Foto de Jour

Oh my gosh.
Is all I really have to say. I didn't even recognize that this was her until I read her name.
YES, this is Kirsten Dunst.
Mario Sorrenti kills it.
Such a different style, new angle. Maybe it's just 'cause I watched Marie Antoinette a few nights ago and that's my present view of Kirsten.
Didn't even know she had it in her.
Does she pull it off?
My clothes are already on the ground and I'm skinning the hair off my cat with excitement.
I could be her Superman.

www.catwalkqueen.tv/2007/10/mario_sorrenti.html

In style VS "In Style"

When people say they don't care what's in style right now, I get the feeling that they don't want to follow 3 very common street trends of now.
By street trends I mean 3 generally stereotyped styles.
I hate that these exist and I think they're unfortunate because people probably just cling to one and claim it as their own but here we go:
1. Confused early-teen (girl): Shops at places like Garage, TNA, Below the Belt, Sirens, Off the Wall so will generally stick to scoopneck shirts, discounted spaghetti-strapped camisoles of all colors, hoodies, flare jeans, dainty flats, long necklaces with cute pendants like anchors, hearts, etc. These girls have tendencies to resort to sweatpants and uggs, and have (in the past year) dipped into the flannel-and-skinny trend.
2. Chachi boy-friend girl of any age: Two words. Ed. Hardy. And I guess with this I should politely include Affliction, Christian Audigier, Juicy Couture, Armani, Gucci (keep in mind with these last two that I only mean too-tight jeans with diamond encrusting and HUGE names scattered all over) and I guess sometimes Guess. We're talking super-tight skin colored leggings with coyfish and skulls wrapped in shitty tattoo banners. Talking about trucker mesh hats, matching tracksuits, lots of velour and Puma shoes. Talking about anything that has brandnames pasted over the lady's breasts or butt.
Uh oh, I think my bias is showing.
3. Hipster: Looking at vintage as one fulfilling entity and thinking that absolutely ANYTHING that looks like it was made between 1965 and 1985 will be perfect. They like piecing together very seemingly random prints like floral with plaid, or houndstooth with stripes. They love onesies, cardigans, over-sized scarves, canvas shoes/converse, huge tacky belts and other obscene accessories.
(Patterned) tights.
Hipsters often are those people who are "artists" (or artists) and sometimes actually show some allusion (if they can take a few seconds to stray from this neo-vintage type) to modern fashion.
I guess it's seen as pretty daring.

Sometimes these types tend to overlap. People from one category will get bored with the one in which they've belonged to, or that their friends belong to and will dip into other ones. It's good to experiment with fashion of course but I think that fashion should mean more than these three subheadings.
I do believe these are safe common assumptions for street fashion as of the very moment that I'm writing this, for the three or four seasons preceding as well as those proceeding this.
When people say "Oh, I don't pay attention to fashion or follow trends, I do my own thing," I fear that all they mean is that they don't want to fit into one of these three commonly assumed fashion TYPES.
Really, I wish they were talking about what's in style as not what's on the street but what's actually blooming in the fashion scene.
I like to think that nobody's style should have to fall under ANY category. It is rightfully theirs and should be at the very least a reflection of their individuality.
And then I bet they'd be paying a lot more attention.

More Androgyny

Helmut Newton strikes again. Except a really long time ago and this is when I stumble across it.
I love looking at women dress like this. It's worlds better than looking at males dress like "girls."
I'm drooling. I'm sweating. I wonder if this lady is still alive...

Christmas Tips.

1. Wrap your gifts with newspaper.
2. Smile at everyone, especially people that look grumpy, sad, under the weather, angry, crippled, or pregnant.
3. Buy your friends coffee and sing things to them instead of regularly speaking.
4. Don't buy anything from Wal-mart at any time of the year under any circumstances for ANY person. This includes buying for people you must buy shitty gifts for like secret santa etc (which by the way shouldn't be shitty at all), also don't use their photo facilities (they think that photographing a family of six all wearing baby blue shirts is a good idea).
5. It's like flogging a dead horse but... get creative with your gifts. Instead of Starbucks giftcard, get them a book about civil engineering or vegan food or merengue, salsa and tango.
6. Buy things for people because you really want to buy them that thing, with no thought in mind about buying because you think they'll buy for you too.
7. Instead of sending christmas cards that are mass-printed for discount around easter to be shelved 'til December that tend to be EXTREMELY religious or other generic greetings.
At least throw in a cool photo, or some hairs from your cat, or a poem that a person who had a crush on you when you were in grade three gave you.
8. Don't be scared to eat that last nanaimo bar. You want it so bad. You'll think about it for days. Besides, holiday eating is always accompanied with the very earnest New Years resolutions for weight loss etc, whether they are or aren't fulfilled.
9. Eat the fruitcake out of sheer respect and make it look like you fucking love it.
10. Call me and tell me that you dream about me in a Santa suit with cowboy boots and a paintball gun.

365 day photo log

I think I'm going to take a single photo of myself every day for one whole year.
Should I start this?
Is it possible?
Could I be more vain?
Is it vain?
I wonder if I'd look noticeably different from day one to day 365.
But of course it wouldn't be like, 'OK Jacky, Just sit down where you always sit down for the photo and make a similar face.' No, no. It would be a different happening everyday.
Because everyday is a different happening, or maybe this is just what I want to try to prove myself.

VIVIENNE, let's elope.

I absolutely cannot get enough of Vivienne Westwood's Autumn/Winter '09 Collection.
And by can't get enough of, I mean:
1. I refer to the youtube video of her Fall/Winter line when I feel super clueless about what to wear. It never really ever fails...
2. I'm seriously considering purchasing a few things as late birthday gifts to myself. Vogue always tells me that at LEAST twice per annum, I need to splurge on one piece - if not more.

Namely her Anglomania line is what I'm getting at here. I bought a red, plaid huge poncho the other day that definitely just looks like a blanket and landed me a photo with some random super old guy at the Biltmore who was wearing a zebra poncho that he crafted himself from a blanket with some scissors. Seriously.


Anyways yeah, this collection brings plaids and tweeds to the forefront (again) but in a way that doesn't particularly LOOK like the way plaid has been thrown around in the last three seasons or so. Stop thinking square and fitted and think more like bubbles and explosions and too much fabric in too few places.
Somehow Westwood takes androgyny to a new level. A lot of her pieces can be so unisex, which can be easily noted by just browsing over once or twice. She has boys in kilts, she has girls with Peaches mo-mullets clad in layers upon layers of gothic English sailor meets Alice in Wonderland.

We see floral, we see houndstooth, we see plaid, we see fleece. I think I saw a quilt.
Lots of rust tights.
Ridiculously delicious combinations of textures.
Tiny and large infusions of absolutely killer colors among the dreary expectations for typical winter collections.
As per usual, Westwood presents a perfect combo of wearable and couture and wearable couture.

http://www.viviennewestwood.com/flash.php

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Discovered in the most recent edition of Bitch Magazine.
Sarah and Candy review (romance) novels and tell us what's good.
By us, I refer to generally intelligent people who love reading (things of this nature) sans the shitty, clichee plots and terribly predictable characters.

We're talking - lady gets pulled over driving home from her boyfriend's house and she's all upset and crying and the policeman gives her a few smiles. Next thing you know, they're moving to Hong Kong, the policeman running away from trouble for killing the boyfriend (a murder wrought with sexual glances between the distressed mistress and cop). Neither of them have STD's, he never gets her pregnant, they never use protection, they've both had dozens of affairs. The dialogue makes every indication that they didn't graduate highschool. They're both ALWAYS impeccably dressed, she's ALWAYS available to him and their bodies are absolutely commercial-approved, bangin.

We want to get dirty when the lights go out but our reading lamps stay on. And these ladies write a book about how to make the most of those wee hours of personal reading.

They run a blog too in conjunction with their site:
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php

The XX

EEG
Electroencephalogram or... Eastern European God?
Oliver Sim of The XX definitely fires a lot of the neurons in my brain with the body-melting duet he creates with the band's fellow female (lesbian) vocalist Romy Madley Croft.
Their set at the Commodore a few weeks ago made me dance, cry, sing along, meet people, and EVEN drop my drink. It was better than I expected and... I expected it to be really good. Not to mention meeting them was even better. In the past, I've been pretty good at acting like I'm not a HUGE fucking fan of the musicians I meet but in this case... I think I'd be less nervous if I met Oprah.
For those who haven't heard anything of the band at all, I'm not going to recommend them to you. Recommendations sound like "oh hey, yeah, listen to this song, it's good" but I feel like when I recommend them, I'm cheating them of something... like... just talking about them when walking down a street isn't good enough for what they are. Maybe if there was a beautiful sunset and there were fireworks exploding and live violinists lining Commercial Drive with free cherry cheesecake, it would be an appropriate time to reccommend them.
Wikipedia likes to describe their genre as "dream pop," "indie pop," and "chill out" but I think that they're sort of in a league of their own, not needing nor meeting a genre.
Listening to the intro to their most recent self-titled album, I was like... there's no way this is the intro. My favourite songs are probably 'Crystalised' ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pib8eYDSFEI ) and 'Heart Skipped a Beat,' with engaging lyrics, great harmonies and bridges that make me repeat listening to 27 seconds of a song over and over and over and over...
I actually had an explosion with a few people at a party a few nights ago who were just like... "AHHHHHH OH MY GOD AND THAT SONG!" which turned into a sing-along, including voicing of instrumental parts, especially drum beats. I could see the loss in the people's eyes who had no idea what we were talking about. I don't even usually get this excited.
Did I mention that Sara Quin recommended this band to me when I met her?
Just listen.

Artnalysis 1: Chagall

Birthday Kiss by Marc Chagall

I don't particularly like surrealism because it's legible enough for me to SEE what's going on but too abstract for me to UNDERSTAND what's going on. Usually because it recollects the artists' dreams, it's hard for a lot of viewers to ever actually understand. (It's not just me...)

I learned in psych that people who are fantasy prone (obviously?) dream a lot, and because of these constant mental images that flow around, the person gets mixed up between what happened and what was just in their heads. I'm one of those people I think. I could say that at least twice a week I will say something like "Did my philosophy teacher text me this morning saying, 'You look really beautiful when you sleep,' or was that a dream?" or "I can't believe my neighbour that I haven't seen in seven years brought over a huge basket of eggs this morning."

Anyways. This is a painting that Chagall gave to his lady on her birthday, explaining that he painted his body the way he did in efforts to capture the way he felt every time he had to say goodbye to her in the morning. He never wanted the last kiss to be the last kiss.

I think those who've found a definition of love can completely understand this.

You might feel really airy and cheesy and ridiculous if you recognize you are this person and stop reading and look at the painting longer and smile to yourself.

Or maybe it makes you a bit sad that this feeling you've had isn't there anymore. But regardless, if you find yourself in this defined moment, I think you'll find that the execution of painting hits the feeling right on the head. There could be so many elements of whats going on in layers and dimensions but you only really care about just kissin' that wonderful lady or man or whoever you accidently fall in love with.

It's blatant and passionate despite the curvilinear yet awkward shapes. I just adore it so much.
Sigh.