CHANCE

I hope it's as nice out this weekend wherever you are as it is here! Even if it isn't, these short, blissful little films from Chance will definitely put you in a summery state of mind (even if it only lasts until you look out the window...) I watched them all one after another in bed this morning after finding them via M Dash, just as the sun began to poke out of some scattered little clouds. My favorite is probably "Book" but dang, they're all pretty much perfect. Take a few minutes and kick your day-dreaming into overdrive.

(all photos via Chance, please provide credit if you repost)

RINGO X THE LOVED ONE

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon doing a bit of modeling for The Loved One. Hanging out with Hannah is always a treat, plus I got a sorely needed dose of kitten love! As an added bonus, I think this might finally have kicked my ass in to gear to list a few things in my own neglected etsy shop. In fact, I just picked up a couple very Spring-y things today that I hope to list this weekend (hint: fans of ducks and flowers, rejoice!)

LOBBY CARDS: MY BRILLIANT CAREER

Hands down my favorite class I took in college was a film studies course on the cinema of Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to my amazing teacher, Mrs. Paula Massood, I was exposed to a collection of incredible pictures that I probably would never have seen, or perhaps even heard of, without her guiding hand (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert not withstanding...) Still, for every movie we screened, there were at least two or three more that we read about but were unable to watch, either due to time constraints, availability in the US/on the correct DVD region (stupidest, stupidest system EVER), or both. I'm still dying to track down Vincent Ward's Vigil!

Such obstacles aside, I've been trying to play a little catch up with my Australian cinema, starting with the seminal coming-of-age-in-the-outback effort The Year My Voice Broke, and ending up most recently on Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career. In class, much of our discussion of the film centered upon the fact that the story was more than a bit of a fantasy, since painfully few women of the time living in the bush had any such possibility of escape as the main character eventually finds--but nevermind, it's an awfully nice idea! Judy Davis is, to quote Hannah, an Australian Anne of Green Gables--all straw boaters and haughty glares and that shocking mane of hair. And can we just talk about Sam Neil, in period dress, in all his 25-year-old glory??

Last week while looking around for images to go with my Brie et Char interview I came across this set of original lobby cards for the film being sold on bidStart. Would that I had the cool $89.95 it takes to make these babies my own!

MARINA MUÑOZ

I'm always incredibly eager to see Marina Muñoz pop up on the blogs around Fashion Week. Her style never fails to knock me flat, with her consistently elegant mix of tough, slouchy menswear and soft feminine details. She has the most amazing collection of hats, many of the kind you might expect to see on weather-beaten old gauchos riding the pampas--but on her, chestnut hair in her favored low side-braid, a swipe of lipstick here or a crinkle of pale silk there, she appears as the impossibly winsome love child of Katherine Hepburn and Indiana Jones. Basically, everything I've always hoped and wished to be someday.

Hearing her speak with such intensity about the dedication she applies to her work only makes me admire her that much more. It's far too easy to let the fashion game get you bitter and worn out, especially when working in an assistant's position. It can be a LOT of long hours on little sleep and schlepping and sweating and making frantic phone calls and taking the blame. But the way she describes it reminds me of what it is that makes that work worth something, even if it's only worth it to you. It's obvious that no matter what Ms. Muñoz sets her sights on in the future, the outcome will be no less than amazing, and I cannot wait to see just what's in store.

To learn a bit more about Marina, check out her Q&A on Tomboy Style.

(video by Style Like U)

BRIE ET CHAR

Thank you all SO MUCH for the kind comments on my last entry!! You made me :n )

I've just been invited last minute on a weekend adventure out of town, so it'll be a quiet one around here. Fortunately, in case you're jonesing for more ME (you are, admit it), I did a really fun little interview with the sweet girls from Brie et Char, so if you've always wondered what my favorite iTunes radio stations are (so croosh!) or just what the hell the name of my blog means anyways (hahaha it's kinda dumb!) have a look-see (and don't forget to check out the rest of their wonderful blog as well!) And duh, have a great weekend!

<3
s

BOWS & BANDITS S/S11

I'm super duper excited to share a really fun project I had the good fortune to take part in recently. I've been a fan of Bows & Bandits Vintage for a good while now, so when Eva (one half of the B&B team) asked me to model for their Spring/Summer lookbook, I didn't even have to think twice. I'm definitely more comfortable behind the camera than in front, especially when someone else is in charge of snapping the shutter, but I knew as soon as I stepped in the door of Eva's beautiful apartment and was immediately plied with delicious pastries and a heap of the prettiest vintage dresses and skirts that I was in good hands.

Turns out my faith was rewarded many times over. Eva's friend Kathi Reckendorfer took all the photos using not one, not two, but three different film cameras (a girl after my own heart if ever there was one!) I'll be the first to admit that I'm my own harshest critic, but Kathi has such an amazing eye and the girls made me feel so comfortable that the results, more of which you can see on Kathi's website, made me feel really, unabashedly great. Kathi, if you're ever looking for work as a personal photographer, you've got my email ;n )

Visit Bows & Bandits to see the full lookbook, as well as they're brilliantly curated selection of vintage clothes, accessories and now home items as well. Thanks again Eva and Kathi (and Sophie too!), I had so much fun and I hope we can do it all again sooner than later.

All photos by Katharina Reckendorfer, please provide full credit if you repost.

GREAT WINDOWSILLS I HAVE KNOWN

I really, really love me a good windowsill. Probably because I love staring out windows so much. The view from moving vehicles is by far the best--I'm always desperate for the window seat when booking travel on trains or planes or buses. Back when I lived in Santa Cruz, I used to take the Greyhound up to Mt. Vernon, WA on my way home to visit. It's a good 20-22 hour trip, and I definitely met my share of freaks, recently released felons, and pervy old men with Popov vodka on their breath. But as soon as that big hunk of metal would lumber out of a station and start barreling down the road, between green rice paddies or through endless stretches of nondescript highway nothingness, I'd be in absolute heaven.

Someday, obviously, I will live in a home with enormous windowseats that will allow me to sit, read, ponder life, and take cat naps all while breaking frequently to peer out onto the world in comfort. Dagmar's Pa pretty much had it figured out when he included a huge wrap-around sofa bench all along the windows in the livingroom of the house he built. For Julia and I, our modest sills are only able accommodate plants and candles and various flotsam, below which lurks the requisite ancient radiator--tragically, only wide enough to accommodate approximately 5/8 of the average human posterior.

DOWN BY THE SEA

These photos by Todd Selby from Gidon Bing's Auckland studio have me jonesing something fierce for a stroll by the sea. Every time I'm home in the islands, I make a point of taking a nice, long, solitary walk along the shore, stooping to pick up the odd piece of beach glass or puzzling detritus from the deeps. The beaches at home are as beautiful in winter hail and gentle rain as they are at sunset in the summertime: the salty smells, the stacks of a cargo ship far across the channel towards Canada, the cries of the gulls or the sudden screech of a Great Blue Heron, interrupted.

I always return from these walks with a shell or two rattling in my pockets, but I never seem to know just what to do with them when I get home. Eventually they are lost in the yard, underfoot, in some dusty corner, or perhaps sent to a watery grave in the washing machine. Seeing these drawers upon drawers of carefully sorted specimens gives me all sorts of dangerous ideas. As if I needed something new to hoard!

(All photos by Todd Selby found on theselby.com, please give credit if you repost)

SPRING AHEAD

Three pieces I look forward with much anticipation to wearing once the weather is steadily above the 60 degree mark: a worn-in, semi-sheer cotton blouse in the most obnoxiously pastel poppy print, my Leah Goren Kitty Cat Tee, and the American Apparel mid length pocket top I have wanted since I tried it on last August (and now need in every color, I'm afraid.)

Other things I am looking forward to: getting paid tomorrow (fingers crossed) and immediately buying the biggest bunch of tulips I can lay hands on; trying, and perhaps succeeding, to track down a copy of this book; dying pysanky eggs and finding some flowering branches to hang them from; four words: Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes.

And you? Tell me something you're excited for.

ON THE TABLE

I love buying dishes. Given free reign and a sturdy wallet, I would buy more dishes than I would ever know what to do with. Foolish, but it's true. Even though our cupboards are filled to the brim with glasses, mugs, plates, two tea pots, and enough cups and saucers to water an army, it's all I can do to stop myself poking around in junk stores and the back room at Fish's Eddy looking for more--I mean the problem is just that we need bigger cupboards, right??

Sure, there's a real charm to that mix 'n match, jumble sale aesthetic, but lately it's been wearing thin. In a perfect world, or really just a world in which I have one of those job things everyone with nice stuff is always talking about, I would chuck 95% of what's in those cupboards and start fresh. I swear! When I saw these Akiko Graham Slabe plates on Anaïse, I fell hard. They're just about perfect--softly uneven spheres finished with a whitewash of glaze, sturdy, natural but still delicate. Mix in creamy cups, bowls, and a stout little teapot by Höganäs Keramik, and I think I could finally throw in that shabby chic towel and never look back...

BLUE AND GOLD

(Which, unsurprisingly, were my school colors while at UCSC. Could any combination be more Californian, I ask you??)

With a singular exception, posted above are the last of my photos from Washington in January. 'Bout damn time, right?? Also in the mix: some bits of the amazing façade at BAM, my friend Julia's beautiful bathroom (subway tile in the actual subway = pretty jank; subway tile in the kitchen/bathroom? Swoon.), and a Nolita skyline on the waning edge of Valentine's Day.

Tonight I'm listening to Die Zauberflöte, eating Chestnut chocolate and green tea mochi from the Japanese convenience store I just discovered exists in Williamsburg (!!!), trying fruitlessly to pretend that I don't have a cold, and wishing that my pet-sit this weekend didn't end Sunday morning so I could watch Mildred Pierce on some sweet, free HBO turns out I'm staying til Monday, but no HBO wah waaah.

MISS HOWELL

Margaret Howell's collections, not to mention her ad campaigns, are always a favorite of mine. The clothing Ms. Howell designs combines many of the elements I hold dearest: simple, classic cuts, quality natural fabrics and materials, and more than a bit of gamine charm to top it all off. Wearable and unfussy, it is a fashion that, much like A.P.C., is anti-"fashion" in the best possible way.

That said, I hadn't realized just how little I actually knew about the woman herself until I saw her New York Times Profile in Style by Sandra Ballentine (thanks Sarah!) Taking a peek inside her East Anglia home and its surroundings only reaffirmed my love and admiration for Howell--not to mention her impeccable taste in ceramics. I can only hope to age with such grace. That sounds so cheesy! But yeah, it's true.