cult of clothes

Every Spring, as the weather warms up and the days start getting a bit longer, my Dad recites this poem:

Spring is sprung,
the grass is riz.
I wonder where the birdies is?
They say the bird is on the wing,
but that’s absurd!
I thought the wing was on the bird.

That poem is totally inappropriate for this Fall/Winter post, not to mention the fact that I’m not in Canada anymore, so it’s actually fall where I live, not spring, but it was the first thing that came to mind when I thought “season.” Also, who can’t do with a good Dad Joke every once in a while.

Moving right along.

With the FW shows finishing up, I thought it was high time to get my act together and write a post, because I know you’re all DYING to know which totally expensive, beautiful designer garments I would buy if only I had that disposable income I keep requesting for my birthday every year. (Wealthy people in my life, that’s a hint. I need a benefactor to keep me well shod and clothed. In exchange, I’ll call you every day to tell you how smart and pretty you are, and how much everyone loves you, especially me.)

I haven’t included any of the New York shows because I wasn’t that impressed. Alexander Wang’s collection sums up what I didn’t like about a lot of the New York shows. There were too many exposed midriffs, thigh high stockings and and lumpy looking clothes and I guess I’m the last to notice, but the 90s are unfortunately back. I feel a bit mean and unfair singling out one designer to showcase what I didn’t like about some of the FW collections (especially since I think said designer is usually pretty damn amazing), so I’ll stop harping on the negative and talk about some collections that I did like.

Here we go with the crème de la crème of the FW collections in all their lovely, be-coated glory.

CELINE

Bow down to Phoebe Philo at Celine because she’s done it again, capturing a luxurious simplicity in the colour palette and cut of this collection. Her use of leather is a bit more restrained than in her SS10 collection; she features more leather embellishments rather than models kitted out head to toe.

Check out the silver pin at the collar of the dress below. This collection is about subtle details rather than sometimes unwearable, in-your-face prints and shapes.

PRADA

Maybe one day I’ll regret saying this, but Prada can do no wrong. The dainty but toasty-looking knee socks, swinging coats and dresses and graphic, messy plaids are brilliant. Anyone keen to join me in robbing a bank so we can go shopping at Prada? We wouldn’t steal more money than we needed, just enough for one outfit and maybe a taxi to the Prada shop and a champagne lunch afterwards. You know, the essentials.

RODARTE

Good thing I saved my money not buying Rodarte for Target, because now I’m that much closer to buying one of these looks from Rodarte. If I could even get my hands on a pair of the shoes, I would truly find meaning in this life.

TOPSHOP UNIQUE

And now for something completely different, and dare I say…Unique. (Oh man, I’m batting 1,000 with the lame jokes today)

I never imagined that uni-browed babes in the woods could look quite so deliciously warped and beautiful. Topshop Unique, I’ll be watching you for more beautiful work, but in an I-love-you way, not in a stalker way.

STELLA McCARTNEY

Since Topshop Unqiue just blew all of our minds, I thought I should finish up with something more subdued. Here’s Stella McCartney doing simple, beautiful tailoring like no one else can.

Notice the wide cuffs at the bottom of the pants. I might need to get a bit more money from that bank robbery to pick up a pair of these pants.

Of course there are a gazillion more looks I’d love to include, but this post is getting perilously close to essay length and I don’t want to blow up your computers with too many images and expressions of LOVE.

Images: www.style.com

Tags: Cult covets, Fall / Winter     |     1 Comment »

She goes to movies by herself. She’s got a green thumb. Her favourite colours are rosewood and nutmeg. She lives in an apartment with high ceilings and beat up hardwood floors in a bohemian neighbourhood. She drinks chai lattés on her balcony and heckles passersby. All the girls want to be her best friend. She’s Ethel by Chloe.

Tags: Cult covets     |     1 Comment »

And now for another slam dunk from an Australian retailer:

Behold the perfect shade of camel, the wonderful soft wool and the way the sleeves end just above the wrist bones. Well done, Witchery.

For anyone who thinks that coats are for keeping you warm, here’s a little story that’ll learn ya:

Once, a few years ago, I donned a particularly amazing cropped-sleeve winter coat and went out to meet my lovely friend. Upon seeing that my bare arms were sticking out of my coat sleeves, my lovely friend asked me, “Don’t your arms get cold?” I gave her my best withering look and replied, “Being warm and comfortable is extremely passé.”

Sometimes we clothes horses have to deal with the scoffing questions of the practical set, but when you know that looking stylish is the epitome of all that is right and good in this world, being the subject of scoffing, (and having the occasional goosebump), is absolutely worth it.

I wonder when this beautiful camel coat will be available in stores. I may keel over in a dramatic faint from all this annoying WAITING.

Tags: Cult covets, Fall / Winter     |     6 Comments »

The creative folks at Country Road have outdone themselves with their fall preview. It’s gone off without a hitch. It’s hitchless. Absolutely hitchless. Hitches you say? My good men and women, there aren’t any. Not one hitch to be had.

Some people in my life may wish to note that my birthday is coming up at the end of next month and a gift of any one of these lovely pieces of clothing would knock my socks off.

The only thing I’m a bit dubious about is their choice of male model. He’s handsome and all, but does anyone else think he looks a bit like a vampire?

What are you looking at Vampire Lips? Probably gazing at something delicious. A human, no doubt.

Oh dear. He’s spotted us. I guess there’s no sense in running now.

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As I’m sure a lot of you know, Alexander McQueen passed away on Thursday. It’s hard to think of anything to say that would come close to capturing even a part of his greatness. But maybe that’s the thing: people as talented as Alexander McQueen can’t be captured. Not by words, and unfortunately for us, not even by life.

I’ll let his designs speak for themselves:

Goodnight, Mr. McQueen.

Images: www.style.com

Tags: Testify!     |     1 Comment »

Bear with me for a moment while I tell a story that’s not exactly fashion-related, but that I’m sure I can trickily spin to have a fashion angle.

A powerful higher-up type, sitting in his office on the 33rd floor of a very high, very sparkly glass building, looked out his window one morning to see the usual view of the Sydney Harbour and the hotels and parks that line its shores. Boats dotted the gold dusted water and the sky was the kind of blue that makes your eyes thirsty. Moored in front of the Park Hyatt Hotel, he saw a massive white yacht that clearly belonged to someone who was quite a lot more comfortable in this life than the rest of us. He knew that people who are that comfortable make good clients, and so he decided to try to make contact with this person. Kind of like when aliens visit earth, but not scary.

Being a powerful higher-up type, he had at his fingertips a resource of eager minions waiting, wide-eyed and excited to boot lick, compliment his tie and do his bidding. He enlisted their help to find out the name of this comfortable person, and to buy the person a fancy bottle of wine. The minions did their work well and the wine was sent to the boat with this accompanying note:

Welcome to Sydney, Mr. Comfortable Person.

I looked out my window this morning and saw your boat. I wanted to thank you for improving my view. If you need anything while you’re in Sydney, please feel free to give me a call.

Enclosed is some fancy wine to help you be more fancy on your fancy boat.

Mr. Comfortable Person called the powerful higher up type later that day to thank him for the fancy wine and to invite him for dinner. Mr. Comfortable Person lives overseas and already has his own powerful higher-up type so our protagonist didn’t get a client out of it, but he got a nice dinner, a new friend, a way into the world of more similarly comfortable people and a good story.

So what can we learn from this story of clever gift-giving?

Lesson 1

You need to give before you can expect to take. Post about Candace Ang jewellery on your blog and she may send you a feathery necklace. Or not. Probably not, because she doesn’t know who you are. But if you’re kind and you offer someone something you think they will like, good things will probably come to you.

Lesson 2

Be brave and take risks. Be brave in the clothes you put on in the morning, (there’s the fashion angle I promised. Flimsy, I know), be brave in saying what’s on your mind even when you know people will disagree and be brave in doing something that scares you every day. Pet a big hairy spider that you’re pretty sure isn’t poisonous, but that you’re pretty sure will bite you. Call up an editor at Vogue and tell them why they need to let you write for them. Say that you like Taylor Swift even though everyone who’s anyone seems to think she’s a vanilla, all-American bore-factory.

Lesson 3

Be creative. Lots of people in the world think they’re too important for the likes of you.

But if you do something different that catches their attention, they’ll probably give you a bit of their busy important time.

What do you have to lose anyway? The price of a bottle of wine? When you’re a powerful higher-up, or when you’re just you, the price of a bottle of wine is a mere drop in your ocean of fancy possibilities.

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Six reasons to love Candace Ang:

1.

The Flight Necklace in ocean

2.

The Revolution Collar in toast

3.

The Sadie Necklace

4.

The Crest Bracelet

5.

The Soleil Necklace

6.

Her last name rhymes with fang.

Tags: Accessories     |     3 Comments »

Lately I’ve been trying really hard not to get sucked into falling in love with things that only look good on models with legs that stretch to forever and waists so waspish that a small child could lace her fingers around them. I have a short torso and long legs; I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it makes buying clothes online a risky proposition.

It’s this unwieldy body type that led me to resist buying anything from the Rodarte for Target collection. Rodarte, like Stella McCartney and many others, have collaborated with Target to create an affordable, limited edition collection which is available in stores in the States, and online for us international types.

Living in an Australian time zone gives me the excellent benefit of being awake and alert at 1am NYC time, when these sorts of collections are released online. That means that should I want it, I get first pick of everything.

In preparation for the release, I scoured the internet for images of the clothes and studied the video collaboration done by Tavi from Style Rookie.

I was drawn to the blue Alice in Wonderland dress:

the bow shoulder dress (especially in mustard yellow):

and the sequin ribcage dress:

but not the icky combat boot styling.

When those dresses were finally available, did I immediately whip out my credit card and start spending? No. I crazily decided to think about it. Two hours later, I decided to have a second look, (this was at 3am NYC time, mind you), and what I felt when I got to the “sold out” page for all three dresses was cold REGRET. I learned the hard lesson that the exclusive, limited-edition fashion vampires don’t know the meaning of “I’m going to think about it.” They’re decisive; they strike with quick, fangy accuracy; they stay up all night shopping; and they have my mustard yellow bow shoulder dress. If you were to look at the site now, all you’d find would be a sad wasteland littered with a few leopard print belts in tiny sizes, a bunch of dresses that are only available in stores in Mobile, Alabama and more of that regret stuff.

I hesitated because I worried that my purchases would make their slow way to me in Australia and they wouldn’t fit. I worried that I wouldn’t only feel regret, I’d feel disappointment too. Fueling my worry was a blog post I’d read about a girl who went to the pop-up shop before the online collection was released and bought a medium dress. She said she was normally a size 4 or 6, and a large probably would have fit better, which told me the sizing is a bit off.

Now that I’ve had a few weeks to ponder the mustard-yellow-bow-shoulder-dress-sized hole in my closet, (because I have nothing better to do than lament lost fashion-related opportunities), I’ve come to a conclusion. Can I be honest? I don’t think the Rodarte for Target collection was that great. (One moment while I pause to be tarred and feathered by my fashionable contemporaries). I think the designs are inspired and wonderful and very Rodarte. I love the prints and colours and the interesting twists. But I don’t love what I’ve read on the review sections of the Target site about poor craftsmanship and bad fits. In trying to stick with a lower price point, it seems they had to sacrifice quality.

I was blinded with the swoon-worthy idea I could own something by Rodarte for $50, not $5,000. Now that I’m more clear-headed, I’ve realised that I’m glad I kept my $50. I’ll put it in an interest-bearing sock under my bed so that one day I can buy a real piece by Rodarte.

Tags: Shopping     |     3 Comments »

OK, so this is a little late, but I’m a procrastinator by nature, and I never make resolutions that go against my nature. For example, being short is against my nature, so I would never resolve to stop wearing heels. I actually wasn’t going to do a New Year’s resolutions post; I was going to let the date float by unnoticed, but I started to feel left out because all the blogs I read are doing New Year’s resolution posts, just like how in January of every year, all the magazines waste paper on giant horoscope articles, (which I can’t stand by the way. Don’t give me that voodoo about being lucky in love or money this year because the gravitational pull of Venus is giving me a bad hair day. I’ll make my own luck, thank you).

Without further ranting and ado, here are my resolutions:

1. Instead of yelling at the Boyfriend for things that aren’t his fault, go to yoga to cure grumpiness.
2. Stop biting nails. For real this time. This has proven to be much harder than giving up smoking was all those years ago.
3. Stop obsessing over to do lists so much that I add things I’ve already done to my lists just so I can have the satisfaction of crossing them out. It’s kind of weird. People are going to think I’m weird.
4. Try to get into the whole vintage / thrift store shopping thing, (mostly in an effort to save money because my wedding dress, although beautiful, will not be cheap). Other people can do it so well; surely I can learn to get over the stinkiness and rummage with the best of them.
5. Curl up in my comfy chair and read books more often.
6. Make a renewed effort not to look like a suit every day at work. That means more dresses, big necklaces and shoes that are hard to walk in.
7. Pet strange dogs, as long as they don’t look bitey.
8. Stop procrastinating.
9. Stop trying to change things about myself that are fundamental to my essence as a human. I’d be a withered, directionless soul without my precious procrastination.
10. Forget about #3. Who cares if anyone thinks I’m weird? I love crossing things off lists.

Happy New Year everyone! I know that life can be frequently lame, but I hope this year, the awesome outweighs the lame by, like, a ton. 2010 = a ton of awesome.

Tags: Testify!     |     5 Comments »

I’m not quite sure why I’ve never heard of Thread Social before. You’d think the cuteness of their collections would have haunted my dreams (in an adorable way), but I guess Sydney is just too far away from New York for such haunting. My ignorance must be a signal that I should be spending more time trawling the internet for neat things to buy instead of wasting my time on silly things like going to work every day.

Against my better judgement, Thread Social is inspiring in me a new appreciation for things like rompers, jumpsuits, high waisted shorts and harem pants. When the models look so huggably amazing, how can a girl resist? Maybe the right cut in a romper won’t reduce me to looking like a gnome in the wardrobe of a five-year-old. Maybe a well made pair of high waisted shorts won’t make me look like a box, as wide as I am tall. Excuse me while I rush off to the shops to find out. Right after we have a little drool over my favourite looks:

SPRING 2010

I really love the dress below, but I suspect it wouldn’t be too tough to make at home. My DIY projects always start out infused with so much hope and excitement. Then, after hours and days of toiling over the sewing machine, or hand stitching tiny beads onto fabric, I always seem to end up with some ill-fitting, strange-looking heap of fabric that I’m forced to banish to the back of my closet because I’m sick of looking at it. But, in spite of my dramatic complaining, I remain undeterred and every couple of months I embark on a new project, hopeful and excited all over again. Stay tuned for either frustration or elation when I finish trying to make my own version of this dress.

This is the beautiful romper that keeps singing its pesky siren song to me:

I pledge my heart to these shorts. Actually, this whole outfit:

RESORT 2009

This gorgeous dress needs to be part of my outfit repertoire for the little post-wedding Roman holiday I’m taking with the Boyfriend next June:

And in case I spill marinara sauce on the first dress, I can always change into this lovely variation:

HOLIDAY 2009

This jumpsuit looks pretty chic-ghetto fabaluss on the model, but I suspect it would just look ghetto on me:

But who needs jumpsuits when there are things like this lovely dress. Get in my closet IMMEDIATELY!

Tags: Cult covets, Featured designer, Resort, Spring / Summer, Style     |     4 Comments »