grimes X citizen kane - an explanation

People asked me why I posted this Grimes "Oblivion" video alongside a Citizen Kane clip on my Tumblr. It was hard to answer with anything that made sense outside of my brain, so I'm working it out here on (digital) paper.

Well, the song is kind of entrancing and retro-synthy and rad, and to me that makes sense juxtaposed with the stately, black-and-white sobriety of the CK clip. I always post Tumblr images in sets, color paired with b&w, because of the mood that the combination creates.  The "Oblivion" video also seems like a big sharp-eyed montage of American base instincts, and Charles Kane is the ultimate American stereotype: has everything, never satisfied. We all just want to win.

But really it was the unexpected imagery in Grimes's video that hit the je ne sais quoi button for me; those stadium shots filled with coarse, sweaty dudes who become surreal here, moshing silently to the femme, airy track. Just like any art piece that displaces the ordinary, this one makes you take a moment to think about what you're really looking at: violent, testosterone-y pursuits that massive numbers of Americans can't get enough of, but which couldn't be farther from the aesthetics of the high-fashion world... complete seriousness about the task at hand, followed by crazy, buoyant joy... corporate suits pouring huge marketing budgets into the spectacle, all riding on the shoulders of such young, young, sweet boys.

The surprise of the visuals worked for me too; in a Pitchfork interview, singer Claire Boucher said, wide-eyed, that "While we were shooting, we realized the beauty of these spaces. The motorbike rally was in a 50,000 person arena, it's insane."

We, this messy proud high-low society, are pretty insane. I'm not trying to rag on us; it's all a beautiful, sweaty spectacle.

read all the things

Hey, wow, I finally updated my LINKS LIST (to your right) so it more accurately includes the pieces of the internet I think you should look at! Fashion and art and design and life stuff without any obnoxiousness. Except for Bai Ling, and her obnoxiousness is just adorable.

YAY SMART THINGS ON THE INTERNET.

Note: I wish I read everything every single day, but I don't. If that were a list of my most-visited sites, it would probably be Rappers Doing Normal Shit and J. Crew.

*Photo: Bodleian Library, Oxford University. For more library porn, click here.

behind the tents of NYFW

Last week was prep time for New York Fashion Week, and I was asked if I could fly out to help coolify some sponsor activations at Lincoln Center. Clearly a REALLY DIFFICULT DECISION. It was fascinating, a lot less glam than you'd think (like everything usually is), and I saw more avant garde heels in one place than ever before. Lots of fun and not much sleep. 

Photo evidence below:

PREP TIME

The future entrance to the Grand Lobby of MB Fashion Week.  Elegant, no? Turns out the tents are really... tents.
Fashion Week is a tent city. A runway ghetto. Hope you're not disappointed.

 Think there's enough electrical being supplied to the tents?

 Backsttaaaaaggeeee

48 hours later, this backstage area was filled with naked models.

The "you can't fake fashion" bag exhibit. A zillion big-name designers each contributed a design, which is essentially preaching to the choir; I doubt anyone attending New York Fashion Week has ever dreamed of buying a "fake Spade" or fake anything else. They should really have installed this on a street corner in Chinatown.

The Grand Lobby lounge we designed for our lovely client & fashion week sponsor, Diet Pepsi. The print is Jonathan Adler (how did I NOT KNOW that he and Simon were a pair?!) and I put together video content and merchandised stuff and blah blah blah if you really want to know I'll send you a project summary. The lounge turned out pretty swanky and evvvveryone was stalking around sipping drinky drinks with our Jonathan Adler-printed straws.

 

DHL did a pretty bang-up job with their lobby display; they had Parsons design students create fashions using only DHL packaging. Kind of want the airplane fascinator on the left for myself.

The inimitable Simon Doonan at fittings for our runway show event. I was wide-eyed in love with his floral shirt & yellow string tie.

Simon reviewing a design with Elise Bergman, my fave of the 4 DP Style Studio designers.

I'm putting this photo from my hotel room balcony here to signify sunset, but it's probably sunrise, since I was never back from work early enough to catch the sunset.

Late-night bi bim bap is one of the few things that makes me consider moving to Manhattan.
Inspired a new song, "Put An Egg On It," for my webseries Takeoutlandia.

THURSDAY, OH YOU KNOW FASHION WEEK LAUNCH DAY

The chicest registration crew I've ever seen. Compared to some of the attendees,* they proved that black is not a bad way to go. [I didn't include the girl with the 2-tone Chanel tights... hoped they were fake so I didn't have to envy-hate her with the fire of a thousand suns.]

 

*="some of the attendees."  oh dear.

Christian Cota's sketches up on our video wall. Photo taken after an hour of troubleshooting video screen connections. Thank god for Greg the tech dude.

THE RUNWAY SHOW COCKTAIL PARTY EVENT THING @ THE BOX AT LINCOLN CTR:

I could post boring setup pix, but instead I'll feature this guy, head of sound engineering for Lincoln Center and also Santa.

I doubt the excellent DJ Steve Kream has ever had to score a runway show before but he killed it, AND got all the Diet Pepsi girls to fall in love with him.

I bet even puckerface Kelly Rutherford cut a rug or two. She's the only one I pap-stalked, but 

Mary-Kate was there (didn't see her, I think she's below my line of sight) along with Debra Messing and Kristen Chenowith. Job well done, H&S.

The only way for me to see the runway was to scale the light riggings. 4-inch heels don't stop me NOSIRREE BOB. The runway was made of cans under glass, and the chandeliers are Jonathan Adler.  There are also waaay better pix on Nitrolicious.

Evidently was VERY HAPPY to see Jess. 

Other appearances included Eric and my uber-fashionable 70-something cousin.

 

Speaking of fashionable, check out my bartenders. Silver ties are the new awesome. Yes, this is a joke, I bought them online and they're pre-tied, which is kind of great. How cute are the boys, though? Tempted to ask the one on the left if he was even old enough to be there, but didn't in case it made him stop pouring my drink.

The final looks with their designers on the runway.

ALSO:

Such a treat to stroll into Bergdorf's and see client Coquette Atelier in the window! 

P.S. Bergdorf's restaurant is probably the most plush and comforting place in the universe and I'd recommend it if you're in NYC and missing your therapist. The chairs are just as good.

Only had a few minutes of downtime, but where better to spend them than the hippest flooring store I've ever seen? LV Wood in Chelsea. Huge spare space, midcentury chairs, air plants and library ladders... 

...and the most jaw-dropping espresso machine. And check out those HIP STACKED BOOKS. omg. This place made me want to drop everything and study wood.

Know what else is rad? Restaurant supply stores. 

ALSO RAD: 

Jess for inviting me to the best hipster Super Bowl in Bushwick, Eric for housing me and showing me the best of Jersey City, Simon Doonan for all the haircut compliments (Sassoon, darling), Peel's on Bowery for saving the day with bougie brunch, and JetBlue for those delicious Popcorners.

guess where I'm going...

Rather very excited to be attending New York Fashion Week for the first time. Actually, not attending per se, but producing... I'll be out there all week doing this & that & the other to orchestrate a small runway event & cocktail party at The Box at Lincoln Center on Thursday, and a designer lounge in the Grand Lobby that all attendees will be traversing all week.

So yes, it's much cooler to attend NYFW than to produce it... but you didn't think I was THAT cool anyway, did you? Hoping I get to slide into a show or two on Thursday before my show, but I'll probably be too busy chasing models and testing out runway lighting and framing cocktail menus to succeed in that mission. 

But it's been far too long since my last New York trip (= MOMA trip = Uniqlo trip = Muji trip = Cakeshop trip = Taschen store trip), and I've a million people to see, and even if my status-show dance card is empty, the Fashion Week frenzy will all be in the air and the evenings will be intense and the streets will be full of people hoping to be snapped by a street style photog and everyone will be running in heels at 9 in the morning and craving bagels if only their lipstick wouldn't smudge.

Anything I must, must not neglect to do, veterans? Tell me on Twitter @amaterialworld (where I'll be updating frequently, randomly, and cattily, as usual).

happiness is: rappers doing normal shit.

Method Man smiling the fuck out of things in a hoodie with a balloon is probably the happiest thing I've seen all day or even all week, though it's been a long week so that's debatable.

 photo credit: Rappers Doing Normal Shit*

*Congratulations to my friend Rory for being so naturally brilliant that he created a Tumblr purely for his own entertainment that proceeded to practically overnight accumulate over 10,000 followers, including probably you. He didn't do it for the glory (glory, Rory); people spend jillions trying to create what he just does 'cause he feels like it and his instincts happen to be THAT GOOD. 

Anyway, look how happy Method Man is!

Good night, everyone. My gigantalicious faux-cinnamon-latte coffee that I got at 7-11 at ten pm (with the inspired addition of those fake hard tiny marshmallows that normally only come in Swiss-Miss packages), because apparently that monstrosity is my guilty-pleasure equivalent of secretly binging on Almond Joys or something, may finally be wearing off and I watched like fifty things on television while I wrote out invoices and made all kinds of lists for tomorrow and so now it's all watched and written and I'm going to New York in a week and happy Friday, everyone.

sunday melancholy from lana del rey

If you're not sure what Los Angeles is like, watch Lana Del Rey's "Video Games." Hard to explain exactly why it's so perfect to me -- not much in my life here resembles this video -- but it's something about the dreamy glamour and debauchery of old Hollywood mixed with the sunny extendable youth of this place combined with the nastiness of city streets and the pretense and tragedy of fame. The whole filthy mess is kind of sad and sweet because, really, that's what people are.

I could make more of an effort to make sense, but instead I'll just go put this on repeat.

*also, regarding the whole Lana-is-a-Fake thing, because her real name is Lizzy and she injects her lips: isn't that just an even more multi-dimesional comment on fame and fickleness and societal standards, which is clearly what she's getting at with all her imagery anyway?  And look, even her pre-makeover work is still striking those same chords:  Lizzy Grant - "Kill Kill."

"Pop doesn't do 'keeping it real.'  It never has.  It never will." 

--good point & a neat article on her from the Telegraph.

[the straw that broke the] camel's back

Have been noticing a lot of neutrals-on-neutrals recently. Used to think I hated earth tones... oh, how things do change. Something's clicked and here I am wanting a long, swingy camelhair coat.

A hint of black also seems to do these tone-on-tones a favor....

all photos: JAK & JIL

Have Fun Friday: cats are trending.

     I notice trends. 

     I know cats are hot right now (and then). 

Therefore, I feel justified in posting -- and, if you're in any trend-conscious industry, you should feel justified in reading -- this highly useful and on-trend guide to 

the most entertaining things on the internet about cats.  

These have all been sent to me, unasked for, by friends (why? could it be my lifelong cat ownership or the fact that as a child I used to draw only cats? surely not. it must be my status as a trendsetter/tastemaker, I'm sure of it.)  

Enjoy.

The Cat Scan

It's a pun, and it's also completely literal. Squished cat feet are surprisingly funny.

*

Procatinator

Each song gets a new cat GIF.  Try to get the one with the Siamese in the bathtub.

*

Dreamcats

Kind of the cat tumblr version of a hipster wedding album. Pretty, hazily lit pictures that 

make you want to lie in a pile of clean sheets with the windows open. And they're of cats. 

OOH, there's a dreamcats calendar with rad colors & typography! HINT, HINT.

*

Catwalk

Okay, this is not a website about cats, it's a 90's movie about models that's only available on VHS. It's impossible to find, which makes me want it reeeeallly badly.  Discovered via this blog post, which is perhaps the next best thing.

[Summary: A camera follows model Christy Turlington through the spring fashion shows in Milan, Paris, and New York one year in the early 1990s, probably 1992. She and others dash from one designer's unveilings to another. Extended footage looks at Versace and Armani in Milan, Galliano, Gaultier, and Langerfeld in Paris, and Isaac Mizrahi in New York. With Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington.]

*

All right, kittens, time for me to lock up and go home.  Hope you spend some of your Friday reading this when you should be doing something far more important.

Origami Phoenixes, or The New Rise of Fashion Magazines

Reading my daily dose of digital yesterday, I pulled three items in a row up on my screen that were about... magazines.

Style.com/Print - Style.com's inaugural large-format print magazine, available "on select newsstands." [Get it? The magazine's title is a URL, but it's actually print! GET IT?]

Vogue's Newsstand Sales Are Up This Year, Unlike Nearly Every Other Fashion Magazine (via New York Magazine) - Vogue's numbers are up (the only fashion title in the ever-fashionable black) by 7 percent. As WWD notes, that's a 17 percent difference, in the magazine's favor, from any of its competitors. 

Upcoming Zappos iPad App Mimics a Fashion Magazine (via WSJ) - Zappos expects to launch its first attempt at recreating the catalog experience on the iPad in early December, just in time for the holidays.  *[OK, yes, I know this is not actually print. But it wants to be.]

Huh? I thought print was dead! Haven't trends turned the page, and 300% of words worldwide are now read on an iKindle or something?

Right?!

[quite wonderful "OUT!Dated" recycled-magazine magazine by Tee Chee Yee]

No, not right. It is now -- in the midst of more websites, iPhone apps, RSS feeds and reading gadgets than I can count -- that the list of real-deal, glossy, fashion-centric publications is growing. Seems that it's not just folly, either; demand is high. Just watch the Style.com Twitter for an hour and see as it reposts the clamor from enthralled readers:

RT @ivvalentine: If you haven't gotten a copy of the @styledotcom mag: You're missing out on some serious #inspiration. 

RT @EstherhLee: @styledotcom I'm obsessed with the magazine! Have read it 20 times and counting..

20 times, huh? When was the last time you re-scrolled a webpage 20 times? 

And therein lies the key, I think, to understanding why fashion is, in this case, bucking the trend:

RT @BLANQIgirls: @styledotcom LOVE print mag! paper feels sturdy when flipping through amazing editorial/photos & nothing beats rip'n out pages that inspire!

Feels. Flipping. Um, rip'n. None of those verbs can be executed on a screen. There's just something about that magazine FEELING -- the heft, the big pictures, the gloss, the read-at-the-nail-salon-ability -- that the digital arena can't capture.  In her article "Is Fashion the Future of Print?," the Toronto Standard's Style Critic, Sarah Nicole Prickett, spoke to The Kit periodical's publisher, Doug Wallace: “The print product is the same as and kind of different from our digital issue,” explains Wallace. “Tabloid size, glossy paper, the colour and richness of the visual experience is going to be richer, and juicier. I know I can’t really get the gleam in the eye of a model to look online the way it does in print, the way the retoucher does it for print.


Exactly. As much as I like the ease of tapping my way through i-D online, Lara Stone's latest pictorial is way more lush on the printed page. And what would I do with my spare time if I couldn't sit happily tearing out pieces from magazines to make mood boards and kitschy DIY collages? Prickett also has a really interesting point about why fashion, in particular, would engender the loyalty to paper (versus, say, architecture); it's NOT just picture quality. "Anyone who really loves clothes loves material, the swish, the feel. The tactility. Everyone I know who’s obsessed with fashion, no matter their age, is equally obsessed with magazines. You buy them, collect them, throw them out, trade them, cut them up, recycle them; in short, you treat them just like clothes." That couldn't be more true --  looking at myself, my hoarding and preserving of old magazines (currently stashed in chronological order in color-coded milk crates) is identical to the hoarding visible in my closet (which is jammed with things dating back a hundred years, and color-coded!).

And that's not all. Prickett points out that "There is a glamour, a rarefied sense of validation and authority, that is crucial to fashion—moreso, I think, than to other forms of art/commerce—and that can never be reproduced online." On the nose. Paying more for a cup of coffee and having to stand in line for it makes us feel like big shots; paying for our fashion news and taking the time to sit down with a big book rather than an iPhone gives us the same feeling of investment, of dedication, and of visible sophistication that we get from, say, shopping at Barneys, or swinging a luxuriously buttery leather tote bag (which you'll need to carry around all your new magazines).

Was that too many words, it being the internet and all? Sorry, I'm a nerd. In short:

LESSON: Fashion = touch + feel + glamour = Print.

*Postscript: If I'd finished writing this last night, I'd have beaten TrendCentral to the punch. But as of today, their latest trend report is entitled... yep... "New print magazines dare to launch in the digital age."  Hey, at least I was right.

color theory: freja in blue, teal, taupe and acid yellow

Ignore the frightening toothpick legs, gleamed up by Photoshop, and focus on the magical creepy beauty of this photo of Freja Beha in a spread for British Vogue.* I am completely, utterly, devastatingly romanced by the color palette of many of the recent fashion shoots I've been seeing, both for Fall '11 and Spring '12. The rich light blue, very 50s/60s kitchen-y to me, paired with acidified earth tones (peach, green, taupe, yellow)... not sure how to say all these things but the cool colors infused with warmth really have a magical effect. Have a feeling I'll to be going a bit tearsheet-mad over the coming season, especially after I install my new enormous cork wall. These colors and modernized retro silhouettes are just too delicious and I'm in constant sensory overload.

*photo courtesy of my new fashion blog crush, Alabama Eyes.

Blue Skies --> Blue Jeans

Hi, guys.  I have a confession to make. I'm halfway through a really cool post with pretty pictures that cleverly ties together Prada, modern art, and my Texas road trip, which I think you'll enjoy and will enhance the culture factor of your blogroll.  However, I took a break to read Twitter (BAD IDEA ALERT); got distracted by a tweet about the Alexa Chung for Madewell collection being a huge hit, and remembered that I needed to check the collection out online, since I do find Alexa Chung to have pretty good taste most of the time even with her annoying tendency to wear hats; stopped writing that nice blog post; and turned my full attention to looking at jeans at Madewell instead. This led to developing a mad crush on a pair of denim trousers supposedly designed by Miss Chung, which are perfectly retro without being too annoying (despite the hideously annoying "It's All Happening" style name, as if we had to be told that it harkens back to the era of "Almost Famous," which is itself just a retro harken-er. Oy vey.). Said crush in turn led to a rush of online comparison shopping (never accept a first offer), which in turn led to a very sensible (I think) decision to buy multiple pairs with the reasoning that they're all returnable and ONE of them might be The One. Summary: instead of finishing my original post, walking to the Marfa Book Company and browsing their excellent and terribly hip book selection, I sat on a cowhide chair at El Cosmico (my "hotel," where I have a charming li'l rented yurt) and shopped for jeans online. COWER AT MY INTELLECTUAL PROWESS, GRASSHOPPERS.

But, I mean, driving through parched West Texas just gave me the itch to make like our fave 70s chicks and... flare.

 

(photos: instyle.com)

Jane Birkin & Farrah Fawcett flaring it up

Look how teensy Farrah is! Her jeans are hemmed, like, 4 inches! I, on the other hand, have to seek out the longest of the long to avoid the dreaded Highwater Syndrome. These are the contenders... once they arrive next week we'll see if any of them are poster-girl worthy.

Alexa Chung for Madewell - it's all happening denim trousers in "playlist." (I know, pukesville, right? Not just the Almost Famous name, but PLAYLIST as a colorway?! Gag me with an incense stick.) These are the most spendy, but they were the original ones that caught my eye... and Madewell does in-store returns.

Madewell - widelegger jeans in "windswept wash." Slightly better style/colorway names. I love me a uniform medium wash, they're nice & flarey, come in 36" inseam (!!!!), and are on sale. Cha-ching. Ordered 2 sizes... I really want these puppies to work out.

Paige Premium Denim - Roxley High Rise Wide Leg Jeans in "Heaven." OK, I guess all jeans names are dumb. It's been a while since I actually bought any. And gotta love the classic ShopBop model pose, right? Just so you know, 100% guaranteed she is stretching her arms way above her head to try and flatten her poor stomach as much as possible. Awkwarrrrd. But yeah, these are on sale (such a tempting quality) and I really like the sky blue wash. I THINK Paige fit me pretty well... but I ordered 2 sizes anyway. My credit card points are going to be racking upppp, y'all! Shopping will make me richer! SO CLEVER, I AM.

OK. That's all. Just had to let you know with this pseudo-post what I've bought (hey, everyone loves when Mindy Kaling does it, right?). Now off to go find a pair of those adorable Nikes and a little baby skateboard.

Anyone else fall prey to the flares recently? Show & tell!

On Preparing for a Birthday (or, Wardrobe Purging for Aging Ladies)

I don't know about any of you, but I NEVER feel ready for a birthday. I remember being in about fourth grade and thinking hard about this: how you have an image in your mind about what an X-year-old is/does/looks like/knows how to do, and then you get to that birthday, and you think, wait a second - did I pass the test yet? Do I really get to be X years old now? Seriously, guys, you SURE? And then the sun comes up and you're labeled with a new number and no bell goes off, no heavenly choir bursts into song, no gold coins ka-ching in the video game of your life, but, well, you must have checked off enough boxes, because there you are.

This feeling never leaves me, no matter how many birthdays I have. Upon age 27's looming in my immediate future, my first thought was, oh dear GOD, do I qualify? Will the Late Twenties let me into the club? It's been a somewhat rocky year, and I've felt behind the 8-ball most of the time, but, you know, while I may not have written the Great Un-American Novel, nor won the Nobel Prize for curing general malaise, I have sort of ended age 26 with a great rush of box-checking-off all right at the end, as if realizing the final exam was drawing near and reading the whole textbook in one night. Starting in August, I went with my boyfriend on the first real tropical-palms-swaying-in-the-breeze-style vacation I've ever taken; I managed the best season ever of my show at MAGIC (my 7th--!!); I, um,  got a new JOB (more on that later); I got a haircut (these things are also important); and the roomies and I got a dreamy new sideboard and finally rearranged the living room! (Not to brag; I still haven't done about nine million other things on the list, like, say, plant my lime tree or mend about fifty things or learn to play the bass for realy reals). But I still had one big huge giant to-do waiting on my mental checklist: PURGING MY WARDROBE.

Oh man, you guys. I have so many clothes. The problem with not being a kid anymore is that you don't grow out of anything, and so you hang onto everything FOREVER and then your closet explodes and you're constantly wracked by the very American guilt of having fifteen times too much crap for one human being, yet still wanting more. It's awful and I'm guessing that most of you, being ladies with some affinity for fashion, know exactly what I mean (except Alicia over at Instant Vintage, who is the absolute forever master of closet cleaning, as far as I can tell). But maybe this whole aging thing DOES make you better at stuff, because finally, today, I managed to get rid of (almost) every single item of clothing & other miscellany that I don't love and need and use. It took the biggest suitcase I own (I can fit inside it) and a hot pink milk crate and a Target bag, but I managed to haul it all up my 35 front yard stairs and over to a friend's yard sale, after which we took all the swanky leftovers to Crossroads and the rest to Out Of The Closet.

[My teabags are wiser than I am.]

WHAT. A. RELIEF.  I got rid of a J. Crew denim skirt I've had since high school. I got rid of countless ironic thrift-store finds. I got rid of so many vests - who knew I even owned vests? I got rid of designer jeans that I'd hung onto just because they were expensive (but guess what, I didn't even pay for them in the first place, so that logic is doubly dumb). I got rid of things I only bought because they were so cheap. I got rid of things that reminded me of exes and of times when I was skinnier and times when I was less skinny. I got rid of the IKEA rice paper lamp that hasn't left its wrapper in 3 years. Each subtraction from my inventory was like a little gold star. It gets kind of addicting.

I know my calculus...

• Selling stuff at yard sale = a few dollars (but let yard sale hostess keep it in exchange for my raiding her stuff - see below).
• Selling 1 pair of Diesel jeans (gifted in 2006 when boyfriend's band played a Diesel party at SXSW. Man that makes a girl feel cool.) + 1 pair of Stronghold jeans with suspenders (gifted, so cute, so too tight) + 1 Tracy Reese dress (gifted in exchange for photoshoot for Beverly Hills store that didn't want to pay me real money) = $40.
• Taking everything else to the thrift store and returning home with an empty suitcase and a joyous soul = PRICELESS.

[Remember what I said about having too much stuff, and still wanting more? It's OK if the incoming is less than the outgoing... right? I mean, look at those beads. I had to adopt them. And everything's colors go together, so I couldn't separate the family, obviously.]

It's after midnight, so we're in this together now, 27. Check it out - I got you some vintage swag, 40 bucks and a massive sense of accomplishment.*

*Perhaps unjustified; cleaning a closet isn't exactly rocket science. But I know I'm not the only one for whom a cluttered closet feels like a festering tumor. Check out some of my fave bloggers' posts on how to perform the necessary surgery:

• Nubby Twiglet's The Art Of Closet Organization
• Gala Darling's Wardrobe Taming series
• Yes & Yes's Closet Case including fab inspirational photos I'll be revisiting as I design my newly freed-up closet!

An A-whatta?

Every Outfit Cher Horowitz Wears in "Clueless" In Under 60 Seconds.

so necessary.



Courtesy of my fave Yes and Yes.

Milk Fed Memories

[seventeen magazine: "see sofia shop!"  via cat party]

I don't even know where to start with this story I'm about to tell you, I love it SO MUCH. It combines multiple things I love: late 90s nostalgia, this one Milk Fed tee shirt that's haunted me for years, and a crazy number of small-world coincidences! Plus, at the end, I get to rant about branding & trends!

Where to beGIN? Let's take the sparkly A Material World time machine ($14.99 from Delia*s) back fourteen years, shall we?

Year: 1997

Location: Boston, MA; the mauve-painted bedroom of thirteen-year-old me. 

Scene: I'm probably lying on my stomach, wearing my favorite black velvet Gap overalls, waiting for my blue nail polish to dry and reading the latest issue of Seventeen. Reading the article on Sofia Coppola and her fave L.A. hangouts (Wasteland, Little Tokyo, No Life Records) was akin to reading about Glinda the good witch and her fave Oz hangouts, but I did grasp one key thing: HER TOTALLY TRANSCENDENTALLY COOL NAVY BLUE MILK FED LOGO TEE. This was a point in my life when I still wore tee shirts (when did this end? 2000?), and this was somehow just the coolest tee shirt I'd ever seen. The Milk Fed catalog still wasn't out yet, but if I'd had $25, I could have written a letter to a store somewhere that sold Sofia's magical shirts.

Year: 2010

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Scene: I'm working with my boyfriend on the merchandise mix for a pop-up shop we're planning with his company, XLarge, in my company's event space. He's offering to bring in other associated brands: X-Girl, Silas, Milk Fed.... "Whoa, Milk Fed, for serious?" I ask. "I love Milk Fed!" (Memory of navy Milk Fed tee is still seared permanently into my brain.) "Really?" asks the fella. I explain about Seventeen, the shirt and my early insta-fandom. Of course, when I was lying on my stomach studying Sofia's favorite shade of Delux nail polish, he was already living in L.A., working at XLarge and in the thick of it all with team Milk Fed. I tried to Google Image the shirt, and even though I'm usually a really good Googler, apparently no one had taken the time to scan, upload and tag The Milk Fed Shirt Photo. It continued to live only the charred branded spot in my brain. Until...

Year: 2011

Location: The Internet

Scene: I'm sitting at my dining room table, late at night, surfing the faceboox instead of going to sleep. The latest update from hyper-cool art teacher/L.A. fashion veteran friend Kristin read "14 years ago I was working at No Life Record Shop," and the link posted was to... THE SEVENTEEN ARTICLE. WITH SOFIA AND THE SHIRT. Not only is the shirt photo exactly how I'd remembered, but -- extra awesometown bonus -- Kristin was the girl pictured in the article advising Sofia on new records! And she went on to work at Milk Fed later on! ZOMG CRAZYTOWN COINCIDENCELAND! (AS WELL AS VALIDATION THAT MY MEMORY IS STILL GOOD! At least my memory of pictures of clothing I wanted in 1997!)

 

Awesome story, right? Worth all the time spent reading all those words about my tween obsession with a random shirt pictured in a now-crappy publication? If not, here's a little brainworthy content to leave you with a less condescending evaluation of me. What I ACTUALLY think is really interesting about my story, fourteen years in the making, is how a little logo tee managed to worm its way indelibly into my mental archive. And I'm not the only one; based the comments on the original post, as well as my friends' responses when I showed them, a LOT of girls remembered the photo instantly, as well as their intense 1997 cravings for that little navy blue logo tee.

This tells me that ol' Sofia Coppola had a knack; she somehow hit the nail on the head at that moment with pieces that struck a perfect chord with us girls-now-women. It's no accident that she made a tee we all still remember; that we think her movies are some of the more visually arresting of the past decade and we love them; and that her look/haircut/style has been coveted by us for coming up on twenty years. I wouldn't have thought to name S-Copp as a trend pinpointer of the ages, but thinking about it, there's no other conclusion. Major props, homegirl. Even if you were wearing a really dreadful skirt/tube top combo in the above photo... at the time, I'm sure it was the very cutting edge.

OK, maybe I don't miss 1997 THAT much. Let's leave tube tops in the twentieth century for good.

stop and...

 

Wonder and beauty, most often found in the incredible or the incredibly mundane.

[1, 3: thedayafteryoudie; 2: thomas hawk]