February- What a Strange Month

Ok folks- I've gotten moved in, but it's still going to be a crazy couple of weeks. I have my birthday coming up, my boyfriend's got a HUGE (read: turning OLD) birthday coming up, there's Valentine's Day, I might be having dental surgery- anyway, posting will be a little bit less than regular for the month of February. 

I didn't post my inspiration folder for January and it is bursting at the seams. Get ready for a very image-heavy post of awesome.

Karlie Kloss took a while t0 grow on me ( I hated  her her first season on the runway), but she's gained range over the past few years and now I'm really impressed. I also just realized she's in Rodarte in both of these, which may explain the love as well.

Maybe it's the influence of couture week, but I'm loving big poufy dresses lately.

Fantastical settings. If you haven't seen the editorial from Vogue UK that this Helena Bonham Carter photos is from, you should search for it ASAP. It's based on Roald Dahl's children's stories, and it's one of my favorites in a long time. I highly recommend it.

More inspiration in the next post!

P.S. If you read this blog regularly, please follow me using the widget on the sidebar. Also, sometimes I feel like I'm writing this for myself- comment if you're reading please!

Amelie, the Badass

I always thought superheroes were awesome. They get to have two identities that get two very different types of outfits. There's the everyday wear, and then there's what I like to think of as their badass gear. That's why this year's Met Costume Institute gala's theme "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy" was so awesome. I'm really hoping to get up to NYC to see it before it closes in September.

My fashion sense seems to have an alter ego. I talked about her a little bit in this post, but she would be called Amelie and she's a Parisian risk taker. She's the one who can rock the leather. She's the one who wants to mix Rodarte with Balenciaga and would look awesome doing it. Amelie is the one who thinks Prada can totally be wearable in Mississippi. She thinks Georgina Sparks' wardrobe from Gossip Girl is the epitome of cool. And she once considered the feasibility of lame leggings in a Southern summer (luckily I stepped in and told her that was not a good idea).

So when I was searching through the Shopbop sales the other day and stumbled across these shoes, Amelie was the one who lusted over them.

SO friggin COOL. They remind me a lot of the AW08 Givenchy collection. I can totally see these worn with the Parisian outfit from my earlier post. I can also see Gwenyth Paltrow's walking the red carpet for Iron Man in these shoes (the girl has been wearing amazing shoes to the premieres lately!). They also come in a nude color that is equally as fierce.

Personally I (I mean Amelie) think that these would be hot with this outfit.

The girl who can rock this outfit is my hero.

So from now on, Amelie will be making guest posts occasionally. Get excited. She's pretty awesome.

Warning: Long and Rant-esque

I want to preface this post by saying the following things: First, I really try not to get too serious on this blog. Usually this is where I come talk about things like shoes and artwork that take my mind off of the real world at the end of the day. Secondly, I have been a loyal Vogue subscriber since about 2005, and although I have disagreed with their magazine several times, every month I trot down to my mailbox and am excited to see that month's issue taking up my entire mailbox (seriously, the September fall issue is huge).

With that being said, this month's issue pissed me off.

April is the yearly Shape Issue. This issue is the one that irks me every year because it features five body shapes: tall, pregnant, thin, curvy, and short. And every year the curvy girl is still just a slip of a thing! Let's check out one of this year's curvy girls, shall we? On the right is Shaila Freyer.

Now let me say this: Ms. Freyer is a beautiful woman. And she does have a bit of an hourglass shape. But if you asked me to describe her body type, I would not call it curvy.

Because I'm a bit of a packrat, I went back to last year's Shape Issue to check out the former "curvy" girls. This is what I got:

Ah, Scarlett Johansson. I have a bit of a girl crush on her. However, either she or JLo gets brought up anytime the idea of curves in fashion/entertainment/Hollywood. While both ladies are curvier than the standard body shape in those circles, they are waifs compared to most Americans.

But wait! Occasionally Vogue does give us a real-life curvy girl! I even have proof!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present exhibit A: Jill Scott has curves, and she knows how to use them. They even gave us a real life curvy girl with Scarlett last year:

Exhibit B: on the left is Ashley Graham, a plus size model and lovely lady if I may say so.

So you may be asking yourself, "Emily, they balance out the faux-curvy with real curvy, why are you so pissed?" Good question. I was even excited to hear that Queen Vogue herself, Anna Wintour, had made the following statement:

"I wish I could say the same for the young women who were just on the runways of the New York fall collections. Overall, they were pale and thin, and entirely lacking in the joyfulness and charm that once defined the supermodel. This, of course, is not their fault: Designers now near-uniformly favor a non-vivacious, homogenous ideal."

Queen Anna made this statement on page 98. Two hundred thirty-eight pages later, Vogue put these ladies on a diet.

If you follow fashion at all, these ladies need no introduction. They are the Mulleavy sisters, creators of the label Rodarte, which in my mind is one of the most innovative and interesting lines today. The first time I saw the sisters Mulleavy, I loved them. Finally, there was someone in fashion who looked like the people I live next door to, who hung out around models and trendsetters all day long and didn't look like the they were made out of the same mold. They were unique. They made me miss the days when Karl was chubby and Marc was an adorable dork. Then Vogue waltzed in with their magic skinny wand and made everyone shiny and pretty again!

Don't get me wrong: if the girls genuinely wanted to lose weight, then hooray for them. I am by no means advocating that everyone sit around and eat Twinkies all day. What I am saying is this - wouldn't it be nice if instead of sweeping in with a diet team, Vogue had instead taken the girls out shopping for beautiful clothes for curvy girls?

So listen up Vogue: I understand that fashion is aspirational. I understand that models are meant to accentuate the clothes and not the other way around. I get your point. My point is this- America doesn't look like you. And while we're cutting you some slack, how about giving back a little bit? Have an issue without a diet article. Show us clothes that come in sizes over an eight. And please, when you say you're gonna show us a curvy girl, make her actually curvy, ok?

Oh, and if you're listening... I wouldn't turn down a free purse if you wanted to send it my way.

I feel... inspired?

I'm not usually one to look at photo shoots in fashion magazines and feel the urge to seek out the photographer. I'm often inspired by the clothing, or the styling, and occasionally a single picture will stand out, but I've never had an entire shoot really stand out for me... until today.

I've been reading through a backlog of fashion magazines this month, and so I just got through March's Elle today. I was 90% through the magazine, flipping through, jealous of clothes I'd never be ale to afford, when this image stopped me in my tracks:

I had no idea who the model (actress Laura Ramsay) or designer was (Giles), and the location is nothing stunning on its own, yet something about this photo floored me. I immediately pored over the rest of the photos.

 

Jena Malone, Balenciaga gladiator boots, and Rodarte? I never would have combined these three, but it works here.

Who knew that a trailer park would make Junya Watanabe's designs look so wearable? And is anyone else getting a little Sienna vibe from this photo?

Now, I realize that a lot of the credit goes to both the stylist and prop stylist for this shoot. But I feel like the lighting really makes a lot of these shots. The clear desert lighting in the first two shots absolutely brings out how delicate the dresses are (petals on the Giles dress are made of rubber people... rubber!). Then the strand of Christmas lights in the back of the bottom photos really emphasizes the draping of the Junya dress.  Noticing details like that really requires an incredible eye.

The photographer for this shoot was Carter Smith. She's got a movie called The Ruins (starring the girls above) coming out soon, and I'll be interested to see if she can retain that eye behind a video lense as well. She also shot the cover shoot for April's Elle with Natalie Portman, so keep your eye out for that.