Cinderella in Rubber Shoes

SKELLY ISN’T PRETTY
OFF-TOPIC! I think most Tumblr girls need to see this photoset. Cross-posted from my blogspot.

One of my favorite questions for anyone in the fashion industry is this: “Many models say that confidence is sexy, but a lot of girls don’t seem to truly grasp its meaning; they still think they have to be really thin in order to be considered beautiful. What advice can you give them?”

(FACT: Whenever I get a chance to interview a model for our bi-monthly fashion magazine, I always ask them this.)

Let’s face it—the clichéd “what truly matters is that you’re beautiful on the inside” won’t do anymore. Up to now, I still haven’t heard an answer that girls would immediately heed, what with their perspective of beauty tampered with and distorted by our society today. If you aren’t stick-thin and post-tall, if you can’t stuff yourself in branded teeny-weeny tees and micro-mini skirts, then most likely you’re out. The fashion industry’s obsession with size zero models with mile-long legs and filament-like arms has always unnerved me, but what can we do? That’s how the world as we know it rolls.

When I chanced upon Gavin Bond’s old in-your-face photography set that ridicules this situation, I know I should give it a space on my blog. It’s playful but definitely thought-provoking. The set features a skeletal girl doing things the typical rich girls most people revere do on the beach.

The photos sort of reminded me of the Apocalyptic horseman Famine from the Gaiman-Pratchett collab, Good Omens. Famine loves skinny models. They’re the living proof of his success. He creates diet fads and new foods that are indistinguishable from any other food except for the nutritional content…which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman. It didn’t matter how much you ate, you lost weight. And hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs. :p

Don’t let yourselves become walking skeletons, girls! Health is important, and you can be beautiful without your body image having to mimic the stick-and-paper build of a kite. ;)

vintageanchor:

Literature Meets Fashion: John Gall’s Murakami covers X The Sartorialist…

“If there’s anything we love (nearly) as much as beautiful book covers, it’s pretty ladies in colorful ensembles. Enter ex-pat fashion blogger Sera Hur, who has paired John Gall’s wonderful cover designs for Haruki Murakami’s entire catalog with lovely street style images from the Sartorialist, carefully choosing companion images that match each other in color and tone. We don’t know what it is about these mash-ups that’s so compelling — but whether it’s finding a true thread connecting chronically separate universes, or just the delight of seeing a beloved book represented in the skirt of a girl on the street, we’re hooked. Click through for more images, and get inspired to dress a little better — or at least to read more, in your normal clothes.”
—by Emily Temple, Flavorwire.

For a moment there I thought the outfits were inspired by the cover arts! This is amazing! :) I noticed Hur didn’t choose a companion photo for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, and I kind of see why. :p

A Toast to You

“New year, new beginning? Maybe it’s just me, but I think it kind of deserves to be called the mother of all clichés, everybody’s shared self-promise that everybody breaks and then remakes when the calendar changes again.” This idea tumbled clumsily around my head, 3AM of the first day of the year, when I was sitting on my bed. “But if you come to think of it,” I mused, “it’s not a bad cliché at all.”

Because, you know, it’s not bad at all when people want to make themselves better in the next 365 days of their lives, when they set mental maps to reach their goals. It just irks me a little when it seems to be the trend to wait for new year and announce to everyone they will begin to make changes in their lives. Like it will kill them to change or set goals in the middle of the year or something.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents. I’m not here to rant; I’m here for a toast. For what, you ask? New year, new beginning? Hahaha, naw. Just for being alive. Just for being home—not the place, but the people and memories that wrap me in them to make me feel safe and sound. Just for being me, breathing, living, a being with hundreds of tomorrows. A toast to all the people who, like me, just wanted someone to toast with, someone who wants to celebrate being alive. Care to join me? Don’t worry, you won’t get an agonizing hangover from this. :)

Raise your metaphorical glass, my friend!

Here’s a toast to the people who believe in the beauty of their dreams, dreams they make both while sleeping and while wide awake.

Here’s to the people who are not afraid anymore to try the things that once frightened them, with the acknowledgement that these will make them stronger and better.

Here’s to the people who wet their pillows with their tears, exhausted but still getting up from the bed with hopes clutched to their hearts—hopes with names starting with “everything will be okay” and ending with “because I’ll make it so.”

Here’s to the people who knew you have to be lost in order to be found.

Here’s to the people who believe that losing a battle does not automatically mean losing the war.

Here’s to the people who author their lives, the young ones who drew the lines on their palms—all the paths they’ll take and all the choices they’ll make, the destiny that no horoscope could ever predict.

Here’s to the ladies who still believe in fairytales but know they don’t need Princes Charming to save them, that they can fight their own dragons if needed.

Here’s to the men who still sport the cavalry of knights-in-shining armors but know they’re not in a bedtime story, that sometimes they needed to be saved, too.

Here’s to the boys who have their hearts broken and found out they can’t repair them with the same ease as fixing pipe leaks, the boys who cry and don’t care if the world sees them, because they know it’s a strength to show weakness.

Here’s to the girls who are nursing broken hearts beneath their bright smiles, the girls who are strong enough to reassemble all the fallen pieces with their own hands and stronger still to be able to love again.

Here’s to the boys and girls who laugh through the hurt when life throws them a sick joke, those who recognize the small sweet moments sandwiched between the bigger bitter problems.

Here’s to the kids who bury their noses in John Green’s books and realize they are reading about themselves from the very first pages.

Here’s to the kids who wish they were born in another generation while listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Here’s to the people who firmly believe that the things we hang onto tell more about us than the things we’ve been through.

Here’s to the dreamers who scraped their knees while chasing their dreams but never forget to kneel and pray, to thank God for the power they still have to run again.

Here’s to the dreamers who don’t believe in god, but do in the power of karma, of their gut feel, of their actions, of their destinies—their own compasses in their own journeys.

Here’s to the students who knew the best lesson they can learn in school is that the best lesson cannot be learned in school.

Here’s to the likes of that guy who bops his head to the private soundtrack of his life, not caring if he is out of sync with everyone else because he’s happy hearing the music he’s swaying to.

Here’s to the likes of that lady who basks herself in the noise of life and the city, but follows the rhythm of her own heartbeat because that’s the only sound that can lead her to true happiness.

Here’s to the kids who refuse to be boxed by society’s standards, to be tagged, to be labeled, to be judged, to be stereotyped.

Here’s to the kids who prefer to spend time with fictional characters from books and TV shows than with other kids.

Here’s to the kids who find company in solitude, and to the kids who find solitude in the crowd.

Here’s to the boys who like girls, boys who like boys, and boys who like girls who think it’s okay for boys to like boys.

Here’s to the girls who like boys, girls who like girls, and girls who like boys who think it’s okay for girls to like girls.

Here’s to everyone who takes being called weird as a compliment.

Here’s to everyone whose haircut and clothes and shoes are old-fashioned, and doesn’t give a damn whatever other people would say about it.

Here’s to everyone who bravely accepts that everything that matters will hurt, and it will hurt like hell.

Here’s to us, so different from each other but still so the same. Raise your glass for a future yet to be unfolded, for the pedestals yet to be climbed.

You are you, and that fact alone is worth celebrating. Cheers!

(Moie Preisenberger)

Fashionable anthropomorphic representations of browsers? I approve. :D

The Cowardly Lion from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Photo by Tarina Tarantino.

Books that Inspired Fashion Designers

by Kathleen Massara

Jane Marple is a popular Japanese clothing line inspired by the elderly private eye in Agatha Christie’s novels; their copyright is even St. Mary Mead, Miss Marple’s fictitious place of residence. Marple might seem like an old biddy, but she’s both a shrewd judge of character and a fantastic dresser. Check out her lavender cardigan and modest grey skirt above. This woman is dapper.
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Juliette et Justine is another Japanese clothing brand; however, they’ve been inspired by the prurient writings of the infamous Marquis de Sade. He wrote Justine in 1789 while still imprisoned, and then penned its darker half, Juliette, ten years later, when he was out of jail. Both were published anonymously; nevertheless, de Sade was found out and thrown into the clinker yet again. J et J trade in mainly “gothic Lolita” attire, so get ready for lace, silky chokers, ruffled dresses, and pin curled tresses.

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Shaftesbury 21 is an Australian company specializing in darling children’s attire that costs a fortune. Now your children can look like miniature versions of you (if you are a woman who frequently wears lacy tops with ribbons, or a man who enjoys pairing his neutral-colored vests with navy shirts). Each design is named after either a character or place from one of the Brontë sisters’ novels, such as the Brontë blouse, Linton waistcoat, and Eyre skirt.

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Sonia Rykiel, the queen of knitwear, started writing an erotic novel in 1993 which was originally titled, Textus Nus (Nude Text). She later wrote Les levres rouges (The Red Lips) and Casanova était une femme (Casanova was a Woman). Rykiel explained to WWD back in 1993: “It’s a love story with three characters — man, woman and sweater. The woman falls in love with a man. She makes sweaters. She speaks to the sweaters like a man. He gets jealous.” She continues, “It’s not my portrait, but naturally, you take from your experiences.”

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Gaby Basora launched her label Tucker in 2005, and last year, she offered a collection inspired by Marguerite Duras‘ oeuvre, which features culottes, silky dresses, and draped blouses for the modern woman who is not afraid of experimenting with her style (or of wearing poofy sleeves).

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These ladies do look wealthy, skeletal, and, as Tyra would say, fierce, but they do not appear to be spinsters. Regardless, emerging designer Prabal Gurung‘s Fall 2011 line was inspired by the heartbroken Miss Havisham from the classic novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

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Jaggy Nettle is a Scottish design house with a focus on cashmere and tweed. The sweater here, from Kingdom of Style, was part of a collaboration between Jaggy Nettle and Faber and Faber. The cover of the 1966 edition of The Bell Jar is very much echoed in the fabric’s vertigo design.

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Shipley & Halmos‘ conservative Fall 2009 collection was inspired by the philosophy of Ayn Rand. The duo even quoted a line from The Fountainhead in the invitation (“Life must be a straight line of motion from goal to further goal”). Freedom isn’t free, alright?

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Elke Kramer, an Australian jewelry designer, was inspired by the story of Ophelia (from The Tragedy of Hamlet) in her latest collection. Nothing says spurned Shakespearean love like a series of weighty bangles, we suppose.

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(via daswussup)

*swoons* The hair, again. Pure copper.

don’t want to sound redundant but….sheesh. Everytime I post a picture of this boy I have to say I love his hair. LOL, fetish?