a slowboat to mediocrity

when you talk about love

2011-08-04T23:14:00.003+09:00

It's been 4 months and a week since I started working as a stylist and assistant to a costume designer I respect very much.

It's hard to sound sincere when you're in love with something, certain feelings are beyond words or maybe I just haven't found them yet. But to say that I'm happy would probably be an understatement. Every part time job I've ever had has left me feeling weird and a bit cheated. But I've realized that when you work for something you believe in, not much can put you down. Blurred vision, swollen ankles, an empty wallet...all of those feel like part of the picture. They feel alright.

Where I work trends have no meaning and there are no such things as style genres or beauty standards. Of course with every job there are boundaries, but to find freedom within those boundaries is exciting.

I love meeting actors, watching how they move, reading scripts and thinking about all these different lives and how they would show in the way the characters dress.

I love watching my boss work. She has the ability to transform incredible ideas into reality and to be able to watch it happen and even be a part of it is such an experience.

Of the three basic necessities of life, clothing is the only one that applies solely to human beings; when you work with clothing, you deal with the way people live and think. And nothing is more interesting than people!

goodbye tao....come back soon

2011-01-19T17:00:00.022+09:00

another thing i'm definitely gonna do this spring is wear tabi socks or tights with sandals

feeling this whole vibe...it's like the perfect mix of western and japanese, interior and everything

vogue japan

but really i think there is no one better to look to for east-west ideas than the french japanese painter fujita (whose photo i posted once before, i think that photo is still my favorite).

in other news i got a skirt from the infamous junya SS2000 collection.

It's sheer pleated brown polyester,slightly shiny (probably the same material used for that neck ruff up there) and the crazy thing is that it's made up of 20 layers, all pleated... so it's really voluminous...it's romantic and futuristic at the same time

here are some photos of retro suburbia that i got from either corbis or gettyimages, a long time ago. i thought tavi would like these

Finally, I just heard today at school that TAO comme des garcons is closing its line. Tao was my second favorite line in the cdg universe, so i am surprised and sad. Tao had its own world...sort of a hybrid of earthy, punk and lolita style....
i'm really going to miss it,,, there are so many shitty brands in the world and I feel like we keep losing the good ones

let's celebrate the new year with white

2011-01-16T09:49:00.004+09:00

nakatani miki from H magazine

prada ss06 still one of my favs

anne-valerie hash

sswtr brooch. i want this and and i want that fox stole

margiela

margiela

margiela atelier

balenciaga ss06

charles anastase

via thecherryblossomgirl

meadham kirchhoff

god this dress is so perfect, i want to wear this with snearkers

it's early comme des garcons, i can't remember when exactly, maybe late 90s?

ann sofie back

matthew ames aw10

white sweaters, white tulle, white sneakers, white hair, white fur
white walls, white paint
anything white looks nice right now

(unfortunately I don't know the sources of most of these images, if anyone can help me that would be great)

on fashion illustrations

2010-11-20T15:18:00.014+09:00

Fashion illustrations are something I don't really understand. At school they teach us all these techniques to make the drawings look as realistic as possible... draw out the stitches, put some shadow here, some creases there, it's all about being meticulous...but I think the drawings turn out tacky that way.

I have no idea if this is true but I remember reading somewhere that Rei Kawakubo would gather her patterners together, and then drop a creased handkerchief on the floor, point to it and say, "that--that's what I want!" And somehow that makes a lot more sense to me than drawing these bland detailed drawings of clothes that haven't even been made yet.

Whether or not the story is true, one of the most appealing things about CdG, to me, is the sense of freedom you get from the clothes. You can totally picture Kawakubo dropping the handkerchief and her patterners going "hmmm.... yeah, I think we could do that". They don't let themselves get all tied down by the general rules or clothesmaking. And I think that sort of freedom is only possible if you're completely open and free of petty expectations at the outset. You start with a feeling. Not with the number of buttons or the type of cuff you want to use. Becuase if you start with that, that's all you're going to get.

I was looking at a Rene Gruau book the other day, not all of his work is my cup of tea but he is the perfect example of the sort of illustrator who gives you the freedom to imagine, and I like that

rainbow unicorn attack

2010-11-19T15:19:00.004+09:00

Since September I've been listening non-stop to Soutaiseiriron's Synchroniciteen album. It's cute and sweet in the best way with just the tiniest bit of irony (but not too much cuz that would be annoying). Try listening! I think you'll like them

Cinderella
Miss Parallel World
Love is a Hundered Years War
Moonlight Galaxy

This kind of music makes you want to paint your room pink and eat candy and wear matching pajamas no????
In my mind Yoshikawa Hinano is the archetype of this sort of off-beat "cute girl"....

I found some old magazine scans from when she was 13 (which means these photos are from the mid 90s) and she looks adorable

I read somewhere that as a kid she loved the color pink and strawberries and teddybears, and wanted to wear frilly dresses all the time. So it saddened her whenever stylists dressed her in boyish clothes, or told her she looked better in simple outfits like a shirt and pants.
But today she's 30 (she doesn't look a day older than 19) and she looks like this
so I doubt she's complaining....

I think she's done 6 or 7 photobooks so far, here are some pages from 3 books photographed by Kishin Shinoyama, two from her teens and one from her early 20s. (via A Japanese book)

Hinano ga Pyon Pyon (1996)

Accidents Series 8 (1999)

Hinano ga Chu (2001)

And this is the Isetan poster that made her famous

I LOVE HER

End of hinano fan post.

HI I'M NOT DEAD!

2010-11-17T19:52:00.021+09:00

Random stuff I want you to know:::::

-I did halloween twice this year, the first time I was Joan of Arc because I wanted an excuse to make this crown from the 1928 movie (I made mine out of thick plastic wire wrapped with brown wool string)

and the second time I was Taro Okamoto's tower of the sun, which ended up looking super lame!

My Pierre et Gilles book is full of nice halloween ideas, if time and money (and creativity and patience) were not an issue I would have been a blinged out Mary or a queer Jesus

-I am really into the theme song for the 1999 tv drama Keizoku, Chronic Love, produced by Sakamoto Ryuichi. (The music video features a big wool knitted dress from Yohji Yamamoto AW98! )

-I hadn't been following tumblrs for a while so I was happy to come back and find so many people posting and reposting sailormoon images. I have totally been feeling sailormoon too! Although I guess it's not that surprising, what with all the 90s childhood nostalgia sweeping the internet lately....

I've even collected a bunch of images of sailormoon locket/compact/wand toys (and I came across the blogs of some INSANE toy collectors while I was at it). To this day I find these things really aesthetically pleasing. I think the beauty of them lies in their complete uselessness. All they did was lightup or make little noises, and yet I remember there was something magical about holding a sailormoon compact in your hand...they were so shiny, so round, so smooth... They had crazy names too, like "prism heart compact", "crisis moon compact" and my favorite, "kaleidomoonscope".

bern world

2010-09-25T21:40:00.011+09:00

It's the end of an era. Bernhard Willhelm has an official website.

I am suspecting this has something to do with what a kid at school told me the other day: that the Japanese "select shop" Via Bus Stop bought Bernhard Willhelm and so from next season (?) all his clothes will be manufactured here in Japan. It probably means we'll be able to buy bern for cheaper than in any other country (MUAHAHAHA!) but I hope nothing changes about the brand itself.

I had thought I was familiar with most of bern's collections, but looking through the archives I was surprised to see a lot of clothes and images that I'd never seen before...
I love bern's world...he really is one of a kind.

AW07

SS07

AW06

AW05

AW04

SS04

AW03

SS02

SS01

SS00

young dumb full of cum

2010-08-28T19:51:00.004+09:00

lately i like..........

orange hair, clear sunglasses, adidas tracksuits, lumpy/holey knits, big glass rings, ball chain necklaces and spiky chokers, bright colored faux fur, military bomber jackets, mesh tops and stockings (!!!) and chunky platforms

i think a lot of it comes from reading old i-Ds and obsessively referring to Ruben Toledo's style dictionary. (i got the book a few weeks after i wrote this post)

there's a small glossy picture book binded within the book which is the best part

notice: "eat your parents" and "porno" tees

notice: drop waist striped dress...so cute

i fantasize about making every piece of clothing illustrated in these pages, and sewing on tags with a print of the drawing, and then giving them out to people on the street who look like they would wear them right.

notice: "t-shirt tucked into bra"

i started collecting old i-Ds a few years ago, mainly because I love the 90s kinetic/sporty style, like where people have unstyled hair, wear little or no make up and wear mesh tops and Bless and Helmut Lang with sneakers. in my head this sort of style runs alongside 90s bjork with her hair buns and ringer tees, ravers with their neon pvc and ball chains, that sort of thing...not exactly high-tech, but kinetic, laid back, so 90s (and maybe early 2000s)

perfect example- fabrice, trustfund kid, wearing helmut lang vest, army surplus pants and nike air mocs ( some of the best sneakers ever)

jpg raver jeans!

speaking of i-D, i recently found out that from 1991 to 1992, there was such a thing as i-D Japan. omg who knew? i bought 12 of the 16 issues published so far

i never paid much attention to zipper magazine, even when i was young , but i came across this special knitwear issue from 1999 and i had to get it cuz it has some great photos of cotton fraf's knits (exactly the sort of thing i mean when i say lumpy knitwear)

(they might look familiar if you remember these weird knitwear images i posted once before, they are also by cotton fraf)

ill leave you with this quote from i-D june 1995, i love skimming through random interviews picking out funny anecdotes

"We were sitting in a bar one night and there’s this really beautiful woman, her name is Denise and she’s an arts student by day and stripper/dancer by night, and she’s got this fabulous tattoo on her back, and she sits down and shows us her arms and they have long slits on them, and we ask her what are these slits, and she explains to us that the thing that’s going on in San Francisco is you take a long blade and you slit down your arms or your legs or any part of your body, then you take gasoline and you pour it on and then you light it. You don’t let it burn through because you’re not talking about burning down your whole body. You just put it out right away, and then she said the real pleasure comes with the pleasure of healing, feeling your body beginning to re-compose and re-constitute itself."

P.S ahhh,,

last century modern

2010-08-04T05:39:00.004+09:00

Towa Tei ft UA

i like the phrase "last century modern", it makes me think of this md player i used to carry around with me everywhere in middle school. it was a sad old red thing and i listened to a lifetime's worth of bad music on it...

i am really into Arimoto Toshio's artwork at the moment
the world he paints is so quiet and i love that the women are almost always alone but they never look lonely!

* Arimoto used this technique of repeatedly laying on paint and scratching it off to give his paintings a worn out look. he would even hammer holes in the frames. i think that's one of the reasons why they're so special, the paintings look old but they have a quality that is completely timeless and ageless

my life right now

2010-06-20T18:39:00.004+09:00

i don't think there has ever been a time when i had more to say about fashion but the work load at school is terrifying. i guess a bit of sleep deprivation never killed anyone but maaan i wish i had more time for myself.

i got into the design team for the bunka festival fashion show in the fall so for a few months i'm going to be drawing designs non stop. i am no artist and ive never had the chance to draw seriously so this is gonna be tough.. my faces tend to look chubby and swollen?

i'll upload my final drawings for the show once theyre done (if they ever get done...)

this is what my desk looks like right now
(i swear i didnt deliberately mess it up, i work on like 7 different drawings at a time so it always looks like this).
my sweing machine

this corner of my room used to look like this

now it looks like this

fabric all over the place, ironing table sitting right next to the bed......such a mess

random drawings sitting on my desk at the moment

these are the sort of colors I've been into... white, soft creams, beige-y yellows

i am making a shirt in cream and i think i will make my next pair of pants in soft yellow cotton with this tree printed all over.

i love my tall karen walker straw hat.
wearing with handmade blouse and bless pants

ive been interested in work wear lately. ive been looking at photos of the incredible ceramics artist Lucie Rie, she wore these comfy looking white blouses and pants while she worked, she looked so lovely.

what a beautiful photo.

our library has a nice collection of books.. from the few that i have now, ive been particularly loving this photo of argentinian cotton field workers

and this photo of the french japanese painter fujita in his studiohe was so stylish...wish i could work in an undershirt and tabi socks while rocking a bowl cut with hoop earrings.

reality is that my hair looks like a birds nest and i am wearing a sad old esprit tshirt with elephant print boxers.

walls are cool

2010-05-03T18:25:00.004+09:00

The workload at school is crazy, I have backpains from leaning over the desk for hours everyday drawing patterns, cutting etc (but i love it).

Quick post: there's this wall near my grandparents house that I love to look at... I took these photos last time i visited, a few months ago. Soon they're going to be rebuilding this street which means in a couple more years all of this will be gone. So sad.

I'm not even sure what this place is.. There's definitely a house at the back and the signboard says "clothes" but I dont think I've ever seen anything being sold here???

Even the sidewalk here is lined with pink, cute huh?

BIG BLUR

2010-04-10T09:18:00.014+09:00

I started going to fashion school.
I go to Bunka Fashion College in shinjuku, maybe some of you have heard of it before?
It's only been a week but already I am terrified and ecstatic, being allowed to think about fashion 24/7 just seems too good to be true.
I have all these ideas floating around in my head and so many things that I want to learn more about. It's crazy.

I know I don't post very often but Im glad I have this blog (and soo many others' that I love to read) because writing and reading this stuff really helps me understand and sharpen my style.
I probably wont be able to post much for a few weeks but I just wanted to let you know that I am surrounding myself with fashion everyday now and I am happy!

My head feels like Miyuki Tsugami's landscape paintings

Colors are wonderful... Most of her images are locked and I'm not allowed to post them, so please look at them here

bang bang you hit the ground

2010-03-28T02:17:00.001+09:00

ah there's so much stuff i wanna blog about right now, i dont know where to begin... for starters i came across the cutest book at the hair salon yesterday, Ruben Toledo's Style Dictionary. i was so obsessed with it i didn't let go of it the entire halfhour we were letting the hair dye soak in! i think ive seen toledo's work here and there, not all of it is my cup of tea but i just looooooooove his illustrations in this book, i love the faces and the wide variety of body shapes, the random/funny style labels, and how every look is so realistic, so well thought out and so complete, head to toe. (one of the stylists at the salon even mentioned that she drew inspiration from a lot of the hairstyles pictured in this book)

unfortunately i cant find any good images from the book to show you... if i manage to buy one anytime soon ill definitely upload photos.

i went to the hair salon that produces one of my favorite hair design magazines called +ING, but more on that later...
i got my bangs cut super short and i got red hair. sides are still shaved but i think ill start growing it out soon

yay for raver ball chain necklaces with tight tees!

Did you know John Lurie paints now? ive already written about lurie a few times in this blog, I love him in the Jarmusch movies, he's so poker-faced and chilled out and weird and sexy. I wasn't too familiar with his music (I did like that scene in permanent vacation where he plays the sax on the street) but I looked up some of his music too and I'm hooked
"Follow the signs"

"When I die, I want to go like my grandfather, asleep and at peace. Not like the people screaming in the other car"

"Your life is meaningless, why don't you masturbate?"

john lurie music:

such a great photo...

my mamas friend was kind enough to bring back some zinc sticks from australia, we have about 7 colors now, i'm going to have neon green/orange/yellow cheeks this summer, 90s aussie beachgirl style!!!

who i think about when i think about style

2010-03-20T14:39:00.002+09:00

My first encounter with Chloe Sevigny was years and years ago when I saw KIDS. Back then I wore gold rimmed glasses and the epitome of fashion in my mind was rainbow halternecks by Gap... but even so I instinctively knew there was something special about her. I had no idea she had fashion icon status by then, all I knew was that I liked her face and her pixie cut, and her crazy way of making a ringer tee and jeans look stylish.

I'm pretty skeptical about most celebs who are deemed "style icons", not because I don't think they dress ok in a generic way once in a while (although some of them consistently dress like shit) but because it's usually pretty painfully clear that they didn't select their outfits themselves. What happens as a result is that one day you see them looking alright and then the next day you see the "real" them walking their dog in ill fitting pants and ugly shoes and it's sad.

With Chloe Sevigny though, the person you're seeing is always "Chloe Sevigny", whether it's her on-day or off-day, whether she's in a polo and jeans with a buzzcut or a tight dress with big earrings and lots of lipstick. You know she put some thought into her outfit, you know she enjoyed doing it, you know it's all genuine because on her the clothes look like they've been worn and cherished. Obviously having a pretty face and killer legs helps, but among the tons of beautiful people in the world Chloe stands out to me as one of those women with the rare ability to appear comfortable while continuously being experimental and innovative with her style.

best.halloween. costume. ever.

It's truly incredible how 10,20 yr old photos of chloe can look so modern today..

images from openingceremony and chloesevigny.com

PS>>>> Totally forgot to mention that I did a questionnaire? interview? for ilikemystyle way back in jan. thanks ilikemystyle! here's the link (it's basically the same sort of stuff i ramble on about in the blog)
http://ilikemystyle.net/blog/post/bloggalogue-no-6-yui-from-slowboat-to-mediocrity

night cruising

2010-03-15T19:12:00.005+09:00

The other night I couldn't sleep so I was browsing a bunch of japanese online shops and I came across these headpieces by Suso Akiko

I am soo obsessed with these now. They're interesting but simple enough to wear with tee and jeans and I like that they look so light and breezy because a lot of headdresses of this kind tend to look too extravagant for everyday wear? The curly woven ones are nice but I love the tribal print too, I'm having a hard time choosing which one to get...

Anyway I went to Suso Akiko's website and found lots of great images from her previous exhibitions (Suso Akiko is a Japanese hat designer and illustrator)

What a great little place for a hat exhibition

Really love the way her hats are displayed in some of these exhibitions.

And here are just a few more pretty things I found

Astier de Villatte vase (I like a lot of their ceramics) and Lyndie Dourthe venus flytrap brooch

Keita Takano paintings

Bunny sculptures by Viou Blot, that flat butt is so cute

and last but not least, Juco tabi laceup flats

ciao!

if you got it, good, flaunt it

2010-03-10T16:08:00.022+09:00

I learned of Joseph Cornell (American artist and one of the pioneers of assemblage) through a tv show about a year ago and I remember wondering and wondering what
might have inspired a door-to-door salesman to start collecting stuff and putting it in a box. When you think about it, displaying objects in a box is kind of a childish form of self-expression, but then Cornell's boxes strike me as really sad and haunting and not cute or endearing at all. There's something taxidermic about them...but they're so beautiful.

Totally unrelated but i love pete rock & cl smooth

BERN LOVES US BACK

2010-03-08T19:03:00.011+09:00

Bernhard Willhelm has gone japanese for next season!

is that a clear shiny polkadot cape? one for me plzz

images from dazeddigital

here are some more bern images i had lying around in my files
photographer freudenthal verhagen for berhnard willhelm

Het Totaal Rappel (Total Recall) Bernhard Willhelm retrospective at the Mode Museum, Antwerp, 2008

"Sometimes people don't really realize it, but his clothes are always well made and his patterns are really very thought-through, but you don't often see it. You notice it when you wear it." Fashion Projects

Love you BW! You make me happy, always always!

rassera rassera

2010-02-28T13:20:00.012+09:00

I finally found out the origin of a film still I'd saved a while back! Metropolis is probably pretty famous, I must live under a rock or something to not have known it, but it's a German sci-fi silent film. From 1927. Omg? Cyberpunk existed in the 20s??? I have to see thisssss

This poster is cool, very Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Mies van der Rohe's Glass Tower, 1921

I've realized there are so many sci-fi movies that I don't know about... and browsing the web for movie stills, I've come across tons of cool cyberpunk blogs and websites. I love the internet.

>>> On a kind of related theme I'm still loooving Bjork's hair buns. I'm totally doing this in the summer

we have already begun

2010-02-16T23:44:00.007+09:00

I went to the hair salon for the first time in aages and got the sides of my head shaved (buzzed?) again, i shaved a lot this time so it looks kind of butch but I love it

Last night I watched Akira and now I can't stop listening to the soundtrack by yamashiro shoji. I'm thinking about getting the cd, i think it's that good. The movie itself isnt really my taste, I'm reading the comic now which is probably only a bit better, although i do love that whole cyberpunk 80s japanese vibe. but the music the music is what it's about ahhh u should listen to this with headphones

there's a comment on youtube below this song that i like, it's a bit pretentious but i agree

"whenever i hear this song i go into a trance and have visions of time travelling and flying, of the end of time and space, of the miracle of life and death. it feels like the lowest depths of the ocean and the outermost layer of the stratosphere are touching and reversible, like you don't know which way is up or down. "

beach babes

2010-02-13T19:48:00.001+09:00

Since 1990 Theo Jansen has been creating new forms of life out of plastic yellow tubes.

"I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat. Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives."

i think i've already mentioned how much i like robots and dinosaurs, these are kind of a mixture of both. just surreal.

perfect one liners

2010-02-05T05:11:00.002+09:00

I was looking through my bookshelf today and came across my (mom's) old Aesop's Fables book illustrated by Alexander Calder. I never liked fables but calder's drawings are awesome

Calder worked with all kinds of media but I particularly like his wire sculptures cuz they're basically 3d versions of his drawings. if I had one of these sitting on my desk it would make me so happy!

and his circus series cirque calder is so adorable, i was grinning like an idiot watching these clips of calder performing his circus show. wouldnt a miniature wire circus like this be great for a music video?

he even made jewelry!

***this is a totally random question i've been enjoying thinking about lately: what novel or short story would you choose to adapt to film if you had the opportunity? i decided i would probably choose "Why Don't You Dance?" by raymond carver because the image of a lonely dude sitting in his living room set out on the front lawn cant be anything but fantastic. what would you choose??

what i would be wearing if

2010-01-31T04:05:00.002+09:00

it wasn't so cold

philip treacy velvet hat, hussein chalayan tee, cdg skirt

this kaleidoscope skirt is pretty crazy, it's made up of two big digital printed scalloped pieces on the front and back, held together with asymmetrical accordion pleated red fabric. i always wear it with my red patent margiela tabis

i was rummaging through my old photo box and found this.. my hair looks orange here but it was actually pink, i think it was when i was 16? i used to do all sorts of fun things with my hair when i was younger...i miss that!

god i love this song

2010-01-19T03:41:00.014+09:00

The title means "bagatelle in the water" so i always assumed a bagatelle was some kind of fish. I always picture little fish and the blueness of the water when I listen to this piece.
(A bagatelle actually means "a short piece of music, typically for the piano, and usually of a light, mellow and innocent character." via wiki)

listening to it reminded me of this David Hockney etching, The Boy Hidden in a Fish

It's from Hockney's grimm's fairytale book which I'd been meaning to post about for a while..it's so stylish

you can see the rest of the etchings here

I really really like david hockney's work in general, I own one of his poster books and used to have a big photocopy of this one up in my room

hockney pictures

Today I saw The Diary of Tortov Roddle, a beautiful animated film by Kunio Kato (stills via here) My sister recently saw The House of Toy Building Blocks by the same guy and said it was great... his debut film The Apple Incident sounds pretty interesting too

and then he said let there be light and there was light etc

2010-01-15T07:01:00.009+09:00

wow i just noticed mitsubai tokyo is selling clothes from writtenafterwards' collection #5. the collection was titled "fashion show of the gods" and the idea behind it was, "what if, the first fashion show in history was held a long time ago by the gods in front of lots of animals?"

andandand

i found some photos of the costume designer Naito Kozue's book. She's the same person as Hibino Kozue (Naito was her maiden name), who i've written about before here. i've been looking for this book but it's out of print and impossible to find.. all these photos were taken from the awesome blog a japanese book

what a strange and happy world

questionnaire in which i get to talk about spring

2010-01-13T02:04:00.005+09:00

What music are you listening to right now?
the best of sade (new album Feb 8!!!)
i love this video

What was the last article of clothing or accessory you purchased?
maroonish brown nike air rifts

Where was your most recent haul?
bookstore. i bought three books yesterday, one of which i'll write about later cuz it's really cool (i will definitely order the Prada book soon too)

What piece do you wish most to add to your closet at the moment?
Charles Anastase dress. baby please dont sell out!!! i'm also looking for a cylindrical felt hat like the ones hotel bellboys wear

What current trend are you loving the most?
girly, pervy and sheer. like an evangelion figurine

What current trend do you hate the most?
hate is a strong word but today's power dressing is kinda lame (the big shoulders, bodycon in black and metallics, tall black strappy shoes etc). when something becomes that predictable and boring, how can it be a reflection of power i'd like to know??

What is your fave style or fashion-centric television program?
AusNTM. and i always get lots of style hints from anime, right now i'm watching cowboy bebop

Who is your favorite designer at the moment?
i cant say enough good things about Christopher kane ss10. it was a collection where everything came together and made sense, you could see a story. it was special.

What is your favorite footwear line?
undecided.. i think nike makes the coolest sneakers by far. i own the most heeled shoes from margiela at the moment but i wouldn't say he's my favorite

Three fave materials?
mmmm cotton cashmere leather? linen and silk are nice for summer

How would you describe your winter look?
boring!!! i tried but i'm really bad with cold weather, to be honest i'm in jeans most of the time. i hate it but i hate being cold more

What will your look be this spring?
i want to wear nudepink and red together. i'm also feeling Victorian era but unsure how it would translate into a cool modern day outfit. maybe a long dress with top hat, frilly petticoat under skirt, that sort of thing

and i like dresses with low waisted voluminous skirts. very anastase. &remember balenciaga ss06? who doesn't love girly dresses with shiny hi-tech footwear

shiny fabric is nice for clothes too, esp when it's with something fuzzy like mohair. i love that beetle colored stuff that's a mix of goldish green and rainbow. clear pvc is fun too.
jil sander

lots of spring shows used shiny fabric in an awesome way, but when i think of shiny i think of old helmut lang and toga in particular

lang ss04

Toga back in the early 2000s was really good. this is fromAW05 "metal core fantasy" (u can see more on youtube)

last but not least i am into that 90s slightly cyberpunk? raver? look that features a tight brightcolored ringer tee and maybe a choker, with the hair tied in lots of small buns.

(does this look have a name? i'm sure bjork wasn't the only one doing it..i found some old middleschool photos of my best friend rocking a similar look, she was really stylish)

What trend do you see becoming the biggest come spring?
girlier silhouettes, soft, sheer, beige, nude etc

new year's unresolutions

2010-01-05T16:24:00.006+09:00

i like realistic new years resolutions and all corniness aside, i think it's important to make the effort to be a better person, i think it makes a difference. but i still love these quotes

I think--I think--it is somehow very useful, and maybe even essential, for a fine artist to have to somehow make his peace on the canvas with all the things he cannot do. That is what attracts us to serious paintings, I think: that shortfall, which we might call "personality" or maybe even "pain".

Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I'm driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I feel the limits of what humans are capable of--that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging.

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii lazy sunday image/video post

2009-12-26T20:19:00.020+09:00

who doesnt want a broken baby sitting on their bookshelf? i found this little guy on internet auction

ive been obsessing over this photo the past few weeks. i love how this lady looks stylishly warm and happy. lately my face is always like this :-((
because WINTER SUCKS!!!! i really think i need to move to hawaii or something

louis vuitton leggings are cool ((via papermag

holiday gift suggestion. some of my friends could really use this

"A Child's Guide to Nihilism is an activity and coloring book designed to inform children and adults about the Russian nihilists of the 1860s. It asks questions like "what kind of monster would you choose to be?" and "what path would you travel to a better world?," and ends with the triumphant image of the destruction of everything we know."

weird and wonderful collages by a guy with a nice name: alexander hardashkanov

i love this photo of vika gazinskaya from self service mag. the bed, the bookshelves, vika's hair, the orange and nude...

this is a series of commericials for asience shampoo featuring the figure skater mao asada. most tv commercials are so contrived they make me sick, but i think these are done beautifully

i wish we could see figure skaters in long dresses more often

happy holidays!!!

work is sucking the life out of me

2009-12-13T20:20:00.010+09:00

my head feels dusty and hollow like this

i woke up this morning humming "venus a a boy" in my head. i love most of bjork's music up til her vespertine album and i love this song because everytime i listen to it, i can picture a different venus...sometimes it's a boyish girl (although the lyrics suggest otherwise) in cropped pants and loafers.. and sometimes it's an awkward boy venus with curly golden hair and porcelain skin, maybe wearing a dress like this

and standing on a dark stage with thick blue velvet curtains, in a pool of blue light

speaking of bjork, ive been looking at a lot of photos of the japanese singer UA lately.
she's one of those people who have succeeded in projecting a very specific image throughout her career. her costumes are usually quite loose and have an asian feeling about them...i think it fits her music well

i especially love her music video for 閃光　senkou

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

i haven't mentioned this yet on the blog but i want to be a costume designer. im not sure how easy or hard this is gonna be but i figure if other people can do it, so can i. it was less of a decision than it was simply realizing that costume design was it. i like clothes and i like seeing people move in them, but it's when you have a story and characters that clothes really start to get interesting. in an exaggerated world where every second of every minute has some sort of aesthetic significance, clothes aren't just a tool to convey a feeling or set a mood, they are a living part of an person's body, as essential as an arm or leg. when costumes are done right, an actor clothed and an actor naked are really just the same....
clothes have the most power on stage or in movies, and rightfully so i guess, because life most days is complicated and ugly and too distracting for clothes to be of any real importance. but whether it's on the street or in make believe, clothing at its best is an extention of the wearer, it should feel naked. that's the sort of clothing i want to make.

1989 to forever

2009-11-22T15:45:00.002+09:00

i want to make sculptures of pot bellied women with big hair

2009-11-12T16:05:00.019+09:00

this is going to be another super quick post but i am obsessed with this japanese online shop called 密買東京 (mitsubai tokyo). they sell a small and strange selection of stuff, all of which are made in japan and super random, ranging from ceramics, bags and books to kimonos and 8000dollar sushi tables. all the items come with a pretty lengthy description (very personal too, almost like blog posts) so u can really get to understand the ideas behind them...and also get a sense of the effort and love that the buyers put into selecting them

i often find myself taking photos of faded or cracked walls so this book immediately caught my eye
"book of walls"

and i am in looooooooove with these earth bags by writtenafterwards (really interesting label worth checking out). the backpack is crazy no? they are made of leather so theyre a bit expensive but im hoping i can save up for the smaller handbag

they also sell anrealage's infamous gold button jacket from a few seasons ago, manga sound effect rings, cute paintcoated shoes, stuffed toy chandeliers, uneven bookshelves and other weird things

quick hairy midnight post

2009-11-09T02:31:00.011+09:00

just found some nice images on hair salon bloc's blog from their exhibition

i really need to do something fun with my hair...but i got another hat today, this time by reinhard plank. his hats are minimal but really interesting and they use a special sort of bendy felt. mine is a bit robinhood-y (minus the feathers) and dark green. lately i like black and green together.

in heavens name why do you play these games

2009-11-01T05:46:00.002+09:00

hi im back!
wish i could blog more but ive been busy working in this little shop that sells japanese sake and young artists' ceramics. its a whole new world for me, very japanese and traditional. there are so many types of sake, and they actually each taste different if you pay attention, and depending on how theyre made you use different cups and glasses to drink them..i always thought there was something vulgar about foodies and foodism but this stuff is kinda interesting.
working 6days a week is tough but the upside is that my shop is right near the Book 1st building in ginza so i get to read tons of magazines and books during my lunch break. the other day i got michiko kitamura's "the method of costume". but more on that next time

i saw these images of the actor odagiri joe in some magazine and really fell in love with the styling. i looove this messy, slightly japanese take on european style. the idea of layering cotton henley shirts is interesting... id like to try this

ive been watching a lot of japanese movies lately.
yesterday i saw maboroshi no hikari (loosely translated as illusory light; english title: maborosi) it was slow paced in an uninteresting way but the images were fantastic. michiko kitamura chose mainly black costumes which were really effective in that the story deals with suicide and the cameras do lots of long shots where u can see only the silhouettes of the characters. the costumes worked so well with each background (a very small and beautiful town in ishikawa, north of kyoto i think) every scene was well thought out and looked like an editorial photo, but not in an unnnatural way.

i particularly liked this scene where asano and esumi paint their bicycle green.
i could only find this crappy screencap but it's nighttime and theyre decked out in black, and the bike is a beautiful green...later they ride this bike together and their bodies sort of blend into the darkness....it was so pretty

i also watched koroshiya ichi (ichi the killer) again. it's the perfect halloween movie, stylish japanese gore/horror comedies are the best!! i especially love asano tadanobu's performance in this one.

my favorite scene is when he cuts his tongue off...love the colors here

since we're talking about movies i also saw kimagure robot (capricious robot?) the other day and LOVED IT. it was one of the best short films ive seen in a while. if you know me you would know that i have a weird obsession with robots...there is something so funny and sad about the idea of human-shaped robots and how useless they are... anyway watch it if you have the chance, it's great

i took a bunch of outfit photos all in one go today but this post is long enough as it is so i think ill leave them for next time. but here's a picture of my favorite black boots at the moment:

lastly, have you ever heard of miss atomic bomb? is she famous or something? i just saw this photo for the first time while randomly browsing the web today...its morbid but im sorry to say i kind of like it.this must be what they call tragic comedy ?

"Her image has come to symbolize the bizarre love affair Las Vegas had with the Bomb in the 1950s. The famous photograph of the smiling model in a mushroom cloud bathing suit with her arms outstretched to the sky remains a powerful reminder of how sex appeal and atomic energy were once inseparable Cold War ingredients."

hope u had a good halloween <3

good stuff

2009-10-08T02:30:00.006+09:00

sukiyaki western django wasnt that great as a movie but the costumes were even better than id anticipated. one of the early scenes where these guys came out literally gave me goosebumps

i couldnt find any highres images but this short clip should give you a good idea of how michiko kitamura mixed traditional japanese aesthetics with cowboy and yakuza gear... please have a look, the costumes really are breathtaking

im guessing this guy is a michiko kitamura fan as well

some katsuya kamo for junya hair art images i had saved on my desktop

i just finished watching TOKYO! this wasnt too good either in my opinion but what i did like was the closing theme by HASYMO, a group which includes the original members of the popular japanese 80s band YMO like ryuichi sakamoto
i think it perfectly captures the lonely but comfortable feeling you get walking around in a busy city

i usually check out the shows pretty thoroughly but i dont think ive commented on them for a while.
i wanted to this time because... holy shit alexander mcqueen. mcqueens shows are always beautiful but they are usually too dark and heavy for my taste.
but this time. wow. even though it's grotesque and makes you feel a bit uneasy in that characteristically mcqueen way, it's also very very bright and vivid. and a lot of it evokes real feelings of change.. you can see that the collection begins on the ground with earthy colors, then moves underwater and travels deeper and deeper. it's serene, mysterious, a bit scary.. but exciting

wish id been there

(i got super excited cuz a few months ago i dreamt about wearing a jellyfish backpack dress that kind of looked like one of the last dresses in the show)

truly good stuff. cheers!!!

PS. my other spring favorites were christopher kane and rodarte. cdg and vivienne westwood were packed with stuff i could picture myself wearing. driesvannoten was beautiful as usual. bernhard willhelm toned it down a bit but looks ok. prada was soso and lets face it balenciaga was a big fat bore.

yo im really happy for you and imma let you finish but

2009-10-03T16:15:00.005+09:00

i am still not in the mood to wear much black. hopefully youll see me wearing this sheepskin vest over my collarless beige trench with neon yellow boots this fall. light neutrals with neon is always fun right?

i saw l'annulaire (the ring finger) yesterday. it's a french film based on a short story by the japanese writer akiko ogawa. i thought it was beautiful. the story had no big plot or anything but the mood and the music and especially the costumes were really great. fitted knit cardigans and soft knee length skirts paired with suede sneakers...and great color combinations.im very interested in the costume designer Pascaline Chavanne now.

when i bought a pair of pointy heeled trekking boots to wear with my trench, i realized that i was subconciously referring to this photo (from 2003, bravo chloe)...so weird how images can reappear in your head years after you see them

i guess what i like is the neutrality of this look. i love my streetwear designers and all, but i think im really going to start to make the effort to mix them up with more anonymous/thrift/vintage stuff.

im in a really experimental mood with my clothes right now... one thing that i havent tried much yet is classic/romantic european style so i got this philip treacy hat the other day. i think treacy makes headpieces for mcqueen? im not too familiar with hats but i think i like it. im gonna wear it with something like a long coat and vintage tee to tone it down though

and like i said i have this urge to wear lots of cream/beige/white/nudes with a splash of bright color somewhere. lime green is such a nice color. and it's about fucking time i got a pair of tabis ! !!

this outfit has also been on my mind again lately. i think he is a well known hair&make up artist but i cant remember his name

the reason this post is ssoo incoherent is i had a ton of draft posts saved (still have a lot left) so randomly put a bunch together. gonna go watch sukiyaki western django now. im excited ive been dying to see it forever! michiko kitamura's costumes should be incredible as always

more thoughts on dressing

2009-09-19T13:14:00.007+09:00

i've been spending some time away from the internet and going to used bookstores instead, picking up old magazines and paperbacks, weird manuals and stuff

one of my favorite finds was this book called koromo seikatsu (living with clothes) by akiko ando.

after getting married, ando moved to a traditional japanese home in the countryside where she realized that 洋服 (youfuku, the word we commonly use for clothing--one of the kanji used to write it means "western") was just that: clothing made to suit the western way of life. She found that regular clothes were difficult to work in, in a traditional Japanese house that requires a lot of bending down, squatting, sitting on floors etc. so she started making her own clothing, long sarongs and soft loose tops...all clothes whose shape the wearer determined and not the other way around

lots of sarongs. so beautiful right?

I like this aesthetic and I find it really really intriguing when a person is able to achieve total satisfaction in a restricted lifestyle, wearing only a certain type of clothing.
Sometimes I think it might be nice if I could do that too, when im much older, but thinking about it like that makes the whole thing very meaningless, doesnt it? You have to take time learning with your body what works for you... and even when you know, the transition into a restricted wardrobe has to be gradual. you cant jump right into something like that just because it sounds kinda cool and expect it to last.
There are some fashion bloggers who enjoy a certain style and focus on just that style, collecting what they consider to be "classic", "timeless" pieces as though they'll be wearing them for the rest of their lives. I really respect that. But for a lot of these same bloggers, their clothes strike me as being very trendy sometimes, and I have to wonder how long it'll be before they sell it all and start rebuilding a new "timeless" wardrobe. I dunno, they just don't seem as sincere about it as akiko ando, for example. probably because if I'm not mistaken, these blogger's styles are not so much the result of a conviction as they are simply the result of them identifying with some labels and disliking others, or trying to realize a pre-conceived notion of "timeless"ness. And if I were to try to restrict myself now, I think the same thing would happen. The clothes might be a little different, but it would be shallow and pointless.
At the moment, I don't see my wardrobe or my clothes as a permanent thing. if anything I see them as assets although i do love wearing them. and I guess it's ok to wear what you want while u can... but I hope that eventually I'll grow out of what I'm doing now and develop a trademark style.. a method of dressing maybe, it's sort of vague. But it has to have meaning and go beyond silly rules like "always buy neutrals". Even if it doesn’t last long, I think experimenting with one idea would be a good start. These things should take a long time to figure out.

hey daddy-o

2009-09-16T03:13:00.010+09:00

i probably just need to stop being such a square

anyway, the point of this post: i just spent about 2 hours reading through this discussion. you should go have a look! it was funny and fascinating and it made me think about fashion blogging in relation to what i wrote in that last post.

graduating from college is making me all emo

2009-08-30T23:16:00.005+09:00

i finally got a walter van beirendonck for eastpak backpack. and it makes me happy

BUT

......... is it just me or do yall who have a similar blog also find it kind of slightly embarassing on some level to be talking about clothes/appearances/what you got/what you want 24/7? granted this one is not all about fashion but then again anything beautiful i see is ultimately related to fashion in my head...and it's not something i can help. that's just the way i am i guess.
still once in a while i break out into a cold sweat thinking about how shallow and idiotic i must come across. i am 22 for christ's sake. and im not gonna lie, i am really really bothered by the fact that when you google my full name, this blog is one of the first things that comes up.

see, i am constantly torn between being a "sensible" person with a "stable" income, ie working in finance or trading or something...and completely indulging in my "creative" side and doing what i can feel passionate about. my gut knows what's right for me but i feel a lot of hesitation coming out and saying it, especially to my friends....most of who are/will be working for big companies after graduation, doing great things for the world etc. trust me, i dont think fashion in its true form is shallow, and i would defend it in every way possible if i had to. but in comparison to them i feel ...small.
am i starting to sound like that loser on hipster runoff?? i just wanted to write this here so that strangers (and potentially ppl i know ugh) can skim through and laugh at me and i can try to take myself less seriously

graduating from college is weird isnt it? suddenly the future is so real. youre faced with all these options and it can be exciting but in a very very stressful way.

one thing i know for sure is that if i want google to match my name with shit i can actually be proud of anytime soon, i need to get to work...

last daze

2009-08-25T17:38:00.040+09:00

these past few weeks i've been into cute candy colors (can u tell from my sidebar?) like light pastel pink, peppermint green and lavender

lookbook image from prada fall 07; past season anntian print; keita takano painting

anntian's clothes are handpainted/handprinted and super comfy!
oh man im gonna miss dressing easy and light like this

adding more pastels

i can feel summer en d i n g . . .

2009-08-19T06:51:00.019+09:00

vladimir karaleev's ss10 is looking good! a lot of it is blue (my favorite color, nothing new) and the reason, according to this interview, is because he is color blind but blue is one of the few colors he can see. i've been interested in mr karaleev's work ever since i saw some of his pieces early this year, i remember he used cool material combinations like vinyl straps on cotton dresses with raw edges...they were so beautifully made

images via wut berlin

cute song ive been listening to it nonstop

working on taking outfit photos! in the meantime here's me in that postweiler hauber dress i bought at the beginning of summer with backpack and hoop earrings (i clearly need a proper camera). this was a good buy, it's so comfy and looks like a parachute

in other news i cant wait to grow out the back of my hair while leaving the front half short so i can have my very own blunt version of a mullet <3

ooooooOOOoooo

2009-08-17T07:39:00.011+09:00

i am obsessed
such a fun/scary idea...

"What circus is this? What strange ghosts are they that loom out of the darkest black, the last place in our dreams?
They are us and they are Them. They are the work of Danny Treacy. They are the figments of his imagination and desire. They are made from recovered clothes, collected from those lonely places - the woods, the wasteland, the car-parks. They are re-stitched and re-fashioned: re-modelled into junk monsters. They are nightmares of the catwalk, prowling around the outskirts of style's dumb extravagance. "

playing with polyvore!!

2009-08-12T18:00:00.003+09:00

&getting ready to hibernate

in the fall my style gets all blah, everyday i wear a combination of some kind of fur or duffelcoat with a crappy tshirt, some jeans and nike dunks. it might sound kinda cool and "effortless" typed out but it it isn't cuz i'm not a blonde model, it's really just boring. this fall i want to spice things up a bit, the basic idea will be the same since it's impreative im comfortable and warm...but i want to add more streetwear brands and interesting accessories (caps, headpieces, headphones etc) and look like a rich and tacky gay city boy:

balenciaga jacket, reebok hitops, supreme 'disruptive camp' cap, balenciaga jeans, margiela hoops, rick owens fur toad, balenciaga tote

miu miu jacket, margiela airplane ring, reebok hitops, bless sky print sweater, balenciaga jeans, y-3 cap, margiela hoops, balenciaga tote

burberry prorsum coat, nike dunks, eskuche white/silver headphones, balenciaga jeans, margiela gift bow ring, bless sunglasses, bless sweater, sswr birkin

etro jacket, margiela airplane ring, nike dunks, eskuche gold/black headphones, balenciaga jeans, bless sunglasses, bless sky print sweater, jeremy scott tote

ines marechal vest, nike dunks, tourdeforce headpiece, balenciaga jeans, jeremy scottXschott jacket, margiela tote

ines marechal vest, nike dunks, y-3 cap, balenciaga jeans, ksubi tee, rolex submariner, margiela tote

balenciaga jacket, nike dunks, tourdeforce headpiece, rettore ring, balenciaga jeans, balenciaga necklace, anntian tee, balenciaga tote

this song is soooo fresh

keep calm and carry on

2009-08-06T14:39:00.007+09:00

i had been really obsessed with the idea of text on clothing other than a t-shirt ever since i saw bregje cox's work on the lichting website...it's a simple idea but a bit of handwritten text creates an interesting contrast when printed on dressier clothes. it tones everything down and makes it more casual in an endearing way

so i was super excited when i saw these images on luxirare and garbage dress this week.
i love stamps and often used similar ones for paper when writing short notes to my friends in high school... so i find the idea of stamping leather really nostalgic and appealing. luxirare is such a great designer.
and omg u dont even know how much i want that setup on the dude garbagedress snapped

hang up the chick habit hang it up daddy or you'll never get another fix

2009-08-03T18:26:00.004+09:00

another image post! i have soo many beautiful pictures in my files that i want to share, this is still only a teenytiny portion, i will upload more again !

[winston chmielinski]

[michel de broin]

[fantasista utamaro]

[yayoi kusama]

[michel de broin]

[dan flavin]

[dan flavin]

you should WATCH THE VIDEO!! Rivers of the Red Planet is the first short film in Ranpo Noir starring Asano Tadanobu. it's weird and very uh... nihilistic? but the images are so powerful and beautiful they just sort of burn into you (ps the beginning is silent, the sound comes a few minutes into the film)

he-he-heat in your skin, pull up a chair and unwind

2009-07-24T19:11:00.002+09:00

i've been wearing my nWo kevin nash tee so much lately. i pulled it out of the crapbox under my bed a couple months ago and since then i've been loving it all over again. which makes me realize how it's always a safe bet to keep stuff even if u dont want it taking up precious wardrobe space. i've made so many regrettable choices selling/throwing out my clothes in the past.

i found a tumblr that posts stills of b-rated movies, mainly horror and semi-gore...be warned, the images are so freaking good youll wanna save them all

SO I FINISHED SKEWL
all that's left on my imaginary to-do list for now is enjoy summer
and what is summer without big lives...and beach raves...

but say no to drugs!!!!

i finally got around to snapping an outfit
this is me looking like a regular clubchild in

buffalo platforms, hussein chalayan tee with sheer organza sleeves, patrik rzepski ss08 skirt (i love rzepski, the skirt has a hard wire-type thing in the hem so it curves out like a flower) and cdg backpack

would be super if i had a BLAND plastic cap to add to this outfit like the one mknyc, one of my fav ilikemystyle members, borrowed from terence koh

and here's what i'm wearing/taking with me to fuji rock tomorrow.
the totempole print bag is from one of bernahrd willhelm's earlier collections

ciao!

MIDYEAR RESOLUTIONS

2009-07-22T15:05:00.015+09:00

>>first one is to get a good sturdy professional sewing machine and some sewing books starting with Pattern Magic Vol 1 & 2. i've wanted to do this for a while and i think now's the perfect time since i'll be graduating soon-- and i'll have about 9 months off to just hang out and do my own thing (besides, what do you know, i'll be pursuing a career in fashion after all! i try to keep "personal" info at a minimum on this blog but i think i will have to write about why and how i came to this conclusion...i'm sure it would be a long post and i need to figure out how to put it in a way that makes sense but the right words should find me eventually)
anyway the books are all about playing with geometry and a lot of the techniques described are ones we often see gracing the runway. i'll definitely need practice but experimenting with these ideas should yield some interesting results. there is even a flickr group where people are showing off their creations inspired by the books.

>>second one is to take more photos!i have never made a habit of carrying around a camera (although there was a time when i was really into disposables) and i'm beginning to fear that when i'm much older i wont have any photos to help me remember what my early 20s were like. i quite like the nikon d1x and i am thinking about getting one...but probably not for a while.

for the sewing machine i am considering brother's nouvelle....if you have any recommendations that would be great

have a nice flight make a night flight

2009-07-19T03:24:00.009+09:00

discovered another super cool aussie designer by the name of tina kalivas. wouldn't this bra be great with a high waisted flare skirt and sandals??

i came across some stills of The Fall by Tarsem Singh as i was googling the japanese costume designer Eiko Ishioka. so beautiful

browsing yoox while listening to night flight by perfume is kinda dangerous, i get all excited for no reason and start impulsively buying stuff. this pretty cdg dress is way out of my price range unfortunately but it's a nice thing that you can save images and keep looking at them isn't it?where would i be without rightclick save image....

i have a soft spot for oversized structural stuff like fanny&jessy which i just discovered through stylebubble. the fringed dress looks like the perfect thing to wear when you want to go out and really dance like no one's watching

i contacted the store owner and i am going to be able to buy this crazy denim sweatshirt dress by RosenMunns! i like it cuz the pins are soo cheesy and american, yay for eyeballsss

P.S>>> i never liked Golden Goose much but something really fucked up is going on in their fall line. this is like an exact copy of junya watanabe's boot from years ago. jesus, the nerve of some "deluxe brands"......

just realized it's been 2 YEARS...some thoughts looking back

2009-07-09T19:45:00.000+09:00

two years (and a couple weeks ago) i started this blog. at the time i was pretending to be a minimalist and dressing myself in tons of white and nude and beige and black. i thought it was really cool for someone my age to be looking so austere. but then trends happened, new designers came along, and before i knew it, wearing simple clothing in black and white had become the norm. so i started wearing colors again, lots of them, and weird shapes, and clashing patterns........
i like to think that i have a consistent style that i can call my own but even over these two years i've changed a lot. the fact of the matter is that i'm only 22. i was a late bloomer to begin with so i've only been truly into fashion, in the weird way that i am now, for about 5 years max. and what i've realized is that i have a long way to go before i can say with any conviction what is truly "me". i need more time to watch how trends evolve, experience the highs and lows of shopping, and just absorb fashion in all its glory.
of course, i'll never be very trendy, doing what everyone else is doing hasn't been an option ever since i was a kid. but i'm no longer interested in being one thing and trying to stick to some strict formula. i want to keep my mind open to all sorts of fashion and ways of dressing.

earth, receive the strangest guest

2009-07-03T17:07:00.008+09:00

"nomads are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but traditional nomadic behavior is increasingly rare in industrialized countries. There are three kinds of nomads: hunter-gatherers moving between hunting grounds, pastoral nomads moving between pastures, and "peripatetic nomads" moving between customers."

yesterday i caught a show on tv about Jiro Shirasu. japanese men don't get much cooler than this

Love this carpet sweater by Bless No32 x John Smedley

chris marker's sans soleil (1983) is a pretty well known documentary, probably standard study material for any sort of introductory film/anthropology class. i thought it was kind of lame at first but by the end the film had left a really strong impression on me. the whole thing was like a visual diary...random images, strange human moments pieced together so beautifully like patchwork...
i drew lots of inspiration from it when we were editing our own film project for class

"if they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black"

A to Z with Yui

2009-06-29T01:04:00.002+09:00

i think this one's pretty old but i filled it out today while catching up on australias next top model

A: What accessories do you wear everyday?
small earrings. sometimes a fine gold chain necklace. im a total beginner with good quality jewelry, im still trying to figure out how to select and wear them right

B: What is your beauty routine?
nice tan, dove face wash

C: What was the last item of clothing that you purchased?
willhelm plaid jesus dress. this one was on discount cuz one of my favorite stores is doing a closing sale, fucking recession

D: Do you use a dresser, closet, or both?
closet. i like my room super bare

E: What type of earrings are in your ears right now?
tiny gold rings mama got for me when i was a baby

F: What type of figure do you have?
small, boyish

G: Do you wear glasses?
or contacts

H: What type of handbag do you carry?
i change my bag around a lot but mostly my cdg backpack or Yohji Yamamoto leather zipper tote

I: What is your ideal style?
interesting contrasts. a good mix of frumpy and sexy

J: What is your favorite brand of jeans?
balenciaga or cimarron

K: Do you wear knee-hi stockings?
hosiery isn't my thing. bare legs work best when you wear a lot of confusing oversized stuff like i do... cuz who wants to look like a clown?

L: Do you have to wear matching lingerie?
not really

M: Do you wear makeup?
not to school. i don't have a set routine either. i try to see makeup as a part of my outfit so it really depends on what i'm wearing

N: Do you wear nightgowns?
nope, i feel yucky wearing anything remotely sexy or silky to bed

O: What outerwear do you put on when going out on a typical winter's day?
who cares? it's SUMMER!!!!!!!!!

P: What is your favorite perfume?
these days, Ptisenbon's Tartine et Chocolat

Q: Is your motto "quality over quantity" when it comes to clothing and accessories?
yes but quality shouldn't necessarily translate to expensive. i like to look for special, one-of-a-kind pieces that i can cherish and wear over and over again. i don't buy highstreet as a rule, at least not for now as i'm saddened by most of what i see

R: Do you wear rain boots?
summer rain= havaianas time! rubber flipflops have such a simple but good design doncha think?

S: Do you wear socks or slippers when your feet get cold?
my feet are always cold. i like it

T: Do you have a set of travel luggage?
not yet

U: What is your daily uniform?
i try to have at least one boyish item on me if i'm dressing for school...it could be a backpack, sneakers, a unisex piece of clothing, a manwatch etc u get the idea

V: When you get married, will you wear a veil with your wedding dress?
if i were to get married this summer i would wear alexandre herchcovitch in which case a veil would be too much? herchcovitch SS09 was perfect for a laid-back kinda wedding... we'd all be listening to pharcyde, drinking moet and chilling

W: Do you wear a watch?
sometimes. alternating between my men's G-shock MT-G and chanel chain watch

X: What item of clothing always makes you feel beautiful?
super mini navy helmut lang skort

Y: What is your favorite type of yarn?
no ideeeer

Z: Do you prefer zippers or buttons?
depends i guess? i usually like my tops and dresses to be pullover

and meanwhile time goes about its immemorial work of making everybody look and feel like shit

2009-06-26T17:00:00.009+09:00

been reading lots of martin amis lately. he has this way of putting things in an unecessarily grand, complicated way which i find absurd and irritating to no end...but he's addictive somehow

found some great images of Bernhard Willhelm's graduate collection

i love that over the years he's experiemented with a wide range of looks but has never lost that distinctive touch, the BW aesthetic that makes his clothes instantly recognizable

gotta love the plastics <3

goodnight michael

i run like the breeze to catch this life

2009-06-18T13:02:00.000+09:00

the clothes aren't mindblowing or anything but i really like illionaire's winter09 lookbook (found via bree apperley's tumblr)

>>children of vision, a shop in new zealand mentioned me on their cool blog which was a really happy surprise!! they stock a lot of labels i love including romance was born and tv so i'm definitely going to be checking out their online shop when it opens in a few weeks

adorable still from "woman of water"

what's the deal with that rule saying you should only wear band tees of bands you listen to? i think this sort of thinking is so "western". it seems to me westerners are obsessed with the idea of "realness" and "authenticity" as a measure of coolness. the japanese are generally a bunch of posers where fashion is concerned so i just don't get it. if we can dress around themes like "the 60s!" or "tribal!" then how is wearing a random band you don't know so different? most clothing is already an appropriation of some culture/lifestyle/time period we don't belong to anyway so i think there's very little you can wear (and very little fun) if you start worrying about authenticity.
what do you think?

laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra, gay your life must be

2009-06-14T13:59:00.011+09:00

i'm really not a huge fan of either but i'd say chris kane wins.
that particular cdg collection wasn't one of my faves--the color palette of silver/white/black was boring, and if you lost the cool headpieces there wouldnt have been much left to make an interesting show. (although the individual pieces were gorgeous as always)
kane's idea is pretty mediocre, i mean i had those abomb images saved oon my pc since 2006, but considering they're just digitalprints i thought the collection was executed quite tastefully and beautifully

anyway. guess what i've been listening to lately..........

this album brings back so many childhood memories. i was this super-tanned, awkward, geeky little japanese kid living in australia back when this came out...i love tokyo but life was fun back then too. we'd eat lunch under the kookaburra tree with cows and frill-necked lizards and chew on honeysuckle flowers for dessert. "fashion" meant Esprit tshirts, flower-print bikeshorts and LA Gear light-up sneakers. good times.

but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world

2009-06-12T20:33:00.011+09:00

just some things i've been thinking about....
Minh Hanh, Patrik Soderstam, Katsuya Kamo, Louise Bourgeois, Yasujiro Ozu, Helmut Newton, Paris is Burning, Nanook of the North, Chloe in Gummo, Blue Spring, N!ai, Michiko Kitamura's styling, Raf Simons, Maison de Himiko

(took these images from my japanese blog btw. i found them all through google images except for the louise bourgeois painting which i found through drawings&notes)

born in tokyo, raised on hiphop

2009-06-08T02:09:00.003+09:00

not sure what the standard dresscode is for summer music festivals but i want to go looking like a young grunge-y chloe.....i really need to find myself some lame-funny vintage tshirts to roll around on the grass in. a pharcyde or people under the stairs tee would be nice...

could mariacarla BE any hotter?

i love knitwear and i found this weird collection while browsing online...not exactly rodarte but still pretty great. so 90s

i realized something crazy...ive never posted about ROMANCE WAS BORN on this blog before! i really really love them and i hope to own some of their pieces soon

& a thought: ladygaga needs to go away. it's one thing to dress like an idiot and make bad music, another to go and rip off a beautiful design and try to pass it off as your own
what happened to good, fun danceable music like Trick Me, Toxic, Say it Right????

fish are jumpin and the cotton is high

2009-06-04T14:22:00.001+09:00

getting some great summer style ideas from Frida Kahlo

i got commedesgarcons x keds sneakers yesterday!!
been living in this bernhard willhelm dress...gotta work on my tan...

from root mag

>>the only thing that's appealing about black is that it's really really easy to wear...i just don't get why so many fashion editors/stylists wear a crap load of black when they have access to soo many beautiful colorful clothes. what a sad waste of resources! i reckon a really challenging but interesting alternative to dressing headtotoe in black is decking out in layers of white. it's especially beautiful when you throw in a bit of beige and play arround with different textures like cotton, linen, wool, chiffon...

i'll leave you with some major steam punk shoes to drool over

cool like a nighttime swimming pool

2009-05-25T18:03:00.014+09:00

like i always say, i enjoy adding really teched out accessories to a lo-fi outfit...unfortunately i lost my beloved air rifts (nike's infamous splittoe maryjane sneakers) early this year so i'm on the hunt for another pair preferably in red along with more sneakers like the nike kukini and reebok pump fury.

>>>>>>>>>>---------

2009-05-22T16:58:00.016+09:00

I've been thinking about how i want to develop my style
I want my clothes to have a sort of deep, earthy feeling

casual and comfortable, colorful
strange
happy

warm

full of character

there are people who can dress in a certain way
that evokes a wave of emotions and memories and images all at once
this feeling, this quality surrounds them in a very natural way
as though the clothes they wear are simply an extension of who they are

nothing more, nothing less

a while ago i saw this boy
i couldn't identify a single label he was wearing
instead i saw and felt a collection of things
like

the wind, old curtains, sand, pearls, kaleidoscopes,
sailboats, treasure chests.....

it was very special
very inspiring

i appreciate people bringing something beautiful to the streets

my wardrobe right now is too coherent
too based on labels
lame
i want to collect different, more anonymous clothes
maybe i need to start going vintage shopping again

i want to dress like a scrapbook

dopest ghost in town

2009-05-21T00:24:00.013+09:00

do you remember Casper in KIDS? my friend and i had a weird obsession with him in junior high

im sort of loving the rising sun on the japanese flag at the moment. it might have been inspired by the stupid gangsters in Madness in Bloom? trying to look for pieces from commedesgarcons ss07 to satisfy this need for red circles.

i kept forgetting to mention, i got those bernhard willhelm+camper sandals
when i saw them in person i had to go with the pink, they are so soft and bubblegum-y and sweet (ill try to update photo of all this stuff soon) theyre like the ugly fat cousin of THE balenciagas i love...although obviously i love anything balenciaga

speaking of which bernhard willhelm's AW09 boots are SO GOOD. short boots that are a sort of docmartens/timberland hybrid with leather straps instead of shoelaces. these will definitely be on my feet come winter

LOVE kimonos. i wanna wear one to my graduation. kimonos are all about mixing patterns and color, bold and subtle, traditional and modern.... shiina ringo always looks incredible in them

and im getting a thrasher hoodie for sure
drop

i like geodesic domes. something about how theyre round yet made up of triangles
tomi & cherry

still feeeelin this old marjan pejoski ad. i wish MP had more stockists here...

i cant get over how incredible Ranpo Jigoku (Ranpo's Noir) was! i found out about the costume designer Michiko Kitamura through this film. words cannot describe the way her costumes complimented the erotic grotesque-ness of the film.
in one story she used a lot of loose drapey white/beige-ish cotton and linen pieces that were very suzuki takayuki/paul harnden and those images have really stuck in my mind... her costumes are very modern and yet there is always something distinctly japanese about them and i guess that is what makes her so special

and while we're on the subject, here's another costume designer I've been obsessed with for a while: Hibino Kozue. i found out about her when last yr when i happened to catch a tv show for kids with OUTSTANDING costumes. i was shocked really. it was what, 4pm? and i see something like this on the screen.

just...wow. isn't it great to be able to find extreme visual stimulation outside the realm of silly music videos and arthouse movies? the program is called "nihongo de asobo" and it won the Good Design Award for 2004.

saw the documentary Paris is Buring (1990) in class and loved it. i'm a sucker for 80s soul, i get very nostalgic listening to that stuff even though i wansnt even born yet

the Ichikawa sisters have such mesmerizing facial features.

younger sis older sis

I'm a smooth operator

2009-05-14T00:33:00.015+09:00

1. What's your current obsession?
Blue lipstick and dinosaurs
2. What are you excited about?
Upcoming documentary shooting at Tokyo Design Festa this sat & sun
3. Do you nap a lot?
I’m all about the power nap and siestas under the sun
4. Who was the last person you hugged?
My cat corona
5. Which animal would you be?
An elephant
6. What's for dinner?
Mexican, hopefully
7. What was the last significant thing you bought?
Ktz mesh/satin bodycon dress
8. What are you listening to right now?
Swing Out Sister
9. What's your favorite weather?
Midsummer. It's unbearably hot and humid, the sun's beating down on your back, your shoulders are burning you're sweating like crazy the cicadas are humming you're kind of dizzy but you don't want the day to end...
10. What's your favorite game?
Cops and robbers
11. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?
Tokyo fosho
12. What's the last movie you watched?
Ranpo's Noir. It was scary, erotic, grotesque, and so good.
13. A book you're currently reading?
Flipping through mom's book The Art of Maurice Sendak
14. How tall are you?
I'm a 5'1 monster
15. What would you like to have in your hands right now?
Grandma
16. What are you dreaming of?
Fuji Rock Festival in July
17. What would you like to get rid of?
Bills bills bills
18. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Morocco
19. What did you want to become as a child?
A mermaid. I've always loved water. Growing up on the Gold Coast does that to you
20. What's your most challenging goal right now?
Being a good person. I'm not even kidding. I want to be a polite, respectable adult. I'm so sick of seeing people smoke on the street or litter or slam the door shut during class like it's no big deal...Since when was acting like a moron the new cool thing? Remembering simple manners has a lot to do with being stylish. Careless and rude behavior in public is ugly and unsexy as hell.
21. What's your favorite food?
Mom's cooking
22. What are you wearing right now?
Ancient tee with a fat dude and a wolf saying “leader of the pack”
23. Which language do you want to learn?
Italiano
24. What do you look for in a friend?
Spontaneity, kindness, good fun and good sense
25. Who do you want to meet in person?
Haruki Murakami
26. What's your favorite type of music?
Brazilian chill, bossa nova, lounge, electro jazz
27. What's your favorite piece of clothing in your closet?
Love them all
28. What's your dream job?
Architect
29. Any favorite models?
Mariacarla, Tao, Daria, Josh Beech...dunno really. Don't really look to models for inspiration. I'm rooting for Cassi on AusNTM cycle5.
30. What would you mostly likely spend $100 on?
Could use a good vintage tee for summer
31. What would you like an endless supply of?
Sunlight.
32. Girl crush?
Soo many. Rinko Kikuchi, Shiina Ringo, Bjork, Samantha Morton, Britney Spears, Chloe Sevigny, Brooke Shields...If I were a designer I'd have a new muse everyday
33. Favorite designers?
Miuccia Prada, Nicholas Ghesquiere, Bernhard Willhelm, Raf Simons, Rei Kawakubo, Helmut Lang the one the only the original
34. Fashion pet peeve?
A revolting bag added to an otherwise ok outfit. white shoes with black hosiery
35. Do you admire anyone’s style?
Honestly, not really. If I admire anyone it's for how they present themselves and not so much for how they dress. But 90s Chloe Sevigny comes pretty close to my definition of style icon
36. Describe your personal style.
Different
37. Final comment?
Let's sprint down an empty street at night, in heels

my favorite color b l u e

2009-05-08T14:13:00.034+09:00

im dying to see the movie "mizu no onna" (woman of water) starring asano tadanobu and one of my favorite japanese singers, UA. it's supposed to be about a woman who owns a bathhouse? the entire film is shot in this beautiful serene eerie blue light, it looks gorgeous.

ryan wallace's paintings are incredible. they have such presence and yet i feel that if i were to hang one up in my room, it would just sort of blend in with everything else. so powerful but soft. also, they're blue.

i like to look at james cooper's underwater photography and fantasize about skinnydipping in a big bright blue bottomless bubbly sunlit pool

hans hartung

i grew up reading my parents'pierre et gilles coffeetable books like picturebooks...not sure if its the best stuff for a 5 yr old but i think that partly explains my strange love for homoerotic christian imagery, sailors, water, and the color blue

chagall was my mamas favorite

水色　(blue) by UA

please know this japanese label part 3 (i dedicate this to fashionpirates)

2009-05-04T20:36:00.023+09:00

Hi arabelle, do you know Anrealage? i thought you might like it. the designer is a graduate of my school.

I've blogged about anrealage before but i think this stuff is definitely worth reposting.
I love when clothing has a homely/handmade quality. Lately Im finding myself increasingly bored with anything that is overly smooth, straight and intact...if that makes any sense.Flaws in clothing can be so fun...embroidery, raw edges and patchwork never get old...

hair, makeup.....silly beauty talk

2009-05-01T00:14:00.004+09:00

i've been thinking. i need to make more effort in the beauty department.

i know this photo is old old news but i just cant get over how amazing the milkyway of stickers on this kids face looks. part of the fun is the irony of the model being a white tattooed male with plugs, i know, but i still wanted to try it out for myself so i picked up some bubble stickers on the way home today

(btw this photo was shot by hedi slimane for vogue hommes japan #1. the entire issue was insane, i havent bought #2 yet but vhj is one of the few mags worth actually taking home in my opinion)

another cute idea

love all sorts of bowl-cuts. mine is a semi-bowl at the moment and i'm trying to grow it out so i can get a sloped bowl like bjork.
rinko kikuchi reppin the japakneees!

more bowls by raf simons x david sims (check out the whole series)

where can i find blue/purple lipstick like this?? the color reminds me of laura palmers frozen dead lips...i think the whole vibe of this photo is beautiful, cant for the life of me remember where i found it tho

i like to look to boys for beauty tips. i guess im into the whole genderbending thing-- boys in heels, girls with shaved heads and all that jazz...
would love to have hair like francisco lachowski. he's so pretty, isnt he? (via tfs via vogue hommes japan2)

christina4life

havent been wearing my orange shu uemura cream eyeshadow enough. its fun to lay it on thick, asian-dork style like this 07 teenvogue editorial featuring none other than my favorite tao!

ill wrap up with another david sims photo for helmut lang, 1995. oh man...so wrong yet so cool. makes me want an elongated triangle between my eyes

black as midnight on a moonless night

2009-04-28T07:28:00.010+09:00

this blog isnt really about random image collecting but there are some great tumblrs out there that inspired me to go through my own files and give it a go

sources: jesper ulvelius, moma, charlotte perriand, 廃墟地デフレスパイラル, and all others unknown

i said no that bitch aint a part of me

2009-04-27T06:31:00.010+09:00

double posting today. i was browsing online shops just to pass time cuz i wasnt sleepy and ended up buying a postweiler hauber dress. i always had a thing for straps (always loved junya watanabe's parachute season) so im excited about this
but wow what an impulse buy.

it's a bit patrik soderstam, yes?

which reminds me, i always reckoned josh beech had the right look for soderstam what with his haircut and exquisite face and all... and then i found out they actually did make him wear soderstam, on the cover of numero. nice!

oh and did you see the rodarte website? insaaaane

team nike (and please know this japanese label part 2?)

2009-04-26T20:02:00.009+09:00

nike heels by POTTO. i am so sad i missed out on theese, wouldve lived in them if i had them...
although technically it should not be impossible to make these on your own if you had an old pair of nikes, some textured pumps and a good studding kit.

also as i was googling VLADIMIR KARALEEV (more about my love for berlin based desginers later) i was inspired to look for some plastics videos and this one is just really really awesome.

the plastics are a japanese "new wave" band from the late 70s, their music is strange and kind of wonderful. check out the lead guitarist's rainbow head

just to add a few more things i like

hammock bag by fabrics interseason. unfortunately this is way too big and long for me to carry but it would spice up any boring outfit for sure

and some vintage christina aguilera. i was such a huge fan in the dirrty days... extensions + pink frilly undies + black lipstick = way hotter than goth
(although i think blue will be the lipstick color of my choice this summer)

please know this japanese label (part 1)

2009-04-11T21:49:00.005+09:00

Yeah Right!! is a Japanese fashion duo that reworks vintage clothes into interesting one-of-a-kind pieces. i love the homely incompleteness of their work. These images of their AW08 collection, 'daily life of the eternity'embody true Japanese style--chaotic, messy and always both a nod and a fuckyou to high fashion.

and these are some pieces from their most recent SS collection:

really intrigued by this weaving technique used on the denim skirt and tee. SO much cooler than the "shredded" detail that seems to be popular nowadays, i think.

having said that....... they do the "shredded" thing real well too

and this is them paying tribute to/flipping off prada and LV by stiching them together onto an old boyscout shirt and adding a rubber band belt to the waist. GOOD FUN!!!

we all scream for ice cream

2009-04-10T17:27:00.003+09:00

I was super excited to find stills of one of my favorite scenes in film history (via this awesome website).
It's the last scene of Down by Law by Jim Jarmusch where Tom Waits and John Lurie swap their jackets before parting ways. I've forgotten how the dialogue went but I remember it was funny and sad and really endearing.

some things

2009-04-03T07:30:00.010+09:00

I got this dress-BW SS09. I luuuurv it. The volume (voluminosity?) is intense and it’s made of a smooth thick knit. Feels very luxe despite its fun appearance. i might go back for the socks too

Say goodbye to goat! Or rather I will say goodbye. The sick thing with me is no matter how much I like something to begin with, it quickly transforms into the equivalent of Abercrombie&fitchshudder in my eyes if I see it too much. Hello teddy bear fur, fur of the future!

Instead of long goat, i like the idea of a hair fringe on clothing. I missed out on these Andrea Crews tops when they came to Tokyo for a little bit but I really like them, esp cuz they’ve been dip dyed. who hasnt wanted blue hair at one point in their life?

Which brings me to this. does anyone know where i can find this outfit?
Bernhard willhelm SS04or05? Ive been searching for so long. I don’t care if it’s the t-shirt version or the dress version. I just need some fringed superman in my life.

Im into all things floaty at the moment. im surprised that this street snap is appealing to me so much. I like to look at Japanese streetsnaps but to be honest I don’t really see them as inspiration-more like entertainment…

In keeping with this obsession i got this scrunchie last yearish (by Theatre Products, japlabel worth checking out) but then about a month ago I took the photo of tao(see last post) to my hairdresser and got all my hair hacked off. No more scrunchie fun, and I didn’t even get to use it…boo
this girl is not me, btwz