Music for your Midweek: Stromae - quand c'est?

New new video from Stromae released this week. It's a beauty. Wish I could post it without the distracting subtitles, but c'est le vie. 

Also, can someone please buy me all these clothes. 

I'm claiming them as my new uniform.

Fantastique

I watched "Dior and I" last night with my mom and Christian, and loved it.This documentary follows Raf Simons as he takes the reigns of fashion house Christian Dior, 8 weeks before their Fall 2012 fashion show. Even thought the actual show took place almost 3 years ago, I was at the edge of my seat, anxious to see how everything would come together.

I recommend you watch it if you get the chance. I especially love how it brought a new sense of humanity to this side of fashion. Dior is HUGE. From ready-to-wear, to their makeup line to hand bags and shoes. All based on what their exclusive clientele want. The film touches on that when an unnamed client demands that one of the key seamstresses fly to New York for a fitting. You can't deny a customer who spends $350,000 a year on your brand...

But haute coututre, just feels different. Separate from money. It is true art. And look at the result! This is the man that made Jennifer Lawrence look more beautiful falling on the stairs then she did standing up. "Sublime,"as they say in the film.

Kanye knew what he was talking about, "...they don't make 'em like this anymore". He loves Dior. Or at least, the Dior girl.

And maybe I'm wrong and stupidly buying into the vision that the film sells. But I love it anyway. Nothing inspires me more than seeing people do what they love, and doing it well.

When I cam home, felt so inspired. I had a stack of books that I needed to tackle, and I knew right away which one I would start with Eccentric Glamour.

I love Simon Doonan. He is a hoot. He writes regularly for Slate where he is hilarious, offensive, and charming. So fun to read. I've only read the introduction to this booked, and I'm already converted. And I know he has some wisdom that I need to incorporate into my life. This girl thinks so too! Can't wait to start/finish this book. Review to come soon!

A bit of this and that

What a week.

I moved out of my apartment and into homelessness. Well, not quite homelessness. My kind friend Meisha has been letting me stay with her, but now she has to move out, and I'm heading over to my aunt's home in Spanish Fork til the 25th.

Here are some things going on in my life:

1. All I want to do is watch this

I know. It's pretty nerdy.

2. After cruising around modcloth. I decided I need 500% more dresses in my life. Here are the ones you can buy for me:

3. You get more back then you give.

I won tickets from the Mayor's blog the other day, but passed on the tickets to Meisha since I just found out I had to go to an American Legion gathering for work. I was bummed that I was missing the show, but that quickly dissipated as I spent time with the Legionnaires. Oh man. Just being around vetrans gets me choked up. Post 13 is named after Dea Mendenhall who died in combat. His sister was there and brought her grandson, a young guy, who was the same age as her brother when he was killed. It just about broke my heart. As I get older, my appreciation for the men and women who serve our country grows stronger and stronger. It was a pretty modest affair, but I admit, I shed a few tears at the dinner.

Anyway. I got home to ask Meisha about the show, and she handed me an envelope with a card for two tickets to "Wait Until Dark" next month! I guess they won the tickets while they were at the show. Funny, right? So I will get to enjoy a show after all. 

4. I miss school super bad. Nerd Alert.

5. I think I need to move somewhere east...

7. And I really think I just need to be a wedding singer. I'm not kidding you guys. THAT IS STILL MY DREAM.

Ok. This list proves that I'm not ready to be an adult yet. How about you guys make my decisions for me, ok?

The Urge to be Unidentifiable

I think that most people have the urge to be different. 

I would LOVE to be unidentifiable. 

Illusive. 

Impossible to classify. 

But now I realize that it is a lot cause. 

Have you seen this website yet?

Just a little something to remind you that you are not unique.

Even the most unique of us is not really unique.

Read more about the project here.  

Watch a video about the project here.

The Perfect Dress

Every once in a while (ok, everyday), I look around Jezebel. Some would say that the stuff they talk about on that site are "totes inapropes," but actually, most of it is pretty awesome. I especially love their "worth it" section. It gives really good advice that you can trust. Fer reals. So I saw this post on dresses, and thought it was too good to be true. But I just checked the website, and it's real!

I used to spend hours on ModCloth (especially the "longer lengths" section) looking for the right dress (cute, with sleeves, and to-the-knees). And while I fully believe in the power of cardigans, sometimes you just want to be able to put on a dress and go. Well my friends. At this website, you can get a custom-made dress AT NO EXTRA CHARGE. 

And they are cute:

And look at this!

SEE! IT'S A DREAM COME TRUE! This makes life so much easier for a Mormon-return-sister-missionary like myself.

I love it. 

I'll let you know how it goes if I actually order a dress.

And when I do, it will probably be this one... with inset cap sleeves, and knee length.

I love you eShakti.

B-BALL SKILLZ

Some of my family members are really good at sports.

My cousin Steven with those hot, yellow shoes playing for a team in Greece:



My cousin Stilman playing for UNC:



Yeah, I just wanted to brag a bit.

Classics Glassics

In case you're wondering, "glassics" is the way my dad prefers to doubly pluralize "glasses". I don't know. Anyway. I've jumped on the Warby Parker boat, and finally received my five frames in the mail yesterday! Wanna check 'em out? Of course you do! I took great pains to select glasses that were not too trendy (minimum metal detailing, moderate size) while not picking something absolutely boring. I'm not sure if it was a total victory. Let me know what you think!

1. Leigh

2. Finn

3. Zagg

4. Sibley

5. Reece

Hm.
When you see them all together like that, they don't look so different.
Leigh is too small for my face. Finn is too small for my face and too girly. I like Zagg but I think they are too dark and shiny. Makes them seem too trendy, I think. Sibley looked alright, but a little boring. I think the color of Reece are most complimentary, but the shape is a little dull.

So I'm stuck. Do you think they'll send me another set?

Gosh.

This blog just keeps getting more and more vain.
How can you stand it?

I'm just trying to be cool, guys. 

It doesn't come naturally to me.

Dream Small

If the Lord could be born in a humble stable, surely I should be satisfied with a humble home.

I like small spaces. 

I think this is a result of living in a fairly large house most of my life. The apartments I've lived in have been modest, but I could still go smaller. When I come home to my family, everyone is off in their own little world, far from each other. This video is my dream. 

The Age of Inauthenticity

I've been struggling with a love/hate relationship that has been exacerbated by my return to BYU after the summer.
I hope I don't sound to whiny about it. I love "vintage" horn-rimmed glasses from American Apparel as much as the next girl. I swoon over sheets from Anthropologie. I like those huge faux leather bags they have at Urban Outfitters. But I'm getting annoyed at how easily I'm being manipulated by their marketing. I feel the image that we are being sold is a relatively intelligent and tasteful one.

Cool girls dress like this:

They do tweed rides:

They are well-read:

They take photographs with "vintage" lenses from their iPhone:

And it's great, lovely fun. But I'm kind of getting tired of it. What is our generation going to be remembered for? Being nostalgic for something we never had. Innovation presses forward, but our lifestyles are looking back. Why?

I finally read this article from the New York Times a few weeks ago.
Here are some selected highlights:

“People are looking for things that are authentic,” he said. “I think it started happening after 2001: first there was 9/11, followed by recession. There was a certain exhaustion with the shiny and perfect. People didn’t relate to it anymore.” But the vintage and artisanal, he said, “will resonate with people as long as we live in these times.” Maybe not with everyone, though. As Dmitri Siegel put it: “When you pile Etsy on top of Etsy, it gets really cacophonous: ‘Everything in here is totally unique!’ It starts canceling itself out.”

"Reality Based" from Brooklyn writes in the comments section:

Last evening whilst walking on my urban Brooklyn block I was bemoaning the apogee of faux or "vintage" life-styling seeing another group of suspender and tweed clad hipsters pretend to be a jug band. They were performing a horrendously unmusical, "rootsy" version of the spiritual "When I Die" inside a new bar built to mimic some half baked idea of "vintage authenticity". This impulse to deny the truth of the cultural and political moment and instead seek refuge in an imagined virtualized "cozy" past seems to me the apogee of indulgent sentimentalist decadence.

And then there is this article from DoubleX.

That quirky, vintage, cuteness... it's all being relentlessly marketed to us. They make a profit off of our desire to be authentic, creative and smart.  I am getting tired of it. Just new ways to market uniqueness and nostalgia.

I find my self craving minimalism. Maybe do something like this? I have a strong desire to throw away all the clothes I have. I would find a simple dress. I would wear it everyday. I would let my actions and words define who I am. Oh, you know. Something along these lines: (though that yellow bag would have to go. I wouldn't want any semblance of personality)

And then I will take everything off my walls. I will rip off the sheets from by bed. Take all the knick-knacky things off the shelves. Turn my space into a space like this. 

Yes, that's about right. 

Spartan. Clean. A blank slate.

I would need to get rid of that gaudy pillow though.

I guess this isn't really any more authentic than the fake authenticity being sold to us.

But I like a simple life.

Have any of you guys felt that way before?

A Man's Secret Weapon...

... good clothes.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.- Mark Twain

You may be wondering what inspired this post.
First off, I went to the new, reorganized singles for our area. A representative from the stake stepped up to the podium, and my brother and I gave eachother significant looks:

Me: He looks just like Tim Gunn!
Jeremy: I know! He's just missing the glasses...

Make it work.

A few minutes later, he put glasses on to read a quote, and the vision was complete. Also, over the past week, I have been watching Project Runway (and America's Next Top Model during commercials) and have just fallen in love with it. I watched a full season for the first time last summer, and I am seriously considering looking for them on dvd or something. Also, I recently watched this trailer. AND, my favorite blogs to follow are fashion-y ones and I have been trying to keep them in mind as I've been selecting clothes to take with me back east.
And I've worked at Old Navy.
For all of these reasons, I am an expert on men's fashion.
HAHAHAHAHAH. funny joke.

Anyway.
With this theme running through my head, I've become specifically impressed of the role of men in fashion, and the lack of respect (or maybe just lack of interest) from the general male population.

Boys. I don't think you understand the power clothing. It is truly a secret weapon. I was talking with one of my friends the other day about moving to the D.C. area. She informed me that the types of guys I would find there would be different from the one's I've been around: "They know how to dress". She said.

I am a firm believer that if  a man can dress well, he can do anything. I think this guy summed it up pretty well: 

"...it is indeed remarkable how impressive ugly men can look in really good men's clothes. Is their a finer sight in the world than a hideous man, who is normally just one big explosion of visual pollution, decked out in a thousand pounds worth of state-of-the-art Men's Clothes?      ...men's clothes don't ever change in basic design. They just get ever more perfect and magnificent." 

A guy can get away with a lot if he looks sharp. Case in point: Scott Dissick.

Stolen from this blog.

I think a sense of style may be the only redeeming quality homeboy has.


So if any of you men are looking for pointers, here are few examples to emulate from our good friend, The Sartorialist:

Really guys, I guess you can wear whatever you want, but keep in mind this quote I found while reading about the shows at Coachella.

“whatever a dirty-looking young man with aviator glasses and certain kind of facial hair is doing looks disingenuous” - Ben Ratliff NYT

Note: most of the men in these photos have facial hair, but is is not the "certain kind" that Ben was referring to. You know what I mean.


Be clean. Be genuine. Be styled.

Fashion Smashin'

My dear friend George just graduated from fashion school! He escaped LA for a bit, so Linds put on a little get-together for him to celebrate his achievement. We all dressed up as different fashion styles (I got the 80's), played "pin-the-clothes-on-the-mannequin," and ooohed and ahhhed over George's portfolio.

I like to pretend I am "fashion" (note: I remember going to my new ward in Peru, and Sister Loidith introduced herself saying, "Hermanas, soy lo mas fashion de todo el barrio!" tranlation: "Sisters, I am the most "fashion"/stylish in the whole ward". She was fun.) I follow The Sartorialist and Garance Dore in hopes that their good taste will rub off on me.

But I'm not usually not interested in fashion shows that much. Unless it's Project Runway, but that's cheating. They just seem so unbelievable. There is usually nothing anyone could really pull of wearing in public, and I don't have the right background to fully understand it all. That is, until I saw photos from the Hermes Fall 2011 ready-to-wear show:

I WANT EVERYTHING AND I WANT TO WEAR IT ALL THE TIME.

When I saw this, my first thought was that this outfit would be great for the Hunger Games themed party I will inevitably throw:

Leather leggings? So necessary.

Why yes! That is a bow and arrow!

Go here to see all the photos from the show.