorable lines) - hear and read the rest here http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=90

Picnic

  

A selection of cakes and cupcakes my grandmother has made me, (except the bottom image, cupcakes made by Reenie), BLESS. Handmade treats are the best, especially for birthday picnics, so much to share and so much love!

All images taken by me 

PULP

Charles Bukowski - Pulp, possibly one of my favourite novels. If not, its a good read anyway. His work is characteristically dark, misogynist, humorous, apathetic, pathetically self-destructive and  uncontrollably hedonistic. Pulp was his last novel (1994) and is slightly less characteristic of his style, maybe why I like it. But I do love the rest.      

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." 

 

Minimalist

Neil Barrett is an English Fashion Designer, based in Italy. I have only recently discovered his solo work, having previously worked as menswear designer for Gucci and Prada (Im glad the influences wore off)

I love minimalist style, it will always be classic, look stylish and oozes the art of composition, structure, texture and colour from the wearer (the epitome of style, not trends). Its effortless and looks all the better for it. Then theres the subtle, but so intrinsic aspects of the outfit - the black leather wrist gloves, pushed up sleeves, pulled back hair, heeled ankle boots, high necklines. Perfect.

Image taken from http://yespleasemademoiselle.blogspot.com/  

Heaven Tonight

HEDI SLIMANE / COURTNEY LOVE 2 / JULY 2007 / CONCERT AT THE BUSH HALL LONDON   

I love Courtney Love for the same reasons that I love Pete Doherty (and Hedi Slimane for photographing them in musical ecstasy). Shes grungy and strong-willed and her style is cultish and imitated just as an amazing female performer who helped define a generation should be. I hope shes rocking out to Petals or Violet in these pics (songs from Celebrity Skin and Live Through This, respectively). I dont even mind that she went crazy and kicked everyone out of her band, shes ace.

All images from http://www.hedislimane.com/

HOWL

I saw the film HOWL the other day at the 2010 Film Festival...

The film covers the trial surrounding the charge of obscenity (due to sexual content) of Allen Ginsbergs 1956 poem, Howl. The poem was eventually ruled as not being obscene, of having literally merit and went on to become one of the seminal works of the Beat Generation (along with work by Kerouac and Burroughs)

The above image is of Ginbergs and his love partner, Peter Orlovsky, the second image is a replication from the film

Grey Marl

Give a little love to NYC. It was birthdays, sex and sleep.

I love University sweaters. I probably would have got one if mine had a better name. NYU sounds a lot more credible.

Photograph by Hedi Slimane

We are Caged

Ohhh how I love the idea of an intricate pattern. Bagging out seams and invisible zips and facings, all necessary for nice clean shape and form. The top image reminds me of 6th form Givenchy art class for some reason. But the black dress works so well at creating bold and precise structure.

All images from http://jakandjil.com

Highway

 

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

-   T.S Eliot ‘The Four Quartets’

Photo taken in Quebec, Canada

Hide the Drugs EP

Dylan Forsberg takes glorious photographs that always seem to convey an ambiguous combination of drug-fueled adventures, topless friends, road trips through Southern California, staying in cheap motels and wearing outfits from True Romance, the desert and water, house parties that end midday, walks of shame, bare feet and music from HI, TIGER. Amazing.

All images taken from http://www.dylanforsberg.blogspot.com/