Rare Birds of Style

I write the name Iris Apfel, today, the same way I could write the name Carrie Bradshaw. I'll watch Sex & The City movie later today, then I'll read all the post from my favorite bloggers and I'll comment there. I wont write a review.

I'm just thinking about the fact beyond the utopia of movies world there are real women - lucky icons for some people, just eccentrics for someone else - who in a way or another, in terms of style remind me of Carrie. Not the women who pretend to be Carrie or the ones who desperately try to be her, I mean real women, individuals. In my opinion Iris Barrel Apfel is the commander in chief of this little army. Even if she can't be categorized, even if she's surely more than a tag.


At the age of 86 she's considered a "master of fashion", one of the most influent personality in American fashion, but she refuse the idea of being a fashionista. She tells she simply loves beautiful clothes, no matter if they come from great designers, high fashion or low. Like Carrie, she mixes everything in a very imaginative way.

She's not even involved in fashion world tout court, you know, she's not a designer, not a fashion editor etc. She started as interior decorator end years later founded with her husband a textiles company, the Old World Weavers wich became one of the most internationally known.

With this background, in 2006 the MET celebrated her style with the show "Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Barrel Apfel Collection". The relation between fashion and accessory designs, the power of a personal style vs fashion diktats were central. The exhibition with more than 80 mannequins looking like Iris's clones - and styled by her, with outfits she really wears and her classic big round glasses too - shown just a little portion of what's in her closet in terms of both clothes and accessories.






The world discovered her a little bit late, but better late than never and I like to think right now she's probably walking up and down Manhattan in search of the perfect 3$ dress to pair with her 300$ shoes...

If you missed the exhibition or you didn't know her, you can read this interview and of course the wonderful book Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel .

Carried Away

So it seems we have a date with a movie...

I've already wrote about my feelings regarding Carrie's adventures in 35mm and this post will not be a new version of that old one, expecially because at today I still feel the same.
This will be a sad story instead...

In six seasons of Sex & The City, I fell in love with almost every Carrie's outfits. Not too original, I know.










One of my all time favorite is the pink de la Renta dress she wears during last season, when Petrovsky takes her to MacDonald's.



Is not the most outrageous, creative, unexpected Carrie's look, but I always thought it was just perfect, expecially with that jacket and I still dream about it.

A couple of weeks ago, on Ebay, I found a gorgeous vintage alternative.



I immediately wanted that dress and like Carrie in that episode, I swooned in front of it.
In a moment I also had a nice jacket to pair it with


Perfect. All perfect. Too perfect, indeed...
I've been outbidded in the last minute and I've lost forever my perfect dress.

So my dream dies here: somewhere in the world, right now, another girl is loving her new pink dress. I'll never go all dressed up to (the renewed!) MacDonald's and I think I will never be lucky enough to find again something like that (please help me!!!).

I told you this was a sad story!

The Dead Girl Wears Prada

I love coffe table books but now I have so many I should set up a weekly rotation. Luckily for me, they're usual a little expensive, so I can afford a new one only from time to time!
One of my favorite is the well known High Fashion Crime Scenes from LA based photographer Melanie Pullen. I saw her photos years ago and I fell in love with her project, her debut collection where she connected violence and style, crime scenes and high fashion in a fascinating yet slightly disturbing way.

Oscar's Grass


Miyake


Dorothy


Using LAPD and County Coroner's office old crime scene photos as sources, Pullen meticulously recreate the set of murders and bloody events, using models as victims and styling them with haute couture pieces, from Prada and Miu Miu, to de la Renta and Chanel. There is so much behind this...the idea crime and fashion fascination are today not dissimilar, the representation of dead bodies like mannequins, the glamourization of violence in our ages. In her bio you can read "she literally redress what are deeply disturbing events" and I think this is a perfect definition.

Phones

Nina


With WeeGee as one of her inspirations, Pullen mix artistic experience and a professional eye, building her sets with the help of stylists, make up artists, light crew, etc. This way, the set itself looks like a "behind the scenes" of a high fashion show, with up to 60 persons involved.
The Metro Series, the Barrel Series, the Hanging Series, the Taxi Cabs pictures, are totally mesmerizing. At the beginning the set distracts from the real scene and only after a while the viewer understands he's actually looking at a representation of a (well dressed) dead girl.

Ferris Wheel

The Weitzman File


Station

High Heeled Lemon Cakes

The weekend was nothing special, but at least it was profitable.
I finally udated my store. I already sold several items and received custom orders indeed, so I should add new things soon ;-)
I cleaned up my messy house, I made a lemon&poppy seeds cake for the Sunday brunch and I ate a thousand juicy cherries. Yum...


I also found a moment for wearing a new dress. You don't need to ask...it's vintage and from Ebay, as per usual!!!



The shoes too are from Ebay and they're really high heeled for my standards! They remind me about Jessica Rabbit'shoes. A bit fetish too, but not too bad ;-)

Summer Days, Winter Dreams

Really, how cool is the Fall 2008 H&M collection? ...And it's only a preview!






All pictures: via nitrolicious

This night I will surely dream about those gorgeous peeptoe booties and those Chloe inspired shoes (second picture)...I can't miss them!

Clothes and accessories are really really great, but I think the photos too are really well styled, more than usual. Once again H&M is one step further than its competitors...

I'm a Barbie Girl

I'm sure my love for clothes and miniatures began the day I played for the first time with a Barbie doll. I remember how I hearted all those little dresses, shoes and accessories, all the little treasures received for every birthday and the ones I've got from a cousin alot older than me. And how can I forget all those afternoons spent looking at the windows of the - one and only - toy store in my little town...?
I was not the only little girl who loved Barbie, of course. I have some pictures from my 1987 school Carnival party and I can clearly see two little girls wearing a Peaches'n Cream dress (this was a little bit too much for me, that year I went as Pippi Longstocking)!
The 80s were probably the last decade of Barbie total leadership; it was before Blythe revival and before hundreds other popular dolls and I'm so glad I lived my childhood at that time!

Really, how cool were those old Barbie cases? And how amazing was Barbie wardrobe?? It's my vintage dream!











All pictures courtesy Zero Discipline

As per usual it seems I live in a retro world. Yesterday when I saw the picture of the new Barbie from Tarina Tarantino I found it...how can I say? ...Too post-postmodern for me!


I was not a big fan of her Barbie jewelry line too - as for the Peaches'n Cream dress, this is a little too much for me, expecially when you see 50 years old women wearing one of those Barbie necklaces...


I think when you're no more a child, you don't have to erase memories, you can still play, but at least you have to "deconstruct your myths". So I really like the clever, "cheeky" and just a little creepy creations from Margaux Lange.




She said:
"Barbie™ was immensely important in fueling my creative life as a child, and ironically continues to be such for me as an adult. My "Plastic Body Series" jewelry stems from a desire to re-purpose materials in combination with metals. I am inspired, terrified and fascinated, first and foremost by humans. I'm drawn to patterns and repetition in all forms."

In this post-postmodern world, Barbie doll is still a leader even if sometimes she's in pieces...