It's all about the old times

While searching through Amazon.com to check out some new reference books on fashion, i found 'Vogue: The covers'. I've already known about other books on covers of French and British Vogue but i've been always hoping to see the one on American Vogue and ta taam; this one includes solely the covers of American Vogue throughout the 120 years period until today. It's a great source for those who want to see the development of the art of magazine covers in search of the best one ever. But one should keep in mind that “The best cover is always the next one, the one you haven’t seen yet.” as told by the dab hand, Anna Wintour. However, i beg to differ from Ms. Wintour. If you ask me, in our day, all the covers of fashion magazines look the same, and as i look through the precedent covers of Vogue, i can't help sighing and being inspired. There's this creativity in every single cover. Whereas, today, there are only three different styles of covers: there is a woman, a man and a woman or a  group of women posing for the camera, nothing more, nothing less. Sorry, but also i can see no art in those covers when i compare them with the ones in the past. That's why, i just can't get enough of looking at these old covers of fashion magazines. 

The 'V' on this cover looks quite the same with the 'V' we see on V magazine today. It's possible that they might have been inspired by this V. Why not?

I'm thinking seriously to get this printed out and framed and hang it on my wall. It's the most creative cover i've ever seen! And it's photographed Horst P. the Great!

Personal items of designers are on the block!

One of the leading fashion, music and arts magazine, Dazed&Confused celebrates its 20th anniversary by launching a time capsule auction collaborating with designers, stylists and make-up artists. They are asked to select a personal item of their own, which best represents their last twenty years. And all these items are put up for auction on Ebay. All the profits will be given to a confederation struggling against poverty and injustice, i.e. Oxfam. 

Knowing that buying one of these items is a good thing to do and also having the chance to own some personal items of our favorite designers'll probably be the best bargain we could ever do. My favourite items that i can't resist to put my hands on are; Alber Elbaz's bow tie, Kate Moss's Adidas trainers, Sarah Burton's embroidered scissors, Stephen Jones's signed book( which i've been planning to go and buy this weekend), and lastly, Karl Lagarfeld's tie-collar-hanger trio. But i guess, having the scissors handicrafted by Sarah Burton'd mean a lot for a fashion lover.

A great eye for fashion: Bill Cunningham

I've just finished watching the documentary film on Bill Cunningham. For those who haven't had the honour of knowing him, i mean knowing what he does, let me tell about it briefly. He's an 83 year old fashion photographer who works for NY Times for about 35 years. He's one of the oldest street fashion photographers, that is when there was no Sartorialist, Tommy Ton or Yvan Rodic there was Bill Cunningham. Every single day he rides through New York and hounds for the fashion trends on the street. To sum up the film in a few sentences i can say that Mr. Cunningham is a real fanatic of clothes, not of the brands, the people or the fame. He hounds only for clothes looking interesting and innovative. I highly recommend you to look at his page on NY Times regularly, it's updated every week. Every single week he gathers the images he shot during the seven days and compiles them under a topic. So as not to bore you, i'm gonna stop here and write down the quotations i noted down while watching the film and show you some screencaps from it, and his old pages on NY Times. 

"The best fashion show is definitely on the street. It's always been and always will be."

"I'm interested in clothes, i'd never be a paparazzi, i couldn't be. To torment people and chase them...oh i couldn't do, i wouldn't do. It has to be done just discreetly and quietly. 'Invisible' i think is the word."

"I just like fashion as an art form of dressing the body. If we all went out looking like a slob like me, it'd be a pretty dreary world."

"Fashion week in Paris is exceptional. It educates the eye. Every six months it's like going to school. You have to go back and reeducate the eye."

At an organization in which he's going to be awarded by the French Ministry of Culture, he keeps photographing the people around him, and a woman comes up to him and says "I just think it's so funny that you're working at your own party." and he answers her "My dear, it's not work, it's pleasure."

"Money is the cheapest thing, liberty and freedom is the most expensive."

And here is my favorite which i also noted down on my scratch book: 

"Fashiın is armor to survive the reality of everyday life. I don't think you could do away with it. It'd be like doing away with civilization."

Muse of the day: Ulyana Sergeenko

She carries that cold but undeniably seductive breeze of Russia everywhere she goes, whether she is in Paris, London or New York, you can easily tell that she is no European, because she has that aura which brings immediately Anna Karenina of Leo Tolstoy to my mind. Her style is all unique to her, and to every place she goes, she creates a small world of Russian Empire of the late 19th century and the early 20th. Multi-layered maxi skirts and dresses, extra-long coats, frilled stand-up collar shirts and Balmoral boots to bear up with the freezing cold of Russia are undoubtedly the key-pieces of her wardrobe.

La Vie en Noir et Blanc...

Nowadays, I'm in the mood for 20s and 30s, aka the Jazz Age, (by the way i have just come home from a play- The Glass Menagerie- written by Tennessee Williams, taking place in the 30s, as you can guess i loved the costumes designed for the play) the time when women switched from the highly constricting dresses giving them the desired S-shape figure to much more comfortable clothes, straight line skirts and dresses freeing their body without constricting. So here are my inspiration photos for 20s and 30s fashion. I often look at them and dream about how i'd feel if i could live in this era, thinking even the 1% possibility of encountering Mademoiselle Chanel'd be thrilling.

Portable Works of Art

When i was staying in New York last summer, one of the best things that happened to me was to get to know "Anthropologie". I guess i had been into two or three different stores of it and they were all gorgeous inside, the interior design of the stores was matching with the brand line. I had bought a straw boater hat with artificial flowers on the side from the sale, but i wanted to buy the whole store. The eclectic and romantic style of the brand is obvious both in the interior design of its stores and the products inside them. 

And now, another thing i fell for, by Anthropologie, is the hand-painted totes. It says they are reproduced from an oil-painting. Especially the leather ones are type of ones which you can't give up carrying all the time.

ps. ' wish some other brand or person comes with the idea of reproducing the renowned masterpieces by Picasso, Dali, Monet and others. By the way prices range from $390 to $498, and the canvas ones are much more at a reasonable price.

Style Inspiration: Annie Hall

The androgynous, menswear inspired look we've seen a lot in the collections of high fashion brands comes mainly from the flick by Woody Allen, that is Annie Hall. I happened to see that movie just a few days ago, which has been on my mind for a long time. The turtlenecks (which is the favourite trend of the season), ties, waistcoats,the suits that we'are used to see in one of three collections today take their inspiration from the 70s and pretty Diane Keaton, acting out Annie Hall. Here are the frames of Annie Hall looks from the movie i captured while watching it. 

The modern day Audrey

For me, she is the most adorable and inspiring girl among the others appearing on these fashion sites and blogs. Anne-Catherine is a fashion design student at ESMOD (in Paris), but she seems to appear on many of the fashion sites so much that i've been thinking of her as 'more than a student'. In fact, she is more than a student. Her style and taste of fashion make you look at her again, and i don't mean the clothes she wear, they are all gorgeous, we already know that, that she has a great taste, but what i mean is 'the way she is', the way she smiles, the way she looks and the way she does her hair, her posture are all unique to her. Some likens her to Audrey Hepburn, and some to Audrey Tautou and Natalie Portman. I think she resembles Audrey Hepburn a lot but just 'resembling', you can see clearly that she's not trying to look like Audrey Hepburn or anyone else, she's Anne-Catherine, with her mignon and rudy -cheeked face contoured with thick eyebrows. I'd really want to design a hat collection getting inspired solely from her just to see them above her pretty face. 

photos: alltheprettybirds