"attitude is everything"

I adore this photo of DVF in the wig coat by Margiela! DVF & Margiela, fashion's kindred spirits? What I admire in them both, asides from the fact that both of their work is always slightly deviating is the fact that one gets the impression that they could walk away from fashion tomorrow & still have a completely content and inspired existence. I love, love, love them.

apathy

So, I've been really neglectful with my blog for the last few weeks, things have just seemed somewhat inconsequential. One of the things I have been meaning to cover is Paul Smith's London show at Claridge's last month, I've been reading his Vogue blog rather avidly & have come to really admire him. Lately I've been struggling with formal vs. casual and the show struck me as a perfect illustration of the two combined. Defining the style of the show has apparently been somewhat problematic but I think Smith himself probably coined it best when he said "couture-like clothes which could be borrowed from Mum and mixed with teenage co ordination." Perfection!

ooh la la

Yves Saint Laurent exhibition on at the Petit Palais in Paris until August 29. Well worth a visit. Thanks for the heads up Mr Smith! I can't wait to see this on my travels xx

Ted Hughes

"what happens in the heart simply happens"

today, i wished i was a bird

I caught this morning morning's minion,
kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in
his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and
striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling
wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend:
the hurl
and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of
the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride,
plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a
billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shèer plòd makes plough down
sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold vermilion.

The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins.


And I did too, wish I was a bird. It sounds slightly insane, I know. I sat and gazed out of my bedroom window, in a rather pensive state at the "sky blue pink" as I frequently do and actually envied the birds. My uncle died two weeks ago and he was such a free spirit though he never really got to see the world. Perhaps if I was a little more eloquent I could articulate the importance of living life the way in which you really want to but I think Browning probably says it best "How good is man's life, the mere living! How fit to employ all the heart and the soul and the senses forever in joy!" Or, Galliano when he said "You only get a short life so follow your dreams, take chances, and go where the winds of fate blow you." And so it's settled, get this term out of the way and I'll be gone! aah.

Chloe, je vous aime! This blouse is simply beautiful, non? aah xx

" i am not a man, i am dynamite!"

"Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today." I need to get away.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

"stung by the splendour of a sudden thought"

I have completely and whole-heartedly fallen in love with Robert Browning. I think when he wrote "God is the perfect poet," he disregarded his own aptitude for the art: "The moment eternal - just that and no more - When ecstasy's utmost we clutch at the core While cheeks burn, arms open, eyes shut, and lips meet!"

la beauté française, la partie deux

Clémence Poésy Nylon Editorial.

xx

I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am

Having felt uninspired for the past two weeks, despite my efforts, Plath's quote below went some way in pulling me out of my melancholiness. The deaths of both J.D Salinger, who I quote frequently on this blog and of Alexander McQueen have invoked a mournful start to 2010, for myself and undoubtedly millions of others, also. Both unequoivcally inspiring and seminal, the worlds of literature & fashion will never be quite the same. Salinger and McQueen have inspired me no end in both fields, as has Plath whose work I have been drawn to of late. Coincidentally, both McQueen and Plath died on February 11th, albeit of different years. The picture included was part of McQueen's Spring '07 collection and one of my personal favourites of his work's.

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

"you're a stone fox"

I have been meaning to do a post on Ryan McGinley for some time now. His shots of nude "bohemian spirits" have made him prolific in the colliding worlds of art & fashion, and McGinley himself has even starred in ad campaigns for the likes of Marc Jacobs. Every summer, with his 'models' in tow, McGinley travels America capturing things of palpable beauty. The overt nudity and subsequent promiscuous nature of his shots are juxtaposed with the innocent, somewhat childlike liberalness of the people in the photographs. I'm a huge fan of his work and the photograph above "nude grass" reminded me instantaneously of the adjoining shot of Lux Lisbon in Sofia Coppola's film adaption of one of my all time favourite books, Jeffrey Eugenides' "The Virgin Suicides." What's more, the tone of McGinley's photographs is not dissimilar to the character of Lux and her progression from childhood to adolescence in the book and her subsequent promiscuous tendencies. Also for my Proust post, when asked "how would you like to die?" I immediately thought of Ophelia in the stream, fully & regally dressed and surrounded by flowers and next I thought of Ryan McGinley's 2008/2009 Ophelia and so included it with the post (having previously filled the void with the iconic pre-raphaelite Ophelia.) I'll be including some of my favourites of McGinley's photographs in a separate post


Au Revoir xx

p.s

These however, I could not resist, partly due to them being far more within my price limitations. I suspect we will have many a good time together, aah xx

Ooh la la

Chloe Crystal-lapel silk-blend jacket

Chloe shiny leather boots

ACNE Atacoma wedge boot

These however will suffice for the time being. haa

et voilà!

Unfortunately for me, this Aminaka Wilmont dress won't be making it to my birthday. What's a girl to do?

http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/pigeonsandpeacocks/2010/01/charlotte/

monsieur proust

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A creative existence

2. What is your greatest fear?
death

3.What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Indecisiveness

4.What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Self pity

5.What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Optimism

6.On what occasion do you lie?
To get out of a task I have no fervour for

7.What do you dislike most about your appearance?
My nose

8.What is your greatest regret?
I literally cannot think of one

9.What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Dancing, literature, writing,

10. What is your current state of mind?
Pensive, inquisitive

11.What do you consider your greatest achievement?
independence, any advancement towards my chosen career

12. What is your most treasured possession?
My family

13. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
failure, self disappointment

14. Where would you like to live?
I doubt I if could stay in any one place for a long period of time

15. What is your favorite occupation?
Writing

16. What do you most value in your friends?
honesty

17. What is your greatest extravagance?
Shoes et wine

18. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Intelligence, the ability to make me laugh, creativity

19. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Independence, strength of character, wisdom

20. What are your favorite names?
Caden, freya, luella, amelie, lux, atticus

21. What is it that you most dislike?
ignorance

22. How would you like to die?
Contented, in spring amongst the flowers (Who wants flowers when they're dead? Nobody.)

23. What is your favourite journey?
I haven’t taken it yet

24. What is your motto?
"I think you have to be influenced by everything and be reckless enough to gamble all or nothing to follow your dreams. You have to believe in what you do as much as you love it. You only get a short life so take chances, follow your dreams and go where the winds of fate blow you." -John Galliano

“Fear defeats more people than any other thing in the world.” -Emerson

25. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Fuck.

The Proust Questionnaire, popularized by Marcel Proust (1871–1922), the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. This version is slightly revised, there are nuances amongst many of them, including the original which Proust himself answered with zeal in 1840 and between the one Vanity Fair publishes monthly in the back of the magazine and which can be taken interactively at http://www.vanityfair.com/archives/features/proust

Au Revoir
xx

it's no fun to be yellow

"Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody."
Holden Caulfield. Undoubetdly my favourite character of fiction (Hamlet aside). I have had such a strong desire to re-read The Catcher in the Rye for a while, only my English degree permits me some Shelley, Shakespeare, Dekker & Jonson and not much else for the time being. Albeit, wonderful fellows to be in the company of, non? xx

J'aime Clémence,

beauté française

"I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking."

Ooh, Isherwood. After reading Goodbye to Berlin I was left with so many different emotions, questions and wonderments (it rarely feels appropriate to use that word but it felt somewhat fitting here)as I'm sure was Isherwood's intention. One naturally second guesses the character of Christoper Isherwood's sexuality, the reason the novel became so prolific in queer theory but it left more of a mark on me than that. I think that is principally down to Isherwood's writing; a talent he has crafted perfectly. His writing is romantic without being overly sentimental and intelligent yet accessible. So, considering my ardour for this novel and subsequently Mr. Isherwood himself aswell as the admiration I have for Tom Ford who I am quite simply, in awe of, one can only imagine the sheer excitement I felt when I learned about Mr Ford's directorial debut: Isherwood's 1964 novel, A Single Man (AAHHH!) For a literature student with dreams of becoming a fashion journalist, this film felt like winning the lottery (a better analogy could not be thought up through the over zealous haze.) A Single Man recounts a day in the life of George, an English professor living and working in Los Angeles who is coming to terms with the death of his lover, Jim. Supposedly Isherwood's favourite of his works, I have no doubt that Ford will do anything other than exceed expectations held by those in the literary, film and fashion industries; the film has already been nominated for three Golden Globes. As far as I can tell the film is everything you would expect from such a talent as Ford and actors Colin Firth, Julianne Moore (who I happen to adore) and Matthew Goode who starred in the film adaption of another sexually ambiguous text, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Due for release in the UK on 12th February 2010, which also happens to be my 21st birthday, I have little doubt that this film was made solely for my gratification. See le trailer at: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi597492761/



xxx