After weeks of working and having basically no time to go out and get dressed! up! I finally was given the opportunity for my town's heritage day (which is, incidentally, today, therefore I'm wearing this outfit as I type). I decided to play it safe because of the weather (which is so humid it's on the verge of thundershowers) and wear my tutu with as many layers I could have possibly integrated without melting like witches in Oz. Clearly I didn't get very far!

Moving on - I really do hope to update this here blog more often than I have in the past month. I don't know if I will fully comply to this self-proclaimed affirmation until about July 1st though. Which is also known as the day I move from here and into my TORONTO HOUSE. I don't even want to think about it right now however, for then I will be reminded of the two and half weeks of waiting I must suffer through until that wonderful day. UGH I CAN NOT WAIT.

Back to heritage festivities now.

All thrifted with the exception of the tutu and socks, both from H&M.

WAIT ONE MORE THING. See this? I'm dying my hair this colour in a few weeks. (Then back to pink possibly? We'll see). I doubt you even know what colour her hair is because you're so hypnotized by the beautiful thing on her back; Miu Miu AND Comme des Garcons. This is literally a masterpiece.

(via stockholmstreet)

Anywho. Later days.

a thought on La Jetee

if you’re a photography major like me and you ever doubt the credibility of your program and what they make photography out to be, please watch this and trust in everything that lies outside of these educational based contrived claims. tell them that there is beauty in simplistic photographs such as these, those with a raw purity, those bare yet full of expression. a moment stopped in the eye of a lens, immutable, lingering forever through mutable reality - these are the photographs that make hearts feel pleasurable pain, like a warm emptiness realizing these easy moments have come and gone. they are once, always were once, will continue to be once, until death tears us from time and space like life tears a child from its’ mother’s womb. moment after moment after moment, never repeating, never returning. the only manner in which we may return, aside from a subconscious reawakening, is through the photograph. we recall each moment, let it be a tedious one or a dismal one or a glorious one, as a moment of our past caught in the web of present. one of the most beautiful things are these photographs, where a moment you will never relive or be able to replicate is shown to you in all it’s simplistic glory, just as you remembered it.

i get tired of people telling me that photography should be dramatic and salient and obvious and look! at! me! because i don’t think that’s what it necessarily should be. it should be all about moments. naked photographs are just as striking in it’s subtlety.

a moment in an ordinary life. no other kind of photographs matter.

(La jetée, Chris Marker, 1962)

Still mulling things over with the zine so I won't bring it up now, instead I think I'll dedicate a full fledged post to it.

Here are some pictures from several weeks ago I had just chillin' in my camera. This is what my room looks like at night.

Just really quickly what I wore last night, plus black lipstick I was just trying out from a halloween costume makeup kit I bought for a school project. I think I was going for a Courtney Love/Lydia Deetz integration with a bit of a Miu Miu twist (the bejeweled collar combo). It's a bit too simplistic considering what I normally tend to wear, but regardless I like it a lot.

I have some pictures of my room I took several weeks ago that I'm going to post soon, as well as my idea regarding a zine still in it's rudimentary stages of brainstorming. It's going to be about Dreamers - I don't mean all about the subconscious, I mean about people who approach art and language with a mentality that contradicts reality; they remove themselves from it to create something illusory and pensive that material reality constantly seems to lack. They thrive off the notion of a utopian world yet simultaneously acknowledge that this world we inhabit will always be tainted with imperfections. What immediately comes to mind that falls under this category is everything about Speed Levitch, Alison Scarpulla's photography, Richard Linklater films such as Before Sunset and Waking Life, and Tim Walker's editorials.

I will discuss this more in depth next post when I have my ideas regarding 'Dreamers' have become less hazy.





Sequin collared shirt is vintage. Dress from Forever 21.

Just a really quick write about this particular piece from designer Dion Lee's S/S10-11 collection at RAFW.


This blue pleated dress was probably my favourite (aside from the crystal heels). The architectural symmetry composed by the intricacies of the knotted pleats made my eyes literally widen (to be quite frank I almost audibly gasped). I’m constantly reminded of the almost rudimentary stages of a Roman soldier’s uniform when I see this dress, the shape the fabric over her shoulders and the taut wrap of the pleats a presumable catalyst of this reminder. Though the harshness is negated by the visual fragility of the dress. It’s almost as if the only thing left to make these uniforms out of was brilliant powder blue organza, so the Romans had nothing more to do but work with the resources they had.

(Photo via Jak&Jil)

Sorry for being such a bad blogger guys; my Macbook broke several weeks ago and I've been busy weeping/petting it/moaning for it to revive itself. Since then I've been using my old pre-modern chunky desktop Windows which whurrs like a dying beehive whenever I turn it on. I sound ungrateful even though this is technology! and I should be grateful! (quote unquoting all of my foreign relatives) , it's just that once you've gone Mac it's hard to go back. I'm also hesitant to send it in for repair; the guy behind the counter at Future Shop said my entire hard drive has the possibility of being completely erased and when he showed me the price of a temporary hard drive I probably had all eyes in the store curiously glaring in my direction (wouldn't you glare too if you heard a little girl's voice frantically screaming FUUUUUUUU- in a basically silent electronics store?). POINT IS, I need to get it fixed so I can up some clothes photos STAT.

While I'm here for appearing to be the opposite of negligent's sake, I want to show you a few of my favourite stylists' works. I mainly post this on my Tumblr since I practically reside there whenever I find I am on the internet browser (which isn't Safari thus it angers me, but holy shit am I digressing), but I felt it was necessary to acknowledge them here as well since the tumblr is merely an inspiration board and not a very credible manner to cite my endearing sentiments towards the editorials they style. I'm going to narrow it down to three today even though I could definitely mention more (sorry Camille-Bidault Waddington :c).

NOTE: Clicking each picture for #1 and #2 will link you to a post on TFS which has the source + complete editorial.

1) Panos Yiapanis
I don't even know where to begin regarding my love for Panos' work. This dude's layering skills are absolutely incredible, and he does it without making it appear ostentatious. I first stumbled upon the editorials he styled via Tumblr (I'd probably discover more stylists/photographers/the like if some people credited what they were posting, in the cases where they consciously are aware of the source). I was in such adoration with the variety of textures, prints and vibrant colours so evident in the outfits he put together that I had to see more. His work integrates this sense of destruction and neurotic tendency within the aesthetics, and these contradictions work together to create this imperfect perfection which should overwhelm the viewer if successful. And his outfits without a doubt do (I can't stress enough how much they do). I'm really at a lack for articulating myself properly when it comes to his stuff. All I know is it makes my heart swell and my knees buckle. So fucking good.









2) Marie-Amelie Sauve
I came upon Marie-Amelie after I began getting really interested in who was behind all the outfits in my most cherished editorials. After extensively searching the "Behind the Lens" sub forum on TFS I came upon her thread, and after dissecting each post within I realized that she was the stylist for nearly every. single. editorial. I've swooned over in the past. I find she has similar stylistic tendencies as Yiapanis, particularly in the layering, which is probably why they are the stylists I am fond of the most. There are several blatant differences between their individual styles however; for example, I find Sauve approaches her work by manipulating the way she styles to coincide with the mood of the editorial, whereas Panos' manner of layering is so determined that I find it's actually his outfits which affect the mood, rather than the other way around. Also, Sauve evokes a femininity that Yiapanis' editorials lack - not to imply that this missing effeminity negatively impacts his work, there is just a notable difference which creates this distinct individuality in the manner that they style. Finally, I find Marie-Amelie focuses on appropriate colour schemes more than Panos does, but not as drastic as to go into detail about the fact of the matter. Regardless of these comparisons and contradictions, both of these stylists rock every fucking editorial they style. 10/10. They are literally untouchable.



3) Catherine Baba
With Catherine I find her personal style bleeds into her editorial work much more than the previous two. I know this is probably breaking some sort of artistic code, one which states that the artist is not a representation of their work; that although their creation, the work they produce is channeled through a different perception of understanding, extinguishing the artist's personal characteristics and acknowledging this mirrored version of their being; the removed version that creates the art objectively as much as the viewers see it objectively. What I'm trying to essentially state is that there is this inevitable rule, in music, in art, in literature, where the outer party see the work of the artist as an autobiography of their psychological state. And although I typically prefer art that contradicts this notion (where the artist removes themselves from their art), I find Catherine Baba is the ultimate exception. This editorial from 10 Magazine Summer 2009 highly exemplifies that.






Here are some street style photographs further exemplifying this integration. (Both photographs via Jak&Jil.)

So several weeks or so ago, Melissa Luk emailed me asking if she could take some better quality photos of previous outfits captured with a bad quality cam (aka Photobooth on my mac), and I accepted. This project was extremely convenient for we both attend the same university, so we decided to meet up one day during finals week (procrastinating the efficient way) and just roam around and photograph and whatnot. It was a new experience for me seeing as I'm typically the one behind the camera and not in front, so it was a bit awkward at first. Eventually I got the hang of it though (I think I don't even know dudes). But the pictures turned out great and I'm happy lappy (thanks again Melissa!).

Outfit numba two!

Ghost World! Fun fact: I'm staring at ("reading") my favourite part from the entire comic.

You can see the entire set here (I'm technologically deficient and can't figure out how to blog all of these flickr photos at once using the Blog This button, so this'll have to do).

This is what I wore to study today.

This is me showcasing my hair, and oh shit! It's pink again!

This is the song I've been listening to on repeat for the past several days.

This is me saying bye because I have an exam in seven hours. Bye!

Top and blazer are thrifted. Tights are from a halloween costume shop called Malabar located in Toronto.

Today I've felt a sense of clarity for several reasons:

i) I have realized my Macbook has in fact not shattered internally, the battery just won't charge. I have in fact wasted several (many) hours mourning what I thought was gone forever but as I type this I emit a sigh of relief. Forget my lecture notes and research essays - do you know how many photos of neon hair I have on this thing? Enough to make people with naturally coloured locks genuinely frightened. But no, I'm actually very grateful it isn't trivial, or else I would be stuck on a wonky 1997 Windows PC (can you say D:) for the remainder of the summer. Let's just say things would not be a slice of cherry fucking cheese cake.

ii) I was in New York City for the first 6 days of April and I've decided I'm going to try and move there after I finish school if everything falls into place. I know the typical claim with New York is that it's pleasant to visit and lingering for too long will result in this perpetual overwhelmingly claustrophobia and intense craving to distance yourself away from it's habitual hectic activity. Yet I feel nostalgic whenever anyone mentions it, like I'm missing a limb and they only place I can get it back and use it is when I'm in the city. I mean, when our bus drove over the bridge and that panoramic landscape came into view, the plethora of lights consuming every inch of my vision, I felt my heart float and my eyes water. And I don't care how cheesy I sound! I remember watching a documentary on the philosopher/poet/NYC tourist guide Speed Levitch a year or so ago and being mesmerized by his relationship with the city. After it concluded I recall thinking "my hopes for the extravagance this city has to offer will always be unsurpassable". This is why as I sat in my bus seat on the way down I anticipated disappointment by the inevitable mediocrity of what I was about to experience. I mean, what we're fond of differs with each individual. It's all subjective. So naturally I thought Speed's adoration with this cornucopia of edifices and busy bee individuals on an island was based on his own subjective ideals, completely contradicting my own. Yet over the near week I spent there I discovered the city was all it was built up to be (a result of my own subjective ideals or general objective claims I've still yet to determine). Thus I find myself missing the island more each day. Guys, I would sit on a crammed bus with stale air for 11 hours one way like I did a few weeks ago just so I can see it again for a mere 24 hours. The anticipation for a next visit is killing me. Like it's literally gnawing at me.

....did I rant there? I think I ranted there. I almost forgot about this clip from the Speed Levitch documentary (entitled "The Cruise") I was gonna post back there before I ran off on a WTFHOLYSHIT tangent. Here he talks about his relationship with the city.

Ugh, embedding is disabled. Whatever guys CLICK HERE it's worth it, trust. Here's a quick quote from the beginning though if you suck and don't want to watch:

"New York City is a living organism; It evolves, it devolves, it fluctuates as a living organism. So my relationship with New York City is as vitriolic as the relationship with myself and with any other human being which means that it changes every millisecond, that it's in constant fluctuation."

Moreover, since my mac is back, here's an outfit I wore today. It was so hot out though :c. I need to realize spring is here and I can no longer layer so much D: Whatever I'll pretend like pit stains and profusely sweating is IN.

I started working around the bottom because it made me feel like a mermaid. Thought it would work best if I left out prints and just worked with pastels. And pink. Also I'm not going to lie I've been inclined to never take off this skirt because of the influence the cute little asian girl from two posts ago has had on me (the skirts are slightly similar. You know what that means? never taking it off, ever)

Everything is thrifted except for the pink skirt over top of the blue dress and under the apron, which is from H&M. Oh wait, the white lace blazer is from Courage My Love vintage in Kensington Market. :3

I seriously meant for this post to take only ten minutes, and alas it's taken me FORTY. Now I must get back to watching Annie Hall and drinking hot chocolate and pretending to sort through photographs for a project.