Saturday, June 27, 2015

the mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me

i read great expectations in my english class, and was honestly not interested in pip at all.. but i did love reading about estella and miss havisham (the scene where they scream at each other and estella spouts those metaphors about knowing the darkness is just ughhhhhh). there was something immensely attractive about the entire setting of satis house, derelict surroundings of a woman who stopped time in mourning of the person she loved.

the book first describes her as dressed in rich "satins, and lace, and silks" that that were once white but have now become "faded and yellow," like the flowers in her hair and on her gaunt skin; the most fascinating character visually and in my opinion the most complex character in the entire book.(please email me if u want to talk about her!)


this is what the 2012 movie says she looks like.

 

commes des garcons (fw05)
 patchwork-looking victorian lace and tulle shreds + the exaggerated paleness of the models' faces in this context add something ghastly. i really love the collars and the ruffles on the first jacket. they both have that timeworn yellow color.

 

miss havisham is also described in the book as having the look of a waxwork statue, and the silvery dustings in john galliano fw09 add to that image. the whole thing is really slinky and mysterious / rotting flowers are like miss havisham's jam; there's no train on the second dress, but it just feels like something that would be worn by someone absentmindedly dragging along random bits and pieces of rotting things with their dress.

 

these two are kind of more modern interpretations: i love the sleeves of the shirt for the velour magazine one on the left. the fabric in tao ss07 is really innocent and the bows and ruffles at the bottom add extravagance to the overall clean shape. 

 

 

i feel like the last four (chanel s15 couture; cdg fw1990; cdg s12; junya watanabe fw2000)all have a really similar look in their drama. the pilled material that seems like it's stuffed onto the  first and second ones looks like really soft insulation. the headpieces of 1 and 3 just make me think of the word goop (and seem to relate to mis havisham's decaying pile of wedding cake). also, they're all really obstructive, so the wearer is keeping everyone who wants to get close to her far away which is literally her entire character. 

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i don't have a tattered wedding dress :((( so i kind of had to pull together my interpretation of what miss havisham would wear (the best photo is the last one): i DIYed the white button-up shirt (lol i found it in my fashion classroom and then i shortened and hemmed it, and drew on it), it kind of has a scalloped collar, and i thought that was really cute;  i just found the lace camisole, which was a softened layer; the shirt as skirt is my dad's to add layers; and i wore the skirt i made underneath because i thought the strings would make it look like more tattered. white sandal block heels for like, stomping on hearts n stuff. i also wore this silver necklace with a circular pendant that i've had since childhood. 

 





-=-
kanyinsola

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

we didn't realize that we had arrived at high tide


the movie picnic at hanging rock is a really interesting movie about a valentine's day disappearance at an australian boarding school. i'm not a horror movie person, but this was one of those weird psychological creeping ones that i just loved even if i screamed when edith screamed. it's compared to the virgin suicides a lot because of the treatment of teenage grls and the unresolved sinister something going on behind the scenes. 

i have a weird memory of the movie because i watched it for the first time while making a bunch of yellow flower crowns as a costume for a school project, so now whenever i smell hot glue, i think of the movie (isn't science great!). another thing that reminds me of the movie is junya watanabe s2003 rtw (how bad was that segue?) 


   

 

 

 

  • the florals and polka dots and airy blues just remind me of the summery innocent beauty that was a main part of the girls' characters. 
  • the umbrella hats are reminiscent of the ones they carried to their picnic. 
  • there were a lot of parachute straps wrapped around the models that seem like an interesting representation of the way that the girls at the school were confined.
  • the backpacks and shoes, and the way that some of the fabrics were hitched up into pants that make me think someone made them when they were forced to climb or run somewhere and physically couldn't do it in their skirts all make me think of like, something frantic or desperate. 

if you guys have seen the movie, please let me know what you thought of it, or this collection's relation to it, and feel free to send me an email with your conspiracy theories of what happened in the movie because i love reading those oh my gosh!

-=-
kanyinsola

Saturday, June 20, 2015

your hands have lost the grip on their prize
















i wore the outfit to the left last year with a kind of grey, utilitarian aesthetic in mind. the striped shirt is thrifted, both sweaters are from when i was younger, the one on the bottom is like knit, and i'm not sure what fabric the top one is but it feels really slick and smooth, like something i would wear if i was ryan gosling in a movie where i end up leaning thoughtfully on a car idk. the belt thing is just a shoelace. 

when i kind of rearranged some parts of the outfit to align more with the look of a thom browne rtw12 (below), i tied the sweaters together and around my legs (not at all practical for... walking... or moving) and the gray jacket on top is my mom's. LOVE YOU MOM!






can i just say that i'm 100% pro wool bullet bras. the idea of exaggerating the parts of the body that already protrude reminds me visually of rei kawakubo's lumps and bumps. i also love the shape of those shoes.i guess most of his clothes are like menswear and coat materials, and seeing the little satin collar at the top of this dress that looks like the lining of a coat made me smile a lot and think the words "thom browne you sly dog." in other news...



this is like the answer to a jeapordy category called wes anderson movies and couture clothing: fantastic mr. fox fur stoles. also, the layering! the combinations of materials and shapes!




this is one of my favorite thom browne collections: it maintains what i see as the aesthetic of his brand (disfigured, exaggerated silhouettes and his macabre color palette), but it also feels really exploratory, more relaxed. the tweeds and the elegant shapes of some of the looks also adds a feeling of couture wear that's interesting.



this is incredibly cool, it kind of reminds me of saint laurent in some ways, maybe it's just like the elegance of it all, or the thing that almost looks like a neck-bow thing.






maybe it's the collar or the ruffles, but this reminds me a lot of marie antoinette and just the general costume of the aristocracy. this dress is SO beautiful: the layers and layers of tulle, and the hundreds (thousands?) of little mirrors on there ughhhh.






the draping and shapes in this collection are amazing.

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what do you guys think?

-=-
kanyinsola







Wednesday, June 17, 2015

loving him was red

cerebrol:

Julien Rodet

by julien rodet

untitled

untitled by dr zee

i was thinking about how cool the red made everything look in this post, and then i remembered that a while ago, i started putting together a red inspiration post, but never posted it. this also made me realize that i own barely any red clothing and this is kind of weird to me, because i really associate that color with power and conversely, vulnerability- and i feel like i need that color in my closet in order to feel secure or something: a red shirt, or skirt, or pair of shorts, whatever.

crystalfountain:

thedoppelganger:

Mariacarla Boscono, Hakaan Fall 2011 Ready to Wear

a LOOK

Hakaan Fall 2011
- Details

hakaan f2011 rtw via

to solve this problem, i'm looking at this incredibly cool red turtleneck dress from asos.

:

(this post is titled as such because i lOvEddd taylor swift's Red album, and thought it was a really cool, beautiful act of assertiveness and exploration.)


the velvet underground via

for practical reasons, i guess it makes sense: red kind of upstages everything else you're wearing and doesn't fade into the background or complement what you're wearing like some other colors. but that's kind of what makes it so attractive, it's like a declaration of power, a monopoly over the complexity of your self, without even opening your mouth.

furples:

Alexandre Herchcovitch Spring 2009

alexander herchcovitch ss09 via

excdus:

hidden
Hrabina von Tup Tup


hidden by hrabina von Tup Tup

what does it mean to wear red lipstick? my experiences with it as a woman of color are just a means of protest against the "your skin is too dark for that" or just plain old "the idea of you finding power in your beauty takes power away from me and that's too far" body-policing. sometimes when i need to psych myself up for something, i just put on a ton of makeup (red lipstick is the color of choice), look at myself in the mirror a bit, and then wipe it off and do the thing. 

rihanna via
design-is-fine:

Jane Wealleans, furnishing fabric Rasperry Lips, 1973. Made by OK Textiles, Great Britain. 

OK Textiles Ltd of London were textiles designers and printers. It was founded by Jane Wealleans and Sue Saunders in the early 1970s. Working under the snappy slogan ‘If it runs we chase it’, the firm concentrated on short runs of fashion and furnishing fabrics. V&A

jane wealleans

are you guys into thinking about colors? what does red mean to you, or what other colors make you feel the same way?


thank you!
-=-
kanyinsola





Sunday, June 14, 2015

let's live suddenly without thinking

 

                                                    

i took the ACT yesterday; i wanted to wear sweatpants because everyone wears sweatpants for standardized testing on saturdays, but i don't think i own a pair anymore, so i wore these blue jogger type things that are strangely comfortable. i wore that turtleneck BECAUSE I'M AN ARTIST and i wore a jacket because test centers are notoriously cold. i guess white shoes are for contrast or something. 

this outfit was very tired but i'm feeling increasingly aware of how fleeting everything is, and i want to record EVERYTHING and put it somewhere, so here we are. 

you can have a beautiful e.e. cummings poem to make up for it though: 


thank you!
kanyinsola