cult of clothes

I’m really inspired by this outfit from a photo by the Sartorialist. From her sinewy, lean legs to the wonderful combination of textures in her outfit, I think this girl looks amazing and I must immediately rush out and copy her. So I’ve been poking around online and at the markets in search of the perfect textured, embellished jacket. Usually I’m on the hunt for the perfect, beaten up black leather jacket, but I never seem to find one that I can afford or that fits me properly, so I think I’ll give up that hunt in favour of shinier things. Like these:

Topshop

Source: www.topshop.com

Club Monaco

Source: www.clubmonaco.com

Antik Batik

Source: www.netaporter.com

I came across these two little vintage gems at the Glebe markets a couple of weekends ago. They’re not exactly jackets, but I think they’re beautiful. The pictures were a bit hastily shot because the stall owner was glowering at me while I photographed her wares without buying anything. Some people are such grumps.

Tags: Cult covets, Style by Grace
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Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES!

And now back to our regular programming.

Tags: Uncategorized by Grace
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Tags: Uncategorized by C-Tron
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I will hug him and I will squeeze him and I will call him George.

This Nicola Finetti Dynasaur is just the neatest little thing. It’s hard to tell how big he is from the photo, but I hope he’s enormous. A statement Dynasaur.

Source: www.thegrandsocial.com.au

Tags: Accessories, Cult covets by Grace
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In 2007, Valentino tearfully stepped down as creative director from the helm of his company in the wake of a private equity takeover. The details are already making me feel a bit sleepy, so I’ll leave it at saying it wasn’t very pretty. Since that time, the label hasn’t really been on my radar; the collections have gone through a bit of a gawky teenager stage, with a few designers cutting their teeth and finding their feet at the house. But now the Spring 2010 collection has debuted, and NOW I heart Valentino with all my heart.

The collection, designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli, is fresh and gorgeous and young and wonderful. Even though the pair has been designing for the label for a few seasons, I think they’ve finally stepped out from Valentino’s shadow and found their own aesthetic. I’m so excited to see a new point of view from a house that was made famous with elegant hand-stitched gowns (every sequin, every seam sewn by the meticulous hands of a seamstress wielding her needle) in famous Valentino red, designed by a man who thinks an evening gown that shows a woman’s ankles is vulgar.

The success of this new collection has put the label in the esteemed company of some of my usual favourites: Prada, Balenciaga and Marc Jacobs. Every season I die for my favourites. And now I die for Valentino too. That’s a lot of dying.

There’s a crumpled kind of beauty about this collection. It seems like the designers carelessly tossed the fabric around the models’ bodies and it happened to fall just right in perfect swirls and bows. The shaggy-headed models all look so fantastically dishevelled and undone, like they’ve been running through the woods on a windy night. I guess what I love most about the collection is that the whole thing is really wearable. Nothing is absolutely nuts, and it’s nice to see a collection that you could wear, piece for piece, right off the runway.

Behold the genius:

In real life, either the jacket or the skirt alone would be divine. Worn together, the look is a bit puffy and overdone for my liking.

Source: www.style.com

This butter coloured swirl of silk is heavenly. It looks more like a giant flower than a dress, but I love how soft the colour and the shape are.

Source: www.style.com

Sheer short suits? How awesome can you get?

Source: www.style.com

Excuse me while I fall down stunned by how pretty this is. The pattern reminds me of Rorschach tests (OK fine, ink blot tests. I cheated and used Wikipedia to find the real name. How can anyone possibly remember how to spell Rorschach? How do you even say that?) This dress is such a simple, almost typical shape, but the beauty is all in the print of the fabric and the centre pleat.

Source: www.style.com

The simple shape of this dress works well because it doesn’t detract from the whorls of silk creeping over the skirt and up the bodice.

Source: www.style.com

This dress makes the model look like she just dragged herself up onto the sand from a rough sea, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Source: www.style.com

Knock me down, these shoes are gorgeous.

Source: www.style.com

Tags: Cult covets, Featured designer, Spring / Summer by Grace
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The last two episodes of Gossip Girl have been filled with celebrity cameo gimmickry. First there was Tyra Banks playing a diva (which is obviously a massive stretch), and then Sonic Youth made an appearance at the end of the latest episode. Sonic Youth?!! ON GOSSIP GIRL??!!! I don’t think I can abuse punctiation enough to express how wrong that is! I love Gossip Girl, but Sonic Youth, I believe the appropriate term here is “sell out.”

I once was a proper 90s grungy kid, but I’ve never really liked Sonic Youth. Their music is usually so mumbly and tuneless and their performance on the show was the pinnacle of suck.

Gossip Girl is probably my favourite show in the history of my entire life, but it was a stretch for me to enjoy the last couple of episodes.

Lucky for me, Blair looked fabulous as usual, and was a happy distraction from Serena’s whining and Vanessa’s cork wedge sandals. Here’s the ultimate power couple observing the commoners at a wedding:

Source: www.instyle.com

Blair is wearing a dress from the Valentino RED collection, and Chuck is wearing good bone structure and handsome. Blair really is a girl after my own heart. Just the other day I was thinking about how much I adore Valentino, and here she is wearing this stunning dip dyed, textured Valentino dress in some amazing colours. Swoon.

Tags: Cult covets, Gossip Girl, Style by Grace
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There are so many excellent ways to spend money. It boggles the mind.

Petite Boutique is holding another of their monthly sales in Paddington this weekend. They always have loads of lovely tops, dresses, skirts and scarves from the likes of Chanel, Marc Jacobs and Chloe, and nothing ever costs more than $300. Exciting huh?

I never seem to be able to leave these sales empty handed (it’s very easy to trick me into buying a piece of clothing if you make it a pretty colour) . So far my loot from previous sales has included an insane patterned silk dress from See by Chloe, a tangerine ruffly dress from Marc by Marc Jacobs and a Jill Stuart sun dress in pale gold and watercolour style florals which I plan to live in this summer.

Call or email Rebecca (details below) to find out the top secret sale headquarters.

Check out the girl in the picture – her mind is so boggled her shoes don’t even match.

Tags: Events, Featured store, Sales, Shopping by Grace
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I’ve been trying to work out how to update my summer wardrobe on the cheap. I’m not the biggest trend follower: I don’t buy into those diaper-like harem pants, (I imagine if you tried to run in them, the low crotch would make you trip over just like if you tied your shoelaces together), I don’t really dig baggy, torn up boyfriend jeans rolled tightly at the ankle, and the resurgence of floral dresses worn with Doc Martens reminds me way too much of Alicia Silverstone in all those Aerosmith videos. I find a lot of trends are made for the very young and the very tall and thin, and when we the short and normal try to pull them off, we can end up looking kind of dumpy and kind of silly.

So all the lamenting unflattering clothes aside, I’ve decided that shoes are the perfect way to update my wardrobe without doing a complete overhaul. Shoes are always good to us women. No matter how much weight we lose or gain, our shoes always fit. Trying on a pair of shoes will never make you regret the Big Mac you ate for lunch, or make the change room mirrors reflect back at you in that devastatingly hideous way.

If the shapes in your wardrobe are fairly classic, then the best way to update is with an edgy pair of shoes. A good pair of shoes can make a dress that’s a bit too pretty look chic and fashion forward. Equally, a bad pair of shoes can make an amazing designer dress look rubbish. Sorry Sandra Bullock, but you need to fire your stylist. (I originally had the actual photo posted, but it offended me so much every time I opened the blog that I had to replace it with a link) As we see from the Sandra Bullock exhibit, a bad pair of shoes can destroy an outfit. Bad hair doesn’t help either.

Recently I was a bridesmaid for a friend’s wedding. Our dresses were sleeveless, high-waisted chocolate brown chiffon that fell below the knee. When discussing footwear options by email, someone suggested a practical black, closed toe shoe. We all owned a pair, after all. It was all so illegal my head almost exploded. I had to shut my laptop and walk away, otherwise I would have been shouting in all caps about how we might as well wear those black lace up sneakers they sell at the chemist that are extra wide to accommodate diabetes-related foot swelling. BLASPHEMY. In the end, the bride won and we all wore pale gold.

Thankfully I can put that episode behind me and focus my efforts on important things. Like trawling the collections for good shoes to post on my blog.

For the last few seasons, shoes seem to have been becoming more and more avant-garde. Many are downright weird. There is the ankle boot, and the strappy, sometimes bondage-esque platform shoe, there are strange interpretations of the heel (or in Antonio Berardi’s case, the heel is removed altogether and replaced with…air), eccentric embellishments and the always practical boot with the toe missing, (which, by the way, I LOVE).

Anyway, here are some of my favourite shoes from the Spring collections:

Booties

Photo: Nina Ricci

Way to ruin a perfectly good photo of beautiful shoes with your creepy claw toes, model.

Photo: Miu Miu

Photo: Alexander Wang

Photo: 3.1 Phillip Lim

Photo: 3.1 Phillip Lim

I love the first Phillip Lim pair, but they don’t seem very Spring to me. I can imagine them with opaque tights, a ridiculously short skirt and a fluffy fur, real or faux.

Photo: Alexander McQueen

Photo: Alexander McQueen

Am I crazy? I die for these mechanical robot-looking booties from Alexander McQueen. They’re so unique, and as long as your outfit was fairly toned down, I don’t think they’d look that weird. (According to the Boyfriend, the style of these booties is based on a fiction genre called Steampunk)

Strappy

Photo: Burberry

Photo: Burberry

I also die for these shoes from Burberry, especially the knotted pair with the black platform soles. Not everyone does the socks and heels thing, but I think they really suit the knotted and tangled look that Christopher Bailey has going on at Burberry this season.

Photo: Yves St. Laurent

Photo: Yves St. Laurent

Elegant Confections

Photo: Valentino

Photo: Valentino

Photo: Valentino

I love the new young point of view at Valentino now that Maria Grazie Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli (doubt I’ll ever be able to remember those names) have taken the helm.

Photo: Dries Van Noten

Photo: Nina Ricci

Crazy Go Nuts

Photo: Alexander McQueen

Photo: Alexander McQueen

These shoes from Alexander McQueen look like they have a brain and could control the wearer telepathically.

Tags: Accessories, Cult covets, Spring / Summer, shoes by Grace
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Just like the title would suggest, Salvatore Ferragamo is having its very exciting annual sale in Paddington. Apparently there are discounts of up to 80% on shoes, handbags, accessories, and more. I’m not sure what the “and more” could be, but it sounds intriguing. Pet lions? Pots of gold? Hotdogs?

Anyway, to find out what “and more” is and to stock up on those gorgeous signature patent leather round toed shoes with their grosgrain bows, (I have my eye on a red pair that’s in the window of the QVB store right now), here are the deets:

When: October 16-17

Where: Paddington Town Hall, corner Oatley & Oxford Sts, Paddington

Inquiries: 02 9221 3036

Have fun and bring a warm coat for queueing in. This nasty weather we’re having isn’t meant to turn for a few more weeks. How boring.

Tags: Sales, Shopping by Grace
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She looks like a severe, gothic Brigitte Bardot. Her lips are plump and pillowy and her face looks like it’s been carved from marble. She’s got heavenly high cheekbones that make deep, brooding hollows in her cheeks. She’s a size 4 high fashion model, rather than the typical size 2 or 0, and she wants to lose weight.

Photo: www.style.com

Fashion industry folk use Lara Stone to prove that the industry does employ “bigger” girls, and poor Lara is tired of being singled out as “the fat one,” so she’s going to slim down by doing Pilates and going running.

And now I will pause to dramatically sigh and roll my eyes.

If everyone wasn’t making such a stink about Lara being bigger, then I certainly wouldn’t have noticed. When you’re 5′10″, there’s not a massive difference between a size 4 and a size 2.

If designers were to get together and slowly begin sneaking up the sizes of their samples, and the agencies started pedalling slightly bigger girls, I bet no one would even notice. It’s all about perception, and those who control the world of fashion know they have the power to change our perception.

Instead of models being worried that they don’t fit in with the skinny crew that dominates, the skinny crew should be worried that their weird shoulder blade wings are distracting from the designs, to the detriment of the designers’ work. I was sifting through the photos of Marc Jacobs’  resort collection online the other day and what struck me was not how lovely the clothes were (although they were lovely), but how knobbly the knees of the models were.

The world of fashion is supposed to be an escape into the beautiful. Everything about it should inspire wistful sighs and longing stares. Don’t ruin the fantasy by showing me a teenager who only consumes diet coke and tomatoes. I’m all for youth being part of the dream, but I should see beauty in these girls, not want to hand them a Kit-Kat and give them a hug.

Instead of being worried about being “the fat one,” maybe Lara should be excited about being the first one. The first size 4, bigger girl to make it. The first, hopefully, of many.

Photo: www.style.com

Photo: www.style.com

Photo: www.style.com

Photo: www.style.com

Tags: Testify! by Grace
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