peek

There are so many streetstyle sites now. I love the Sartorialist and Garance Dore as much as anyone, and it was lovely to see them running around Fashion Week in Sydney this week - especially because they bypass those loaded with labels and head straight for the people with true, genuine style.

My new, favourite find is Backyard Bill. I think you should take a look. It reminds me a little of the Selby in that it's unstyled, and a world away from any sheeny fashion industry veneer. It's just nice people, beautifully shot, in their own spaces. 

lazy

Staying in is the new going out. I decided this on Saturday morning.

we love scrap and scrap loves...

Amongst other creative endeavours, Scrap Wall designs beautiful clothes for WUNDERKAMMER; makes great art and is a wonderful friend. Here are his ten in no particular order.

GERHARD RICHTER- The greatest living artist. Hyper reality, absurd abstraction, idealistic installation- and I feel the need to read his ‘notes on painting’ at least once every couple of years. Genius. "I consider belief of every kind, from astrology to every elevated religion and all great ideologies, to be superfluous and mortally dangerous.” Deep thought for a painter... Sonic Youth used his ‘candles’ for the cover of ‘Daydream nation’ and I love them too.

AN ORDERED WARDROBE- And sparse cabinets. I’ve just moved into a new house. It’s great. I have a new bed, white linen, white walls- all the prerequisites for a happy environment, including new hangers. I love having all my shirts arranged perfectly. It’s almost an archival approach- certainly not styled in any way, none of ‘this with that’ – just white to black (and a section of essential colours). I’ve just ordered the WUNDERKAMMER showroom with the new Ann Demeulemeester. There are more than a few pieces I’d rather see in my wardrobe at home.

SILHOUETTES IN CLOTHING DESIGN- perfect example- Yohji – shot by Nick Knight- directed by Peter Saville. Ooh. It’s a collaborative come shot.

COLLABORATIONS- I love to see where two minds meet. Making B.E. I was lucky enough to look into a few great co-conspirators’ worlds, and there are SO many more. I’ve just entered into a new project with one of my finest friends. It’ll be so good to see where we’ll land…

MERCEDES BENZ- I bought my first one, a ’71 280s when I was 17. Since then I’ve had a bunch. I had a ’65 with fins, then a massive 5.6 litre monster that cost a tenner around the block... so many, so many colours…‘Jewish racing gold’, ‘travertine beige’ ‘navy blue’, ‘blood red’ ‘ivory white’ ‘silver’, and of course, the unbeatable- Black. Now I want this wagon. It’s just a beautiful thing… and SO practical…(maybe with the original AMG wheels though..)

BLACK- The essential element. White is also great , and the spaces between- but really- black. There is no NEW black. Just BLACK. I love finding depth and subtle detail in black. That ‘black balloon’ song kinda gets me too…

PRETTY GIRLS- with bad make up and nails, especially if it seems out of character. Natalie thinks I’m sadistic, but , whatevs… They don’t have to be crying…

BRITISH BLUES- Since I was young, my family have had British blues. They are beautiful smug, fat faced little bastards. Bart was the first. Marco was huge- I think he had a heart attack. And now Yohji. Confused little girl, with a Japanese boy's name, lives with my mom and her man whom speaks to her only in French. Probably needs a therapist.

WHITE ROOM ADJUSTMENTS- I don’t like labels on bottles in the bathroom, and I choose containers that are white and basic shapes where available. I like making my surroundings as clean and simple as possible, and white signifies that. It doesn’t have to be a Maison Margiela; just white where you can. It lets the black stand clear.

MIRROR CAPPED LIGHT BULBS- perfect... Chrome and glass in the place of a lamp shade. In fact- chrome and glass- mirrors. Maybe just reflections in surfaces.. Uh-oh. There seems a recurring theme here.

SNOOKER, and the whole set up. The low set lamps, the order, the hope that I’m getting better, and the joy I get to play here- at WUNDERKAMMER HQ. So debonair. I’m training in hope of playing my grandfather and not being absolutely shown up. He’s an actual champ- in his mid 90’s and still ruling the table- even with one eye; …or maybe that’s the key…

we love melinda and melinda loves...

Melinda Williams is the editor of one of our favourite magazines, NO MAGAZINE, which you should read if you haven't already - Zoe and I have both been lucky enough to write for it too. We met her at this party and got talking over pizza and New Zealand's Next Top Model. You know how it is. The next week Melinda emailed me the most beautiful quote from her favourite book. I wanted to know more, so I asked for a top ten... and I love what I got. 

1. Cormac McCarthy. My favourite author. His books aren’t for the faint of heart – they’re raw and bloody, but astonishing, and speak of McCarthy’s deep love for nature and understanding of humanity’s contrariness.

2. My dog Mac. He goes pretty much everywhere with me.

3. True Blood. Anna Paquin with blonde hair, vampires with Southern accents and good manners, and hot sex. Also, the best title sequence on TV.

4. The Veils. A band born in NZ, based in London, they make gloriously harsh and haunting folk-rock for the backstreets and badlands. Their new album Sun Gangs is amazing.

5. Birds. I love their mix of delicacy, beauty, strength and reptilian creepiness. White herons are my favourite.

6. The Princess Bride. My comfort film. I have watched it at least 50 times and I know every line. Not just the Inigo Montoya one and the iocaine powder dialogue and ‘As you wish’, but every single line from start to finish.

7. Sichuan Steamboat. There is a place on Dominion Rd where you can get all-you-can-eat seafood, meat and veges in a mouth-numbing chilli hotpot that you cook at a burner on your table for just $18. And it’s BYO beer.

8. Thunderstorms. They would almost make winter bearable if it wasn’t for the fact that the best ones are in summer.

9. Australian photographer Narelle Autio. I love her underwater images of swimmers at Bondi Beach.

10. Brake House. Designed by Ron Sang in the 1970s, it is an icon of New Zealand architecture, hidden in the Titirangi bush. One day it will be mine.

fashion victim

This is funny: Refinery29 have done a post on "fighting Swine with style", from American Apparel's moustache mask to Louis Vuitton's lace face mask. Read it here.

some nice things

Pigs, illness, job losses, pigs: there are certain times when you just need to stop reading/watching the news and look at some pretty pictures.

mysterious girl

I’ve been told that I am aloof a few times, which doesn’t exactly have positive connotations right? Snooty and high maintenance...Blair Waldorf, with her haughty air, determined nature and scary ‘I’m going to rip your balls off’ face springs to mind. Of course being aloof and reserved is usually a symptom of shyness rather than snobbishness, but we live in a world where introversion is often looked at as being some sort of affliction. But I think there’s something appealing about a little bit of distance, especially when we know far too much about people we don’t really care about (hello Facebook, hi Twitter, and er yeah, hi there blogging...).

Charlotte Gainsbourg is famous for her introversion - in the new issue of Numéro Korea, she talks about her retiring demeanor and wearing her aloofness as a form of self-protection. I adore her, and women like Sofia Coppola and Francoise Hardy who say very little but always speak intelligently. There’s something magical about a little mystery. Natalie calls it being self-possessed, but who knows - maybe I am just a haughty bitch?

working it

Natalie's at Australian Fashion Week this week, covering the shows for our friend Anna Fitzpatrick's new website Front Row Diary - read her daily reports here.

rafw-friedrich gray

I'm taking a lazy, stream of consciousness approach to Australian Fashion Week, and also, life. I suggest elsewhere if you desire more hard-hitting or even just precise takes on the shows. Or even pictures.

First show of the week- Friedrich Gray. Here are some thoughts.

clean. pared back. 'looks good in leather'. rorschach prints (beautiful). blood colours. i see: early nineties silhouettes- cropped tops, hot pants, insert leather jackets, mesh. wet look- hair, skin. block colours- icy blue, burnt orange- but predominantly black. harness feel to detailing - restriction=freedom. it made me think about modernity in retrospect-  the way people portray the future in art, sparse and cold, the idea of dystopian societies, the uber-human, helmet heads. 

Here are some things the press release says-

david lynch/dune. zaha hadid's phaeno centre. absence, presence.

It was rather clever and I liked it. 

words of wisdom

“FORGET TRENDY DESIGNER LABELS. JEANS, A SWEATER OR A T-SHIRT WORN UNDER A JACKET THAT SEEMS WELDED TO YOU. WHEN IT’S JUST RIGHT, WHEN YOU DON’T SEE THE EFFORT, IT’S IRRESISTIBLE.”

EMMANUELLE ALT

tourist chic

Natalie and I are big fans of socks with heels (even though my feet always slip out). Now Chloe Sevigny is pushing the look even further by teaming socks with Roman sandals at Coachella. Agyness Deyn has been snapped wearing pink knee-highs with orthopaedic looking flats too. I quite like this, especially Chloe's little white socks. What do you think?

I stole the pic from FabSugar.

snippets

I love those perfect turns of phrase, the sort of quotes you repeat to yourself like an incantation after you read them, or underline in pencil (or pen, whatever you like), or scribble down in your notebook - or, whatever your thing is - post it note, Twitter. 

It's so rare and so beautiful when a writer accurately elicits just what you think, just how it is, exactly. Moments that you couldn't put your finger on, all spelled out, neat and contained. Phrases that inform your life, and bring everything into focus. It's like magic, being deft with language. Once, just once, I want to write a beautiful passage that someone copies out, that sticks in their head. I think that is my sole goal as a writer, when it all boils down to it.

These are some of the snippets and thoughts that are stuck with me at the moment:

I’ve always thought that love thrives on a certain kind of distance, that it requires an awed separateness to continue. Without that necessary remove, the physical minutiae of the other person grows ugly in its magnification. Siri Hustvedt

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self. Jean-Luc Godard

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all. T.S. Eliot

But this, this is my favourite - Pablo Neruda explaining how it felt when he discovered poetry.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
I felt myself a pure part of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke free on the open sky. Pablo Neruda

What are yours?

man up

Pant suit, box suit, skirt suit. Who would have thought I’d ever want to be so matchy matchy?

First two outfits are by Boy by Band of Outsiders, last one is from Karen Walker's She Cracked collection.

quotable

"My favourite look in old movies is when a man wears a tuxedo out to a party, but he has a crazy adventure, and the next morning his tie is around his neck, and his hair is down. I wish I could look always look like I came from a party all night."

- Jason Schwartzman in the new issue of Self Service