film heaven

in the garage behind my apartment there's a stash of old vhs tapes left by the tenant two before me. by stash i mean that there's about 13 boxes FILLED with tapes each containing three or four films.

the tapes belonged to my aunt's uncle, an ex-cbc personality and lover of entertainment in it's many forms. the subject matter ranges from musicals of all eras, 1930s comedies, productions of met operas, canadian television dramas, early 90s suspense films, foreign masterpieces and, out of nowhere, wayne's world.

tonight i watched the 1936 rogers/astaire musical comedy "follow the fleet".


now i like me some ginger rogers and fred astaire but i mostly find ginger to be light entertainment in great clothing. i like her best as a wisecracking chorus girl in films like 42nd street. however i REALLY love fred astaire. for a guy who's screen test report read "can't act. slightly bald. can dance a little" he sure is entertaining. something about that perfect mix of goofy, skinny gee-whiz eggheadedness and utterly charming smart-alec elegance really does it for me.


follow the fleet is a pretty dumb little movie about love and misunderstanding and dancing and the navy but watching fred smack his chewing gum and hoof his way through every scene is a real pleasure, though he doesn't make a very convincing sailor (seriously, ballroom dancing lessons to his fellow sea men on deck?). ginger sure looks nice in that satin sailor suit though.


here's the pair mocking the usual perfection of their own dancing, i don't know about you, but it makes me laugh.

treats

when my baby's out of town, like he is this weekend, i tend to treat myself. this includes sleeping in till noon (in clean sheets), eating charcuterie, which is bad for me, taking long books into long baths with candles and fizzy things to drink and feasting on chocolate and tea.

though i'm primarily a dark chocolate and black licorice girl, tonight i remembered this belgian milk chocolate 'e' that my dad gave to me a few weeks ago. never one to waste good candy i made myself a little spread.




and then i ate it.


and now i think i'll eat some more.

inspiration

january is design o'clock at the studio which means many late nights as we prepare to shoot our fall/winter 2009 catalogue.

season after season i find myself returning to some of the same source materials for inspiration during this hectic time. one of these is a 1941 french pattern magazine which was gifted to me by a friend way back when i was a teenager in art school.


i've always been in love with old magazines and catalogues, fashion or otherwise, and 'gloria' was a first favorite. though the styles themselves haven't been a direct influence on me in awhile i just love the beautiful detailing of the garments--i could look at those pleats and tucks, gathers and seamlines for hours.



petal sleeves, diamond bodice detailing and plenty of buttons and bows are all elements i find sneaking into our forthcoming nokomis collection. i love playing with classic details to make a totally wearable modern dress--though i'll never be able to fully let those vintage silhouettes go.

looking through these pages which continue to capture my attention after all these years it makes me wish there was a good contemporary fashion magazine done entirely in illustration. anyone know of one?

a delicious feast

laurel lent me 'a moveable feast' by ernest hemingway earlier this week and i've been obsessively reading it in my glimpses of free time ever since.

The book is a memoir of hemingway's time amongst the american ex-pat literary circle in paris during the 1920s. it's a totally engaging read detailing personal experiences and encounters with his friends and contemporaries, literary giants ezra pound, gertrude stein, f. scott fitzgerald and james joyce, among others.

he does an amazing job of bringing to life that lost paris. reading his accounts i find myself absolutely longing for this time and place i've never been - the cafes, the bookshops, the salons and the racetrack. and, though i hate to admit it, i find myself longing for him a little:

hemingway's passport photo, 1921

la closerie des lilas cafe

james joyce and sylvia beach outside of her bookstore, shakespeare and company

i just love this beautiful, tragic description hemingway gives of f. scott fitzgerald:

"his talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. at one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. later he became conscious of his damaged wings and their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless."


this was also the paris of josephine baker, coco chanel, jeanne lanvin and madeleine vionnet. what an era for the fashionable french woman!

la baker and chiquita



coco

lanvin dress, 1924

jeanne lanvin's covetable bathroom

vionnet flapper dress, 1920s

re-old-invention

i've never been one for new years resolutions, inevitably i break them all anyway cause i just can't take such faux-dramatic and time-sensitive changes seriously. rather than setting myself up for failure i've decided that this year i'm going to work on new year's 'reclamations' instead. i plan on re-discovering those things with which i've had long-time love-affairs and that make me supremely happy.

dressing up more will be one, starting to draw again makes two. i also plan to read or re-read all those bibles of culture, fashion and excess from times past which have been sitting on my shelves for years (see: fitzgerald, waugh, rand, thackery, fielding etc) let's see how far i can regress into my late teens/early 20s. i'm going to eat everything, everything! i can. experiment with shades of blush and work on my hostess skills. i'm going to watch as many pre-1950 films as possible (especially pre-code, my favorite!). i'm going to pull out my dave cousins, collectors and stone poneys records and stock up on bubble bath. i plan to grow my hair.

before i embark on any of these activities however, i'm on a mission to watch every cyd charisse film i can get my hands on. for the uninitiated, here's a lesson in why ms. charisse makes a good start to any year.



as for the rest of my personal rediscovery, i'll keep you updated as the weeks and months progress.
xo.

$100/$10 gc

our clearance sale continues on! from january 8-21 for every $100 dollars you spend, before taxes, receive a $10 gift certificate to use for your next purchase. and spring stock is just around the corner, i was just talking with dace, preloved, lily & jay, sunja link, and cinder + smoke, and spring will begin to arrive at the end of january!

we also just put out additional sale jewelry, including catseye pyrrha jewelry, with prices starting at $5.

the clearance sale will continue on until sunday january 25.

ophelia!

tara got a new puppy! this is ophelia, a two month old boarder collie and newfoundland cross, and oh so cute! here we are cuddling this morning:




i don't think lil' ophelia is going to stay this tiny for long! newfoundland dogs aren't exactly lap puppies. well, unless, of course they want to be.