BOWS & BANDITS FALL 2012

I had so much fun styling the Fall 2012 lookbook for Bows & Bandits Vintage, shot by Jacob Pritchard. A mix of new, vintage and pieces from my own wardrobe, I like to call this look "outfits I wish I was wearing right now." Many thanks to our gorgeous model Rachel who brought us amazing gluten-free chocolate chip cookies she had baked herself, and to the whole fantastic team who let me play dress-up all day and call it "work."

Find more styling work on my Portfolio.

BE MINE

Today, my two better halves are far, far away (and without both my halves, where does that leave me??) Alex said "hajimemashite!" to Tokyo yesterday morning, and as I type this I imagine Dagmar is snug in her little cabin with a big ginger cat named Kingston and Berserker the attack rabbit curled up at her feet.

Dag's visits to New York are few and far between, and usually end in her vowing never ever to return. Which I can respect. But this past fall we spent a giddy afternoon at the Met, wandering sleepy eyed and soft-footed from room to room until, fifteen minutes before closing, we burst back outside into reality and the rose-gold rays of late October sunshine. Last year I spent Valentine's Day getting tipsy on Champagne and then grinning my way sheepishly through a guided tour of Picasso's sculpture at the MoMa. This year I'd be happy to settle for a waterglass of Gato Negro with my dude, my lady, and me.

CRYSTALINE ENTITY

Home in the islands for a while, hunkered down, ploughing my way through Jane Eyre, wooing shy felines and baking big chocolate cakes. Hope your 2012 thus far has been as magical, and then some, as this torso-sized amethyst I saw on the top of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina in 2011. Strange, strange magics indeed!

STYLING: FORT TILDEN FALL

Photography: Charlie Rubin
Styling: Siri Thorson
Hair/Make-up: Hannah Metz
Model: Jana @ Fenton Moon

I'm incredibly excited to finally--finally--be sharing with you these photos taken by Charlie Rubin and styled by myself back in October. This series was shot in and around Fort Tilden and Rockaway and features gorgeous pieces from both Shabd and Caycee Black, as well as a lot of beautiful vintage from The Loved One. My endless thanks go to Hannah Metz for providing hair and makeup and a cool attitude, and to the beautiful Jana at Fenton Moon for tramping through brush dabbling in some light trespassing with us.

I know it's technically winter and all now, but freakishly enough up until a few days ago one could easily have rocked any of these outfits in NYC and hardly felt a shiver...anyways, I'm awfully proud of what our little team produced, flying by the seat of our silk tie-dyed pants! I hope you like :n)

(Please feel free to reblog these images with proper credit, thanks!)

IS THAT ALL THE FALL THERE IS?

It snowed here in NYC today. And not just a bit of fluff or the occasional frozen droplet floating by. Hefty, hearty, driving flakes. Big ass flakes. Flakes to write home about, or at least all over your facebook wall. And while the forecast is somewhat more optimistic, I fear today may mark the end of that sweet, fleeting season between tank tops and Gore-Tex. Ah fall, I hardly knew ye!

Two of the (many!) highlights of the season: last minute, impromptu visits to the Met. Always at or near 3pm on a weekday, grab a friend, rush to the train, guiltily slide whatever cash you may have in pocket towards the demure looking young lady in gold rimmed glasses behind the entrance desk, and proceed to the roof. Point out the Plaza Hotel in the distance and rest your elbows on the dense shrubbery. Spend what time you have left wandering through the 2nd Floor galleries and come face to face with what may be your favorite painting of all time. Good Goya.

Also: flowers! And how. I had the extreme pleasure of working with a certain Ms. Amy Merrick on two weddings in the last few weeks. One a small Manhattan affair, and the other an over night, upstate, semi-wilderness adventure. Both involved early mornings, cold fingers, heavy lifting and long hours. As well as an immense sense of satisfaction, several different types of cats, enormous cornbread muffins, slumber parties in converted sawmills, takeout Chinese and FUN. Lotta that. I may be a fool, but I'm hungry for more.

LATE SEPTEMBER FAVORITES

Exhibit A: Gorgeous shibori dyed crop-top by Upstate x Of A Kind. Yup, it's still hot enough in NYC to wear crop tops, and cutoffs, and for bangs to be drenched in sweat (which is why you can't see them in this photo...) The upside is that I still have time to get some wear out of this beauty. Thank you Kalen!

Exhibit B: I found this framed print by Gladys Emerson Cook in Junk a few weeks ago now, but managed to put on a brave face and valiantly fight off temptation. It only took six days for me to realize that I needed it, immediately. Three stops on the L and a panicked ransacking of the store later, and I was sheepishly peeling off its price-tags before bringing it home.

Gone to Earth by Mary Webb, Seventh impression March 1937. I finally finished this book last night after several years worth of false starts and honestly, it deserves a post all its own. It's been a long, long while since a piece of writing spoke to me so completely, so heart-breakingly and heart-achingly. I don't even know where to begin.

SWEET SWEATER

Eddie Bauer hat
L.L.Bean Kid's sweater
Revlon Matte lipstick in Wine Not

I could barely believe mine eyes when a late night eBay search turned up the very sweater I had hemmed and hawed over and eventually missed out on scoring last November. LLBean kids, size Large, 50% wool 50% acrylic 100% dreamy. I'm still clinging to the hope that they'll stock it again this year, since if memory serves it comes in navy and grey as well. Bean, baby, Bean!

P.S. I wrote a sweater joke:
Q: What did the traffic cop say to the old lady he saw knitting a sweater while driving?
A: Pullover!

STONE RIDGE PART II

The first half of the first roll I shot while back home was all from our daytrip upstate this fall. I ate so many apples in the weeks afterward, and, well you know what they say. Oughtta make up for not having health insurance, right??

All photos taken using regular old Fuji 400 speed film on my faithful Canon AE-1 Program

STONE RIDGE FARM

A few photos from a trip we took this fall upstate to go apple picking. Alex took these with his Yashica,which doesn't have a light meter, and he really nailed the exposure, especially on the first one. I'm so proud! Stone Ridge Farm is a good two hour drive north from the city, but it's definitely worth it (especially if you have a loyal companion to deal with the messy driving part...) It was quite late in the season, but it meant that the few trees left with leaves were really going for it foliage-wise. As soon as I get back to NYC I'm getting my own roll from that day, which I finally finished while at home, developed as well.

(photos by Alex)

new in

I've been in a state of financial paralysis recently, waiting for freelance checks to materialize in my mailbox. It's been a while since I've felt like I could splash out on new socks, let alone anything mildly pretty or impractical. Thankfully, however, I seem to continue to find ways to squeeze milk from the stone, and all three items above are recent acquisitions on credit from Buffalo Exchange and Beacon's Closet.

The trousers are actually a pair originally from Urban Outfitters by Lark & Wolf that I was obsessed with this spring but could never justify buying full price, so I was mighty excited to find them at Buffalo Exchange--the same day I came across this vintage Laura Ashley blouse. It's so long I can almost pass it off as a dress, and when I tried it on with some cutoffs around the house, the tails were hangin' loose out the leg holes. Maybe not such a good look? But I'll worry about that come warmer climes. The hat is from Beacon's, and I'm starting to feel like it might be the kind of thing I can only really pull off when it's finally so cold out that people start wearing things that look like live animals on their heads. Or maybe when I finally turn into Queen Latifah. Whichever comes first, I guess.

strange magic

My ears are still ringing from one singular, INSANELY amazing ELO cover band (I mean...they had a cello and a violin and back-up singers and a freakin' vocoder!!) and my stomach is rather sad concerning the paltry amount of fun-size candies I've consumed in the last 24 hours (one mini York patty and one tiny box of Jr. Mints, come ooooon) But I just wanted to stop off and leave visual proof of how totally fucking weird my face looked tonight!

This is probably the most effort I've put into a Halloween costume in many, many years--though that's not really saying so much--and I was sewing those damn ruffles up until the minute we left the apartment. Still, though my face did kinda feel like it was falling off by the end of the night and I did get called a mime once (occupational hazard of the Pierrot, I suppose) it was totally worth it!

P.S. Can you guess A's costume? He really stole my heart, that one...eheheheh.

le fou

I always enter into Halloween season with the best of intentions, I do. But every year, my costume plans always seem to loose steam in the face of my inescapable aversion to spending money on things I'm going to use/wear only once. More often than not, this leaves me having to source nearly my entire outfit from my own closet--but there's only so many times one can go as a "Seventies Disco Queen" or "Spooky 60's Babydoll" before people start calling foul...

Honestly, I had pretty much given up all hope of coming up with anything even vaguely impressive this year (especially since I'm pretty sure I totally peaked last year...nowhere to go but down, right?) That is, until I came across this photo on Refinery29 and realized that--yes!--75% of what I needed to totally rip the girl on the left off was already in my closet! It's fitting because I feel like my whole life I have sort of been haunted by those creepy Pierrot dolls with the porcelain faces and soft bodies you find at thrift stores and on your best friend's Mom's mantle piece.

Anyways, I feel this post is totally begging the question: what are you gonna be for Halloween??