WORKING CLASS

Britt Lower by Charlie Rubin for Working Class Magazine, styled by yours truly, with thanks to Alexandra Grecco, Hannah Metz and Sarah Beaver.

So the thing about having a job that requires you to be on the internet all day is that it helps you get real tired of the internet, real fast. I have been neglecting too many dusty corners--it's time to sweep out the world wide cobwebs. Above are a few outtakes from a shoot I did with Charlie and actress Britt Lower for Brooklyn-based zine Working Class. I made my peace with pastels that funny day.

I played a supporting role on another shoot not so long ago with my favorite flower girl, od'ing with perverted bliss on lily fumes and stumbling home at three in the afternoon loaded down with the biggest, smelliest bouquet of leftovers. Running out of vases and shoving French lavender into old jam jars. And slowly, but surely, a pal and I have been chipping away at a brand spankin' new website, primarily intended to trick the public into thinking I am a fully, perhaps even professionally, functioning human. Works in progress (me, myself and my website.) After all: it does not matter how slow you go, so long as you do not stop--or so a wise tumblr template once told me.

SUPERB FUJIYAMA

Amy Merrick's Valentine's Day Pop-Up at Castor & Pollux // A Détacher A/W 2012

These two events had absolutely nothing to do with each other, but their colors look pretty good together don't you think??

Anyways, it's Spring now, and that's great. Capital "S" ya daaaamn right, that's my #1 all-time favorite season you're talkin' 'bout. In retrospect, it wasn't quite yet Spring back when I took these photos, but we were all doing our best to pretend.

I realized this week that I have a lot to learn about working from home. Tonight I'm very thankful that tomorrow I get to work in someone else's studio instead.

THINGS I LOVE: MARCH

For me, the best part about Fashion Week in NYC is that it tends to lure all sorts of exciting, stylish visitors from far away corners of the world. This past February, I finally had the chance to meet up with one of my favorite bloggers from the other side of the globe, Ms. Hannah-Rose of Capture the Castle. We spent a giddy afternoon wandering around Williamsburg on various goose-chases (some wilder than others) and eventually settled down to conduct a little interview over coffee and Tim Tams at Toby's Estate.

Hannah also asked me to put together a Top Ten list for Benah, one of my favorite Australian lines that also happens to run a really excellent blog. True to form, I decided to make everything ten times more complicated by only shooting the photos I wanted to use on film--but I'm so glad I did! I'm really happy with the results, and I hope you are too. Have a look, and leave a little love :n )

INSPIRATION: HANDMADE VALENTINES

Film stills from Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975) / Edwardian Valentines from LaMeow Vintage / my photo

Friends: thank you for indulging my mopey-ness. Someday we will look back and laugh at these dark times when we are all living in our Scottish castles surrounded by endless verdant vistas and staffed with an army of kitty butlers. Shall we proceed?

Let's be honest: just about all of us, myself included, have employed Valentine's Day as an excuse to wallow in self pity at one point or another. This is unacceptable! I have enough fuel for that fire, thank you very much. I have come to believe quite firmly that Valentine's Day is about All Loves Great and Small. It's about loving your friends and your family and your favorite meal and your potted plants and yes, if you happen to have a significant other, it is absolutely about loving them too. It's about who and what YOU love; it is about what YOU have and not about whatever it is you think you are lacking.

I love making Valentine's Day cards, and this year I will be making them for as many people as I can--my Grandma, my best friend, my Uncle, my parents. If you email me your address, I will make one for you (I'm serious! Do it!) I've always longed to replicate the delicate paper nothings the girls circulate with quiet rustles and soft shy smiles in the opening scenes of Picnic at Hanging Rock, and an Etsy search revealed a treasure trove of Victorian and Edwardian-era inspiration. In particular, LaMeow Vintage has an incredible selection of beautiful ephemera to take a peak at. My own versions, created from a hodge-podge of junk I found buried in my crafting pile, are not quite so achingly glorious...but I certainly wouldn't mind finding one waiting in my mailbox :n )

MAINE PART III: PORTLAND

After finding defeat in Bar Harbor, Alex and I left determined to get our fill of lobster before crossing state lines. Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster Co., a short, sweet drive from Portland, happens to open May 1st (the earliest we found), and it was everything we hoped and more. Obviously, we could have sat down at a lot of restaurants in Bar Harbor or Portland and most places in between, and ordered a nice big lobster dinner. But the beauty of the lobster pound lies one part in the freshness of the lobster (from the tank to your table in fifteen minutes flat) and the friendly, unfussy atmosphere. Sides are simple and delicious, like fluffy stacks of cornbread, corn on the cob, little boiled red potatoes, and strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert. The fact that everything was doused in little cups of golden butter didn't hurt going down either. It was GLORY. I've saved you the carnage shot here, heh, give thanks!

We spent that night at The Elms, one of the most beautiful B&B's I've ever seen and a short drive outside of Portland proper. Although it was bordered on one side by a rather busy stretch of road, once you stepped inside the doors of the 130-year-old building it felt like you were miles away from everything. It was so quiet in there it was almost eerie, but it was also incredibly well-kept by its owners, who have filled it with lovingly selected antiques. Every detail was just so, down to the gilded wallpaper in the foyer. We stayed in the Cottage Room, so named according to our host because it had a certain faded charm particular to many seaside cottages in Maine. He finished by telling us that he very much intended to keep it that way, which made me wish that there were more people on this planet capable, like him, of understanding the beauty in leaving something old and worn just the way it is.

One of the highlights of the trip came the next morning, our last in Maine, when we visited the Portland Architectural Salvage. Imagine the most fantastic old attic you always wished your Grandparents had, filled with strange, amazing fantastic old junk and furniture and dusty trunks and cloudy glass bottles. Now, multiply that by four entire floors, and you're most of the way there. It was a dream, although on the pricey side. I wanted to take everything home with me, from ship's wheels to wash basins and bags of milkglass doorknobs. If you ever have the chance, it's definitely worth a wander--thanks to all who recommended it!

Our last night we spent in Cambridge outside Boston. I had never been before, and I loved all the pretty houses and apartment buildings painted greens and creams, and the lilacs bowing their heavy heads in the rain. Now, holed up here on my lonesome, inching my way through an NYC summer, all I can think about is going back. I know that other adventures await, but they still feel impossibly far off at the moment.

WOLVERINE PRIDE

I wish I had photo from my trip to share already...but in the meantime, these are some shots from a roll I got back just before we left. Purple and gold might just be one of my least favorite color combinations (they were also the official colors of my highschool, coincidence?), but this day it felt like they were following me: curtains on 6th St., flowers in the cooler at Sunny's Busy Florist, and my reading material on my lap in a little park somewhere in Alphabet City. Do you ever have days like those, when certain colors seem to pop out at you non-stop?

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.

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.

LATELY

Good things, as of late:
•My No.6 clogs from La Garçonne. They are much darker than I expected, but I love them, even though I am terrified to stretch them out or scuff them or...basically wear them haha.
•Cicciolina the Cat and Herbs, sweet zines by Jung Eun Park. Much thanks to Katie for these!
•Sunlight on the new/old afghan. I found this on etsy and it is so obnoxiously floral and I LOVE it.
•The cover of the new German Measles record. I want that painting to hang above my sofa. I believe it was painted by a chimp?? (The music ain't half bad neither!)

Other things, lacking photographic evidence:
Fresh muscat grapes (over priced but deadly addictive)
Making my first maki sushi roll ever and not totally fucking it up!
Looking forward to this movie and this one too.
Crushing on this one-piece by Minnow Bathers.
Spring sunshine, even though it's weak and makes everything look a bit off color--"A" fort effort sun!

What else is good lately?

JUST A TINY TASTE

Polaroid taken in the Haight many years go//Charles Anastase S/S 2011//Tear from Lucky Magazine, I'm obsessed with those Marc Jacobs bloomers!//Charles Anastase S/S 2011 (I'm so tempted to try and DIY myself a shirt or tank version of this dress, kinda afraid I'm gonna end up looking like a total psycho)//Anemones in pen, ink, and colored pencil//french tulips on polyvore

Ahhh, Friday was such a wicked tease!! Sunny and in the 70's (yeah, you read that right!) here in NYC. Before you get your knickers in a knot though, you should know that's it's supposed to SNOW here on Wednesday. Uh huh, ok. Anyways, it felt so wonderful to go outside with bare legs for the first time in so many months--though I have to admit, I was feeling rather sorry for myself not having anyone to share such a glorious freak of a day with. I ended up wandering around the East Village for hours, snapping film photos and trying not to spend money. Eventually, as usual, I caved and bought three perfect French tulips from Sunny's Florist. Such a sweet little shop, seriously, that woman is living my dream...

Even though it feels like Spring just dangled the dream and then took it away, it's got my mind churning away in pinks, whites, blues and straw yellows. I finally spent the giftcard I won to LaGarconne thanks to Erin last year and ordered those No.6 clogs pictured above. I'm so excited! Brand spankin' new shoes are something that make their way to me once in a blue moon, and I've wanted something from No.6 for ages and ages. I always go into their store in Nolita and touch everything like a creeper and then leave, haha. At least now when I do that, I can wear their shoes and clomp clomp clomp around on the wooden floors just like all the cute shop girls do!