When I first read about Isaac Mizrahi’s Style Book magazine, I was doubtful that I would find it the slightest bit interesting. I’m not exactly a “style” kind of person–I don’t follow fads or fashion, don’t have money, and don’t care. I figured it would be another magazine telling you how to spend a lot Click Here to continue reading.
In the introduction, this site says:
Do you too suffer from an oversized ego? Does it need to become a bit smaller? Then join our club. Get rid of your identity and sew your own clone-dresses, just like we do!!
The funny thing is, it then goes on to show many different women wearing this one dress, all of whom have obvious amounts of ego or identity, and all of whom look totally different from each other. I’m not 100% certain whether this irony was intended or not. (It’s a flash site, so I can’t link to different portions of it. Click on “introducing” to see the intent of the project, and “results” to see all the pictures.)
The site is interesting to look, both in the variations on the dress and the variations in the people and their personalities, and even just that some of the shots have been composed very well. I think it’s fascinating to see how everyone’s “statement” becomes so much clearer in contrast to everyone else. Everyone has the “same” dress, but everyone is using it to deliberately say something different. A very wide range of people are covered: the goofy, the artsy, the trashy, the sophisticated, the “normal”, the ethnic, the sporty, the contemplative—the whole display is like looking at a slice of humanity.
Of the almost 150 images they had, I think this one was my favorite:
I’m not sure what part catches me the most. I’m not sure if it’s the setting–working outdoors–of which I have very fond memories of myself. Maybe it’s the apparent wind–I love being out in the wind. Or maybe it’s just that she appears so happy to be who she is, where she is, doing what she’s doing. In any case, the picture makes me smile every time I see it, and we can all use a smile in the middle of winter.
If I could wave a magic wand and make any blogger write more it would be Andrew. Most bloggers are very replaceable. Good economists are a dime a dozen and there are too many pundits. General interest blogs are generally boring (including mine) and single subject blogs are often not much better. But good poets Click Here to continue reading.
In this rant, Spengler goes after modern art. Actually this rant is long enough to be an essay, but we shall term it a rant because it takes as much skill to attack modern art as it does to make it; which is to say, no skill at all.
Nonetheless, Modern Art needs a good kicking now and again and Spengler supplies one.
Two sisters from Latvia, Diaga Henson and Sarmite Svilis, collaborate together to make some really cool coats. You can visit their site to see what I’m talking about. My favorite coats are in the 2005 and 2007 collections. Although the colors aren’t always to my liking, I love that they are making perfectly functional coats that don’t look like every other coat out there. In some cases, the coats don’t always appear to be practical. For instance, the orange Frock in the 2005 collection appears to be closed by only a single button, letting in lots of drafts. In reality, the “garment” you see is actually part of the coat.
I find their “Classics” to be a lot less inspiring. Most of the coats there remind me of what you would see in a typical quilting or wearable arts magazine–a typical coat design with some decorative pieceing. Perhaps everyday people would feel more “comfortable” (that is, as though they’re not standing out too much) in those coats, but I figure if you’re going to go in for a penny, you might as well go in for a pound.
You can read more about them at Voice of America.
The Wall Street Journal, ran an artical entitled Prada vs. Prada: Overcoming Fashion Phobia. I found it interesting. For one thing, I had no idea there even was something called Fashion Phobia, and I certainly didn’t know that Miuccia Prada, the grand ol’ fashion designe herself, has had it.Click Here to continue reading.
The Ethereal Land is suffused with the deep despair and the unreal hope that the Chieftain of Seir describes in his essay titled The Aesthetic of Despair. That is why we have chosen to make The Aesthetic of Despair the inaugural essay of our Essay of the Week column.
But rest assured gentle readers; henceforth, we will no longer take essays from the archives of the Chieftain of Seir for the essay of the week column. Most weeks, we expect the Essay of the Week column to highlight the various well written essays that can be found on the World Wide Web.
We say most weeks advisedly. When the Chief writes a new essay we shall probably feel compelled to put it in the Essay of the Week column. He is the publisher of this august publication after all.
Everybody loves Madeline Vionnet.
Most people will tell you this is because she created the bias.
Some people will be technical enough to say that she was the first to work with fabric cut on the bias, but even that I must confess I am too jaded to believe in it’s entirety. Click Here to continue reading.
If you were to compose a list of things that I dislike, the government of New York State would rank rather high on the list. In any fair minded list of the most dysfunctional governments in this United States of America, the State government in New York would rank in the top 10.
But there Click Here to continue reading.
Watching others who attempt to forge their way into ‘new’ worlds can cause very brooding thought. If nothing else, it makes it very obvious how unnacceptable this world is to them. Click Here to read my thoughts in more detail.