LAURA ASHLEY FELT HAT

It is SO DAMNED HARD for me to find hats that fit. They are almost always too big or too, I don't know...deep? Or something, something that causes me to look like a child playing dress up in them. Or causes my vision to be fully obstructed while wearing them. Or both.

So when I tried on this Laura Ashley(!) felt number while I was staying at my best friend's place back home in January, well, what could I do but beg, whine and cajole her into giving it to me? (For the record, I didn't have to try that hard.) I couldn't carry it back to NYC with me, so she shipped it some weeks later. To be honest, I haven't had the guts, or the occasion, to wear it out yet. But I do love it! Also, I feel like I don't show my face so much around here anymore--which I am quite fine with! But just in case you were wondering, hi, hello, this is my face right now. In my awesome new hat.

:n )

WENVRSLEEP

I first became aware of the amazing Miss Sarah Beaver many years ago now, back in our wardrobe_remix days. Since then, I've eagerly followed her career--not only as a stylist, but also as a person with extremely excellent taste in basically everything. Her latest venture is no exception: We Never Sleep is a line of beautiful jewelry hand crafted from artisan-made and deadstock materials. Her first collection draws inspiration from such seemingly disparate sources as Constantin Brancusi and the Free Masons, but in context it all makes perfect sense: rich, earthy woods and semi-precious stones combine with elegant metal findings and Czech glass beads to create pieces that are as wonderfully simple as they are substantial, all shrouded with a touch of the mystic. Not only am I crushing hard on everything in her shop at the moment, but I'm incredibly excited to see what wondrous direction Sarah's creations take next...

INTO THE ALGARVE SUN

Right after my last post, I came across this spread over on Youthquakers. Taken by Norman Parkinson for UK Vogue January 1973, these photos pretty much encapsulate everything I'm aching for at the moment. While they were shot in Algarve, Portugal, which is actually bordered on two sides by the Atlantic Ocean, the colors, the sun, the sand--they all feed into my current (and ok, long-standing) obsession with visiting the Mediterranean.

The closest I've gotten was during a visit to the Cinque Terre too many years ago now (which, technically, is on the Ligurian Sea anyways! Bah!) More recently, this obsession has been fueled a) by Summer Lovers, aka the most atrocious movie you absolutely HAVE to see and b) by discovering Filicudi Island thanks to the newest issue of Apartamento. Algarve, Filicudi, Vernazza...it doesn't matter so much, as long as I can bring along my cutoffs.

EASY AS ONE TWO THREE

(click photo for item details)
Today was achingly cold, the kind of day that, when coming in March, tends to quash all hopes of it ever being spring, of the breezes ever being balmy instead of biting, of your bare flesh ever seeing the light of day again. The kind of day that makes it hard to imagine, let alone believe, that some day I might live, day in and day out, in little more than what you see pictured above.

True story: sometimes when it is really frigid out (meaning that our radiators have finally kicked in and are steaming away merrily) I put on my cutoffs and wear them around the house, to do dishes or make dinner or just veg in front of the computer. I also have a painful crush on these sandals, though my Saltwaters will do just as well I suppose. And finally, I already have my sights on some new summer staple t-shirts which aren't so much cropped as just the perfect length on me (black, white, sorbet please.) Maybe if I close my eyes and wish reeeal hard...it'll be June when I wake up in the morning?

WINTER HOME

Now that we've made it through February--and even the first day of March!--and now that Accuweather is showing proportionally far more 4's and 5's across the board than 2's and 3's, it finally, finally is beginning to feel as though we're on the upswing. So it occurred to me that I had better get my ass in gear and share with you more of the photos from my visit home in January, before I enter fully into denial that winter ever happened in the first place.

The first photo was taken from the window of the plane on the second leg of my flight, from LA to Seattle. Looking out over the Sierra Nevada mountains, I found myself truly overwhelmed by just how breathtaking the West is, and just how much I miss living in that special, incomparable part of the country. Back home, there is always a mountain on the horizon, and I miss my own familiar giants (Baker, Rainier) every day. Here there is city and more city, and then flatness and swamps, and when you do come across a mountain, it is all the wrong shape. Here things are round and sloped, there they are jagged and rough and conical. I actually have a real theory about the shapes of nature in the East versus the West--but that is a lengthy dissertation for another day!

(all photos taken by me, using Fuji 35mm 400 speed film on my Canon AE-1 Program)