Rather than wasting my time regretting the various cringe-worthy things I did last night in a pitifully intoxicated state after downing far too many kamikazes, I spent my sunday afternoon collecting pretty fall looks instead. Please excuse the boring post; I am far too hung over to write anything semi-interesting today...
dries van noten 
marni
yves saint laurent 
The Juniper Tree (1990) directed by Nietzchka Keene stars a young and endearingly kooky Bjork. Loosely based on a Grimms fairytale and shot in grainy black and white, the film depicts a dysfunctional family of two witch sisters, and a father and his son, living on the barren planes of Iceland. I randomly tuned into it on cable one midnight, just as I was thinking of going to bed, and ended up watching the whole thing straight through. The slow and atmospheric images of vast planes are mesmerizing, as are the excellent performances by the unknown actors.
The costumes are particularly fantastic, and against a dusty nordic backdrop, those long, heavy-looking textured skirts and thick shawls just scream avant-garde heidi. Ever since that midnight in March I've been giving my maxi skirts a lot more attention, and I even got a few more at the recent summer sales. My mini-obsession is a little impractical for school maybe but wearing long skirts actually isn't half as inconvenient as it might seem, and dressing them down with flat sandals makes them easier to manage. But hey, what is fashion without a bit of discomfort...
I admired Jil Sander's fall show, but I doubt the silhouettes would be as effective in the real world where people are not tiny headed creatures 6ft tall with arms and legs that stretch out into infinity. So for me, the highlight of the show was in the details; specifically those patent platform shoes and those sleek, black envelope-style clutch purses. I could go on and on about those things but let me just say the shoes look beautiful, versatile, and even comfortable, and the clutch purses are sublime. Ah life goes on...
I’m not sure what the weather is like in fashionable parts of the world right now but I am sort of getting the impression from various streetstyle blogs that it’s considerably cooler and nicer elsewhere than it is in humid and drizzly tokyo. From around may to mid-june we had fantastic weather so I spent most afternoons in my back yard or on the school hill soaking up the sun, all the while naively thinking that monsoon season would never hit. But did it ever. All we’ve been getting for the last couple of weeks is rain rain rain! My tan is rapidly fading, and what’s worse, japanese spring semesters don’t finish until early august which means I have a good two more weeks of school to go. Two more solid weeks in which I will have to come up with different rainy day outfits when I've sufficiently wringed my brain of all possible ways to incorporate havaianas into my daily wear (I hate to ruin leather heels and sandals in the rain so plastic is the only way to go). But since I cannot break out a pair of rain boots in midsummer, crocs are out of the question, and most emo japanese girls are wearing alexandre herchcovitch for melissa wedges which means I really really don't want to go there, havaianas are probably the best option I've got. At worst they are too flat (I am a small person and I need heels!) and at best they are something different as most people in tokyo wouldn't dream of wearing flipflops outside the beach.
On particularly desperate days, as I squelch through puddles on my way to school, I wonder why it is that so far, no one has come up with a rain shelter for shoes--a kind of clear plastic cover perhaps, that would fit over pretty shoes and protect them from the evils of water... All delusions aside though, how do you stay in style on rainy days?
Fashion is almost always about the latest collections but flicking through past shows of favorite designers can be so very inspiring.This ss05 look from helmut lang is something I refer to from time to time--it’s casual but with just the right amount of sexy and absurd. I normally don’t do black & white on its own but with a bit of beige or camel thrown in, the stark black/white contrast suddenly becomes less harsh and very appealing. It’s also a clever way to incorporate black into a summer wardrobe since I tend to wear lighter neutrals during the summer, and leave the black for winter.
The National Art Center in Roppongi Hills is doing an exhibition called Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture. They will be showing some of my favorite big name designers like Comme des Garcons, Dries Van Noten and Maison Martin Margiela, including pieces from Hussein Chalayan's s/s 2000 collection which I really really loved. Also I think it's about time I learned a few things about contemporary Japanese architecture--it's something I've always conciously avoided because I find our housing structures to be really effing ugly, generally speaking. Judging from what I've read and seen, I think the exhibition might be worth checking out. Lucky for me, it's showing until August 13 which still gives me plenty of time to get those final papers and exams out of the way. Pictured above are Junya Watanabe and Viktor & Rolf.
