other accessories

>> The man who drapes cloth into confections like the one on the right has quit his namesake company, his backers Sharai and Andre Meyers announced yesterday.  Monsieur Roland Mouret will continue as head designer of Roland Mouret long enough to present a Fall/Winter 2006 collection, and then he'll leave his name behind with the company.  No decisions on who will replace Monsieur Mouret have been made. 

I'm still in a state of shock...he's one of my favorite designers.  Surprising as this seems, apparently the relationship with the Meyers has always been voltatile.  Monsieur Mouret is quoted in September as saying, "It was like love at first sight when we met.  We just clicked.  Then her husband encouraged her to work with me.  And we're like husband and wife, and the company is our baby.  Sometimes we think alike, other times we fight like cats and dogs.  We have two distinctly different backgrounds -- she's Scottish, and quiet, and I'm French, fiery, and, well, a guy."

Pauvre, pauvre Monsieur Mouret...I hope to see you back soon.      

**sources: vogue uk, style.com

>> Mattel is expanding Barbie's domain to include high-end designer clothing.  Yes, you heard me right.  Barbie, that inhumanly large-busted, small-waisted, long-legged individual with the feet permanently in high heel shape, is getting a clothing line.  For adult women.  The so-called "Barbie Luxe" line will include jeans, shirts, handbags, and jewelry designed by the likes of Anna Sui, Citizens of Humanity, Judith Leiber, Paper Denim & Cloth, Stila, and Tarina Tarantino (a good pick on that one, I must say).  Barbie is their muse, so think pink stitching on jeans or a retro silhouette on a cameo pendant.  Pardon me while I cackle at this idea -- it's supposed to be targeted at "the fashionista."  Well, I never did like Barbie as a kid.   

**sources: usa today, blogger

>>  I think it's good thing to pull an Annie Hall every once and a while.  Especially with all the ties on the Spring runways...

Leather Driving Gloves, J. Crew

>> And it's getting pretty darn serious.  And by serious, I mean, I pretty much want every boot that I lay my eyes on.  I think it's a side effect of that season we call "autumn" -- my favorite season to shop.  Because, let's face it, fall clothes are so much more fun than spring clothes -- there's more to wear at once, more you can do, without the worry of getting hot.  Or maybe you will be hot, with boots like these -- it is inevitable, after all.    

I first laid eyes on these in Nylon -- I think it's the color that smote me.  Or maybe it's just the beautiful styling that Nylon always does.  Either way, I'm taken with these boots, with their green leather and their slouchiness and their cuff.

And then there's the booties... a newfound love for me.  I used to turn my head in disgust, but I've had a change of heart.  Again, these are seen in Nylon -- probably my favorite ones I've seen thus far.  But Anthropologie does have three or four oxford-inspired pairs up their sleeves.  Like these...or these...or these...or last but not least, these.

But wait, there's more... the flat boots.  These are the killers -- so many shapes and sizes to love.  There's the slim short Victorians (right), the loose slouchy average heights, and the willowy tall ones.

If the flats are the killers, these ankle boots are the serial killers --  I was a goner the moment I saw them.  The ankle height, the flared suede, the bow.  Delicious, Moschino, just yum.  And I have to give Target mad props for producing a much more price-conscious option that can be worked with -- just slouch it down, and add a bit of velvet ribbon.    

Sigh... I've really gone to town, now, haven't I.  Oh well.  It's probably lust, not love, anyway.  (Or I can keep telling myself that, at least).

>> When I picked up the New York Times yesterday, I found this little blurb quite amusing:

The valley girl is alive and well - in Japan.  Lookism may reign in American high schools, but Japanese girls have a new way to assess relative coolness: call it "soundism." Tired of the Tokyo mode of speech, they mix words and accents to affect their own suburban vernacular.  Japanese fashion magazines quick to pick up on street trends are publishing photos with speech bubbles above the girls' heads.  Commonly used words include "messa" ("very") and "jan" ("for sure"), but the test of skill comes in the combination of words and dialects.  The obsessive Manba girls of Shibuya, known for ultradark tans, garish makeup and bleach-blond hair, take it one step farther: many practice their language through another pop-culture tradition, karaoke. Messa cute.

**sources: nytimes

>> We're going to play a little game.  It's called: "Describe How You Feel About Shoes Using Onomatopeia."

Ready?  Begin.

Pant pant pant.  Drool drool drool.  Gahhhhhhhhhh!  (At this point I pass out from the heartache.)

Yeah.  Ever since I've seen platform pumps on Prada's Fall/Winter runway and pretty much everyone's Spring/Summer runway, I've been coveting a pair of my own.  Like these lovely lovely Louboutins.  (I wish.)

>> That's exactly what I thought of -- that chant "Miss Mary Mack" that we all used to sing as kids.  And it's not surprising, considering that Hartmann Nordenholz's collection featured lots of big, white buttons running down the backs of their lovely dresses.  But the standout feature?  The pleating.  There's diagonal pleating on the bodices, big pleated butterfly sleeves, a pleated bustle, and of course, the requisite pleated skirts (all below).  The collection is refreshing...playful...spring-y.  And it's giving me this uncanny desire to get a mask and wear it as a hat.  Not joking.  I'm seriously considering it. 

The rest of this yummy collection can be seen here.   

>>  Behold the power of this flower -- you just want to touch it, don't you?  Well, that's the idea.  Maggie and Michael, creators of Supermaggie, have built their business around the sense of touch.  "I love to have my hands in stuff -- mud, biscuit dough, clay, paint, water, fur, fabric," Maggie says. "I'm always touching things.  I want people to have a visceral response to the things I make."  Well, I for one responded well -- I was immediately attracted to the flower brooches and the funky shaped wool scarves -- like the puff flower above, for instance ($28). 

But the coolness factor doesn't stop there -- each scarf is handsculpted by Maggie through the process of wet felting, in which she aggravates the scales on the wool fibers through friction, making them tack together.  Some of the flower brooches are made by wet felting, but others are made through needle felting -- in which the wool fibers are placed around a form and then a needle is jabbed into the form, tacking the fibers to it.  Basically speaking, Miss Maggie spends a lot of time crafting her scarves and flowers.  But it shows -- they're very unique.  Take my two favorite scarves, for instance, the superpointy ($90 -- above) and the necktie ($58 -- right) -- have you ever seen anything like them?  I definitely haven't.  And yet, they're not too far-out.  They're very wearable, just subtly different.  And that's what I like.

**sources: venus zine, wikipedia

>> ...for creating the I <3 NY logo.  The problem is, I feel like everyone else feels the same way.  Which is fine, but it's made me shy away from wearing it -- it seems so popular, it's done.  It's become a guilty pleasure for me, and I've been searching for a way to reinvent the logo to make it new and different.  So lucky me, I was looking at pictures of Karen Elson after hearing the news, and I came across this great picture of her with THE shirt on.  I love it, the juxtaposition of the punkish distressing of the tee itself and the feminine ruffles in place of the sleeves.  And, the best thing about it, I feel like this is totally something that can very easily be done -- a little snip snip here, a little rub rub there, eh voila!  C'est magnifique!

Then, it must be my lucky day -- I came across an even more doable option in the new issue of Teen Vogue (read: no snipping, no rubbing) -- the tote bag option.  It's just different enough, and cheap, to boot ($11.99!).  I don't know about you, but I'm cuted out by it. 

If you like sticking with the classic, the tees are here for $14.99.

**sources: saigonnet.vn

>>  I watched the slideshow, watched the runway video, watched the slideshow again, and I just can't do it.  I thought maybe repetition would expose some ideal that I was missing the first couple run-throughs, but it just didn't happen.  I just can't bring myself to like the new Chloe collection (Pheebs, you're killing me here.)

The collection was inspired by Miss Philo's research into 1960's "old lady chic." She even christened the new bags with names like Marge, Edith, Gladys.  It was an experiment in "volume, something new," she said.  Well, the lines were definitely forgiving, with oversized tops and dresses everywhere.  Lots of white, with a smidgen of color.  Lots of frills...  I know I sound bored, but really, I am.  There is exactly one outfit that I can live with from this collection -- and even it's not that great (above).  There are these platform mary janes, however, that I could definitely make some good use of.  They win the best-of-collection gold star (it was a tough win, this time around, believe you me).   

You can view the rest of the collection here -- or you could just use your time to do something more constructive.  When you're placed in a nursing home, you can look around at what Marge, Edith, Gladys, and Myrtle are wearing... and get the same effect.