you'll get there someday

 

It's such a good feeling to finish up most of my work for the semester. I still have a few things due next week but right now I'm enjoying finished paintings and fresh flowers in our office, finally flicking through some magazine I've been saving and looking to one of my favourite fashion illustrators, Cédric Rivrain for inspiration. Can't wait to start on a few exciting Badlands Studio projects!

1. New paintings and sweetpeas in my office

2. Cédric Rivrain "Selected Drawings" and Sherie Muijs cotton shirt

3. Lula magazine #14 spring/summer 2012, Benah kodi bag

4. Sherie Muijs cotton shirt, Cédric Rivrain "Selected Drawings", Mono. Kultur zine #20 the Dries Van Noten issue,
Uniform Wares watch, Yves Saint Laurent Arty Oval ring and sweetpeas in my office.

5. L'Officiel magazine March 2012

All photographs by me

hello, baby

Rohan's cabas bag in my hot little hands for one night only. I've been eying it off ever since we got back from Paris - thanks Ro!

photo from here

i will wait for you there

I always look forward to the new issue of Lula and #14 Spring/Summer 2012 is one of my favourites yet. It's currently sitting next to my bed begging to be read, but until uni wraps up in the next two weeks I'm enjoying just flicking through pages of beautiful images.

Collage images from Lula magazine via TFS, watercolour by me.

the art of cinema - norwegian wood

 

 The art of cinema no.1

Norwegian Wood

I wrote last year about how nervous I was for the film adaptation of Murakami's Norwegian Wood; a particular favourite of mine, I hoped the film would capture the loss of innocence, sadness and nostalgia so perfectly depicted in the novel.

Upon watching it recently I was happy to discover a beautifully cast and incredibly stylish film which does complete justice to the book. The soft colour grading of the mise-en-scène perfectly evokes the late 1960s/early 1970s setting, and the cinematography and production design is mesmerising without detracting from the narrative. 

Would love to hear everyone else's opinion on the film, particularly if you love the book!

Screencaps from Norwegian Wood taken by me

greenhouse

Interior mood no.6

I have had these images of photographer Mark Borthwick's home in my inspiration folder for a while now. I can't imagine a more prefect place to live and work; the huge windows allow light to flood the living area and even better is the large outdoor area downstairs. I almost couldn't believe this was a townhouse in Brooklyn as it appeared to be so secluded.

I've been looking lately to furniture covered in shearling, light floorboards, plants indoors (sadly impossible in my place) and large, clean walls for pinning up work in progress.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.

 1. Collage images; 1950s chair from here, Cabin and Woods book from here, 
cacti outside a home in Buenos Aires via Elle Japan, watercolour by me. 

2. Mark Borthwick's home studio via here.

3. Collage images;  Mark Borthwick photo, Treehouse candles by Byredo, watercolour by me.

 4. Mark Borthwick's home studio via here.

roll call - valentine

Roll call  no.3

Autumn 2012

I don’t think you should feel about a film. you should feel about a woman, not a movie. you can’t kiss a movie.

- Jean-Luc Godard

I always love that first bit of biting cold in the air - time to pull out sweaters, drink chai tea and stay in bed reading your favourite book. Lately I have been revisiting some of my favourite Godard films and also viewing a few for the first time, my final essay for the semester is comparing the gender dynamic between Godard's Pierrot Le Fou and Truffaut's Jules and Jim. It's so interesting studying French film and culture and I now have an even greater appreciation for Nouvelle Vague cinema.

Tulips have been accompanying me in my office while I finish off my painting project inspired by Godard's Une Femme Est Une Femme, and I have been looking to the Cy Twombly photography books I picked up in Paris for some inspiration. Other objects of obsession are the new issue of Rika magazine and a Lanvin notebook I picked up in Paris, it's almost too beautiful to draw in.

1. Christopher Esber sweater from Mychameleon

2. Tulips in my office

3. Christopher Esber sweater from Mychameleon and Dress Up pants

4. Le Belles Images by Simone de Beauvoir and Cy Twombly: “Le temps retrouvé” 
5. Benah Kodi mini chain bag
6. Carven heels
7. Carven shirt, Lanvin notebook, Contempt DVD, Essie nail polish in
 bobbing for baubles and size matters
8. Rika magazine

Alice McCall

 

This is the last review from Hannah and I's fashion week coverage. I hope you enjoyed!
Check out our other reviews of Romance Was Born, Gary Bigeni, Gail Sorronda, Zimmermann, Michael Lo Sordo and Magdalena Velevska.

It could have been that bright and cheery tangerine orange, the perfect off-set to Marilyn Monroe curls and baby-blue leather head-kerchiefs. It could have been the pretty-as-a-picture laser-cut leather and folkloric bright florals. Or maybe it was those jingle jangle drop earrings that swung from the models ears and winked as they walked. Backstage, while the models shrugged their slip-of-a-thing shoulders into sheer-overlay mini dresses and cutesy periwinkle brocade playsuits something odd was going on. They were smiling. Grabbing each other by the hand and swapping war stories from the week with barely disguised glee, or chowing down on bowls of fruit salad and yoghurt laid out along a tressle table like christmas presents, we couldn't quite believe what we saw. Everything was so pretty. Everything was so lovely. Everyone - from the wide-eyed models to the puffer-jacket pr girl and the prada- clad stylist - was so, so happy.

It's an Alice McCall thing. Sunny, easy-breezy, thoroughly happy clothes for girls who don't want to spend too much time thinking about what to wear. Not when there are more important things in life like picnics, or afternoon tea dates, or dancing the night away. And that's what you would be doing in next season Alice McCall, with a million frocks that couldn't be more perfect for girls who waste away hours reading Stella Gibbons and thinking about boys. Sweetheart necklines, peplums, paper-bag waist shorts... Add the rosy blush that adorned the models' cheeks - the colour of a girl in love - and you'd be poised to wile away an hour or two.

There is something to be said for designers who indulge their inner sweet-tooth every now and then. We know it happens - who will ever forget the saccharine revolution of S/S 2012 - but we always seem so damn surprised when designers choose to parade about unashamedly, unabashedly fun clothes instead of the serious, directional stuff that we expect them to do. But for everything there is a season. And Alice McCall's season is right now. Her designs have never been as flirty and flippant as they have been now - and we need it in our current fashion climate more than ever. There is a very real danger of taking fashion too seriously. McCall's ode to frippery - and lest you be concerned that all this prettiness will subvert traditional feminine wiles, there was a potent undercurrent of can't-look-away lolita-ness to it all, never fear, never fear - was as poetically poignant as any paean to minimalism we've ever seen. Girls really do just want to have fun.

Photos and words by Hannah-Rose Yee, editing and illustration by me.