WHAT I'M TUNING INTO:

Damn, I am SO behind in terms of new music...

I just found out that Interpol is releasing their new album this month, next week to be exact.

Woo!


Here is the video for "Lights" off the new album:

Keep me in the loop readers...

What are some of your favorite bands?

Is anyone releasing new music this year??

Do you have any music suggestions [thanks to those of you who let me know about the new Arcade Fire album, I'll be checking it out during my down time tomorrow]?

I am pretty open with my musical tastes thanks to my ex. I tend to be not too picky when it comes to music.

Let me know :)

Oh, and here is my favorite Interpol song... just for kicks:

"Pace is the Trick"

Our Love to Admire [2007]

Good times.

UGH

I had a post with pictures ready... then I accidentally deleted ALL OF THE PHOTOS from my shopping haul today.

I've lost patience with myself.
Now I'm going to go to sleep.

I'll have a new post for everyone tomorrow late afternoon--with photos (hopefully) and links from my spree today!

Have a good night everyone!

BABY AVERY

Baby Avery Emersen Leigh Jones is the last addition to my Aunt-dom.

Born while I was away in MD on wedding duty, and now just over a month old, my newest and last niece is the perfect little addition to the family.

I love her.

Avery Emersen Leigh Jones

July 28, 2010

I love holding her :)

Did you know... I bought Avery her first pair of boots :) I'm the best aunt ever!

The world has gone Mad

So my friend Meredith and I were having our customary fashion discussion via text marathon during the Emmys Red Carpet (thanks Ryan and Giuliana). We do it every red carpet event that E! covers, it's like our own private version of live-blogging, and I thought maybe I'd get a cheap blog post out of it, but Christina Hendricks' breasts have obliterated all other images of the shindig from my memory.

Which leads me neatly to an issue I have. Not with the boobs (they're ludicrous and she totally needs a reduction, but that's up to her, and PS; January Jones is about a million times more attractive) but with Mad Men, and the infuriating influence it's having not only on legions of overly-impressionable television viewers who seem to be under the impression La Hendricks is the first woman to ever possess breasts, but on erstwhile sensible designers.


If I have to read one more article about how to get the "ladylike" look this AW I'll, well I'll just fall asleep actually. Mad Men, gloves, red lipstick, ladies, nipped-in waists, Mad Men, circle skirts, ladies, proper handbags, kitten heels yawn yawn yawn yawn yawn.


It is beyond me why any woman would want to return to an era of servitude, even if only through the medium of costume. Who the hell are these people that WANT to dress like someone's secretary? Or a neglected hausfrau at a coffee morning?


Prada, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs (how could you do this to me Marc? Twice!), I'm looking at you.


And "the new calf-length"? Are they kidding? Please, it made Christy Turlington look frumpy. What do you think it's going to do to you? I don't care how "fresh" it looks after season after season of arse-skimming hemlines, there's a reason short skirts are perennial: they are FLATTERING. And every single dress on the Marc Jacobs AW10 runway would look better if you hacked ten inches off it.


Thank god for Philip Lim, Proenza Schouler, Isabel Marant, Gucci and Celine, all of whom proved beyond a doubt that a bit of androgyny is always sexier than dressing like the repressed secretary the boss wants to bang.

Corinne Day 1962 - 2010

It's ironic that on the day Corinne Day dies someone writes an article about how girls apparently want to look like Christina Hendricks, not Kate Moss. They don't by the way, they just tell themselves they want to so they can eat more and seem au courant. Or maybe they're confusing themselves with men, who do want that.


Day has always been one of my favourite fashion photographers. I've talked about this before (the 90s pretty much run on a loop in my head), but her work came to the fore just as I was becoming interested in the fashion industry, and I longed to look like one of Corinne's waifs. Sadly I was simultaneously growing out of my training bra, taking me right out of the running. But her impact went way beyond ushering in (with the help of Kate Moss and Rosemary Ferguson) the era of the waif. It was a fresh perspective on what could be considered beautiful: the plain, the squalid, the flawed, the natural.


Those who made all that fuss about heroin chic missed the point. The point, and what Day brought to fashion imagery, was the inherent beauty of reality.

Happy birthday UK Elle, love from... um, Kate Hudson?

Is it just me or is Kate Hudson an odd choice for UK Elle's 25th Anniversary issue cover? Is Kate Hudson someone you think about a lot? In the context of clothes? Has she ever worn anything particularly nice? Or particularly anything? I've been racking my brains for any memory of a Kate Hudson fashion moment and the best I can come up with is when she played a model agent in Raising Helen (very underrated - she has to adopt Hayden Panettiere, Abigail Breslin and their chubby brother after their parents die and then pretend to be a Lutheran to get it on with Aidan from SATC who plays a sexy priest).

Surely the painfully obvious choice would have been, um, I dunno... Yasmin Le Bon? Using their original 1985 cover girl would surely have been a little more poetic, plus it would have tied in nicely with the current trend for bringing back all the old Supers.

I realise Elle has never been the edgiest of fashion magazines, but I'm pretty devoted to it. I started reading it when I was eleven, and used to rip out pages on things like 'How to dress like a fashion assistant' (in short, you needed a black nylon Prada backpack and a silver Elsa Peretti for Tiffany's pen, both of which I did subsequently own. Snaps to me.) So frankly, while I wasn't expecting them to give Love a run for their money, someone with even a passing acquaintance with the fashion industry, besides not being a nudist, might have been nice.

And if they wanted to go down the inclusive-mainstream-we're-so-not-intimidating-why-not-put-that-Cosmo-down-because-even-a-simpleton-who-wants-to-read-about-blowjob-techniques-like-you-might-like-us vibe, which they clearly did, they couldn't have got Lady Gaga?

The fact that they asked readers to vote for their favourite ever Elle cover and the winner was Stephanie Seymour shot in a compromising pose by Richard Avedon back in 1993, suggests that most readers feel the way I do, and long for the time before Elle started putting Lily Allen on the cover every couple of months.

I'm just amazed they didn't sling old crackface on the cover.

The dream is over

So Kate Moss and Philip Green have parted ways, with crackface "designing" her last collection for Topshop in October. Where on earth will we find patronisingly watered-down versions of already dubious clothes now?


The official line is that it apparently all just takes too much time. What else exactly is she doing that keeps her so busy? The school run? Doubtful. I'm thinking the more plausible explanation would be that Sir Phil finally realised nobody with a clue has wanted to dress like Kate Moss for about five years, and everybody else already does. All Saints does a better Moss homage than Moss herself.


The most interesting thing she has done for years is admit that to be really thin you have to not really eat.

Heartbroken

Sad news came today.

WHAT I'M TUNING INTO:

Currently on repeat...
Album currently stalking and waiting for it's release...

Brandon Flowers

"Crossfire"

From the new album (sans the rest of The Killers):

Flamingo

Should I mention the hott-ness that is Charlize Theron is in this video??

Check it out for yourself...
Feel free to play over, and over, and over again.

CONGRATS

Two of my favorites got engaged last night!!!!

My sister-in-law Lucky and her bf Mikey!!!!

Congrats to the happy couple... I can't wait for the wedding (lols, to the two of you for already setting a date AND location on day 2 of your engagement!) I can't wait to hear the details in the months to come and to go wedding dress shopping!!!

Love you!!!

Pretty Windows

I had a fun time window shopping with my daughter today.

I did some drawings in my sketchbook (Sketchbook Project) inspired by today. My theme is "A Day in the Life," so I have assigned a word-of-the-day to each page. 

Today's word was "Wanting." We saw so much stuff we wanted. My daughter and I had a talk about wanting and happiness. I have a quote framed in our house...

"Happiness does not consist of having what you want, but in wanting what you have."

Easier said than done, but we're working on it.

While I was sketching, my daughter drew some cupcakes. They turned out really nice!

Christophe Josse - Colección de Vestidos de Alta Costura para Mujer Moda Otoño Invierno 2010 2011

Christophe Josse Haute Couture Fall Winter 2010/2011

Alexandre Vauthier - Colección de Vestidos de Alta Costura para Mujer Moda Otoño Invierno 2010 2011

Alexandre Vauthier - Haute Couture Fall Winter 2010/2011 Full Fashion Show

WANT vs. NEED

Debating on spending some hard earned cash on the following:

Solid Embossed Lorelie Dress

J CREW--$29.99 [on sale from $98]

Classic Leather Belt
GAP--$29.50

Rare Earth Deep Pore Cleansing Masque

KIEHL's--$23.00

Gorjana Tanner Bar Necklace

SHOPBOP--$62.00

Or, I could just be smart and use my money for something that I need...

Dell Laptop Battery

AMAZON--$62.55

Emmy Red Carpet Dress Watch

While my dear Emily from Fashion Foie Gras is keeping me updated with immediate screenshots of the best dresses, here are some of my favourites so far, I will keep updating this post until the end so keep coming back!

Images taken from Wikifashion

One of the "talks of the internet" Heidi Klum opts for this frilly Marchesa number everyone seems to love and I therefore feel obliged to talk about. I personally don't particularly like it and this is a clear case of needing to tell her "Sometimes showing less is more, you know?" Two inches longer skirt, and it would be a different story.

Love, love LOVE this Versace dress on January Jones. Although I would have given her either nude or cream/very light yellow shoes to match her hair (or just as electric blue satin to match the dress), not black. Or at least give her a black clutch, the poor girl doesn't seem to know what to do with her hands!

Not usually a fan of asymmetrical lines but this Zuhair Murad dress simply works with the gorgeous texture of the fabric and Nina Dobrev's broad shoulders (in comparison to the rest of her too-tiny body).

I'm much on the fence about this one. I love Tina Fey and despite her expression on here she's looking gorgeous. However much I love sheer layers with black and brighter colors playing, I don't like the actual pattern used here, which seem to me quite early 90s inspired (in a bad way). I would actually prefer a cleaner version of this Oscar de la Renta dress.

I like the dress itself, especially how the pattern denses the further down and wider is goes, but don't think it really suits Kathy Griffin's coloring. Her body looks gorgeous, though, obviously.

Oh how I love it when a woman's coloring is taken into account during their outfit choices. The red of this tasty Erdem piece fabulously matches Carrie Preston's luscious dark red-brown hair and to top it off, comes with the complementary color of red - green! And the shoes go with the earrings, the three color rule is taken and painted to perfection!

Beautifully layered Issey Miyake type dress in a gorgeous plum color which brings out the bright blue eyes of Emily Deschanel. I do think the asymmetric addition was unnecessary and unbalances the look, though.

Actually surprisingly one of my favourites tonight. Simple yet supple and silky I am loving the "walked through flowery mud" hint in contrast with a perfectly smiling Tony Colette

Beautiful layering of nude pink on black with a frilly top - not sure about the belt. Dianna Agron in Carolina Herrera

The crown of the town, the talk of the internet - it's Anna Paquin in the Alexander McQueen gold embellished little black dress. Faultless.

Stephanie Pratt in a nicely matched B&W ensemble



Simple but gorgeous, except I would have worn it with these Dior shoes (take note, whoever styled Lo Bosworth)

Navy blue always strikes a chord with me and is gorgeously pulled of here by Jayma Mays in Burberry




By the by - worst outfit of the evening hands down. Sorry, Lauren Graham.

Apologies for not listing some of the designers actually worn. I shall be updating the post as I go along, and the information will land here eventually! Feel free to comment and let me know if you know!

Duval Timothy Are Na Fo - A raw diamond of constructive art

With his trademark bow-tie and beautiful linen suits, Duval is sweet and enigmatic without being eccentric. About a year and a half ago I bumped into his brother Miles, a fellow Goldsmithsian and only one member of the tightly knit family of two architect parents and a beautiful sister I was about to encounter. He took me for tea and a catch up just around the corner from my old office, right by Tower Bridge. It was such a pleasure to be welcomed into a REAL space where a room is what in London would pass as a three bedroom flat, the size a room should be. After a lovely catch up on my way out as I was chatting along, my eyes struck upon a medium, square constructive painting and I froze and burned at the same time. I had little time to look at it properly and even less time to make my astonishment heard and I was out of there with the promise that I'd be given Duval's contact upon my request to their father wondering if he was at all willing to part with said painting. Cutting a long saving up money story short, the painting now graces my hallway as I am the proud owner of a Duval painting.

A couple of days ago, I was invited to one of Duval's solo exhibitions at the Art House Lewisham, which just so happened to be a 15 minute walk from my house. Considering it takes me 20 minutes to get to the station, that's quite a location score. ARE NA FO, of an era, is an exhibition worth trekking to south east London for. I don't say this often, and especially not about artists, but this is one who ticks all the boxes. Beautiful, vibrant, perfectly balanced yet characteristic pieces that I will, and suggest you should, keep coming back for. I don't think I have to state the obvious, which is that investing in his pieces are more than an intelligent choice and you'd be mad to miss out while you still can!

I strongly suggest you go view the exhibition at 140 Lewisham Way, London SE14 6PD and hold yourself a piece. However, I must warn you, there are two pieces which will by the time the exhibition ends and paintings get allocated to their respective owners, be gracing the house of the Portmanteau and you'll only be able to see them if you walk 15 minutes further.

To view more of Duval's heart stopping pieces have a look at his website http://www.duvaltimothy.co.uk

The Portmanteau and the Artist
This image and all following are by Stuart Bannocks

The portmanteau is wearing:
Black Zara hat
Brown vintage fox fur neckwarmer
Black Longchamp Le Pliage bag
Black wet-look silk DKNY shirt
Black and light colored knitted Chanel-like Primark cardigan
Black H&M zip skinny trousers
Black suede Zara lace up ankle boots

New man in my life

Meet Rich. 

 He is my YouTube guitar teacher. I viewed a bunch of videos and liked him the best.

See him here.

The Dame of British Punk and her infamous shoe collection - Vivienne Westwood Shoes Selfridges

Equipped with my little camera, which you can see reflected at times, I set our to bring my transatlantic and indeed trans country friends who are not able to flock to London's yellow fridges of Self in order to see the momentous collection of the dame of British Punk Fashion.

Excuse the shaky camera and enjoy!

Skateboarding

The other day I took my son to Lake Cunningham skate park in San Jose. It was amazing.

It was really fun and it was empty!