different light

My friend Jeff has this band Songs. I really like their music and can't wait to get my hands on their very soon to be released, self-titled album. They just released their first single, Different Light, which you can listen to or download here. I think the best description I've ever read of their music is from Cameron McKean, who says that "it's the friendliest 'we don't care' I've heard".

I swear you squeezed my soul into the night // Going home without your soul just isn't right.

don't worry

elsewhere: max&min

Richard Hutten - Cloud Chair



Self-reflecting Lamp - Oliver Schick

My dear friend Ben has just started a blog - and I suggest you take a look. He's a very talented interior architect and we share a love of Japanese things and beautiful design - he always shows me the best stores and hangouts when I visit Melbourne. His taste is impeccable, thus, so too is MAX&MIN.

read or dead

I got a really nice comment today asking me to do a post about what I've been reading lately. So, here goes. And, we really love being asked to do specific posts, so if there's anything you want to read about, let us know! And if you have book recommendations, we want those too.

Bearing in mind that I have the attention span of a goldfish, and I tend to buy stacks of books and then dip in and out of them, this is what's gracing my bedside table at the moment.

HOW I LIVE NOW - MEG ROSOFF

This is available as a Penguin Classic, and I found out about it through the lovely Jessica. It's a sweet, slightly off kilter teenage tale of a girl who is swiftly ejected from New York when her Dad marries a younger woman, goes to stay in a bucolic English village and falls in love with her cousin. Then, a war breaks out, and things start to fall apart. It's wonderful, sad, slightly dreamy and naive with harsh, devastating undertones.

MOUNTAINFOLD MUSIC JOURNAL

This is a beautiful publication that is put together by Douglas Gibson. It's really thoughtful, with beautiful imagery and writing and a simple layout. They have great conversations with some of my favourite bands, and I know I'm certain to discover something new and wonderful in it's pages. And it's free! You can see their website here. Or, you can find the paper version in good music stores and galleries in Sydney and Melbourne.

THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE - MARSHALL MCLUHAN

This is a classic, must read book on the mass media. I read it for university but I found a new edition recently, part of Penguin's collection of 'pivotal works by creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever'. It's very simple, clever and holds thought more than relevant today, despite being written in the 1960s.

LOVE FOR ETERNITY - TERENCE KOH

This is less a novel, more an artist monograph, but in conjunction with images of Koh's installations and sculpture runs a fascinating essay from the curator of his most recent Berlin exhibition.

hairy

This Where The Wild Things Are collaboration between Opening Ceremony and Spike Jonze is awesome - come on, look at that coat! But I do have one small concern. Is this movie going to be so overhyped and marketed that by the time it's released here in New Zealand (apparently not until December 3rd!), I'm going to be completely over it? I hope not...

feed me

I think macaroons actually taste yuck, but don't they look lovely?

diamond dancer

I find this strangely curious. It's a bismuth crystal with an oxidized surface. Isn't nature amazing? AMAZING. I've been having a bit of a moment with crystals of late - I picked up a great crystal encyclopaedia at a second hand bookstore a few weeks ago, and I've been poring over it. I'm not sure where it's all going, but it's fascinating all the same.

black & white babes

I feel pretty

"I like pretty clothes right now," Marc Jacobs said recently. Well, I've always liked pretty, lady-like clothes. Like these, new from one of my favourite designers Luella. Hair bows, full skirts, pastels, oh my gosh I love this!

photos: style.com

on writing

I'm not sure quite how to write, or how I write. Zoe and I talked about how we do the other day, but came to no conclusion. You just, do. Basically, I just try to read as many books as humanly possible, and to write in the same way that I talk. I hate pretentious, smarmy writing, and people who try to be amusing, and people who attempt to be irrelevantly obtuse for the sake of it.

I like this quote. Don't you know that feeling, when you are reading something truly incredible and it's just like this? Ernest Hemingway said it. I hope one day I can write something that makes someone feel that it all belongs to them like he says here.

“All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and the sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.”

The other thing I find truly helpful is this book - I want to buy it for everyone I know. The Elements of Style is incredible - this edition is horrendously designed, but if you can find the newest edition, the one with the paintings, buy it in a heartbeat.

it's a kind of magic

Everything feels a little bit magical today, even mundane things like making a cup of tea or brushing my hair.

moments in time

Last week was New Zealand Fashion Week. Here are some of my favourite moments from the week that was - Natalie's to come soon...

Love and stuff
I adored the Kate Sylvester show, which looked to Auckland icon Judith Baragwanath for inspiration (she was a socialite with a posh upbringing who scandalised her ladies-who-lunch friends by hanging out with punks and wearing black lipstick). The show in a dirty warehouse decorated with sparkling chandeliers was great, the clothes were great, the music was great, the preppy badges as gifts were great - but my favourite moment was when Kate came out at the end to rapturous applause, lovingly looked straight to her parents and three sons and blew them a kiss; it was very sweet. Also adorable was Nom.d's Margi Robertson giving sister Liz Findlay a celebratory hug on the runway at the Zambesi 30 year retrospective show. Aw family, lovely.

Army of me
Loved the models en masse that closed Kate Sylvester (top), and Twenty-seven Names' model army (bottom) that opened their standout show to the sounds of The Horrors.

Who cares.com
Everyone freaked out because Pamela Anderson arrived at the ANZFW venue on Thursday afternoon for a silly press conference. (She attended with designer Richie Rich to present their new label A*Muse, it was DISGUSTING). I was more excited that my boyfriend brought me McDonalds; it seemed somehow fitting that my first Pam sighting happened while I was eating a cheeseburger.

OH MY GOD!
I saw the new Lonely Hearts collection in succession - first their film, then Steve sent me these amazing lookbook shots and then I saw it in person and almost lost my shit. The collection is called What Is Your Damage, it is amazing and I want everything - even the polka dot pants, which is a massive deal because I never, ever wear pants. Lonely Hearts, I love you.

Meet me at my locker
Everyone's favourite place at Fashion Week is the M.A.C and ghd lounge; this is where they would do your hair and makeup and you can just hang out. I especially loved it this year because they gave us lockers (mine had an amazing Cybele necklace inside), and one of the makeup artists told me I reminded him of Carla Bruni. That's ridiculous of course, but hey, I'll take the compliment.

Looking back
The godparents of New Zealand fashion, Zambesi, celebrated 30 years in the business with a retrospective show on Saturday evening; it felt like a really special and wonderful moment. It was inspiring to be witness to that history, and to see some of my typically cynical writer friends get a little bit proud and teary-eyed.

I'm bored of this list now so here are some other things I liked, in brief:
- Juliette Hogan's collection inspired by "bookish beauty"; especially loved the cape that opened, so beautiful.
- Tights at Sera Lilly.
- Stolen Girlfriends Club's collection inspired by gypsies and wanderers; big step forward for the team.
- The hand-dyed knits at Salasai and rad soundtrack.
- Apples at Annah Stretton.
- Sitting opposite Rhys Darby aka Murray from Flight of the Conchords at A*Muse.
The End.

doing nothing

The weekend following Fashion Week is always amazing; I luxuriate in doing nothing, wearing flat shoes, not brushing my hair and just generally having a fashion detox.

sherie muijs

I really love the idea of knowing a designer right from the start of their career, and I've been keeping a very close eye on what Sherie Muijs is doing since I met her as she finished her degree at AUT. I bought the best white shirt dress from her collection that won her the Deutz Fashion Ambassador award in 2007, and I still wear it often. Her Autumn/Winter '10 collection is exactly what I want to wear for winter now. Cropped, tailored pants, a beautiful circle trench in wool, crisp boy shirts. It's deceptively simple, beautifully cut and her experience interning in Amsterdam is palpable in her pared-back styling and clean aesthetic. Add messy hair, and flat shoes, perfect.

only the lonely

Zoe and I make no secret of our love for New Zealand label Lonely Hearts. The latest collection 'What's Your Damage?' is no exception. A visit to see Steve, Helene and Aimee is always a pleasure, and we were in raptures on Thursday over the plethora of pastel dresses, the lilac lace pants, the sweet polka dot shorts, the slouchy baby blue blazer and the please may I keep this cropped possum fur jacket. And would you look at the stills from the film they presented? Filmed at North Head and styled by the very clever Imogene Barron, it's a dazy, dreamy homage with lashings of lens flare. I want it all, but I have a feeling Zoe and I will have to fight over some of it, so as to avoid matching outfits. Watch the film here.

Photos by Stephen Tilley and Garth Badger