raindrops on roses

An anniversary of twenty years in the business calls for celebration in the style of a birthday because this year that's how old Tsumori Chiasto is in fashion. Hip hip hurray, her SS11 collection is a round up of all of her favourite things and the dreamy colours and magical shapes amalgamate in sparkling style. As kawaii as can be, there are manga style girly dresses abound with sequined illustration prints of leopards running wild on imaginary pastel landscapes.

Half of the pieces in the collection are based on black and that's great because black's black and that's that. The other half look like they stole the wallpaper from a baby's nursery to use as their material, which confuses me as in theory it should look ridiculous but in effect I actually quite like it and I'm trying to decide why. Perhaps it's the soft flowing shapes or maybe it's the delicate colours that bring to mind happy thoughts of Polly Pocket and My Little Pony and such like... What do you think? Do you like them?

Stanza One : adoration of alexa

I said I'd take to wearing black and white which I've been doing a lot of since the summer anyway, having inadvertently accumulated a shocking array of white tshirts and blouses. But Issy went to France recently and, as everywhere seems to have better vintage shops than here, she got a good old fashioned victorian blouse, whose lace collar was fantastic at playing peek-a-boo! (Please excuse the VERY creepy photograph, my camera is easily excitable. And Halloween is nearly here...)

choong choong train

She's the style icon of all the girls I know whom I think dress really well. Which isn't all that surprising because she's just so... normal. Beautiful and ridiculously stylish but at the same time seems like if you met her she'd say hello. (although if I saw her coming I'd presumably fall over in a faint before she got the chance) It's probably the tomboy thing in her, puts her as the sexy boy next door not the intimidating slutty dreamboat from the next street over.

She has said herself of how she gets dressed: "Sometimes I've seen someone rad in the street or I try to assemble my version of their outfit. Sometimes it's just what's clean and attainable."

See... Totally normal.

In November's ELLE she's shot by David Vasiljevic and does plain jane so well that I wonder why I even try? From now on I shall dress only in black and white and speak only in Ode to Chung.

home alone

If you were to ask me what's the best thing about life as a graduate I guess my answer would differ quite significantly depending on the day but today's the day and we're all here now so I'm saying hangover days. Wondrous hours of utterly guilt-free unproductive nothingness wherein you wander languidly from couch to kettle and back without a care in the world, or, well, the immediate future at least.

Yesterday was one of such loveliness, augmented all the more by the absence of parents - father having decided for some reason to bring mother to Sligo for the weekend. The cats were away but as far as mice go we were rather meek in our playing; suffering from acute lethargy we lacked energy enough to bring ourselves to muster the energy to leave the house, even for coffee. So instead we had an afternoon of pure domestic contentment. We baked mini apple tarts with cinnamon and raisins and blackberry jam, before collapsing onto the couch again.

Empty batteries were the opposite of conducive to our plans for the night, for much as we love nothing more than hours of trashy television and Hugh Grant style movies, we had to go out dancing again. Which led us, in compensation to our sorry selves, to indulging in our new-found vice: The X Factor.

Oh the shame, oh don't judge us, oh forgive us, oh we know you secretly watch it too...

an education

A coming of age story of a young girl in London. Makes me wonder what would I be like now had we never left. Strange isn't it to think of the road not taken, the one that got away.Especially, especially when it has been filmed in the area in which I used to live. Anyway in terms of reviews I'm not the one to turn to; I watched it and I liked it but after that all I know is that it's based on the protagonist's autobiography and believe it or not actually portrays her parents in a much better light than they deserve. Which is shocking considering they're painted in pretty subdued hues throughout the movie. And yes of course it takes a particular slant, focusing on a single incident in Barber's life of an affair with an older man, because that's what sells tickets anyway anyway what I wanted to ask was who was it, Britney Spears or someone, who made school girls cool? Because if you take it from Gossip Girl today through to the say Gilmore Girls way back when, uniforms are shown on screen to be pretty much on the right end of the fashion spectrum. That said I've never been cool but I've always been a library fanatic - three cheers for books hip hip hurrah I like the nerdy look, and that said I've been led here by what I wore today; a pleated skirt and a bag which was a birthday present from my mum. Oh academia, how I miss you so

escaping on the run

Oh life has its milestones does it? Well hello there, I'm making my holy communion where are my moniesz, look at me I'm eighteen and legal buy me a drink woooo yes it's my twenty first birthday party wow my wedding day I'm so happy take out the Kleenex. Big fucking deal. Going through the same old rituals as every. body. else. Graduating from a liberal arts degree and experiencing the ensuing existential crisis... you think you're so special do you? Well what if you're sitting there on your unemployed but possibly overly educated ass and questioning yourself because you've stooped to the lowly standards you never thought you'd possibly let yourself reach. Applying for social welfare? Nothing but another stepping stone in life for your average Joe hurrah lets pop some well deserved and paid for by my sweat, blood and prsi, party streamers. It's my time to reap the benefits of all those weekends spent working in Mocha Beans throughout college and get me my dole. I thought I'd never see the day. And yet I might not; just let them analyse my case for another six to eight weeks and then, maybe then, I might possibly get tuppence or two. But with the odds against me I'm not holding my breath for fear I'd hold it til I was blue in the face then explode into a veritable Veruca Salt. * shudder

Dum da dum the amount of times I've heard Galway be called the Graveyard of Ambition. And scorned it so. How naive it seems I have been, with good people falling to the left and the right of me faster than the leaves from the trees we'll all be dead and buried before we know what's hit us. Returning in May I thought I'd be on the first ticket out of here come September, but the procrastination pandemic is more contagious than I was prepared for and it seems I've gone and caught myself an infection. The contented 'I'll push the panic to the side for now and spend just one more night, I swear it'll be the last, night in the Roisin' feeling, that, as terrible as it might objectively be, is somewhat reassuring nonetheless. You can fool yourself into thinking everyone is in the same boat, but what if your sails aren't up? They're rendering you utterly hopeless and drifting aimlessly, or, as Jape might once have said flo-o-o-o-o-oating

Anyway, if I'm going to be dead and buried in this here land of lost souls then I rather think I'd prefer a tomb to a mere tombstone. Ah shure go on, "because you're worth it" and all that marketing wank. What's befallen me? Where's the fear? My relentless determination not to become one of the multitude? Am I wasting away before my very own eyes? Perhaps this indeed is my cry for help - if you're a kindred spirit out there and hear me calling please won't you answer me? Let us re-inspire and re-invigorate each other the hell out of here cos although this empty street's too dead for dreaming, I know that in the jingle jangle morning I'll come following you

*swoon

aw man I've gone and got the biggest girl crush on Tilda Lindstam. She's only gorgeous! But this isn't just a personal 'in the eye of the beholder' obsessive opinion of mine, honestly, it's common logic if you think of it statistically- she has to be because A she's Swedish and do I need a B? B she's a model. I ♥ Tilda 4eva... Ha ha but you have to admit she's got a pretty cool style going on, the 'I might be an emaciated ethereal beauty but you won't catch me at the top of any Christmas trees anytime soon' look that rocks tomboyish clothes with a pretty face and a silent stare of attitude. I think I'm in love...

Russia, with love

See that hand flapping in the air? That's mine. It's up because I'm admitting I'm a bit behind with the times. It's mid-October and I'm only now looking at this month's issue of Vogue UK. And I just got one of those "Oh!" moments that make me blink and stop for a second. Because what sort of beautiful editorial has Tim Walker gone and done? One based on Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes in honour of the V&A exhibition. Which I wrote about in my last post. Fancy that.

emotion through motion

Sight, sound and movement; this is the ballet y'all. I was first introduced to Diaghilev in 2006 when I did an apprenticeship with Ballet Ireland. Dancing like loons during the week Jenny and I would get up at 5.30am on Sunday mornings to get the bus to Dublin for four hours of classes and rehearsals in prep for The Rite of Spring in the National Concert Hall.

Go on, point and laugh, yes yes we are mulleted muppets ha ha

A complete ballet nut at the time I read books and watched videos like there was no tomorrow. Diaghilev reformed more than dancing, he transformed the essence of performance through his collaborations with revolutionary artists of the time. In terms of dance he reinvented ballet with choreographers such as Fokine, Nijinska and Balanchine and composers like Stravinsky, Debussy and Prokoviev. But the Ballet Russes was even more than that. They involved so many areas of the arts in a production, working with the most avant-garde artists of the time, such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Bakst, de’ Chirico, Cocteau, Miró, and Chanel, who produced stage sets and costumes for the company.

Take for example Le Train Bleu, a ballet that saw swimmers together with golf and tennis players in search of adventure. Not exactly the typical fairytale theme you would expect to find in the ballet, but a perfect example of what they fled Russia for. And so then who could be a more perfectly fitting wardrobe mistress than Chanel who herself shunned the traditions of her artistic field? For Le Train Bleu she dressed the dancers not in specially designed costumes but in sports wear garments from her fashion collections.

Although the Ballet Russes reflected the style of 18th century rococo splendor (a style which led to a vogue for purple and crimson in Edwardian couture)they focused on looking forward to an aggressive modernism. Parade is a one-act ballet based on a single scenario of circus performers trying to draw an audience inside to a show, and in the line of modernism Picasso was recruited for set and costume design. Cubist fashion?... I like.

We were dealt an unfortunate hand with our costumes, but it was all in good sport. However, if you want to see some of the Ballet Russes costumes (high couture in comparison) there's an exhibition in the Victoria and Albert running until January, so get on down.

in ship shape

Has the nautical look ever actually properly been in fashion? I can't recall a time where it was the key trend for a season(but maybe I'm not the most knowledgeable of historians)yet as far as I can remember it has never been unfashionable. A bit like breton stripes I guess, something nearly everyone has and that experiences the odd resurgence in popularity every now and then. Either way I'll make a nifty comparison between it and the tide - always there, coming and going, difficult to judge the point when it's fully in and hard to tell if it's fully out.

Stylistically I've never been a big nautical fan, but these past two days I've happened to find myself looking rather like a sailor. Perhaps it's because I recently posted about a seafaring collection by Junya Watanabe or perhaps it's a sign of my aging; dementia is setting in leading me to forget what it was I wore the day before leaving me with an unconscious leaning toward the same the following morning. Oh no! Groundhog day here I come!!



Day One: Tshirt from the Dublin Flea Market, skirt from H&M, cardigan from H&M, headscarf from a charity shop



Day Two: Blouse from a vintage shop in Paris worn with Topshop jeans... Want to know a secret about this blouse? Which makes it ten times more supermus awesomeus? It was in one of those big bargain baskets and cost me ONE euro.

knitting generations together

I'm not as wise as I am old but I know that hard as it may be when sad things happen it's perhaps best to try and find a silver lining where you can. And so I imagine it's nice to inherit things. A house, a bit of land with road frontage, the family heirlooms... or even better, something with sentimental value...
Ellen's mum was a knitter and had her own label, Maire Devane. She worked from home where she had her set of machines and lots of arms and bodies milling about on whom she could do dummy runs of designs; living mannequins to model masses of jumpers and mounds of scarves. And now the machines are stored away and the remaining spools of yarn are stacked in the basement.
On Sunday last as Ellen and I were setting up for stitch and bitch we went downstairs to source some extra materials for our new projects. Sparkly wools, stripey wools, big fat furry ones, skinny wools, soft squidgy wools, ones that felt like seaweed, ones that looked like toupees stolen from the heads of old pipe smoking men; talk about spoiled for choice!

Clambering back out to the stairs over tool boxes, old bicycles and suchlike, we found a big black plastic bag full of old knitting. What we initially thought would be little more than scraps of trial pattern runs turned out to have a few surprises buried within, these being in the form of full sized jumpers! What a treasure chest to find! The lovely Elspeth shows her favourite:

The internet is a series of tubes

Last May my class styled a shoot and although we got copies of the photos at the time, I'm just after finding out that this video was made too: Brief: It was shot in the Loft in Powerscourt Townhouse Centre and the idea was we had to use only clothes from the stalls in the Loft Market. It was an editorial shoot so obviously we worked together to get a cohesive look and such... but don't you think the second outfit the one with the shorts is exceptionally lovely? oh why yes indeed it's simply charming and thank you very much because would you believe that's my one! I say I say

Imperiusmus

Somebody once said art is meant to disturb. But is fashion? Well if I was a retail assistant in the Gap, then I'd be a bit worried by thoughts of the power of Junya Watanabe oooh or of a ghostly prison ship crashing into my store and all the spirits of sailors and convicts past attacking me in the stock room, smothering me in hosiery and letting themselves into my body which they would then proceed to parade around in pretending to be an oddly stylish human. oooh

more talent than we know what to do with

We have an unofficial stitch and bitch group that was born in Ellen's house last year in Dublin and has now relocated to Ellen's house in Galway. I say unofficial for our meetings are somewhat sporadic and usually end up being an excuse for us to be hungover together and watch too many episodes of Come Dine With Me. But you're more than welcome to come and join us, we have only one rule of membership: BYOBiscuits.


Although none of us are overly skilled in the area of stitching we help each other out where we can; like in an earlier post I told of teaching Jack how to knit and yesterday he progressed from Plain to Purl. Go team! Check on the stitching. And the bitching? Well we inadvertently progressed to mild visual insults with our cartooning... Anyway if you would like to come along you're more than welcome, just mail me and I'll give you directions