a cache of inspiration

this is how my mom sleeps. when i was little, i'd try and sleep like her with my arm over my eyes...i didn't like it.






...because sometimes you just need to look at pretty things.

it's always good to read a little, folks

i started sassafras because i was having trouble finding inspiration in my own life. for any sort of creative, it's highly frustrating to feel uninspired both by what you love, and by the world around you. sassafras has done wonders for me, but i'm constantly looking for more, and for new ways of gleaning as much as i can from my surroundings, both immediately and globally.

my roommate erin, who's also a writer, sent me this article last night, but there's a segment of it that i'd like to post (despite its length) as its incredibly pertinent to anyone who's seeking a relationship with the world, whether you're a writer or not. i hope you enjoy, and i hope it inspires you to do or experience something different and new.

***

You will become known for doing what you do. This may sound obvious, but it is a useful thing to realize. Many people seem to think they must endure a "rite of passage" which, once passed, will allow them to do the kind of work they want to do. Then they end up disappointed that this day never comes. Find a way to do the work you want to do, even if it means working nights and weekends. Once you've done a handful of excellent things in a given way, you will become known as the person who does excellent things in that given way. And that's the person you want to be, because then people will hire you to be that person.

The personal is powerful. Trust your own experience. It’s the only thing that’s really yours, and that’s really unique. Putting yourself in your work can be powerful.

Do your own thing. If you imitate, you’ll only ever be a bad example of the thing you’re trying to imitate. An artist I like very much, Donald Judd, said that what you have to do is to find the same level of inventiveness as the person you’re trying to imitate. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t incorporate elements of other people’s work. As Picasso said: “Bad artists copy; great artists steal.” What he meant is that it can be OK to steal an idea from somewhere else, as long as you steal the idea and do something new with it, make it your own, and move on. If you copy it outright you’ll only get stuck in the past.

Ideas are the only things that survive. Execution is important too; a good idea poorly executed probably won’t go anywhere. But if something is going to last, it’s because there’s a good idea at its core. It’s got to start with the idea.

Experience is the only way to learn. Pain, joy, fear, risk, love, firsthand experience. You can learn so much from these things, and the experience will end up affecting your work in ways you don’t even realize. But it’ll be based on a real thing.

Only fools get trapped by tools. Tools exist to serve you. Not the other way around. There is a long-standing unspoken pact between tools and their owners, which says that tools should disappear the moment you stop needing them. This is the way that pencils, hammers, and leaf-blowers behave. But many of our technological devices – iPods, cellphones, laptops, Blackberries – have violated this pact and overstepped their boundary, asserting themselves onto the lives of their owners, becoming constant distractions. Don't let your tools trap you. Tools are not the idea. Tools are tools.

Go outside. It’s important to get away from technology and experience the world. You've got to see your world, see your community, see what's not being said what needs to be said. That’s probably the best way to figure out what you’re going to say. For me at least, it’s impossible to have any good ideas while sitting behind a computer. Ideas come from life. As Hemingway said, “I have to live to work.”

Once you have learned how to speak, what will you say? This is really the central question. If I can leave you with one idea from my talk, this would be it.

--jonathan harris, 2008

***

also: check out his project "we feel fine." a website which is constantly collecting sentences newly posted blogs containing the sentence "i feel," resulting in a database of human emotion. click on the colored dots, which are organized by size and color to indicate the emotion and its intensity, to read the sentences.

chanel, my belle

what i really love about karl lagerfeld as a designer is that he creates these massive collections that evolve visually as they travel down the runway. for couture fall 2009, he starts with the foundation of the quintessential chanel tweed suit, accentuated by couture construction and accoutrement, and then he travels from day to evening, his pieces becoming more elaborate as the show goes on, with the addition of trains and beading and draping and gloves, each piece becoming increasingly ornate.

the idea i laid out yesterday of creating an outside story based on an entire collection is something i feel karl already does. there's a distinct evolution to his collections, and he produces such vast amounts of clothing that there's room for the story to develop strongly and intricately. there's an incredible method to his madness.

i will say, though, i do not like the cut of the skirts comprising the first quarter of this collection. i feel like the length of the skirt in conjunction with the height of the booties make the model's legs look stubby, by accentuating the largest part of the calf. yes, fine, they're models and they're inordinately thin regardless, but no matter what size you are, you still don't want the largest part of anything on your body being framed solo. other than that, it's all exquisite, of course.

*photos taken from style.com

coutureeeeee is hereeeeeee

dior is the only couture show that's been posted thus far, and i'm so excited to see what else designers have come up with for couture this year. i'm longing for something new, and crazy, and conceptual, and i'm bored with looking through editorials to get it.










i love how raw and sexed up the whole collection is...the thigh highs and exposed bustiers, smoldering eyes and deep red lips. it's like russian film noir, the models as dangerous, ruthless femme fatales, seducing everything in their path with their couture poses and sultry movements. chanel iman's look is my favorite, along with heloise guerin in the red dress with the feathered hat and exposed lace slip. you can feel the seduction emanating from the photograph.

couture collections tell such fantastical stories. it would be kind of fun to pull an "across the universe" (a musical whose story was told through beatles songs, for those who didn't see the film) couture style, writing short stories based on my favorite collections, dressing all my characters in haute couture. what a world that's created by fashion. i do love it so.

stammy, my stammy

this photo is sophia coppola's marie antoinette meets my personal dream world. that blue hair is so freaking beautiful juxtaposed against the powder pink of jessica's dress and make-up. seriously, i cannot get enough of this.

photo taken lovingly from freelancer

karl lagerfeld, you are a ridiculous genius

i want to own a book detailing everything karl lagerfeld has ever said. ever.

pomegranate and patchouli

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the edge of love

i love the romance of artfully styled costume design. having a theatre background, i respond strongly to the importance of clothing/costuming and love when i can see a designer's passion and inspiration for the period. the vintage costuming (especially when you have such lovely subjects as sienna miller and keira knightley) for the edge of love (2008) is so lovely and so free...i love these photos. there's something so utterly glamourous about the way they're dressed...so casual, yet so chic and so put together.

i adore their '40s wavy hair and wellie/sock combinations. their fedoras are freaking adorable.










images via the thinking tank

omg can't wait

i saw this this morning and am so freaking excited i cannot hardly stand it. ysl (and pierre) had one of the largest privately-owned collections of art to date, much of which was recently auctioned off earlier this year. yves' attention to and deep love for art, next to his love of literatre (proust, especially) was one of his greatest influences. an influence deeply reflected in his collections, visual aesthetic, and in the way he decorated the many abodes he kept throughout his lifetime. this book will be unbelievable, and i'm counting down the moments until it will be beautifully displayed on my coffee table.

"Those with the most discerning of tastes, will undoubtedly find this tome to be one of the most remarkable documents ever published on Yves Saint Laurent’s private realm.

Pierre Bergé was Yves St Laurent’s lifelong business partner, friend and former lover who collaborated on this lavish volume, which provides a glimpse of the exotic and breathtaking interiors of the worldwide homes they shared and what they collected.

Yves Saint Laurent was more than a designer of clothing – he was, for many, one of the great style arbiters of the twentieth century. His talent made him the youngest and brightest star in the firmament of fashion, first with Christian Dior, who chose him as his successor, and later in his own right as the shy but daring creator of the modern woman’s wardrobe.

His private life was the subject of constant public fascination, and the homes that he shared with Bergé were extraordinary private cocoons of taste and style. Ivan Terestchenko’s photographs – taken after Yves Saint Laurent’s death in 2008 – capture these exquisite surroundings and cultured luxury for the last time.

Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé amassed an exceptional collection of furniture and paintings over some forty years. It included important works by Picasso, Matisse and Mondrian, Old Master paintings by Goya, Ingres and Géricault, and masterpieces of furniture, sculpture and silver from the Renaissance to Art Deco.

Not a single piece from the collection was sold until the year following Saint Laurent’s death. A historic sale by auction at the Grand Palais in Paris became the stuff of legend months before it even took place.

Beyond the legendary rue Babylone apartment in Paris, the book also chronicles those seven other homes of St Laurent and Berge including the lush Villa Majorelle in Marrakech. Even the most dedicated minimalist will have to bow in respect to the unerring erudition of taste displayed in this seductive parade of nineteenth-century French décor, important paintings by modern and Romantic artists, and masterpieces of furniture, sculpture, and silver ranging from the Renaissance to the Art Deco era. A worthy addition to any aesthete’s library." - Thames and Hudson

it's a doll's life

i love skin which exudes a porcelain quality. perhaps it's just my love for my own alabaster skin, but there's something so pure, so exotice, so eye-catching about the majesty of flawless, glowing, white skin. abbey lee looks like a beautiful doll here...and the gold jumpsuit is freaking unbelievable. with her hair so perfectly coiffed, and her red lips and distant expression...it's breathtaking.

i also love that the editorial is called "neo romantics." it is romantic...yet the purity and etherealness of the romance make it slightly haunting.

vogue italia / starbucks and jane austen

lighten up it's just faaaaaaaashion!

i've been rewatching old seasons of project runway, and have concluded that my all-time favorite season is season 2, which includes such delicious characters as santino, nick verreos and -- *swoon* -- daniel vosovic, only one of the sexiest men alive. santino's musical numbers were the best part of this season, and last night erin and i danced around the apartment singing this little diddy:



it's equally satisfying when "fashion" is replaced with other things, like "writing," "fitness," and "furniture." i have a feeling i'm going to be singing at people to lighten up about various things much more often.

it's a good thing your friends have to love you.

séeberger brothers

elegance: the séeberger brothers and the rise of fashion photography is a stunning photographic exposé chronicling street fashion and couture fashion in paris throughout the twentieth century. although what the séebergers did, in terms of fashion photography, was not extraordinarily revolutionary, their archive of fashion photography is one of the largest to date. their foray into studio photo shoots in the 1930s and 40s predicted the future of photo journalism, and, as it happens to be, the way we approach fashion journlism today.

the brothers were iconocized by their vast archives of street style from parisian racetracks, like longchamp, and other fashionable situations of high society. this evolved into their desire to capture trends and styles throughout paris, photographing the very best of parisian mode on the beaches, boardwalks, and at events attended by the societal elite. their business exanded as they began to shoot couture, using both real women and models as their subjects. chanel, poiret, rochas, patou, schiaparelli, hermes, callot, lanvin...their photographs represent an unbelievable retrospective of one of the most chic, stately, and perfectly refined periods in fashion history.

these photographs hardly represent the breadth of stunning photography available in elegance but you can certainly see the inspiration behind their vision. i love contemporary fashion photo journalism, obviously, but i'm so inspired by the history of the parisian chic; that entire enclave of women who dressed in couture and donned hats for every occassion, their gesticulations accented by pearled, gloved hands and cigarettes in holders. there's very little that's chic about 21st century america. over-stressed, over-weight, and over-consumed, the laissez-faire, enjoy-it-as-you-wish approach to life that permeated the social mood of this era is sadly not present.

i find these women to be utterly magestic, and advise finding a copy of this book. you can never have enough of the elegance and classicism of the parisian attitude.