Posted: May 18th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, fashion | Tags: celebrities, fashion, home, popular culture, rants, trends
Clearly I am all for life imitating art, art imitating life, art in life, and style driven in equal parts by beauty, enthusiasm and a good sense of humor. Still, the two are not entirely interchangeable and it seems lately like some people could use a little reminding about where the line is, however faint it may be.
On Tuesday, for the London premiere of Snow White and the Huntsmen, the stars showed up decked out in full Gothic glory. I have been waiting not so patiently for the movie to come out. I love that kind of dark Gothic drama. On film. And I admire actors like Christian Bale, or even Sascha Baron Cohen, who stay in character when appearing in public while promoting a film. But Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron’s dresses weren’t in character, they were simply misguided. Somehow when Rooney Mara tries this type of thing, the whole look is so completely of a piece, and so genuine to her style, that for me it works. But Stewart and Theron have their own looks which work for them, and this is not it.
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Posted: May 16th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: fashion, fast fashion, holidays, spring 2012, trends
Just in time for graduation, the ASOS Salon collection of dresses has arrived, and they are truly exquisite. Most dresses are around $200, so they’re not your usual fast fashion bargain, but are not outrageous for the quality of workmanship and detail. ASOS also has going for it the fact that it is not yet a big U.S. presence, so chances are if you buy one of these dresses for yourself or your daughter for graduation, you’re not likely to run into anyone else wearing the same dress. And yes, although it is a small collection, it includes a variety of dresses some suitable for a teenage girl, others quite appropriate for her mother. They are so precious that I truly don’t know how to begin to choose.
Three Dresses For The Graduating Teen
1. ASOS SALON Pretty Dress in Floral Appliqué $208.74
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Posted: May 14th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, stuff to buy | Tags: design, fabric, home, mass market, shopping, target, trends
I don’t know about you, but I have a had to institute a moratorium on spending on spring clothing and accessories. I have no reasonable excuse for buying anything else. So, trying to steer clear of my favorite websites, I thought it was time to check out the Shops at Target. Without question, my favorite is the Privet House shop (I’m not a dog owner, and after my dear friend was awoken on Mother’s Day by a poop covered dog who had been sick in his crate the night before and let out by a mischievous five year old, I have no interest in becoming one — so I have an aversion to the Polka Dog Bakery shop without even checking it out so it could be just lovely but I wouldn’t know). The Webster shop is a little preppy for my taste, but there is some nice merchandise if you go for that kind of thing.
Not surprisingly, many of the Privet House items have sold out, but there are still some cute pieces left. The dishes, napkins and glasses are very pretty. Admittedly, at this point nice melamine dishes are a dime a dozen, except that they aren’t remotely a dime a dozen so the Target prices for these dishes makes them pretty hard to resist. $15.99 for a set of four dinner plates isn’t half bad given that comparable French Bull melamine dishes, while beautiful, retail for $11.00 each. The bad news is out of four styles of printed melamine dinner plates, only one is still available online. Truth be told, it’s my favorite of the four.
Privet House at Target Brown Toile Dinner Plates
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Posted: May 10th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: fabric, fashion, spring 2012, topshop, trends
We’ve discussed shoes, printed jeans and floral dresses, but the other key item this season — the one that’s almost the easiest to wear — is the floral print jacket. Personally, I’m a fan of the light weight bomber jacket. There is also the cousin style of the pseudo letterman jacket, but the idea is pretty consistent either way. And if you ask me, they’re beyond cute. They are a little young looking, but I think that designers have tweaked the style to come up with jackets that really anyone can wear.
Sportmax Stefy Floral Print Jacket $756.00
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Posted: May 2nd, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: designers, fashion, fast fashion, h&m, mary katrantzou, spring 2012, topshop, trends
If fall’s most mystifying trend was the mullet dress, spring offers an equally mystifying take on the idea. For spring it’s all about the peplum skirt. This is one of those trends that I am skeptical I will ever be able to get on board with. I am usually one to buy into just about any and every trend. I believe firmly in the concept so eloquently played out on Leandra Medine’s blog The Man Repeller, that women dress not for men, but largely for themselves and each other, and there is an enormous amount of pleasure to be gotten from indulging in the most preposterous of trends no matter how ugly and inexplicable men might find them. When I think about fashion and getting dress, it aspires at its best to art, not to a sales pitch for my sexuality. But a girl’s got to draw the line somewhere, and the peplum may be one of the most horrid design elements I have ever seen.
The peplum skirt was certainly a presence on the spring runways…
whether at Jason Wu
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Posted: April 30th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: design, designers, fabric, fall 2011, Fall 2012, fashion, haute couture, spring 2012, trends
Isn’t it kind of intriguing how a designer can design multiple collections simultaneously? It is one thing to create nice clothes. It is altogether another talent to be able to distill the essence of a design house, in the absence of the founding visionary, and to design consistently with the feeling and aesthetic of the house, and at the same time completely shift gears and create a distinct vision for your namesake collection which is utterly separate.
In this context, Marc Jacobs’ relationship with Louis Vuitton is somewhat unusual. Although Louis Vuitton had long since established itself in the world of luggage and leather goods, Marc Jacobs was Artistic Director for the first ready-to-wear collection. So there is, in essence, no Louis Vuitton ready-to-wear style separate from Jacobs. Yet somehow, over the years, he has managed to weave a fairly distinctive look for the brand. Sometimes it is more distinct from the collection he puts out under his namesake label, sometimes less so. Looking ahead to Fall 2012 I’m having an awfully hard time telling the two apart. To a great extent it may have to do with styling. Styling plays a not insignificant role in giving an identity to a collection. But, however you look at it, I find the choices that Jacobs made in presenting these collections surprising.
Louis Vuitton Fall 2012
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Posted: April 26th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, stuff to buy | Tags: design, innovative design, shopping, style, trends
So today I finally had to break down and buy a new phone. I had an iPhone 3S. I have no idea when I got it. Years ago. But lately it has decided that it’s not terribly interested in connecting anymore. Anything that doesn’t require an internet connection — great! Making calls — no so great. Texting — good luck. Since the new phone, a 4S, is a different shape from my old phone, buying a new phone meant suddenly needing to buy a new case as well. (In fact, buying a new phone seems to cost at least $100 in hidden fees in top of the $199 it claims it’s going to cost you if you renew your contract, but that’s another conversation altogether.) And buying a new case got me to thinking about how significant a choice that has become. The phone, after all, spends an enormous amount of time hanging out next to your face, so selection of a case represents an important opportunity to make an aesthetic statement about your identity.
We have AT&T — which may have great service in other parts of the country but is really an inexplicably stupid choice in this corner of the northeast since the coverage and service on Verizon are infinitely better, and yet, it’s what we have — so my experience of looking at cases while purchasing the phone itself is specific to the AT&T store. I have no idea what they do or don’t offer, for example, in the Verizon store. But in the AT&T store, any sales person doing the job right will try to sell you a case when you’re buying the phone. The thought of walking out of the AT&T store and dropping that brand new iPhone without a case onto the ground and shattering it before getting around to purchasing Apple Care gives me an anxiety attack. The offerings in the store, however, seem to be very pretty but simple cases in various colors that start at $35, a clear plastic protective sticker for the front and back of the phone for $30 (yeah, $30), or a screen protector for $20. Which, in this day and age, is all just silliness.
There are a lot of truly great covers out there if you want your phone to have some personality, but if you’re less choosy, it really only needs to cost a few dollars on Amazon.com.
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Posted: April 25th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: British style, designers, fabric, fashion, h&m, shopping, spring 2012, topshop, trends
As spring gets into full swing, and the stores are starting to hold spring sales, it seems like must have item this spring and summer is not in fact floral jeans (although they’re still great, so don’t worry if you followed my earlier advice and got a pair), but the floral dress. As a certain kind of over the top Monet floral print becomes ubiquitous, it seems like everywhere I turn Erdem has suddenly become “the” brand. It may be that I only recently became aware of it and others have known the label for a while. But it suddenly seems to be in every magazine, on every celebrity, in every boutique …. And Erdem’s forte, as it turns out, is a certain style of floral print constructed into garments that seem almost sweet (kind of Mad Men style) but is tailored with a modern edge that tempers what could easily come across as awfully saccharine. Is Erdem popular because the floral thing is such a big trend right now, or did the line play any kind of a role in shaping the trend? That’s deep, right?
Erdem Spring 2012 Collection
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Posted: April 19th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: design, stuff to buy | Tags: decorating, design, home, shopping, trends
Say what you will about her, but I tell you, my girl Martha always comes through. Whatever else you may think, there’s no denying the girl knows how to do things right (or how to get someone else to do things for you … but still right). My new obsession in kitchen style is whiteware. It seems to me that one major advantage of adorning your kitchen with serving pieces, bowls, vases, out of porcelain, glass, white glass and crystal (or any subset thereof) is that in addition to looking clean, sleek and classy, chances are pretty good that whatever the decor in your kitchen right now, the new items will work with it, so you don’t have to go throwing away and replacing everything right away. You can replace your possessions slowly over time, and if the trend changes before you finish replacing everything, chances are your whiteware or glassware will still work pretty well with whatever the new fad is. After all, style is important, but versatility can be helpful.
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Posted: April 18th, 2012 | Author: artintolife | Filed under: fashion | Tags: designer collaborations, fabric, fashion, shopping, trends
It’s fun to discover, once in a while, that you’ve been ahead of the trends, spotting the next-big-thing before it was the next-big-thing. I’m sure I am not actually ahead of the trends, just a part of the first or second wave, but I allow myself to imagine that I got hooked on whatever it is before it was a thing. So my big thing, starting last summer, has been sneakers.
Generally I’m a high heel kind of a girl. It comes in part of having short, stocky legs desperately in need of elongating, and in part of having friends who are several inches taller than I am. But it had been years since I had left the house without the added boost of a 2″-4″ heel. That is, up until last spring. For a number of reasons, the primary one being the popularity of jeans cuffed up to capri length, I decided to give flats a go. In addition to flat sandals and flip flops, in a store one day I picked up a pair of Bensimon sneakers on a whim. Admittedly, I had seen them in magazines enough times to think that if you wanted to look well dressed while wearing sneakers, they were a good bet. They are incredibly cute, garment dyed in a wide array of interesting colors. But more than that, they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever had the privilege of putting on my feet. Like bare feet. They’re amazing. It was instant love.
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