A Big Thanks...

[Update:] I just received another lovely award...from Michiko of Things of Beauty, a truly inspired, informative, beautiful blog out of Japan. It is such an honor -- thank you for thinking of me! Nice Blog Award Rules: 1.) Recipients of the award are asked to link to the nice person that gave them the award. 2.) Link to as many other blogs as they want to give the award to and write a motivation for the person. 3.) Must also make sure that they let the bloggers who won know about the award. Since I just tagged 1o for the previous award, I'm going to be lazy and tag just a few non-fashion related blogs...there are so many good ones, this is always hard!!

♥ Mad Vortex -- This blog features vintage advertisements and hilarious commentary. It makes me laugh out loud every time I read it!
♥ Peculiar Beauty -- The name says it all; everything from bizarre fashion and diet trends of bygone eras to strange vintage magazine images.
♥ Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood -- This site celebrates the women immortalized on canvas by members of the Victorian Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and associated artists.
♥ Wicked Halo -- A collection of the odd and the beautiful, with an emphasis on art and photography.


Awwwwww...I think the universe (or at least the lovely Ana) could sense I was feeling a bit down and decided to perk me up by bestowing the "Your Blog is Fabulous" award onto me! What an honor...and she included me among some great company. Ana is one of the hardest working ladies in the blogosphere, and her passion really shows! If you don't already know her, check out her blog On Dressing Up. But, be warned, you will be jealous of her array of sundresses and sandals (she is located in warm, sunny New Zealand!). I am passing this award onto ten other deserving blogs that I have grown fond of as of late...Cheers!!

♥ Spokes'n'Daggers -- Spokes 'n' Daggers is a combined blog of two friends, Gaby & Jane, who love to share their creations, interesting finds and day to day life.

♥ Greetz from Tiz -- An Italo-belgian girl with the great passion for chocolate, shopping in Maastricht, staring at the sea from her balcony, and dancing jive to the music of the '40-'50's.

♥ Anmutig -- Nadine from Stuttgart, Germany; Anmutig is her little sketchbook for interesting fashion and design finds.

♥ Tea Time -- Her other blog, Art Deco, has been one of my favorites for ages. This one is specifically devoted to East Asian beauty.

♥ Lady Lavona's Cabinet of Curiosities -- Beautiful and macabre; the perfect combo, if you ask me!

♥ Nubby Twiglet -- Stunning design and graphics, great shoes, and excellent blogging tips...all in one place!

♥ Violet Voice -- An always dreamy, sensual, and eclectic mix of images.

♥ Dramatis Personae -- Ashe Mischief hopes to recognize her loves of fashion, the arts, and living, in a most theatrical way.

♥ Childhood Flames -- One of the most popular personal style blogs out there and for good reason: Camille has an avant-garde style few can rival.

♥ Couture Allure Vintage -- A blog for lovers of vintage clothing and fashion, where you can learn about vintage styles, designers, and design concepts through photos from the past.

A Link to Remember...

I was honored and practically speechless when I saw that the amazingly talented Betsy over at From Betsy with Love [truly one of my favorite blogs!] featured me, along with some other excellent bloggers, on her Weekend Links. This euphoria will definitely tide me over for a bit...

Notice how Betsy makes these incredible collages? Kinda makes my blog look insanely glamorous! Well, off to study Victorian literature...

McQueen Treats from Target...March, I Fear and Love You.

I will be taking my dreaded qualifying exams in March. Terror!! Fear!! Hysteria!!

But, March is not all wickedness. Alexander McQueen will be at Target to comfort and cheer me with a well-priced black jumpsuit and some black cropped pants. If I pass exams, they will be a reward. If I fail, they will help me look good, even though I am crying and wailing and gnashing my teeth. Oh yes, they will be mine.

Paul Poiret: The King of Modern Fashion

I am completely smitten by the exotic Belle Epoque designs of French fashion genius Paul Poiret. A recent article on the blog Comunidade de Moda re-inspired my passion, and I have translated bits of the article on Poiret by Mari Yaghi (with a bit of help from Babelfish) -- hope you enjoy!

[There was a retrospective at the MET in 2007 of Poiret's work, which I unfortunately missed! (click on the link to see more of his designs). Were any of you lucky enough to see it?]

"Half a century before the feminists of the 60's were burning their bras, the Frenchman Paul Poiret (1879-1944) had already set women free of another restraining undergarment --the corset. Poiret became a celebrity for liberating women from uncomfortable corsets and creating a looser and more untied silhouette based on art-deco forms. The strict silhouettes and pale colors of the 19th century gave way to a new silhouette of untied dresses and chemisiers, unsewn, draped fabrics, and dramatic, oriental-inspired colors.



Creator of bohemian-chic, at the height of his career [before the 1st World War] Poiret was the king of the fashion. It can be argued that, with his groundbreaking vision, Poiret was the first truly modern designer. Much of the inspiration for the coats, dresses, and accessories on runways today originated in Poiret's designs of almost 100 years ago. While Chanel takes credit for creating the standard of modern fashion, Poiret is, according to Harold Koda [head of the Custom Institute, the department of Fashion of the Metropolitan] the true source of modern shape and forms. With his marketing savvy, Poiret was also one of the first designers to put his brand name on perfumes, cosmetics and decorative objects -- a strategy that is today the financial pillar for many great designers.



Poiret started to draw dresses while working in an umbrella factory in the mid-1890's. In 1898, he was contracted as an apprentice of the designer Jacques Doucet, from whom he absorbed many of the strategies he used later. In 1901, he left Doucet's ateliêr and went to work with Charles Frederick Worth, the designer who dominated the French fashion industry at the end of the 19th century.

[The dress below is a typical dress by Charles Frederick Worth -- notice the pale colors and the strict, corseted bodice popular in late 18th century French fashion]



[The loose, draped styles and bright colors of Poiret contrast dramatically with Worth's designs:]



Poiret opened his own proper ateliêr in 1903. Poiret was not skilled at sewing, but it was his lack of technical training that facilitated the advancement of his famous draping technique. A passionate lover of painting, he was the first one to use modern art to represent his creations. Partnering with the artist Paul Iribe in 1908, he published "Les Robes de Paul Poiret" and, in 1991, he produced "Les Choses de Paul Poiret' with fashion illustrator Georges Lepape. The work of Poiret was inspired by the dominant artistic trends of the day, such as classicism, orientalism, symbolism, and primitivism. With inspiration in art nouveau, the east, and the exotic ballets of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russe, he introduced to high fashion the lively colors of the fauvists, and created layered dresses, skirts, and turbans that earned the description, "Pasha Paris".



Poiret's success was also due in part to his wife Denise, a young lady from the provinces whom he married in 1905. She was his muse, creative director of the fashion house, and, above all, his favorite model. In an interview in a magazine in 1913, Poiret affirmed: `My wife is the inspiration for all my creations, she is the expression of all my ideals.' The thin figure of Denise was the basis for his feminine clothing sketches. He began eliminating the corset in his designs as early as 1906, after his first daughter Rosine was born. Perhaps also as reply to Denise's second pregnancy, in 1910 he designed an untied dress, similar to a chemise. On the couple's first trip to New York in 1913, Denise was famously photographed in the Hotel Square resting on cushions (above). Denise also had a designer's eye -- fashion magazines indicated that she was the first to wear silk shoes without a bow or buckle. She was a brilliant stylist in the way she combined accessories, and she was the inspiration for Poiret's introduction of “high, wrinkled morocco boots” into the world of modern fashion. Styled with a low heel and a square toe, she wore them “wrinkled on the legs, nearly to the knees”, paving the way for the myriad of boot-skirt combinations women wear today.



Between 1910 an 1913, Poiret's designs were inspired by the ostentatious costumes of the Ballet Russes in Paris and by exotic oriental tales such as 1001 Arabian Nights -- he is credited with the introduction of turbans, tunics, and harem pants into Western fashion. Poiret, however, lost his position as king of fashion when the sober shapes and colors of Coco Chanel entered the scene in the 1920's. As the famous, and perhaps apocryphal, story is told, of the 1920's chance encounter between the "King of Fashion" and young Coco Chanel: Poiret inquired of the black-clad Chanel, "For whom, madame, do you mourn?" to which Chanel replied, "For you, monsieur."In the 20's, reacting against the new fashion inspired by Chanel that turned, in his opinion, women into boys, Poiret seemed to have lost his innovative touch and in a last desperate effort, attempted to reintroduce the suffocating corset back into his clothing designs. In 1928, Poiret and Denise divorced, and many of his original designs were kept stored away until the retrospective exhibition at the MET in 2007."



Below are the photos from a gorgeous fashion spread in Vogue (2007) inspired by the designs of Poiret in correlation with the MET exhibit:

US Vogue May 2007
Fashioning the Century by Hamish Bowles
Natalia Vodianova
Styled by Grace Coddington
Photographed by Steven Meisel

Post-Holiday Shopping Frenzy

Oh dear readers, I have been in a shopping frenzy as of late. The after-holiday sales have just been too much for me to resist, and I have turned into a shopping fiend. Seriously, the sales have been crazy, and I like to think I've been doing my part to help the economy...I really don't think that, but it's a good excuse. Here are some of my recent great buys [with more pics of me wearing some of the new goodies coming soon...]. Have you all been going as nuts as me??

Chunky black heels. You won't believe where these beauties are from...

A new leather carry-all:



My first Marc Jacobs dress!!! I actually wore the dress turned around backwards, because I love the exposed zipper so much! I think Net-a-porter will be the death of me...

Round-frame sunglasses from UO:

A blouse I have been wanting from FCUK for a while...

Some basic Nine West black boots...and these coveted wedges as well:

Banana Republic is having a massive, and I mean massive, clearance on dresses. I bought a couple of party/cocktail dresses and with their additional 25% discount [check the site], none of them were more than $30 bucks {and these dresses were originally $150 or more!}. I'm so glad I held off buying from Forever 21, because I was able to grab this sequin mini-dress for just as cheap, and it is definitely a bit more well-made:

I also got my metallic fix, and this dress is so classic, I will wear it forever:

And lastly, a military/band jacket from the ever-dependable Target [it seems like I have found some of my cutest jackets from there!]:

If you're shopping the sales, here are some things to keep in mind:

**Don't forget if you are shopping online to look for coupon and discount codes on sites like retailmenot.com. These can often save you from 10-20%.

**Also make sure to look for sale codes on the sites themselves -- many websites will add the code automatically when you check out, but some will have to be done manually!

**sign up for e-mail announcements from your favorite stores -- it might seem annoying to receive loads of automated e-mails, but when a great sale comes up, you'll be glad!

**If you can, go into the stores -- some clearance sales are even better in the actual store. For example, I was able to purchase my Banana Republic and Target items for 1/2-1/3 cheaper than the online sale price.

Art Collecting for the Poor and Snooty

I am what some people might consider a late-bloomer in some regards: I did not buy my first designer item until last year (well, my first designer item that was not used or vintage). I always assumed I couldn't consider designer clothing, because I just couldn't afford it on a student budget! But now with designer sites like net-a-porter and online sample sale sites like Gilt Groupe, designer clothing has become more accessible (and sales are everywhere!). I also did not start buying "real" art until recently. I have come to discover that original art is actually easy to come by with some research -- sites like Etsy and Deviant Art cater to the art lover with an average income. I just purchased two limited-edition prints from 20x200 [A Jen Bekman Project], and I am feeling quite grown-up. Yes, I am officially an art collector! And here are the two lovely prints I received yesterday. Now, off to the store to buy picture frames...

Newfoundland 7
by Carrie Marill




ny.08.#06
by Jennifer Sanchez

I want to encourage anyone who thought original art was unreachable, to reconsider and check out one of these amazing sites -- many of which offer art options well under $50:

20x200 -- They introduce two new pieces a week: one photo and one work on paper. Most images are available in three standard sizes. The smallest size is reprinted in the largest batch – an edition of 200 – and sold at the lowest price – $20. Hence the name 20x200.

Art for Empty Walls -- The pieces on this site are a bit more ($150 range), but you can buy actual paintings! Their mission is to provide a way for people to buy art – specifically those who might otherwise be intimidated or priced out of the art-buying process.

Artocracy -- Download free art or purchase inexpensive prints. This site has a wide selection, from abstract and digital art, to photography.

Deviant Art -- The largest art community in the world; particularly specializes in manga, cartoons, digital art, and alternative lifestyle photography. Hundreds of new art works are added daily.

Etsy -- The place where you can find it all!! Etsy features some of the most interesting independent artists on the web -- from crafts to paintings, prints and drawings.

Gisele as Cindy Sherman

I am always struck by the ambiguous nature of "fine" art in relation to "commercial" art -- they seem to so seamlessly overlap and borrow from each other that it becomes unclear what "art" really is. Some might argue that the difference is the intention (perhaps that "real art" isn't trying to sell anything). But, isn't all art selling something, even if it is just the artist him/herself or the ideology behind the art? Pondering these questions always leads me to find interesting connections between fashion photography and "fine" art. I love the juxtaposition, and while it rarely provides me answers, it definitely provokes a reaction. Any thoughts on this, dears?

These photos of Gisele Bundchen are so intriguing to me -- the mood, lighting and setting seem more important than the clothes themselves. Gisele is not Gisele, but a character.







But even more interesting is that they seem to be influenced by (or an homage to) contemporary artist Cindy Sherman's early 'film stills' series from the late 70's and her fashion series from the 80's.



Sherman borrowed her ideas from B-movies, foreign films, and Hollywood movies. But Sherman uses these influences to create photos that explore her own identity (or the notion of identity itself).



The photos of Gisele are more stylized versions of Sherman's, and they can never escape the connection with the model they feature...or can they?



I always find myself falling for aesthetics...beauty (or what I personally find beautiful). What I mean is, I find myself equally compelled by the fashion images and the fine art images.



But, the truth is, all art is derivative in some respects. Sherman borrows from film, fashion photographers borrow from Sherman...



The one major difference is that Sherman's work sells for millions at auctions today.



Sherman's photographs themselves are a commodity, whereas the clothing in the fashion photos are the commodity. And the model, too, I suppose. After all, Gisele is certainly worth millions.



I'm not really sure what I'm getting at here... I guess I am just interested in the way that images work and how they relate to our idea of "art." Maybe art is, as we've suspected all along, merely subjective?



Notions of "high" art and "fine" art seem outmoded and irrelevant. Where does that leave us?


[POP S/S 2004
Gisele Bundchen
Mert&Marcus]