On hot, grouchy days when I can barely muster the strength to put on a dress and shoes, let alone even attempt to look "pulled together", I find myself coming back time and a again to this Style Like U feature on model/photographer/stylist Sidney Geubelle. Not only does she pull off a slew of perfect, hot-weather appropriate outfits, but she is so dang bubbly and sweet and energetic that I can't help but smile--even when the world outside feels like one big sweaty armpit.
While poking around, hoping to add a little bit more Sidney to my life, I came across these photos taken by Pieter-Jan de Pue for Dutch Vice. I love the dusty, eerie quality of the first two especially--I feel like they could have been taken in any number of decades, which I find fascinating. (photos by Pieter-Jan de Pue found here)
Pssst...it's Alex's birthday today! I'm in the process of prepping for an epic celebratory feast--fish tacos and ginger lemon fizz to drink, plus brownies with raspberries and ice cream for dessert, and (almost) all home made, natch!
I really don't know what I'd do without this boy. He's simply the kindest, sweetest, most patient (and that is key, haha) person I have ever met in my whole life. Plus he's in a cool band and loves glam rock and rainbows almost as much as I do. Happy birthday Alley Cat!!
Looking at these photos I took back in May at the Hester Street Fair, I find it hard to believe that only a matter of weeks ago I was still excited at the prospect of summer. Sun! Heat! Being outdoors! All I can say is: be careful what you wish for. It has been so unbearably hot and nasty here the last week or so that it's driving me MAD. I never understood why anyone could possibly hate summer until I moved to New York. Bah! All I can do is keep dreaming of escaping West, and wishing I was leaving for vacation tomorrow instead of in three weeks...
I woke up bright and early this morning to Skype-interview Sari De-Mallory, one of the members of the WORTHIS design collective responsible for creating these amazing bags. The Ikat fabric is painstakingly crafted in India, and each bag is hand sewn, one at a time, in Melbourne by Sari herself (who is beyond adorable and is pictured above.) Good stuff!
I'd like to take this opportunity, and this outfit post, to introduce you guys to my newest sponsor: Spotted Moth! I blogged about the fun new shop a little bit ago, and now, happily, they've taken up semi-permanent residence in my sidebar. (Speaking of which, if anyone else is interested in having an ad up over yonder, shoot me an email. I'd like to get everything squared away by July 1st, and it's first come, first serve, so time is tight!)
When they offered to let me try out a piece from the shop, I immediately honed in on this Oh Barnacles! Dress. It caught my eye with its simple shape and classic navy stripes, and won my heart with thoughtful details like pockets and a drawstring waist (meaning it's nicely adjustable to various measurements and fit preferences.) As a reminder, you can use the code RINGO at checkout over on Spotted Moth for a 15% discount. I'm hoping we can do a giveaway as well some time next month for you guys!
And while we're on the subject of giveaways, there's a semi-Pains of Being Pure at Heart-themed giveaway, involving one of these brand spankin' new tote bags, in the works! I'm planning on timing it with the debut of our little travel video from February, so stay tuned :n )
A couple of days ago, I received the sweetest package in the mail, all the way from New Zealand. In it was a copy of the Frankie Photo Album, along with the May/June issue of Frankie Magazine and a (handwritten!) note from Holly at Frankie. Since it can be a bit elusive here in the states, I'm awfully excited whenever I come across Frankie (and back in February I spent quite some time in the Melbourne Mag Nation pawing through back issues!)
The Photo Album has been on my wishlist ever since I heard about its coming out. The photography in the magazine is always so perfectly gentle and tasteful, and I knew any collection they'd had a hand in curating couldn't be anything short of magic. Above are just a few of my favorite pages, but honestly, there isn't a bad egg in the bunch--not even close. Thanks Holly, and thanks Frankie!! And thanks to all the photographers featured in the Album for capturing such beautiful, simple, funny, strange moments for all of us to see.
Is it wrong that I feel a little twinge of victory every time I "beat" Fashion Gone Rogue to a beautiful editorial? One thing's for sure, it's proof positive that I spend way too much time on the internet. Guilty as charged, heh.
Anyways, these photos are from a series titled Afternoon Stroll, shot by Max Farago for Muse #22. What I love is how absolutely bare bones simple they are, highlighted even further by the black and white tones, while still being absolutely gorgeous. I get so tired of eds that shove clothing down your throat, especially this time of the year. When it's too dang hot to form coherent sentences, it's no time to be overthinking things!
(you can see the rest of the editorial over on the Fashion Spot)
Just a few tips, courtesy of Artrocker Magazine, on how to get the look of alt tweemo indie pop hearthrobs "The pain of being pure at heart". Checks! Denim! Florals! Badger Balm??
P.S. Thanks so much for the birthday wishes everyone! Truly appreciated :n )
Try and deny it as I might, today is in fact my birthday (and I know it's terribly cliché to be sensitive about birthdays, but it's just not a fun one for me, bleh.) In a perfect world, I'd be wearing something akin to this combo to dinner with the bf--even though a white blouse and red lipstick would be completely and totally impractical seeing as I'm planning on stuffing my face with pizza and bosc pear salad at Roberta's tonight! Guess I'll just have to be sure and pack my chicest bib...
Of all the pieces I've had published here and there so far, this is easily the one I'm most proud of. It all started last fall with an email from a girl named Elizabeth Doan in Australia who thought I might like this brand spankin' new swimwear line called We Are Handsome, which lead to a blog post or two, which lead to a pitch and now--fast forward a few months, dozens of emails, a Skype conversation to the other side of the world, some early morning trips to Bed Stuy, a photoshoot (on medium format film!) in Brighton Beach on a frigid spring afternoon--my article is leading the Style section in FADER Magazine #68!
Thanks so much to Jeremy for taking the time to talk on the internet with me, and for the motivational life tips imparted to me in a wine bar atop the Time Warner Building. I'm still working on taking them all to heart. Baby steps.
Some of you, like me, may have come across this glorious picture on Erin's tumblr recently. It's by frl.zucker on flickr, and at first glance I didn't think too much past "oooh, pretty colors, pretty bike, pretty bag!" However: upon closer inspection, I realized that, besides being pretty, that bag is both TAPESTRY and CAT PRINT. Stop the presses!!! That's the kind of mind-blowing combination that I never dared hope might exist anywhere outside my wildest, twee-est fever dreams.
Naturally, I assumed anything so amazing could only be vintage. Still, I decided to poke around and see if I could find anything online even remotely similar. And then--a miracle! Un milagro!! A search for "cat tapestry bag" on ebay returned, after some careful sifting, this:
Dost mine eyes deceive me or is this the EXACT SAME BAG??? Waaaaah!!! It also comes in a smaller, dare I say even more adorable size. Long story short: as far as I'm concerned, this kind of success story is why the internet was invented, and why it's actually ok that we'll probably all be cyborgs with Google chips in our brain boxes come the year 2025.
Pet sitting/video editing/prepping for a job on Saturday is making my life crazy and non-conducive to creative blogging at the moment, but thankfully The Pains picked up some slack for me by releasing their insanely adorable new music video today. Even though it's hard for anyone to top crashing a Furry party, I think this might be my fave yet...
Ok, so my weekend?? Bizarro world. Friends, I could not make this shit up if I tried. Long story short, I found out last week that the amazing people at streetwear brand 55DSL wanted to fly me to Italy to cover their Galactic Foosball Finals for FADER. Knowing little more than what I've told you in that sentence, I said HELLS YES. A few days later, I was in Bassano del Grappa at the foot of the Italian Alps, snapping photos of giddy, grappa-soaked dudes facing off over red and blue plastic foosmen (an actual term, I looked it up! Research!!)
Even though I only spent a total of about 36 hours over there (and almost that much in the air, I swear to gawd), it was an incredible time filled with insanely kind people, the best pizza I've ever had in my life, nutella gelato, poorly dubbed classic American films starring Frank Sinatra, a jacuzzi tub, $17 sunscreen and very, very little sleep.
You can check out my post over on the FADER blog for a few more photos/details from the weirdest weekend of my adult life. I'd also like to throw in a GINORMOUS thank you to 55DSL for showing this scrappy little lady such a wonderful, welcoming time. Let's do this again real soon, ok????
Oops! I went a little MIA over the weekend, but all will be explained imminently, I promise...
In the meantime, I wanted to show you a clip from that Super8 footage I talked up so much right after I got back from my time in Japan/Australia/New Zealand with The Pains. Five months later I'm still working on putting it together, due to laziness and technical difficulties (mostly laziness.) This is a little snippet from our time in Melbourne, and it's totally unedited and uncut so apologies if it's a bit choppy. I'm also going to be uploading the finished product to Vimeo in hopes of preserving a bit more of the quality. Can't wait to show you the real deal when it's all finished!
P.S. The winner of Tabio giveaway was Katie of Are You Awake! Congrats!
Eep! Maya's post with photos of our hang time this weekend just went up over on Turned Out, and I love it! It's kinda sweet that she left in all my messy scribbling (though at the time she assured me she's chop it out, sneak haha!) Honestly, this is exactly the ego boost I needed right now, as I'm about to head off to a photo shoot where I'm gonna be in front of the camera, instead of scurrying around on the sidelines. Wish me luck?
I'm a little late posting these, but here's a couple shots from a shoot I assisted on a few weeks ago. The stylist pulled some amazing Matina Amanita jewelry, including this crazy-ass owl cuff! He also had more big sparkly rings than you could shake a stick at. Blingggg.
In other exciting jewelry news, I came home today to find a package from Kathryn, aka the Vamoose, waiting for me! I sent her a little care package of big silky shirts and Japanese treats a little while back, and the gorgeous bounty I received in return filled me with both wonder and amazement. Pictures soon!
Hoo boy, haters are definitely gonna hate, but I frickin' LOVE this dress on Alexa at the CFDA's (Burberry, I believe? Marc Jacobs durr!) The color looks good with that orange cube thing in the background too heheh. And the hair!! Super. Duper. Pretty.
Truth be told, this is not what I wore today, or even yesterday (for that you're gonna need to tune into Turned Out next week!), this is from thursday, since today was way too hot and muggy to give a rat's ass what I looked like. Seriously, I think I sweated half my face off. The weather here is making me miss the West Coast like mad, because even though I hear that summer is only just starting to rear its head over there, you guys know that once it finally settles in, it's gonna be gooooood.
My new flats from Pop Fizz Vintage, with cute lil' roses on the toes. Aaaaw! I've been sans a pair of black flats for way too long, you can't imagine how frustrating it is when the only pair of comfortable, flat, closed toe shoes in your closet are bright green (or maybe you can?? In which case, I pity both us fools!)
Like a lot of ladies, I've been a fan of Tabio's Little Heart Tights for some time now. However, as the barometer here in NYC rises, my desire to roll anything clingy onto my legs, even if it is painfully adorable and sheer, drops rapidly. Fortunately, I'm also big fan of the whole socks-with-heels trend, so when I came across their sweet, simple little socks peeping out of Shalom Harlow's pumps in June's British Vogue, I was delighted. In turn, when Tabio approached me recently about trying out a couple of their products, I thought of their Soft Nylon Socks immediately.
Happily, they've also agreed to do a little giveaway for all you fine readers. So, all you have to do to win a pair of Tabio's Soft Nylon Socks in the color of your choice is visit the weblisting and leave a comment letting me know which color you'd prefer, and why. The winner will be chosen at random on Wednesday night (I'd leave it open longer but it looks like I may be out of town next weekend.) If your email isn't available on your profile, please leave that as well. Best of luck to you all!
Contest is closed! (first photo byJavier Vallhonrat found here)
It is HOT in the City today, the kind of day when air conditioning is no longer a "choice," it's a matter of fact. I think I've pretty much sweated out all the iced coffee I had with Maya and now, truth be told, I'm propped up sans pants with a stack of magazines between me and my computer (which makes a great lap warmer in the winter but becomes absolutely revolting in the summer...)
Anyways, my point is, this photo of Chloë in Jamaica is reminding me of why I am, in fact, so glad it's summer once again: flushed skin, fresh flowers, cool shade, sandy toes and polka dot bikinis. All this assuming, of course, I get to take a freakin' vacation sooner than later!
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are coming to a town near you! (...Maybe??) Today, the greatest band in New York City/the World is embarking on a two week tour of the Eastern Seaboard. They've put some of my very fave, very new songs into set list rotation, and I'm tellin' you, you don't wanna miss out! If you happen to bump into the dudes after the show, tell Alex that Little Banana sends her love.
Seeing as how I'm a fan of blogs that successfully mix food and fashion, I want to try and start sharing a bit about my own eating adventures. My bf and I both love food and treats and trying new stuff, so I've got ample fodder (literally!)
'Couple weeks back, we spent the afternoon in Prospect Park, but not before stopping at Naidre's for what I have officially deemed the Best BLT I've Ever Eaten, no small feat since the classic BLT may be my very favorite sandwich. And I LOVE sandwiches, of all kinds. I think the secret is in their herb mayo...and the bread...and how fresh it all is. So gooood!
Last week we stopped by The Meatball Shop. I ended up getting the veggie balls in meat sauce (thought I'd split the difference?) and while I wasn't crazy about my balls (mostly just lentils) Alex's sliders were delicious! My fave was the special of the day, lamb with feta, olives and peppers (I think) all in a ball.
The most delicious part, though, was their mix 'n match ice cream sandwich option. You choose from an ample list of homemade cookies and ice creams, and they sandwich it up for you on the spot. We went for ginger cookies (which were possibly the best ginger cookies I've ever had, a bit chewy with little chunks of candied ginger in them) and the special, mandarin ice cream. Creamy AND dreamy.
