DUMBHEAD

form and function

A much nicer photo of the blanket in lookbook action. I think they actually have two here though.

My friend Zoe has this amazing picnic blanket, it has sleeves, so you can turn it into a jacket, and get this, there are four of them! Amazing. I saw it at the Thousands Shop* when they opened but didn't realise until Australia day and the moment captured blurrily above how truly great this idea is. So then today I was looking at other things on the Thousands Shop's website and have come to the conclusion that I really like the work/clothes of ffiXXed. I also discovered that my friend owns a $400 picnic blanket, eeep!

That blanket again, just one this time. And a pretty dress to boot.

According to their website, ffiXXed is 'a collaborative design/art project with a focus on producing readymade fashion products. The label began in Berlin but its headquarters are now mobile, gravitating to whatever global centres in no particular order'. The picnic blanket is a project produced for/in collaboration with (still working this out?) Condiment - Adventures in Food and Form.

I particularly love and want the jacket above, and the pants down below. I love how clean this whole range seems.

A shirt with shopping bag attached! I don't think I could actually pull this off, but shirt-wise I love the brown buttons and crisp-ness

I want these pants! They also come in black and an icey blue which I think is becoming my new colour obsession, everything I've been drawn to today has been preppy, crisp, pale blue button down shirts and skinny pants.

*More on this later, one day, I assure you.

george lois

I love old men's magazine covers!

These ones were designed by a Mr George Lois and he's very famous.

My flatmate has a book about him at home which I spent a good hour leafing through on the weekend.

All images are from George's official website - go have a look! He didn't only do covers for esquire featuring sexy ladies, I just like these ones a lot.

insert coin here

Insert Coin Here is a group exhibition which is part of the 2010 L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival cultural program. The exhibition consists of vending machines at various locations throughout the city, filled with the work of 60 local artists, all available to you for only $2!

The official opening party isn't until next Friday, March 12, at 1000 £ Bend (from 7pm, see you there!) but in the meantime you can procure yourself some affordable, wearable art at Craft Victoria this week, Captains of Industry next week, and after the opening at Alice Euphemia and the Thousands Shop.

My friends Lulu and Elise both have work in the exhibition too!

quarry (my weekend, part two)

Today we drove to an old quarry, about an hour and a half out of Auckland. In the late 1920s, the Wilson Cement Works was demolished and left to decay. From what I gather, the Mahurangi river then broke its banks and filled the quarry site with fresh water, ducks and the odd eel. The remains of the factory are now protected and loom broodingly over the quarry; but the water is beautiful and clear and you can jump off the willow-lined edges straight into it, with no fear of ever finding the bottom. The photos, again, from my nasty little camera phone.

karekare

These are pictures I took of the beach from my really shitty cell phone.

Today we went to Savemart and I got a T Shirt with a crude picture of Mel Gibson as Braveheart on it, with the entire "THEY WILL NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM" speech on the back; some tiny old man pants with front pleats that end at my ankles; and a peachy beige shirt because I love neutral tones.

Then we went to Karekare beach which is near Piha for those of you not in the know. It has black sand and is surrounded by amazing hilly forests and huge rock things. The surf was fun and there trenches in the sand so it would go really deep then mega shallow which was fun/dangerous. Now I'm off to drink cider in a park.

lu lu lu la lu lu lady

Cover image from Fashion Gossip

One of the 7 new Lula Covers, all inspired by Strawberry Shortcake. More at fashion gone rogue. Lula really does have some of the best ideas.

birthday girls

Guess what? We turned one today! It's been a whole year since Han and I started this puppy with talk of mobiles, the weather (of course) and gazing out of moving windows...

Have a lovely weekend!

If you're in Melbourne perhaps you'd like to...

Pop into the Grace Darling on Smith St for the Hello Sailor Vintage Fair from 1pm on Saturday and Sunday. I can't really find anything online to link this to but there'll be clothes, beer, hipsters and probably music...

Hear the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra play an opera showcase, for free, on Saturday night at the Sydney Myer Music Bowl...

Browse the Brunswick St Books' sale, which starts tonight, with an additional 10% off this weekend...

Go and see A Single Man, Tom Ford's debut film which is full of Colin Firth, Juliette Moore, and an Oscar nomination. Someone at USA Today described it as 'Stunningly Gorgeous' which made me giggle, but I do want to see it. It's playing now at Nova. Or go and see one of the films in the Claudia Cardinale retrospective at ACMI in Fed Square, she is a super uber babe and was in some of Italian cinema's most notable films. Also ACMI is cheaper than the regular movies!...

Visit Lamington Drive gallery and buy a Where the Wild Things Are skateboard, or just look at Mike O'Meally's huge photographs...

Or celebrate/lament the final day of Summer at the NGV's sculpture garden (180 St Kilda Road) from 1-8pm on Sunday. There'll be live music, a picnic, and Ron Mueck's work...

It's all free except the movies, yay! And who cares what's happening tonight, I'm working. xox

at the fucking deli

"I had a boyfriend who told me I'd never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I'd fail. I said to him, 'Someday, when we're not together, you won't be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.'"

God Gaga rules. And righteous vindication also rules!
Via Jezebel.

on the cusp

"What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to explore, and above all the sense that art, in the most disinterested and noble way, could find the necessary metaphors by which a radically changing culture could be explained to its inhabitants."
Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New.

The people, ideas and art movements from the turn of the last century and the years loosley surrounding it have always fascinated me in a terribly unacademic and romantic way. There were so many things happening around the same time: modernity creeping in, the first world war brewing (with machine guns), bohemian artists collaborating in Paris, the last days of the Romonavs...

Further reading could include Hughes' The Shock of the New and Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art.

Photo of a dancer from Diaghilev's Ballet Russes from here.

Q + A for L + H aka So Far, in February

I'm meant to be "working from home" at the moment but instead I'm compiling Lou and Han's monthly list of things. Enjoy!

Reading:

LOU: Troubleshooting by Molly Young and The Witches of Eastwick

HAN: After the Flood by Margaret Atwood,

Listening to:

LOU: Dead Man's Bones, Warpaint, Clinger Sisters SHOOP SHOOP DE DOOP

HAN: Have one on Me, especially 81 and La Boheme

wishing for:

LOU: Opening Ceremony lace up rope wedges (they also come in pink!)

HAN: crispy linen wide-leg mannish cuffed pants which don't exist apart from in my head and possibly in Annie Hall.

Watching on ebay:

LOU: succulents

HAN: shearling jackets

Doing:

LOU: playing with watercolors and making terrariums.

HAN: revisiting the Moro Gold, swimming in rivers, weekend road-trips.

Wearing:

LOU: Beige Arnsdorf dress and clogs, straw sunhat

HAN: mid-calf grey dress I chopped up, clogs (shoe twins!), sunhat, brownish lipstick

Bought or been gifted:

LOU: Tina Kalivas tie dye mini

HAN: a brown leather and suede clutch from Matariki in London (that's a person, not a shop)

Eating/drinking:

LOU: mackerel salad

HAN: bagel with cos, tomato, feta, courgette and the crumbled yolk of a hard boiled egg. Sounds wierd but is dii-viiine.

Hating:

LOU: My tendency to watch anything if it's ad-free and available in large quantities, case in point; recently finished the first seasons of both Cougar Town and NYC Prep, neither of which had any viewing merits (Courtney has a smokin' bod, but is otherwise incredibly annoying and the cast of NYC Prep are all ugly and unfashionable when I was really hoping for a 'real life' gossip girl). I don't recommend them. And nor will I recommend Real Housewives of NYC or RuPaul's Drag Race once I watch them, but I'm still going to. Gag.

HAN: My sad little bank account. Humidity. And the Yvonne and Ben storyline on Shortland Street. Yuck.

Looking for:

LOU: a tight stretchy black mini skirt. This should be easy no?

HAN: A bed!

what i desire is man's red fire

I developed a new habit recently, it usually manifests when I've had a bit (or a lot) to drink, and am either in my backyard by myself, or somewhere else with one or two other people. I've become addicted to watching clips from old Disney movies on YouTube.

More specifically, I have been watching:
The Monkey Song from the Jungle Book
Bear Necessities from the Jungle Book
I Just Can't Wait to be King from the Lion King
The Circle of Life from the Lion King
and one time, Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid.*

I think maybe everyone in my generation has secret hopes of doing this with our future (unfortunate) babies.

A few points to note: the 3G reception in my backyard is somewhat lacking and can cause these to take quite a while to load, but I persevere. The quality of most of these is low. They aren't actually music videos, and often you have to wait through a few minutes of boring (to drunk me) dialogue to get to 'the good bits'.

Anyway, all of this got a bit embarassing when I got my phone bill** and so to remedy this I have recently aquired the beginnings of what will eventually be a collection of every Disney film ever made.

I had these toys, from a happy meal probably, when I was little

Now, we all know the female characters tended to be over-sexualised, distorted images of femininity while the males were huge, muscular oafs, often with teeny tiny lower halfs. It was weird. I'm using the past tense because I'm not thinking about any Disney movie made since I was 12, though I'm sure their CG heroines were equally wasp-waisted and the good guys equally broad shouldered.

This and all the thinly veiled racist anthropomorphism aside, I loved these movies to death and am really, really excited about watching them again. Particularly those which I've been watching clips from lately, and Beauty and the Beast which was the first movie I saw in theatres ever. That may or may not be a true fact but it's certainly the first I remember.

Wap bop a loo bop, a wap bam boom. Or something to that effect.

I personally intend to watch these films, enjoy their dewey eyes and musical interludes, and possibly engage in some intellectual and/or drunk discussion about Latinos being portrayed as hot blooded and criminally minded chihuahuas on Lady and the Tramp, African Americans as jive talking, scat singing monkeys and crows in the Jungle Book and Dumbo, and French men as CANDLESTICKS and CLOCKS in Beauty and the Beast. Or maybe I'll leave that to other people and just sing along.

Here and here are two other links you should click on.

*I just want you all to know that I watched/listened to these again, as I looked them up for the links, and as I type this am involuntarily nodding my head and tapping my feet along to Bare Necessities yet I am not drunk. It is that good.
*This isn't entirely true, it didn't cost me anything extra on my phone bill, but at some point did become embarassing. Hence why I'm sharing it with everyone on the internet.

terry, you creep

"This is one of those situations where if you had a gun with only one bullet, it’s best just to blow your own god-damned head off."

I have yet to see any of Jersey Shore, or whatever it's called, but I think these are the guys from that show? I read somewhere that one of them has a name for his abs. It all sounds terribly terrible but also like something I'll end up watching an entire season of in one day and subsequently hating myself for.

Picture and quote from here

why hello there

I got sick!

Like real, Full Blown* sick. My legs and back ached when I tried to get out of bed (don't worry, this was only attempted two or three times). I awoke this morning with a mountain of yucky tissues next to my bed, a mountain! They weren't actually that yucky, but still.

I missed out on this which was a bummer, but could make up for it by going to this on Saturday, maybe.

Anyway I've had two days of not working so now need to make up for that... Here are some more pictures of rooms full of books, because we love them!

*It turns out it is a real phrase

The top picture is from the selby and is of the home of Lucy Chadwick and Duffy (the bearded man not the blonde singer)

the rains have come

And none too soon, Auckland has been unbearbly hot and humid for the past week. And yes, I know that Melbourne gets ridiculously hot.
But last week we approached 100% humidity, which is the point at which your sweat can not dry on your body to cool you down. So this makes you feel much hotter - Gross, huh?
So a toast to today's very typical Auckland forecast: showers which will grow heavier, a maximum of 26 degrees, 87% humidity, with thunder and lightning in the afternoon. Sweet relief.

UPDATE: We are now at 95% humidity. What a bitch.

Picture from David Urbanke.

just so you know

Moving house is seriously hurting my bank balance. There will be no spending unless it is bond payments, floor to ceiling shelves, moving trucks and a bed(whimper).

As a reward, my flatmate and I have made a pact: in about a month we will do a topshop binge. We will be glorious in our fury (frenzy?) So far I want these things, all available from the toppest shop itself.


Other things I fantasise about owning include: an enormous cardigan coat, a shearling jacket like my friend's "She's Cracked" Karen Walker one, some flat beau coop boots from Good as Gold, and some pants from Ruby.

A tiny picture of the jacket I would like from KW

Vous êtes en moi comme une hantise (You are obsessively part of me)

"We both probably failed to realise a crucial point: everything that was happening was for both of us but the prehistory of our lives – of his very short life, of my long life. Art had not yet ignited our passions, its all-consuming fire had not yet transformed us; it must have been the light and airy hour of dawn. But the future, which announces its coming long before it arrives, was knocking at the window. It lurked behind the lanterns, invaded our dreams and took on the frightening form of Baudelaire’s Paris which lay in wait somewhere in the vicinity. "

Anna Akhmatova on Modigliani from here.

Modigliani drawing of Akhmatova from there too.

hey LOU

I think my new room is approximately the same size as yours.

I need some wall to wall, ceiling to floor shelves.

And, perhaps, a clothes rack that hangs from the ceiling.

Also, Mary Poppin's carpet bag and/or Doctor Who's pants.

Don't worry about me though, Susie is on the case.

Photos of floor to ceiling shelves from Interior Divine.

cintra

I'm feeling great! Why, you may ask?
Because I came home from one of the top five happiest weekends of my life, to find that my adorable flatmates have not only found a house for us all to live in, but found us an award winning 1930s-Art-Deco- New-Zealand-landmark-piece-of-architecture to live in.

This is a watercolour of the building by its architect, Horace Massey.

Our new apartment featured in the founding issue of Building Today, New Zealand's first architectural magazine, in 1936. They had this to say about it:

‘And so the trend towards flat-dwelling was accentuated. To this is united, in Cintra, another powerful trend – modernism. . . . Cintra is modern – modern without being revolutionary, simply the logical use of materials adapted to the sane requirements of living. . . . Cintra is a triumph of compact planning. . . . Cintra is a very fine practical home for modern living’.


After years of living in pretty, if not practical, villas, I'm slightly nervous about living in an apartment. But this is probably the best way to go about it. Could this week BE any better?

yawn

Today I feel a bit like this. It's Monday (not the morning anymore, but still feels like it), I woke up with an incredibly sore throat and it was raining, I can't find any of the pictures I wanted to post on here today, and my tummy's rumbling. But I'm still in a good mood, and hopefully will have a something more interesting post later today or tomorrow, and am this afternoon going to eat a punnet of blueberries.

What do you do when you start feeling a bit under the weather, and want to stave off a full blown* cold? I usually eat spoonfulls of UMF rich manuka honey, drink loads of lemon and ginger drinks and hope for the best...

*Is full blown even a real term?
The picture came from here

river kissed

This weekend we (along with some kereru and tui) watched dear friends become husband and wife under a canopy of native trees, danced to gypsy music under the stars, forded rivers and built dams, dipped baguettes in nutella and star gazed around a campfire. We all saw the same shooting star.

Pictures of the Rimutaka national park from NZ Tramper.

love to love you baby

Attention Melbourne: Lover are bringing their jumble sale to town tomorrow!

I don't know how readable that flyer is so just in case it's 9am-5pm, Saturday Feb 20th at Brood Box Gallery, 8 Rankins Lane, in the city...

into the woods

See you guys later!

I'm off into the forest for my friend's woodland wedding. Hurrah! Halloo! Hallay!

the internet

Karen Walker has a spanking new website, and my friend helped to make it (hi there kris!).

It has a whole section dedicated to pictures of celebrities wearing KW, that's my favourite bit.

And of course the clothes are beautiful!