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Monday , March 8, 2010

Imaginary Shopping Spree: Cuffs and Cakes by Emily Miranda

By the end of next year, my wrist will look kinda like this. That's the promise I just made myself, spending the last 10 minutes loving Emily Miranda's scary and gorgeous jewelry and listening to Devendra Banhart's scary and gorgeous remix of a Liars song. That rhinestone/seashell/pearl/ALLIGATOR FOOT-encrusted cuff will be MINE, all mine (even though it terrifies me a little, and costs not all that much less than twice my rent).

Also I will eat one of Emily Miranda's cakes, maybe something like the one that's called Boar Mountain...but with quaggas?

(discovered via the beautiful blog Teagan Tall, btw)

Tags: cakes, cuffs, Devendra Banhart, Emily Miranda, making dreams come true, mountains, quaggas, rhinestones, seashells

Monday , March 1, 2010

Imaginary Shopping Spree: T-Shirts About Vices & Rings About Writing

A BRILLSVILLE T-SHIRT

Some t-shirts don't really need much explanation. I only wish there were a few more choices on the vice tip, like "Dudes, dope and Death." That latter would be very nogoodforme circa 2008, right? (Kat)

A RING THAT WILL HELP ME A BETTER WRITER

Last night, I went to see a psychic, and she was totally psychic. Psychic like crazy. I mean, obviously "being psychic" is part of the job description for "being a psychic," but I didn't expect her to be, like, actually psychic! She knew crazy shit about me and it was crazy. If you live in Toronto and feel like having your mind blown to bits, do me a favor and go see Kim at Southern Accent. The bartender there is Mancunian and affable, so that's nice too. Anyway, after Kim BLEW MY MIND and validated my entire existence, she told me that I need to buy a lapis lazuli and put it on my desk, because it will help me be a better writer. Kim knew I was a writer before I even said a single word to Kim, because Kim is psychic, and that's so awesome, about Kim. I will do everything Kim tells me to do forever. I'm definitely going to buy a lapis lazuli and put it on my desk. But then I thought, "I don't only write at my desk. I write always and everywhere!" Which is why it's a lot more practical for me to buy a lapis lazuli ring and wear it on my writing hand every day until the day I die, and then I'll be the BEST WRITER EVER. Thanks, Kim! (Laura Jane)

Tags: Kim, lapis lazuli, psychics, t-shirts, vices, writing

Tuesday , February 23, 2010

Yet Another Imaginary Shopping Spree: The New Cool Hoody of LJ's Dreams

I bought my Built By Wendy Gene & Gilda hoody nearly three years ago, and have barely taken it off since. I don't blame myself one bit. My Gene & Gilda hoody is the coolest hoody ever and everyone agrees with me. But the times, and tides, are changing. I'd like to have another hoody, and I'd like it to be this Rodarte for Opening Ceremony one. It says "Radarte," which is rad, it is the most perfect grey wash I've ever seen, and I think it would look really sick with jean shorts and platform sandals while getting drunk in parks this coming summer. I really think I deserve to have more than one awesome hoody, you know? I'm not asking for the world here. Just, like, this one overpriced hoody. Please, Mom?

Tags: asking my Mom for clothes on my blog, Imaginary Shopping Spree, Opening Ceremony, Rodarte

Another Imaginary Shopping Spree: Tess Giberson's Fall 2010 RTW Show

Many, many moons and nogoodforme redesigns ago, I babbled on and on about Tess Giberson's show in 2003 (!!), so you can imagine how stoked I was to see her return with her namesake line to the latest Fashion Week in New York. Taking a few years to have a baby and design for TSE has kind of toughed up Giberson, but she still has that serene, unforced quality to her work that I loved in the first place. I'd wear everything in this line: it's kind of a perfect symbiosis of my Helmut Lang and A Detacher side. It's as if Giberson added a homespun air to the minimalist/urban template or skinny leggings, cool jacket and simple shirt. I couldn't be more thrilled or lustful about these clothes, and I WANT EVERYTHING. (Kat)

Tags: fashion shows, Tess Giberson

Monday , February 22, 2010

Imaginary Shopping Spree: A Détacher's Entire Fall 2010 Show, Pigeon & Tonic

SELF-ACTUALIZATION THROUGH MATERIAL LIVING?

There are some fashion shows where I want everything I see in the photos of style.com. This is a rare occurrence, but occasionally it does happen. These want-it-all shows fall into two categories: the first is where I am an Imaginary Relentlessly Cool Person and the clothes reinforce this fantasy, and the second is where I know This Is Who I Am and I Accept It Unconditionally. This season's Helmut Lang show was one where I was really, really into everything I saw, but I know that deep down, if someone forced me to wear it for weeks straight, I would die a soul-death and turn into a snobby robot because there is no way I could be that professionally cool 24-7. Being a Helmut Lang person must be amazing, but it must also be so tiring! The lovely, cozy A Détacher show, on the other hand, is Authentically Myself. It has the trick of being things I already wear a lot (cardigans, stockings, boots, sweaters that look like swaddling) but twisted up in ways that make me look anew at such familiar templates. There are the colors (pistachio green with camel!), the textures (nubby and less nubby and silky all together), and the proportions (an almost-avant, Spiritually Scandinavian cocoonlike quality) that hone and sharpen a way of seeing I've grown accustomed to. In a landscape where so much "fashion" is about asserting sexiness, power, status or some elixir-like combination of all three into an ineffable "fabulousness," a show like A Détacher's evokes a gentle warmth and self-contained charm that makes me want to curl up with a good book, drink a lot of tea and be a good person that makes others happy because it's so warm and kind in feeling. This is who I really am, I guess, even though it kind of sucks to admit that I'm not a snobby robot in a strange, perverse way. But if I can come to accept this about myself through wearing silk shorts with stockings, then who I am to disdain fashion? (Kat)

PORTRAITS OF MARRIED EX-BOYFRIENDS AS SPIRIT ANIMALS (FROM PIGEON & TONIC)

Probably the part of my life I'm least looking forward to is "Laura Jane: The Thirty-Five & Single Years," though at least it'll give me something semi-legit to complain about. All my girlfriends will say, "Don't worry! You just haven't met the right man yet!" and I'll say, "Oh I know! But it's so okay! I don't need a man!" and then in my head I'll say, "I NEED A MAN." And then I'll meet all my ex-boyfriends' fiancees and my ex-boyfriends will say, "Hi! Meet "Bitchface." She's exactly like you, only boring and she likes the Beatles less! You were so manipulative." And I'll say, "Neat!" and then in my head I'll say, "I was only manipulative because you were such a fucking pussy," and then I'll go home and write books and drink as much wine as I want because I'll be a famous writer and the world will accept it about me. "You do whatever you want, Laura Jane," will say the world, "If drinking wine makes you a better writer, you just go right ahead and drink that wine of yours. Whatever it takes, to keep you writing books for us to read, Laura Jane, you wonderful famous writer you."

And then I'll have all these weddings to go to, and it's so obvious that any person I vaguely know even the tiniest bit at all will force me to write some brilliant and hilarious thing to read during those parts of weddings when everybody talks about how this union is the coolest thing that ever happened. But my real point is, wouldn't it be so funny if your ex-boyfriend was marrying Bitchface, and then you commissioned one of these portraits to be drawn of them as their spirit animals, and you chose Bitchface's spirit animal to be something really unflattering? And then you could play dumb and be all, "What? Noooo. I think it's so cool to have a pig be your spirit animal! Pigs are so... beautiful." LOL. (Laura Jane)

PS: And then you can buy them these, once they have lame kids named lame names like Spencer or Delilah or whatever-

Tags: A Détacher, alcoholism, bitches, gentle spirits, Helmut Lang, manipulation, self-fulfillment, singletonism, snobby robots, spirit animals, weddings

Monday , February 15, 2010

Imaginary Shopping Spree: the new Lyell handbag

My handbag game has always been the classic investment one. It's bougie and annoying, but hey, I have three handbags (two of which for the last six or seven years) and I'm still happy. I get a lot of bag crushes and luckily I can get all Imaginary Shopping Spree and express my love that way. But it takes a lot for me to add to the stable in real life. I'm not sure how much this Lyell handbag is and whether or not it's going to be a "classic investment," but it's a beauty in real life. (I pass by the Lyell shop on a semi-regular basis and "pop in" to torture myself with its expensive beauty every now and then.) And like nearly everything Lyell makes, it's heirloom quality and exquisitely made, with beautiful material, stitching and finishing -- the type of thing you'll have for years and pass on to your daughter, because it's made with such obvious care and discernment. Doesn't that sound lovely? Don't you think I've talked myself into getting it at some point? Because I just have... (Kat)

Tags: bougie, handbags, investment dressing, Lyell, torturing myself with beauty I cannot immediately possess

Monday , February 8, 2010

Imaginary Shopping Spree: When Kat Realized Winter Is No Fun And What Came Out Of It

I couldn't get my act together to post my Imaginary Shopping Spree earlier 'cause I'm still in recovery mode from the big massive film shoot I co-produced earlier this month; we finished shooting last week, but it's only now that I've finished up replying to every random Facebook message and non-film related email that I let pile up in January. It was on this aforementioned film shoot, though, that I finally realized the Utter Physical and Existential Pain of Winter. Two consecutive nights of exterior shooting in the freezing cold for hours at a time...yes, I finally got the suckiness of cold upon the human soul. It's no fun! It hurts! It sucks! The only way I got through it (besides tons of tea and coffee and about six layers of tights, leggings and socks) was dreaming about my summer wardrobe. Which is a bit of a laugh, because by the time summer rolls around, I will be unprotected by school and its concomitant benefits as an institution and probably will be dying of some rare disease in the real world, jobless and alone without health insurance. Wah! Why dream?! My face is gonna be eaten off by raccoons when I'm homeless and forced to blog from the public library for only 20 minutes at a time!

Still, as a mental exercise alone, I began dreaming of what my Summer Shoe would be, even as my own feet threatened to fall off from frostbite. Every girl in New York knows that fashion begins with the shoe -- you live and die by them here, as anyone finds out once they realize their train has randomly stopped functioning on the weekend and you need to walk 10-20 blocks for the next open station. (MTA! Muscle and hate!) It sucks to do that when you're wearing those torturously hot S&M gladiator-y shoes that I love, so this season I vow a "NO MORE" to those. Instead I will wear these Hasbeen clogs. Not only are they Spiritually Scandinavian (TM), but I will wear them in a happy yellow color and they'll remind me of my mother and I'll wear them with everything including my gothiest dresses and I'll buy them in kronor because I'll be visiting Gothenburg and boys will be puzzled by them but girls will like them and I'll be healthy and making money and I won't die of a rare disease that only strikes when people don't have health insurance. Whew! Summer! (P.S. I also want this shoulder bag from Hasbeen, also in yellow. Is that nerdy?) (Kat)

Tags: clogs, face being eaten off by raccoons, fear, filmmaking, Gothenburg, krona, post-grad anxiety, spiritually Scandinavian, summer shoes

Imaginary Shopping Spree: Laura Jane's Summer Uniform, Hopefully, Among Other Things

I WOULD LIKE TO OWN THE EXACT OUTFIT ERIN WASSON IS WEARING ON PAGE 61 OF THE PORTUGAL-THEMED J.CREW CATALOG, AMONG OTHER THINGS

Today is February 8th, and that is very good news to me, because it means that springtime is just around the corner! This is the home stretch of winter. All we have to get through is the rest of crappy February, which is short for a REASON (because it blows, and the people who made the months up recognized that, and we all owe those month-makers a sincere and resounding THANK YOU). And March always sucks way harder than I want it to, but it's undeniably warmer than January, and then April is pretty decent, and then it's MAY! And then JUNE, JULY, and AUGUST!!! And I don't want to talk about what happens after August. Tragic, terrible stuff. My point, I think, is that this is the exact perfect time of the year to begin thinking about Summer Fashion Concepts.

We keep a copy of the Portugal-themed J.Crew catalog on my kitchen table, so I look at it about fifteen times a day, if not more. Which is how, and why, I figured out that the following outfit:

Is going to be my Summer 2010 Summer Uniform. The black vest, the black shirt, and the jean shorts, I mean. And then sometimes I will swap the black shirt for a white v-neck, throw on a gold necklace or three, eat a grape popsicle, and then wear these shorts:

Which are from Page 47. More importantly, I have recently arrived at the extremely important conclusion that, this coming spring-through-summer of calendrical 2010, I will wear extremely high-heeled shoes approximately eight days a week, give or take a day. Any of the following will do:

None of which are from the J.Crew catalog. I will wear these shoes, and I will never trip or fall while wearing them. My poise will blow your mind. "She's A Woman" by the Beatles will play cosmically in the background whenever I walk into a room, and all life will feel like the opening scene of The Girl Can't Help It. Not that I've ever seen The Girl Can't Help It, I just know about it from the Beatles Anth. But yeah. Milk bottles will explode, among other things. Exploding. (LJ)

Tags: J.Crew on J.Crack, Laura Loves the Beatles, summer, The Girl Can't Help It, things exploding

Monday , February 1, 2010

The Chrysalis Is A Sheltered State of Being From Which The Butterfly Emerges, Resplendent

Once, I told you the story about when I went drunken nightswimming in the desert with someone who's almost-family with Paul McCartney. That night I was wearing a necklace with a giant rhinestone butterfly, and the someone said something special about what the necklace might mean, and I was in love with him a little. Then, not too many months later, the necklace broke, probably symbolically. Now that three years have passed I think it's high time I replaced it, possibly with one of these beauties:

(Top to bottom, L to R: antique pendant necklace with Czech rondelles by Val Vanias Art, amber butterfly necklace by FriendlyPairings, vintage butterfly necklace by Pam Kerr, vintage green stone butterfly by Susana Speidel, Spring Glimmer necklace by CC's Designs)

Tags: butterflies, love, necklaces, nightswimming, Paul McCartney, resplendence, transcendence

Monday , January 25, 2010

Imaginary Shopping Spree: Permanent Vacation, John & Yoko as MICE!

I WANT TO GO ON PERMANENT VACATION

"Spiritual Scandinavia" is probably the most useful intellectual tool I have ever stumbled upon during the course of writing nogoodforme.com. Smarty-pants psych/sociologist types talk about "the paradox of choice" and how having more choices--in fashion, in life, and maybe even in love--actually creates more unhappiness and dissatisfaction because there is just too much crap to choose from and how you're never happy because there is always the possibility of something better out there THAT YOU FAILED TO CHOOSE. But armed with the idea of "spiritual Scandinavia," I can navigate my way through this consumerist morass. Fashion? Music? Art? Boys? If it ain't Scandinavian, I ain't interested! Easy as pie! Which also makes finding stuff for Imaginary Shopping Spree way easier, too. My latest Swedish fashion find is the marvelously-named Permanent Vacation. Based in Gothenberg, Sweden (which I surmise may just the city of my dreams based on name alone), Permanent Vacation are a mysterious group of people who do all kinds of things, not just fashion: DJing, writing, and they even have a "scenography" department apparently. Their clothes are adorable, practical and comfortable on both the men's and women's tip, with a relaxed charm in the ease of the silhouettes and a certain playfulness and cheer in the patterns that is never gimmicky or obnoxious. It is just so calm and relaxed. I am sad that PV isn't stocked in the United States, but they do ship worldwide for only 5 euros. That's not so bad, right? (Kat)

IMAGINE IF JOHN AND YOKO WERE MICE!

A really fun way to kill time and exercise one's imagination is by playing a game called "If The Beatles Were...", which is based around the general premise of "deciding what the Beatles would hypothetically be if they weren't just the Beatles anymore." For instance: if the Beatles were Muppets... Paul McCartney would be Rowlf! Or maybe Kermit. Furthermore: if the Beatles were items on the Burger King menu... Ringo would be a Whopper Junior! Thanks to the genius brainiacs over at San Francisco's Eden and Eden (which seems like it must be the best store in the ENTIRE WORLD), I'll never have to wonder "If John Lennon were a mouse..." because now, I fully know how things would be, if John Lennon were a mouse. He'd be grey, kind of resemble a Womble, say "Squeak! Squeak! I'm John Lennon!" and marry mouse-Yoko Ono. These adorabeatlesy little dudes cost a meager $48, so now you know what to buy me for Valentine's Day, Elizabeth Barker. (LJ)

PS: Thanks so much to nogoodforme reader Jenn for forwarding me a link to these rodent Beatles in a Twitter @message the other day. Jenn runs a really chill and cute style blog called Ventures of Jenn. Check it out!

Tags: Imaginary Shopping Spree, John & Yoko, Laura Loves the Beatles, mice-babies, Permanent Vacation, spiritually Scandinavian, the Wombles

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