Araby

In this issue:
1. Chanel sandals from Harper's Bazaar

2. I sometimes laugh at fashion lovers when they come across pieces and they exclaim "It's to die for and so worth the one grand I spent on it!" Or something along those lines. It's enough to make you want to slap them. Yet if I had a grand to throw down on something fashion-y, I would invest in these gladiator sandals from Chanel. They're so cute (the image quality is crummy because Blogger won't allow me to upload larger photos anymore or maybe I should use png). Yet, if I had a thousand dollars, I would have to spend them on more important things. Actually, I'm not the type of person to spend hundreds of dollars on fashion. Period. As much as I love it. I'll satisfy myself with merely ogling them.

Black and Yellow

Subtitled: "Or Variations of Black and Yellow and When I Mean Yellow I Mean Gold

In This Issue:
1. Shoes by Bobsmade
2. Rachel-Marie I.
3. Fashion scans

4. Impromptu post is impromptu. Celebrating my school's success before it comes crashing down... Don't really care for basketball, though. And I still think that the names for VA suck. I mean, whose afraid of rams? Okay, so they can cause serious damage, like in the gum commercial. And at least the rams sounds better than the spiders... even though I am afraid of spiders.

The Birds

In this issue:
1. runway photos from style.com
2. still from "The Birds" (duh)
3. Tippi H.
4. a Barbie from the past
5. vomit from Pollock

6. Is testing to see if this post will show up hours after it had been typed.

7. Anyways, I've been meaning to write about Bottega
Veneta's FRTW collection for some time. But I can be lazy
at times and for some reason kept putting it off.
I decided to check out BV because of a few ads I saw in
Vogue (and Glamour, I think). My favorite featured this
beautiful apron-like dress the color of lemons... Okay,
not lemons, maybe mustard? Ah, who cares, it's one of the
above images (by the way, the image quality for the scans
are low because I don't want to take up space; their five
times bigger on my computer). Isn't it cute? It's the type
of dress that I would want to wear everywhere; to work,
school, the beach, a funeral.

The review on style mentioned a Hitchcock vibe and they're
absolutely right (at least the first part). Tights,
tweed, knitted sweaters, and that sculpted but wispy
hair. I started thinking of vintage Barbie for some
reason. The colors were awesome; hot pink, orange, some
purple-ish colors. There were some blacks and grays and
lace (?). Ah! I need to learn more about the different
fabrics. I just know jersey and cotton. I especially loved
the latter part of the collection where it looked more of
lace layered on different colors. Made me think of
Pollock, hence the painting.

If I ever land a job, and after taking care of bills, I
would buy one thing from Bottega Veneta (and it'd
probably be that lemon-colored dress).
The above were just some of my favs, the rest can be seen
on style.com.

8. text alignment is a bit off 'cause I copied and pasted from my notepad. Will try Word next time.

9. Also need to figure out how to keep the images the same size that I have them on my computer... I usually load them up being 400 pixels wide (the height doesn't matter)

10. Testing is a failure... but figured out how to save posts as drafts

Play It Beautifully

Finished reading If I Stay by Gayle Forman awhile ago. I loved it for several reasons, one being the length of the book- it's so thin! Yet it took me a few weeks to finish... But that was mostly because I wasn't in the mood for reading. Another reason why I loved the book was the protagonist's, Mia, parents. For a YA book, they were actually likable. And Mia loved hanging around them and her younger brother Teddy. Sure I thought her parents were a little too hipster-y, but I still cared about them. I also loved the fact that Mia, though not that popular, wasn't a suicidal loner either.
Her lovable and surprisingly three dimensional parents are the whole point of the novel. Mia, a cellist, is the sole survivor of a car crash that kills her parents and brother. Mia is left comatose, experiencing everything in an outer body experience. She watches the doctors and nurses try to save her, watches her family and friends try to stay strong around her. I loved the way the novel wove the story from past to present. We see Mia meeting Adam, a guitarist for an on-their-way-to-fame band. We see Mia's first encounter with a cello, her brother's birth. Ultimately, Mia realizes that she has a choice (hence the title) and it's a difficult one to choose.
Apparently there's a sequel which kind of turns me off.

In This Issue:
1. a book cover
2. Alphonse Mucha poster
3. Pantene commercial from youtube
4. a girl with a red cello case
5. "Whisper of the Heart"
6. Anjelica L. and her headphones from lookbook.nu
7. Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad
8. Nicoletta R. and her violin purse from lookbook.nu
9. Marius S. and his guitar from lookbook.nu
10. "The Place Promised in Our Early Days"

Progress Report Thursday

Well, hello Thursday.

I completely forgot about you the last time. And it wasn't like the time before that, when there wasn't any progress to report about. Although I probably won't hit the deadline (I know! A shock!) I am making progress. I've written at least six more chapters and the ending is clearer once again. It's just around the corner... But I think I said that the last time.

There are changes in The Poisoned Apple. I'm bringing in characters that weren't there from the beginning and having them stay around for the entire time. There's a mystery subplot in the story that involves a murder, but I found it strange that a few of the characters came across the body yet it doesn't feel like a big deal to anyone. Plus, I think it's derailing much of the plot so I changed it a bit.

I'm also discovering a few new things about my characters, things I thought my character sheet told me. It's funny that when you actually start writing about them you learn new things, like what their personalities are really like.

I'm also finding out that I've been avoiding writing/author blogs. I think it's because, to me, a lot of it feels repetitive: How to write, how not to write; what to put in a query letter, blah, blah, blah. It's starting to get boring. Not that I don't enjoy reading them, I just need a break. Which means that I'm probably missing out on some good things :)

After Dark

There was another collection I was looking through while browsing Naeem Khan's fall ready to wear pieces a few days ago. It must be so, for I took the colors to be several shades darker than they were, not that they aren't dark. I've never heard of this designer, so maybe he does have slightly older women in mind when choosing these shades. I honestly don't know what to say about these, other than the fact that some of them reminded me of Persian carpets. Looking at my file, I see there are plenty of stuff that I actually love. One of my favorites is this slinking gray dress that reminds me of skyscrapers and mosaics. Another dress (wishing for a close-up) is a mesh of sheer and white fabric. Another is a simple, one shouldered dress with beaded work up one side.

I'm not sure if any of the above made much sense. To save myself some embarrassment, just look at the photos of my faves, courtesy of style.com:

The Lost Generation

Dust off your copies of "The Great Gatsby" for this post's heading for the so-called Roaring Twenties (roaring in the sense for those that were white and rich).

I've been a fan of fashion for awhile but I never actively sought out the designers. I was content enough to browse photos of fashion photography or watch "America's Next Top Model." But reading fashion blogs got to me and forced me to now seek these artists out. I first glanced at Rodarte's ready to wear collection for fall but was left unimpressed, save two outfits. Maybe I'll go back and look at them again with an open mind. I was too critical of Rodarte because of the fact that blogs often wrote them as being the "darlings of the fashion world." Those sketches for "Black Swan," however, are awesome! I can't wait for that movie to come out on DVD!
But anyways, I left Rodarte alone and decided to check out Alice + Olivia, a brand I first heard about from "Top Model." Needless to say, I'm in love. The collection started off well before it temporarily went into a more hippie vibe with pant-suits, fur (?) jackets and high waist-ed pants. So I lost interest momentarily until I noticed the flapper appearances of some of the outfits. And I've been craving the flapper inspired style since... yesterday night when I was researching the sixties and then switched over to the Roaring Twenties for some reason. Actually, it was the above photo of a flapper from an old textbook that got me obsessing over the look, but I digress. Back to the collection.
Glitter, some plaids, sheer fabrics all going for the more modern look. I appreciate the brand going for pants, but I was only feeling the skirts and dresses (some of the boots should have never been worn, though).

Afterward, I read the review and apparently the photos were taken at the Plaza Hotel which only made me think of the "Eloise" books and the new Eloise suite that I really want to go to even though I was never a fan of the books.

[source]

Anyways, here are my favorites, courtesy of style.com: