Treasures

One of my dearest posessions is a french magazine called Max from 1996. Not sure if this a men´s magazine per se, but I´m very fond of it. I bought it in a dusty little highway shop on the road down to Cap D´age on a family holiday some time around 1996. What I like about this is that it is a sort of relic from old times. A very 90-ish sort of relic, with a bit of Bon Jovi, a bit of Travolta (fresh from Face Off I believe) and Irene Jacob. Not to mention the very fabulous Sibyl Buck. Inside are adverts for Paco Rabanne, Donna Summer and CK One. How very 90´s.

Talking about style..

I´m mildly obsessed with people´s styles nowadays. Ilove reading about it and looking at the pictures. Great stuff! Well, I finally found an image that sort of explains how I personallyfeel about clothes and what kind of attitude I currently have…

Whee! This is me.. almost

Yeah. This is an image from an old Glamour magazine ( those small ones), I think it´s from one of the first Frost/French shows, with a circus theme. Well, back to me. I honestly feel like this most of the time,  love thrifting at the moment, the crazier, the better, just wait until I show you my new Japanese style slippers- with the same kind of thick soles that Baby Spice wore somewhere around 1996.. I put of my hair with a lot of colorful pins, wear stuff in rainbow colours and think it´s perfectly fine to go to a  job interview in casual clothes. Didn´t get the job, of course. But it´s a wonderful phase.

A book review or a book-squeek

One of the most pleasant things to come out of my unpleasant one month work at one of the communal libraries, was finding Kyoichi Tsuzuki´s Tokyo: a certain style. If you´re ever in Helsinki and actually plan to spend some money (or a lot) or want a nice memento, you should definatly go to Korjaamo and especially the museum shop located in Töölö, in the  Rautiovaunu museo. this book is just awesome, as I´m going to move to a one room appartement soon, I figured it would work as a good guide to living in cramped spaces. Even my mother got hooked on the book and spent over a week leafing through it. It´s basically a small sized (manga-size) overview of different more or less cramped appartements in the Tokyo region. For voyeurs like myself, who love peaking into peoples private rooms, it´s a real treasure. There are images from traditional houses, modern highrise buildings and even dorms. Very worth it´s not so heavy price (ok, it was 15 euros, for me that´s a lot).

Check it out here for a preview!

Music I´m listening to right now + links

Yeah, I´m going through a lot of change at the moment, which is always visible in my choice of music on my good old 250 Mb Phillips Go Gear (yup, I´m old fashioned, even my mother is rocking an IPod nano at the moment). Here is a pick of what´s on it right now;

*Belle and Sebastian, songs from their latest album “The Life Pursuit” (2006). This is the one album of theirs that I like for some reason.

*The first cd of the Marie Antoniette soundtrack. I´ve taken a liking to The Radio Dept. I´ve had one of their cd´s on top of the microwave waiting for a listen for over a week, but haven´t gotten down to it yet. of course the all time classic Bow Wow-tune “I want candy” is a strong favorite as well.

*Kagrra: Core. This is a fascinating band from Japan, they mix traditional Japanese music (Kagura- hence the name) with electric guitars and a bit of synth. Very melodic stuff, made only more melodic by the vocalist´s androgynic voice. I went to see the band at their first time gig in Finland, without knowing what kind of music they play, just figured I´d finally gratify my longstanding fascination with the Japanese music scene. It was good. i was a bit surprised to find that their Finnish fans sound just like their Japanese fans. Fan girls unite.

*Orange Range: Shanghai Baby. More Japanese music, light pop.

*The Polysics: Kaja Kaja goo. Is it punk? Is it funk? It´s certainly Japanese. See a theme here?

*The Von Bondies: Pawn Shop Heart. Another fumbling in the dark-kind of find. Bought this in Jyväskylä Citymarket for 6 euros, been playing it ever since.

About to be added ->

* Chicks on Speed: 99 cents. I´ve liked “We don´t play guitar” since I heard it the first time. Brilliant stuff.

Today´s links:

- 30 Free High Quality WordPress Themes @ Smashing Magazine via Nubbly Twiglet

I like the Apple-themed one and the Notebook.

- Agent Lover

- Milk

- How to clean out your closet@ Mahalo With an pending move creeping closer, this is a good thing.

Movies of the 90´s

Stealing Beauty

I think this came out about the same time as Baz Luhrman´s Romeo and Juliet, which explains why I never saw it back then. I have seen it once though, probably on tv. The entire film can be summed up as a story about a girl who goes to Italy to find her father, but ends up finding herself instead. Sort of Mamma Mia, without Meryl Streep, lurex and crappy onscreen chemistry and of course all those Abba-tunes. The film itself is a lovely example of that 90´s something in the movies- nice soundtrack, a bit of Portishead, some other chick-punk band, a bit of saucy latino music and a bit of classic. The vistas are similar to all those “stuck-in-Tuscany-with-crappy-house-and-no-life-help!” movies that were popular a while ago. What those lack in comparison with Stealing Beauty though is Jeremy Irons, Rachel Weisz (pre the Mummy), a young Joseph Fiennes (pre Shakespear– whatever that oh, yes, in love, right?), lots of artists, shady artsy dancing, molto italiano and Liv Tyler. All in all a nice package. Not to mention that I like Liv Tyler´s clothes in the movie, cue doc martens, loose shirts, skinny unisex jeans, summery gowns and lot´s of long hair.  Ah, 90´s bliss..

attack of feminini.. aw heck.. lace

Ok, I´m finally letting my secret craving for color, lace, flowers and everything not monochrome take over. Been sitting on my hands since I was twelve out of some strange idea that it´s better to fight the romantic in you, then let it show. No longer. I´m growing out my hair (again), gonna learn some new ways to plate my hair a´la Doctor Zhivago and jump around the meadows like Anne of Greengables. Well, almost. At least the braiding part is true. The first step for me is knitting lace! One might ask why this complicated approach? My answer would probably be- I didn´t really give a damn before. But, for good or bad, society does tend to foster a strong visual approach these days and what better time to stock up on lacey shirts, skirts and accesories then during the summer sales? I´m finally finding a way to incorporate jewellery and scarves. I´m also getting into decorating. Nesting syndrome, you say? More like finding one´s path.

Want to knit some flimsy, feminine (a-ha) garments? Look no further:

Interweave Knits has some nice lingerie-type stuff:

Knitty is good too.

Looking for inspiration?

Avant-garde fashion photography

fashions fade; style is eternal

Growing up is learning to live with limitations..

This may be a sure thing for some, but boy am I having a difficult time with it! The result should be that one learns to deal with limitations and come up with creative solutions. Dunno how I missed this during five years of study, living on macaroni and buying clothes in Salvation Army stores. I naively thought that things would get better. You´ll never quite have the same freedom as before.

On a different note; did you know that William S. Burroughs has published a collection of stories Called “The Cat inside”? All cat-enthusisasts should take a look- Burroughs-enthusisasts too.

Yoko Ono is a very cool lady

She pretty much saved my day. It was a million degrees warm in my new trainee place and the café across the street didn´t make ice coffee, which is a joke, considering they´re about the biggest chain in Finland. But Yoko Ono to the rescue, I picked up her book “Grapefruit: A Book of instructions and drawings” before I left for the day and had a great time reading it over a hot cup of coffee. I admit, Im a bit of a baby, but after spending the day in an owen, it would have been nice with ice coffee. But do check out “Grapefruit..” if you can, it´ll blow your mind- at least expand it a little.

..and I´m back..

Took me a while to get my bearings straight, I´m thinking a lot at the moment. I´m also going insane at the summer sales, the visa-reps must be grinning from ear to ear right now. It is slowly dawning on me that I won´t be going back to study in the fall, that real life is beginning. And I can´t wait Still have that little nuisance called a thesis to finish, but at least I´m back where I belong.

But enough of that. Here are some very nice links, which are all worth checking out!

Flickers:

Dadaya

Ta*

Sasha Nikitin

The Items We Carry (somebody needs to create a similar one about people´s bathroom shelves, I´d never leave)

*Kit*

Creative stuff:

Outsapop Trashion

Purl Bee

Whip Up

Expect more links next time, feel free also to post some of your own.

Living with my mother is causing me to go through a second adolescence..

It´s not necessarily a bad thing- I was never a rebellious teenager. It´s hilarious to notice how adolescent I get over stuff that is decidedly adolescent- clothes, food and looks. Not to mention the amount of swearwords punctuating my sentences while I huff over her oppinions of my clothes.. Today was a good example of that. She champions the “proper”- movement, while all I´ve ever wanted to be is interesting, to hell with pretty or beautiful. I did end up changing my outfit this morning, not because of her, *pout* but because living at home is also causing me to pack on a few pounds. I now have one of those “Buddha-bellys” from the Dove adverts. NOT fun.

Enough of the whining. Today´s obsession: Tamara de Lempicka. I like her style of painting, especially how she portrays women- they seem so strong and powerful. She did paint a lot of women, 3/4 of her paintings are of ladies. I also like her palette of colours. Both vibrant and pale.