theasceticlibertine

Back to School

I hate backpacks.  I stopped wearing one when I got to senior year of high school and I've never looked back.  They're awkward and hideous.  Those awful leather-purse ones that women used to wear dangling on their backs?  Shudder, shudder, shudder. 

Backpacks are, unfortunately, sometimes a necessary evil.  I've tried to avoid it, I really have.  I was convinced students could live by tote bag alone.  Not the case.  I remember wrenching my back particularly badly after trying to take home 20 pounds of books.  Probably not the best idea, even with a backpack, but at least it would have been evenly distributed weight, instead of weight balanced against one side of my body.

This year I've decided that I need to just cave and get a backpack and actually--gasp, slight shudder--wear it on both shoulders, the way you're supposed to.  The problem?  It's really difficult to look like an adult when you're wearing a backpack.  The backpack needs to be so fabulous that it will ward off skeptical once-overs.  This is a tall order.  For a while, I contemplated getting the Hikari Backpack from Alite.  It's the perfect design, actually, but only comes in two colors and ultimately was a little too "going-hiking" for me.

As usual, the cool comes down to Stella McCartney.  Her backpack for Adidas is exactly what I'm looking for.  I will never look lame or like I'm trying to relive my youth if I wear this pack.  It's ideal, really--sort of a rucksack, but not as bulky.  Some shiny patent-looking details give dimension to the nylon, and the stitching makes it kinda... badass.  I don't know if I can really bring myself to pay $130 for a freakin backpack, but sometimes looking good?  It costs money.

Adidas by Stella McCartney

August Denial

Not only can I not believe it's August already, I am having difficulty with the concept that it's already mid-August.  I start classes for my program again in September, which means I have a few sweet weeks of freedom before I have no life whatsoever until Christmas.  Working full-time and getting a Master's did seem like a good idea last year...  :)

Seriously, though, I am mega-lucky to be doing what I'm doing, so no true complaints here.  And thinking about fall is a nice reprieve from the disgustingly humid and hot weather NYC is experiencing at the moment.  If you know me by now, you know that no thought of fall trends is complete without the requisite shoe lust.  My big choice for fall boot is secret right now, because I haven't bought them yet and I don't want to jinx it, but I will post pics once they are in my clutches. 

The big thing that has me intrigued right now, though, is the high-heeled loafer trend.  I'm not a loafer person in general; it says something that in my massive shoe collection there are zero loafers.  But once upon a time I did buy some black, high heeled ones that I had to give away after I realized that I could barely stand in the 5-inch heels, much less walk around in them all day. 

First on my radar have been the offerings from Balenciaga and Prada.  Still too high for me, but if someone comes up with a wearable, chic option to these killers, I think I'd be all over it. 

PradaBlue

Balenciaga

PradaPlatform

Mirrored

I know this isn't a home decor or interior design blog, but sometimes things bleed over.  That mirrored jewelry box from yesterday's post wouldn't leave my mind, and got me to searching for something similar, available stateside, that wasn't crazy expensive.  Jewelry boxes led to jewelry armoires which led to mirrored nightstands.  I'm a big fan of the Philippe Starck Ghost Chair, so the leap to a mirrored nightstand (clear/glass/mirror) isn't too much of a stretch.  If I could, I'd have this in my room:

Mirrored

I'd want it to look a bit older in style, as if I found it by lucky chance at a garage sale or flea market--only in my dreams, I know.  :)  Although the wonderful thing about a mirrored chest of drawers or nightstand is that it can make small spaces look bigger, I wouldn't want to overdo it.  I'd want to have that one special piece that stood out, and made part of my room look like the glamorous dressing room of a old-school movie star.  I'm definitely a sucker for that, and I'd take any one of these, though the feet on the jewelry armoire are particularly stunning:

Nightstand

Gloria

Armoire

Jewel Box

I love fancy boxes, and I have no idea why.  I don't collect them or anything, but I've given them often as gifts, and I just received a beautiful one from my boss that I will probably use to store jewelry.  Even though I'm not a huge jewelry-lover, over the years I have amassed enough trinkets to warrant buying at least a small jewelry box.  Unfortunately, I find most of them boring and uninspired, which was why this lovely, slightly gaudy (it's the mirrored thing--I know it's Art Deco but it just makes me think of the mirrored, blow-loving 80's sometimes) yet incredibly glamorous box from Bombay & Co. has caught my eye:

BombayBox

Unfortunately it's crazy expensive.  ZGallerie has a decent facsimile that is only $40, but I feel it loses a lot of the charm of the original:

ZGallerieBox

Doing Google searches for "jewelry box" and "art deco" occasionally brought up some art nouveau jewelry caskets that I also find really charming:

Artnouveau

If I had a little girl, I would totally buy her this hand mirror: 

Artnouveaumirror

I think of all of the stories we could come up with on the magical beauty of it. It'd make a good match with this trinket box:

Artnouveautrinketbox

Chandelier, oh Chandelier

I promise I'm not a chandelier-come-lately.  Ever since I saw this picture of Emily Eisen wearing the green-heeled Prada chandelier sandals with black tights, I've been obsessed.  After seeing all the colors and styles, I still like the green heel with the smokey grey crystals best (pic from On the Surface):

PradaChandelierAll

Vogue featured this low-heeled version of the shoe in a pictorial, and I got even more obsessed (I love it when designers have a variety of heel heights):

ChandelierLow

I find it really interesting that due to the less-than-luxury nature of the materials (plastic, velcro, lucite), this item is now almost impossible to knock off successfully.  I don't think it can be done.  A knock-off would literally look like a cheap imitation.  Prada does this from time to time.  (The James Jean fairy handbags, though luxurious, can really never be replicated.)  It's smart.  I will continue to lust after these shoes, mainly because I will never have them (they are far too much money).  From what I hear, they are also a bit uncomfortable (you can thank the plastic) and the crystals tend to fall off.  It's ok.  Sometimes these things need to just be left to fantasy, and that's one of the great things about fashion for me--that it can be just beautiful to look at, even if I can't have it.

Apologies for the sporadic blogging.  I've been doing tons this summer with my free time, trying to take advantage of as much as I can before classes start up again in the fall.  I've also guest-blogged for a friend on summer trends and as soon as I have the URL for those posts, I'll link to them here.

Nude Shoe Holy Grail

So my friends have this joke that I'm the shoe psychic.  I tend to predict shoe trends, and so am often left really wanting something that no one is making at the time, and I usually have to wait about 3 years for the rest of the world to catch up to what I'm thinking.  This is the only part of fashion I have any kind of forward-thinking about.  When it comes to clothes and accessories, I'm just as in the dark as the rest of the world.  But shoes, for some reason, we have a connection.  Or I'm obsessed.  Or both. 

This was more than 3 years ago, though.  In fact, it was probably more like 8 or 9 years ago that I remember telling my best friend that I wanted a nude shoe.  Unfortunately, it took a while for the shoe world to start making shoes in any colors that weren't brown, black or navy.  (Do you remember those days?  Like the Dark Ages, I'm telling you.)  Now you can get shoes in a multitude of amazing colors, but back then it was boresville.  Shoe stores thought they were exciting when they started carrying cordovan. 

So this is the year, I think, that the nude shoe is finally getting its due.  There have been flickers here and there, but only now am I seeing every starlet on the planet (especially the short ones) wearing glossy, nude Louboutin platform pumps, or, in the case of Rachel Bilson, Rag & Bone's amazing Victoria wedges:

Victoriawedge

Ragbonevictoria

Lust-worthy, certainly.  Too high a platform for me, sadly.  But I'm okay with that because they really are too much money.  But someone needs to get on the ball and make a decent facsimile of this shoe with a walkable heel height.  Faryl Robin's Emily shoe kinda gives you the vibe, but not really:

Farylrobinemily

I hate waiting.  One of these days I'm going to have to befriend somebody who owns a shoe company and get them to serve up my obsessions.  The deal:  I get the first pair, free.

Reiterate

You should know, right off the bat, that I am not a clog person.  Those shoes hold zero appeal to me in the normal course of things.  They are clunky, hard to walk in and terrible for shock absorption on the cruel, hard pavements of NYC.  I am also what I call a heel wuss, meaning that I can't take anything over 3.5" (usually sticking to 3" if I'm honest) because otherwise my feet will feel like bloody stumps after about 15 minutes.  All that aside, I issue the following caveat:  I kind of have a thing for clog boots.  It makes sense--if I were going to make a clog exception, of course it would be boots.  I live for boots, and boot season.  And, of course, 3 years ago, when I was looking for a pair, nobody made them.  These days, thanks to Chanel and Karl, clogs are blowing up in a big, trendy way.  But before there was the Chanel clog, there was the Swedish Hasbeens Jodhpur boot.  And oh, I wanted it so badly--in the black, with the natural wood bottom, in the very walkable 2.8" heel. 

Jodhpur

I lusted, I really did.  However, 2495 SEK?  Not so much.  Also, they are sold out.  Coincidentally enough, No. 6 started making a boot (I really don't know which came first, but I know I saw the Swedish Hasbeens version first) that looks very, very similar. 

No6

Unfortunately also almost $350.  Mama doesn't have that kind of dosh, but if she did, she'd scoop them right up.  In the meantime, one of my fave "affordable" brands, Jeffrey Campbell, has been riffing off what Swedish Hasbeens is doing (a lace-up version), and offering those for significantly less kronor.  Need Supply has them in this lovely putty color. 

Erickson

However, being an American brand, they had to ramp up that heel size, because god knows we won't need our knees in this country when we're old.  Taking a look at the current heel heights in fashion just reminds me of the torturous chopines of the Renaissance. 

So nothing is quite right, or affordable enough for me just yet.  I'm hoping the boot clog trend will filter down to Dansko or Sanita and I'll get both a good-looking *and* comfortable shoe for less than $200.  A girl can dream, right?  Gawd, it's so unfashiony to discuss comfort.  I promise my next post will be less stodgy. 

 

Seasonal Handbag Lust

So... I'm boring when it comes to handbags.  It's just not my thing.  My heart belongs to shoes.  But every once in a while, I'll really like a bag, and it's usually out of my price range, and I just suffer in silence (first world problems, I know). 

This season's bag for me is Coach's Bella leather tote.  Nothing flashy, not astronomically priced.  A good, practical bag that is a bit overpriced, but would last years and be worth it.  It's immensely practical while also being completely stylish.  I totally want it.  Just saying.  Hint hint.

CoachBellaLeatherTote

More Good Thoughts

Saw this quote today and had to link to the blog that mentions it.  It's pretty much exactly how I feel/sums up my views about fashion pretty perfectly:

“Fashion is an extension of dressing. It’s a very important social factor. It amuses me that fashion and fashion photography are treated so poorly intellectually. Cultural intellectuals tend to feel they’re not qualified to discuss fashion photography, or that it’s a waste of time. I even get correspondence across the forums at SHOWstudio from people who think fashion is evil. There’s a lack of understanding, a moral dismissal, and an anger that fashion, and by extension fashion photography, is a wasteful, criminal thing. I quite like that agitation and aggression, because I don’t believe it. In a society where your first encounter with people tends to be visual, you’re sort of saying “This is who I am.” I can’t imagine a society that doesn’t adorn and decorate itself and doesn’t use its outer appearance in some way as a social communication.” -Nick Knight, interviewed in Aperture 197

Behold, my culture's native dress, most often worn these days when dancing at festivals (images courtesy of Life and this blog):

Bailando

PR

Fur & Gold: Luca Luca Fall 2010 RTW

Raul Melgoza's designs for Luca Luca were quite lovely.  It was an incredibly cohesive collection for being so large (36 looks), with each piece riffing off of another.  As a whole, the look is sleek and dark, using a lot of different materials to add variety.  The Luca Luca woman is urbane, but also has an Italian flair for wildness to go along with her sophistication, which in this case takes the form of leather, fur and gold.  I didn't love all of it, but here are a few of the pieces I liked the most:

34

3

26

5

23

22

15

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