artist love

a picture of my ideal marriage...i wonder if it'll happen?

(full text through lexis nexis...)

dali

i fell in love with this dali sketch...

current events

why not be inspired by what's happening right here, right now? god, i watch it every single night on CNN...

idealism vs. experience

young vs. old

strong woman in a man's world

controversy

setting precedents

security, economics, reaching out to the "poor" people

change

fall 2008 fashion weeks

new york:

• threeasfour
• ralph lauren
• rag and bone
• charles nolan
• vera wang

london

• roksanda illincic
• christopher kane
• erdem
• gareth pugh

milan

• emporio armani
• burberry prorsum
• bottega veneta
• prada
• gucci
• iceberg
• dolce and gabbana

paris

• victor and rolf
• balenciaga
• akris
• andrew gn
• chrisian lacroix
• emanuel ungaro
• dries van noten
• rick owens
• stella mccartney
• valentino
• giambattista valli
• celine
• alexander mcqueen
• rue du amil
• lanvin

an obvious preference for overseas designers...

50!

my 50th post in less than a week...but now my notebooks are all up to date! at some point i need to take the time to scan some drawings...

random from my phone

i found this in a book of katies's...dont remember which one

a cool pattern and palette from the floor of Purl

becher photos! these are at the met...have i mentioned how much i love watertowers??

letty lynton

this famous dress that joan crawford wore...

influenced fashion significantly, hence the middle dress below

(i had give up hope that i could ever find this photo again but i did!)

found on ffffound

browsing through ffffound.com, i found these cool images

surrealism

investigate the ideas behind surrealism...translate to fashion? eveningwear project??

if only

so many times i've lamented the state of the fashion industry today in comparison with how it used to function for most of the 20th century. i had never quite figured out why it bothered me -- the speed, the knock offs, the competition...

maybe its because i see high fashion more as an art form than a business plan. to me its a chance to exercise creativity, producing something unique, innovative, interesting without working in a traditional artistic sense. artists are given time to develop ideas...while they do depend on selling their paintings, thats not their main thought -- they arent constantly under a time table or constantly pushed to do something radically different every time. fashion designers used to be like that too...fashion moved more slowly, so the art of designing could be practiced.

if only we could get back to that sensitivity...

holes

inspired by the pattern magic books...i found them at kinokuniya, thanks to my previous methods teacher

holes -- passageway -- both going in and coming out

organic shaped holes in outer layer -- all match up on edges

contrasting piping to emphasize 

chiffon overlay with holes and piping -- see contrasting print underneath 

gives impression of holes flowing over body

evening wear -- very constructed holes and shapes

mummification

a linen gown -- huge train

yards and yards of fabric, wrapped all up to shoulders/neck/face

linen? muslin? -- unbleached

rough vs elegant silhouette

our many deaths

Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath

I have done it again.

One year in every ten

I manage it --

A sort of walking miracle, my skin

Bright as a Nazi lampshade,

My right foot

A paperweight,

My face a featureless, fine

Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin

O my enemy.

Do I terrify? --

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?

The sour breath

Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be

At home on me

And I a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like a cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.

What a trash

To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.

The peanut-crunching crowd

Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot --

The big strip tease.

Gentlemen, ladies,

These are my hands,

My knees,

I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.

The first time it happened I was ten.

It was an accident.

The second time I meant

To last it out and not come back at all.

I rocked shut

As a seashell.

They had to call and call

And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying

Is an art, like everything else

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.

It's easy enough to do it and stay put.

Its the theatrical

Comeback in broad day

To the same place, the same face, the same brute

Amused shout:

"A miracle!"

That knocks me out.

There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge

For the hearing of my heart --

It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge,

For a word or a touch

Or a bit of blood.

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.

So, so, Herr Doktor.

So, Herr Enemy.

....

how do we think of death? what is dying? 

from ted dekker's blink: 

"Miriam had once told her mother  that a saudi woman dies three times during her span on earth. she dies on the day of her menses, when she is forced to don the black veil and slip into obscurity; she dies on the day of her wedding, when she is given as a possession to a stranger; and, most mercifully, she dies when she finally gives up her ghost. the statement had earned her a slap."

eyes

are interesting things...

different colors

what does it see?

what do you see in it, both figuratively and literally?

"window to the soul"

little house on the prairie

i know that designers have been inspired by bohemian looks a lot...but what if you took fashions on the prairie and transform them? how do you give it an edge?

shame

what is shame a product of?

 is it inherent? do we learn it?

 is it good? is it bad? 

some say that shame teaches us to stay within the limits of what is socially acceptable..in a good way. but doesnt shame hinder us in so many ways?

sometimes i feel like shame is taught by parents, taught at as young an age as possible. they were ashamed, so they shame their children...what would it be to live without harmful shame?

what does shame look like? -- bent over, head down, curved back, submission -- showing that in fashion??

similar to pain -- how does it change us? how does it constrict us? prohibit us from moving forward? how does it make us look different? 

what else constricts? 

• boxes
• straight jackets
• prison
• ropes
• impressions
• lack of self confidence

men vs women

• do we have equality? should we? what does it look like? 
  
• what is proper?
  
• should a woman stay home? is it okay to run for power?
  
• what is the masculine/feminine relationship? what should it be?
  
• aprons vs suits vs ties vs sex appeal

so many ideas

random brainstorming from my notebook:

• bullfighters
• jockey
• pope -- elaboration, shape
• janitor -- juxtaposition (remember richard's quote?)
• referee
• manhole covers -- detail
• trash heap -- texture, color, shape
• land fill -- like the one by penn state -- old cars, etc
• rusty cars
• nesting dolls
• rhinoceros 
• construction sites*
• safaris
• african tribes
• arctic chill -- what would you wear?
• farmers
• make clothes look like sketches -- rough, linear
• mta transportation -- subways, buses, taxis, trains
• bicycles
• faberge eggs
• windows -- rose windows, guggenheim roof
• textures*
• hot air balloons
• buddha
• fishing*
• poetry*
• slavery
• prison
• binding
• casinos -- cards, showy, gaudy
• early electronics -- line, color, awkwardness
• neon sign

*construction sites

• screws
• cranes
• orange/yellow
• reflectors
• silver
• dark grey
• vests
• huge machinery
• dust
• rough -- ability to get dirty
• ny times new building

*textures

• grasslands
• old quilts
• corrugated cardboard
• old gates/fences
• baskets

*fishing

• nets
• sea spray
• hooks
• ocean -- all different colors, moods
• lines
• ropes
• knots
• sails

*poetry

• rhyming
• syncopation
• symmetry
• sound
• flowing vs. staccato
• meter

artists:

• rauschenberg
• klimt
• egon schiele
• matisse
• rothko
• jasper johns

contradiction

being sophisticated vs. being fierce

if i'm not thinking, i tend towards understated glamour but quickly become dissatisfied... secretly, i really just want to be like the women in helmut newton's photographs...

ketchup

found this picture on my phone..took it at the diner up the street. i liked the arrangement of the ketchup bottles but i wish that i had been able to zoom in a bit.