Shape and drape

I've been paging obsessively through DROP, which features Japanese street style. I find it difficult to mess around with clothes back home in Malaysia as much as I do here in London, mostly because of the familial mockery/surprise that greets anything remotely new, but partly because it's so damn hot. They get pretty hot 'n' humid summers in Japan, though, so it's interesting to see how they dress despite it.


This is my favourite outfit that I've seen so far, but one wonders if it isn't a little too perfect. It is a bit ridiculous of me, but will she ever be able to come up with so ideal a combination of hat, hair, sun, dress, bracelet, socks, shoes and sunlight again? If you asked me why I thought this so beautiful I would have to say it is because of a) the colours and b) the fact that the dress and hat are both a little too big. The precise lines of the dress, the wrinkled socks, the angle of the hat on her perfectly bleached head ... it is too beautiful to think about!

And the Japanese are the emperors of layering. Layering in the summer! Madness. And yet they don't look like they're about to up and drop dead of the heat.




Possibly it's just because they're made of tougher stuff than we are.

What I find particularly interesting is the fondness of shapes that don't necessarily have to anything to do with the shape of the human (female) body.


That isn't very clear, is it? What I mean is -- so much of (Western?) fashion is focused on being sexy, or showing it all, or not showing it all but suggesting. Which is fine, obvs, I'm a huge fan of the tiny mini shift dress and that's hardly modesty central. But it's interesting to see fashion that isn't fixated on how much you can show off or suggest, where a baggy T-shirt is not the worst thing in the world.



I'm not going to say it's not about sex, because who knows? I'm not here to do a sociological study. But it's cool to see summer fashion that isn't just tiny summer dresses, much as I love tiny summer dresses!

- Zen

Sharpness

Whoa, look at those shoulder pads!

That combined with her hair and shoes. I have never been so inspired by sharp things before but this, is amazing!

Photo credits: The Sartorialist

-Sue

Ol' Skool Kute

Makes you wonder if hanging that Nintendo Wii nunchuk aorund your neck is a strech too far. Anyhoos, it's a cute look that works. The 90s rocked man. More posts up soon. I promise. (:

Credits: facehunter

-Sue

An image

I wasn't that interested in the outfit when I first looked at this picture from an Anthropologie catalogue, but the more I looked at it the more enthralled I was. I like the demureness of the soft rose tights under the staid brown of the trench and the shoes. The delicate straps on the shoes, the profusion of buttons on the coat, the contrast between the creases in the pushed-up sleeves and the neatly folded scarf. But most of all, the colours. A subdued greyish-blue, rose pink and I'm-not-sure-what-to-call-it brown. It's just so pretty and thoughtful and gentle, something you'd wear on a grey day when you weren't feeling too chirpy but you weren't too down either -- just tranquil and in a mood where everything is beautiful.

I don't have tights which are that precise shade or a skirted trenchcoat of any hue, but one could mock up the scarf with a pair of knitting needles and some patience, if one so desired:

Bow-knot scarf by Katherine Burgess

Ribbed mini-scarf by Celeste Glassel

Anthro-inspired scarflet by Kim Seio (on Ravelry)

And looking at that picture, one thinks one might be inspired!

- Zen

Vintage inspiration

I was idly browsing Modcloth when I came across this adorable dress:


I love the black & white colour scheme, the slanty pockets and the buttons. Sigh.

I hadn't heard of Peggy Moffitt so I went to my trusty friend, Google Images. Talk about inspiration!

Peggy Moffitt liked bright tights ...


Crazy dresses!


High hem-lines.


(I love how the circles repeat themselves across her dress and socks.)

And ... looking like a cross between a Regency soldier (the white stockings and black shoes) and a little boy (the shorts)?



I like how she combines colours in unexpected ways, and her distinctive hair and make-up -- the look is almost clownish, more scary than sexy. I doubt I want to try her make-up or hair (too lazy), but I find her palette of clashing bright colours inspiring.

- Zen

Bucketloads of Inspiration

You can all shoot me if you don't think these images are cool. Don't you love the military jacket? And the blonde hair. She makes me crave for a fringe and blonde hair, both of which I cannot pull off.


She looks pretty normal. Biker jacket over dress. Uggs with tights. But look at her hands!


Awesome crocheted gloves. Zen, do you think these are possible? Your crocheting skills will one day rule the world. (:


Personally, I love this girl's look the best. Sassy and fun yet classy at the same time. I think it's the make up. And those ankle boots are to die for.

So whaddya think? Oh I think I can so pull off those wide leg pants the guy is wearing. I really would love a pair of those, santa. The blazer and shoes too, please? The hair? No thanks.

Photos from Drop.

Sue

Cowls and other creatures

My BFF Max has requested that we post clearer pictures of our clothes. My sucky photography skills and the appalling lighting in my room don't really allow for that, but Max's reproof did remind me that I've got something of a backlog of clothes photos that I was meaning to post here.

Not-terribly-exciting outfit photos posted at Wardrobe Remix:

Scarf - from my mom; T-shirt - Seed; necklace - somewhere in Malaysia; sleeveless top - H&M; skirt - Nicole; tights - Boots; stockings - random shop in Tokyo; boots - DUO; elephants - Bali

I really like this outfit just because it's a new way of putting old clothes together. The black top actually has a white bib on the front; it is very charming, but is too big for me and gapes at the chest shockingly, so I always have to layer it on top of something else. Usually I put it on top of a tank, but the T-shirt look is quite cute as well, I think.

Dress - Zara; long cardigan - H&M; tights - Dorothy Perkins

Reading Fruchtzwerg's Island made me realise that the one thing missing from my life is a long cardigan, so I rushed out and got one from H&M. Again, a really simple outfit, but it delights me because it's a new way of wearing the dress. The dress is very cute, but when I wear it by itself, there's something about its fit that I don't like. Really I shouldn't have bought it, but I was too charmed by the gorgeous print (my friend called it a "juicy blue", and it really is!). It's spent most of this term mouldering in the back of my closet.

But then I put the new cardigan on top of it and suddenly I love the look -- it's comfortable enough to wear while slouching around at home; it's casual enough to wear to school without feeling awkwardly overdressed; it adds a pop of colour to my day but isn't too loud because the cardigan quiets it down. It still needs more -- an oversized scarf, maybe, or a belt, or a necklace -- but it will do for now. I foresee myself wearing this dress a LOT.

Anyway, I have decided that the cardigan is going to be my absolute last clothes purchase for myself this term. I've been spending far too much money! My resolution is a bit cheating really, since there's only two weeks left to the term, and I will be shopping when I go home, if only because my brother's getting married and I haven't yet acquired an appropriate dress. But it's a very necessary resolution in these sale-ridden times.

What I'd like to do more of is combine what I've got in new ways -- I initially typed 'interesting new ways', but they don't have even have to be particularly interesting, really, just novel. I've been thinking especially about this:

It's an Alexander McQueen dress I saw in the Bath Fashion Museum. (Not awfully worth going, btw; one might as well visit the V&A -- at least that's free.) Ever since I saw it I've been pondering how I might recreate it with my lace dress -- for I have a lace dress! It is not the same colour or shape, but it is lacey. The general idea is there.

But I do not know how I am to obtain the top bit.


I don't know if you can tell, but it is some sort of leather yoke/collar thing. I was thinking I could recreate something similar by crochet, perhaps -- perhaps by trying to imitate one of Yokoo's marvellous creations --

-- though of course it would be a poor imitation at best -- but it is called the Pembroke cowl! It is as if it was meant to be!

But the thing about the McQueen dress is that it is a play on the textures and the associations of leather vs. lace, so it wouldn't work if it was crochet.

Unless I tried to crochet a cowl in leather ...

The Very Latest Thing, My Dear

What was meant to be good web hopping one fine day led to a treasure trove of inspiration that can only be better than any fashion magazine.

As we all know, androgynous is the holy grail of fashion this season. You ooh and ahh at the select skinny few i.e Agynes Deyn who can pull it off. And for those who can't pull it off, there are several clothing that has been designed to help the god forsaken ones - the boyfriend jeans being one of them. Thus milking more moolah once again from the vulnerable fashion conscious followers.

Then there's the fashion magazines. You spend several pounds a month just to look at people who can wear the most beautiful things on earth and wish you were them but deep inside you you know you will never become an airbrushed beauty. Sigh, the fashion conscious milked again.

But here, it is here on the WWW that inspires me, for free. Anything free is good, no? Yes, yes fashion blogs are a great source of inspiration but have you ever ventured further than that? Ever thought of going back to the actual source of inspiration that the rest of the fashion forward world have been longing after? I give you the original mod 60s and swinging 70s.

Does Twiggy not rock the androgynous look awesomely well? It is so fashion forward too. I would wear that shift down the streets any other day.

Another pretty good example of the how fashion these days are rocking backwards to that era is this lovely picture of Nadia Cassini. I don't know who she is, probably an actress but I do know that she has everything on that is in this season.

Fringes ala Fashion Toast. Check.
Shorts. Check. Well, over tights now since it's winter.
Belt to define waist. Check.
Beret. Check.

If it wasn't for the old skool cars in the background, I would have thought the picture was taken just recently!

Then there's The Ascot. By golly, those ladies would never have been able to get into today's Ascot because of the new maximum two-inch above the knee rule. I really like the mini shift the girl in the far right is wearing and also how she instinctively turned to the camera when the picture was shot. The poser intuition, I call it.

The shocker of all pictures is probably this one. Not because of what she is wearing but who she is. Cher.

Simplicity equals black shift and black sheer tights. Très chic. Jane Birkin rightly deserves to have the world's most coveted bag named after her.

After all these lovely eye candies, I found myself starting to youtube 60s and 70s videos. I found one movie trailer that got me yearning to watch the movie purely just for aesthetic reasons. The Blowup is a movie about a fashion photographer who stumbles upon a murder when he has his films developed. Be prepared for an explosion of 60s fashion in this one.

The obligatory video.



Sue signing off, wishing she lived in the 60s.

Crochet and feathers

I've always had an obsessive personality, and I have just acquired a new thing to be obsessed about: crochet.

Crochet! It's done wonders for my Internet addiction, except when I go on crazy crochet website surfing sprees and turn up millions of things I wish to make when I have honed my skills sufficiently.

Like this sushi roll scarf:

Found here.

And a crazy vintage hat:

Only one of many crazy hats from the year 1944, here.

And handwarmers!

Pattern here.

With the little crochet flower on the side, oh how adorable.

Apart from these mad orgies of wish fulfillment, however, my addiction to the Internet has sat down and shut up. Upon coming home, no longer do I rush to Gmail with a hopeful expression. Instead, I curl up in my armchair with a 4.5 mm hook and wrestle with loops of cotton yarn, looking hazily through the stitches at the future.

The future is glorious, and it looks like a scarf.

I started crocheting all of a week ago, when I went into a shop to buy yarns for a knitter friend and got distracted by all the pretty colours. The textures! The variety! The glorious things you were able to make with them, they said, ranging from sheep-shaped tea pot cozies to fancy-ass dresses! I bought a hook and a ball of yarn and a book --


It is a crappy book, by the way; don't buy it --

And came home and started to crochet. Since the explanations and diagrams in my book were not terribly helpful, I had to consult the Internet at a couple of points, but once I had cleared up the nature of the slip stitch everything was smooth sailing from there.

Well, not quite. With heedless enthusiasm I started on a double crochet (single crochet in American) scarf in strawberry and mint colours, but rapidly came a cropper for various reasons: I was using the wrong sort of yarn; I failed to do extra stitches to make up for it; not only was I using the wrong sort of yarn, I was using different wrong sorts of yarn ...

The long and short of it is, that scarf was not a success.


I look quite happy here (well actually I look like a blank-eyed alien, but never mind about that), but that is only because I was bravely biting down on my anguish. The reasons why the scarf did not work out are many and varied, but I won't bore you with the technical details. I moaned about them in detail to my sister, who said, "It doesn't have to be a scarf! Why don't you use it as an accessory? Like, you know, instead of wearing a necklace and earrings, you could wear your ... thing."

Zen: Right, that'll go down well. 'Hey, Zen, what's that you're wearing?' 'Oh, it's my, you know, it's my ... accessory.'
Sister: Yeah! It could be your trinklet.

So we have taken to calling it my trinklet. I have hung it up on my bedroom door: pretty, resembling coral in its charming curliness, but ultimately useless.

The projects I next wanted to go on to doing were a) a beret and b) handwarmers and c) something cute in the way of amigurumi ... but since I have only yet managed to produce a trinklet and not a scarf, I decided to start over again and do a Proper Scarf, a scarf one could actually wear and not look that odd in.

It is going reasonably well so far! Again I will restrain myself from expounding upon it in technical detail, but there will be pictures if it does eventually turn into a scarf. Wish me luck!

Just in case crochet chat is not your bag of Jelly Babies, I include an obligatory non-crochet related link.

Link.

This is a wealthy heiress circa 1911 (probably). Isn't she marvellous? She's just exactly what you'd expect an heiress to look like somehow.

We don't have heiresses anymore, do we? Not simply as a descriptor but as a job description, a definition of a particular identity. I guess if you dream of the Marxist utopia, as surely we must all do, you can't regret the loss, but what a shame people don't wear hats like that anymore.

Anyway, what I was meaning to say was: the Shorpy Photo Archive is a repository of supremely cool old photos, worth a look if you're interested in people and the past. I haven't found that much in the way of glamour so far except in the photo above, but check out the beauty pageant photos; they are absolutely hilarious.

- Zen

Pizzicato Five Revival!

It’s been ages since I’ve listened to Pizzicato Five! They used to be my happy-pills made into song; wouldn’t you love a band singing about Twiggy sitting next to a cat? After being surrounded by all the vintage-talk from the Lemms, I guess I can’t help but close my eyes and jump off sober ground, onto the slippery slope with them. With Comme des Garcons and H&M generating so much hype, and crazy long cues in Tokyo, I followed this thread of Japanese intrigue with what I knew better – J-pop! I soon found myself hunting down Pizzicato Five’s music videos on youtube. Thank God I’m not living in a dorm anymore where they limit your usage so much that after a few videos you can forget about checking your email!

Brace yourselves for Japanese-style quirkiness if you’ve never encountered it before...




Don’t you just love the little white dress and tights? I don’t think I could pull that off but I would put it on Sue in a heartbeat!

Here’s another one to enjoy. Not as exciting as the first one, but I do heart this song too...and I also want a trench coat.




Lastly, another one I like. Just look at the clothes, I would love to dress like that more often if I weren’t so lazy (not sure about the eye patch though). This is proof that Pizzicato Five can also do the classic walk-down-the-street-and-sing-with-a-few-costume-changes routine.




I’ll be watching more music videos till my computer says no....

- Sam

Fashionista kiasuism - my first Polyvore set - cool links!

Maybe I won't swing by H&M to have a look at the Comme des Garcons collection after all. O_O Can you imagine? I hate going to the Primark at Marble Arch as it is; this looks like it would be indescribably worse. (Though at least the clothes would be nicer!)

Today I wore the following outfit!


What I wore 12/11/08 by lemmsandhems

It's a bit dressier than was really necessary, since all I was doing today was staggering to school, but I woke up this morning and thought: I am not getting out of bed unless I have something to get up for. So I decided to make my new dress from Dorothy Perkins an incentive to get out of bed.

The cardigan's a much prettier colour in the fleshbric, a sort of cross between plum and aubergine -- plumbergine, as the fashionistas say. Once I put the dress on the rest followed without much thought: thick charcoal grey tights because it might be cold, a cardigan, boots because boots look nice with dresses and I wanted to casual up the outfit. But the colours surprised me once everything was on -- they looked really nice together! Subdued but not dull. And I love wearing lined dresses; they make one feel super classy when they swish against the legs.

Neato links of the day:

Retro to Go
A blog focusing on retro design, inter alia in clothes.

Clever Nettle has awesome 1930s photos of a girl and her various outfits. E.g.


So cool, and very inspiring! Several of these are totally looks you could wear today and look awesome in, so go check them out.

- Zen