Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Tom Ford

I, for one, was quite excited about Tom Ford's comeback of sorts, though now it seems as though he's hiding in the background, though not by choice, I imagine. He's never been one to shy away from the camera. Not only is he devastatingly sexy, but he is exceedingly talented. Today I happily stumbled upon this video that coincided with his revered return. He speaks about personal style, his past, and film-making, among other things. I particularly appreciated him speaking about dressing extravagantly, as I hope to be one of the few that bring energy to the streets by my form of dress. But instead of rambling about myself or breaking down the video, I'll let the man speak for himself and simply hope to see more of him. Enjoy.

Style Forum Special from Music Guy on Vimeo.

I wore fake Hermès to French class today.

Today was the first day of Winter quarter at the great learning institution I attend. I have French class at 8:30 every morning, but luckily New Years fucked up my sleep schedule so much that I've been going to bed at a reasonable hour over the past couple of days. The fact I woke up at 7 today is otherwise astounding. After coffee and some breakfast, I went to my closet with France on my mind. In fact, last night I listened over and over to "La Vie En Rose" and a Lady Gaga performance in which she sings in French. Soon, I'll be one of those annoying Francophiles that only drinks black coffee and smokes imported cigarettes. I suppose that's not too far off though. Anyway, my natural tendency to choose black and a never-dying memory of a Carine Roitfeld street style photo left me with the coat, the ripped nylons, the booties. The headscarf was something I had been thinking of since the night before and for some reason I was set on it. I tried for something more playful à la Louis Vuitton bunnies or Alber Elbaz's illustrations. I love the whimsy of some French designers, like Sonia Rykiel, alongside those who are preoccupied with being chic. That creative dialogue, of sorts, provides me a very interesting impression of what Paris is really like. And, I suppose, outfit inspiration, which is obviously of the highest importance.




BB Dakota Coat, thrifted scarf, drug store nylons, Banana Republic Booties, (barely visible) J.Crew button-up

I can only blame my own laziness for the grainy—and mildly comical— cellphone photos. My digital is without batteries and I lack a live-in camera-savvy boyfriend like Rumi or Susie Bubble. Taking pictures of yourself is frustrating. And quite strange, I suppose. In any case, I'd rather embarrass myself with terrible photos rendered in a MySpace-like fashion than not post at all. Resolutions.

New Year's Daze

I have no interest in putting forth a pseudo-intellectual reflection of the year, nor a sentimental mishmash, but I do feel the need to write something. Last night, I celebrated the New Year with good friends at a small get-together. Platonic mouth kisses exchanged and a lot of solo dancing on my part pretty much characterized the evening. I also left my pants at home in favor of black nylons over black underwear. After the intimate atmosphere of the first portion of the evening, a trip to our favorite sleazy 18+ gay club (you may know which I'm speaking of) brought more hours of dancing upon towering wedge heels for myself and some appropriately dirty dancing for others. Two of my oldest friends invaded my bed for seemingly endless laughter and a fairly unsuccessful night's sleep.

The morning brought homemade breakfast with most of the friends from the original celebration. The coffee run my bedmates and I went on ended in general disorientation. A drip coffee cost one of my friends a cool $4.25 and I managed to dump an entire container of raw sugar into my Americano. To be fair, the lid practically dove into my coffee, making a bit of a mess. The resulting product was scary sweet, perhaps a taste of things to come?

I'm going to ignore my previous decision to avoid the sentimental and say it was honestly the best New Year's celebration I have experienced thus far, due in no small part to the hilarious and kind people I have surrounded myself with for years. Even though my fridge is empty and I am exhausted, I'm feeling rather optimistic of the year to come. One of my many resolutions is to stop by my neglected blog far more often. So very much has happened that I have yet to document, but I plan to be more balls-to-the-wall in 2012.

Cheers to that.

More importantly...

Speaking of...

Lady Gaga just performed with her own version of Nicola's panda eyes. I'm not so hot on the Sugarland thing, but...

I'll take two black eyes, please.

As I seem to adore all things heavy (read: excessive) and dark, I found myself excited to see the makeup at Spring shows for Rodarte and Gucci. A dense cloud over each eye looked playful and powerful respectively. Gucci's was an uncompromising black (complete with bleached brows), while Rodarte's had a trace of blue, which was appropriate given that the Mulleavy sisters took inspiration from Starry Night and other van Gogh paintings.


Liu Wen at Rodarte; Natasha Poly at Gucci; via style.com
Stylist Nicola Formichetti, who bears the nickname "Nicopanda," attended his own Halloween party with a similar look across his face, though it was notably more face-consuming and messy, neither of which are a problem in my mind.
via Nicola's tumblr

Today, I read Susie Bubble's post about the look, which featured a video the makeup manifesting on her face. While she usually looks lovely without a scrap of makeup on her face, I say she looks incredible donning quite the opposite as well.


via because London I myself tried the look for a night spent for a rather typical college party, though it looks a bit more devious alongside the black bandana and dominatrix t-shirt. Since I didn't have the resources, time, or daring to bleach my eyebrows, I simply covered them with as much foundation as my patience gave me. I sent this picture to my dear friend Gillian, who replied with a frightened text message wondering where my brows had gone. Perhaps that is a measure of some success.
As I don't see myself as some kind of makeup extraordinaire—the sun does reveal every mistake one makes‐I'm not sure how willing I will be to wear such a face in the daylight hours, but perhaps I will surprise myself. An afternoon blog post is a surprise in itself, so let them come in droves.

Today's Stare-it-dead Image

I'm in the process about writing a paper about this lovely painting, but I'm getting quite sick of looking, thinking, and writing about it.


Winslow Homer, Eagle's Head, Manchester, Massachusetts, 1870
It's rather strange that we're expected to appreciate things that become visually exhausted all in a day's work. Perhaps I just have a bad attitude. Then again, it's also almost three in the morning. This is too typical.

Child, the living's easy.

It only seems right to post a Summertime look as a downpour ensues outside. I suppose this was me mixing a bit of Seventies soul with a touch of the hippie side of the era. I don't mean to be sentimental about the Summer or a forgiving schedule that doesn't keep me away from all the things that I love, but this post has been a long time coming. And the scatterbrained thoughts stop here... sort of.

(silence + noise top, [BLANK] jeans, Jeffrey Campbell shoes, thrifted (probably fake) Hermes Scarf, vintage bag)
I've been listening to a lot of Janis Joplin over the past couple of months, but I can't remember if this was at all influenced by her style or not. With the excessive jewelry especially, it wouldn't be completely surprising. In any case, she's incredible on multiple levels (as if it needs to be said).

Now I'm going to brave the rain to stop by the library. Happy 11-11-11!

Baby take me for a ride...

Bambi and a Burrito

After a long day, I trekked over to my beloved local taco truck, Rancho Bravo, and got myself a black bean Bravo burrito, a veggie mix quesadilla, and huge agua de piña. Once home, I sat down and gorged myself at a potentially dangerous rate of speed. Predictably, I felt sluggish soon after my feast and some doddling and a nap followed. Alarms were ignored and I found myself awake at 1a.m. While four hours of sleep is not exactly enough, I can't seem to fall back to dreamland. So in an effort to start my day exceedingly early, I'm drinking green tea out of my "Bambi" mug and working on an article that I didn't touch because of the aforementioned food coma. I've also been exploring a few blogs, known and unknown, which have only led me to feel embarrassed, if not a bit depressed about the state of things around these parts. Cue the slightly stream-of-consciousness blog post about overeating and feelings. I just heard a "Mean Girls" quote. In any case, I hope you enjoy my hilarious still life of Bambi in my new-ish, perpetually messy, undecorated apartment. Declaration that I will feel semi-obligated to stick to: This will not be the last post this week.

I'm not dead. Promise.

It's hard to dance with a devil on your back, so shake him off.

Fall has finally arrive and homework is slowly piling up. I'm far behind on any Spring/Summer 2012 coverage, but I hope to post on some of my favorite shows. In the meantime, enjoy this rather magical new video from Florence + The Machine. I can only hope Halloween will be so dreamy.

I've probably posted it already, but this one's better.



Back to writing...

In the simplest of ways, Justin Wu knows how to make me smile.

Sunday Night

I'm lightyears behind in any Spring 2012 coverage, but that's not exactly news. Instead of being productive today, I ate a ton and watched several episodes of "My So-Called Life." Around 9:00 tonight, I wondered if I should even bother trying to be productive before bed. I still haven't decided, but I cleaned up my apartment a bit, lit my Gothic candelabra (that's probably not the correct term, but you know, it's sounds nice), and put a live Pat Benatar record on my half-working record player.



"Looking for a Stranger" is always a fantastic choice for a slow night. Escaping my apartment to do something dangerous often sounds desirable. For now, I think I'll just stick with pretending my life is much darker than it is in actuality, candelabra and all.