sculptural shoes, belly buttons, and outsider art

holy shit, these shoes are so fantastic:

am also wild about this silhouette for the summer, from ysl resort 2011:

it’s like the grown-up version of low rise pants + belly shirt (i’m not the only one who wore some variation of that outfit throughout highschool, right?), a way to show summer skin without being summer trashy, and also is much more flattering than previous incarnations of midriff-baring ensembles.

a final thought, is that i recently started volunteering at a arts program for adults with developmental disabilities, and it’s really really wonderful, and has also gotten me back into making art regularly, which i haven’t been doing in a while. the emphasis at the program is about process and mindfulness, not a finished product, and while it’s easy to remember that it’s the making and not the thing that’s important when painting with low-functioning individuals (most of their work isn’t even a little bit figurative, it’s mostly swaths of muddy color and no one really bothers to take any pieces home), the rest of us tend to be really hard on ourselves. it’s bad elementary school art teachers’ faults, really, for conditioning us to create with an end result in mind instead of making art for the feeling and the experience. so, friends, i encourage you to paint with your eyes closed, to collage with color instead of form, to sculpt with your feet, and to embrace your inner pollack. it will come out ugly but it won’t matter, the best art experience is like meditation anyway. do it do it

[ stefanie ]

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yes yes yes

(facehunter)

this outfit is to dieeeee for; switch the purse for something a little less fringe-y, and consider this chick to be the epitome of my sartorial dreams.

[ stefanie ]

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berlin ist arm, aber sexy

berlin fashion week (28 jan – 1 feb) is gonna rule.

facehunter will be there (a tip, if you are eager to get your picture taken, is to wear an eye-catching hat and/or talk loudly about stockholm), as will iekeline stange (projektgalerie is putting up an exhibit of her polaroid photography, entitled “i like ponies”, which should be nifty, and also she has such a wonderfully quirky style), and a lot of really fuckin cool berliners.

the city itself is wonderful — covered in graffiti, full of galleries and dark bars and artists’ squats and falafel places — and fashion weeks are always fun to loiter around.

(photos are from spring break 2007; the top one is from the east side gallery, and the bottom is en route to the medical history museum; if you are ever in the same place as a medical history museum, and are not the squeamish type, go right away)

who else is in berlin, you ask? an artist by the name of chiharu shiota, is who, and last we saw she was creating enormous installations of dark string, windows, baby shoes, and burned wedding dresses.

(photo from the artist’s website)

here are some german words to take with you on your travels:

mitgefuhl

fernweh

sehnsucht

[ stefanie ]

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my dreams do not usually revolve around shoes, but

i had a dream once in which i was wearing the dreamiest pair of flat black lace-up boots.

incidentally i went antiquing a few months later and stumbled across the dreamiest pair of (inexpensive!) flat black lace-up boots, and they have been a staple of my day-to-day life ever since.

we find shoes like this to be just right for many many outfits:

( both photos are from facehunter, the top one from some months ago and the bottom one from this past thursday )

( those boots would be perfect with these dresses; this photo, by the way, is by diane arbus, who can always be counted on to produce endlessly fascinating images; if you are ever in stockholm, there are three fantastic onces to see in moderna museet )

if you are in the market for some footwear of your own, start with these patchwork boots on ebay, and there are tons more (slightly less mondrian-esque) pairs to be found if you search for words like vintage flat laceup grandma pixie boots. for a decidedly larger sum of money you can get this amaaazing woven pair from urban outfitters. in brown or white, they will attract very positive ogling from all angles.

[ stefanie ]

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purple peacocks

we couldn’t help but notice this girl, on facehunter on monday. the painterly peacocks on her dress remind us of prada’s painted fabrics last year, but with peacocks instead of flowers, and we totally dig the dress + fuchsia tights + strappy black open-toed heels. look!:

we also wanted to show you a picture of the first ever hippie convention in zurich, in 1968:

and finally, we wanted to share banksy‘s picture of grandmas with you:

we hope you enjoy.

[ stefanie ]

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the big durian

we are super into jakarta at the moment.

1) we like any city whose nickname refers to a dangerously spiky fruit.

2) we LOVE the enormous necklaces all the stylish residents seem to be sporting. these are some of yvan rodic’s photos:

and our favorite,

our next arts & crafts party, is gonna be ragin.

[ stefanie ]

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a bottle of wine for only 9 euros, and other stories

so this one time we were sharing a bottle of wine (um. a few bottles of wine) at la perle, a super-cheap bar in the marais in paris that never fails to provide excellent people watching (especially if the people you like to watch are stylish and cool), and during a discussion of fashion and facehunter we noticed a particularly well-dressed gentleman at the table next to ours. inspired and inebriated, we ogled him for a few minutes before diane gathered up the cajones to ask him if, perchance, she could take his picture.

this is what happened:

( his neck bow provided the initial intrigue, although the more we looked the more we found to admire. glasses, off-kilter cardigan, an old man’s slacks. )

i, not so ballsily, furtively took a picture of some girl’s back:

( we enjoyed her textural combination of furry vest with sofa upholstery skirt. )

and thus ended our foray into streetstyle photography.

[ stefanie ]

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handmade things are cool

sometime last year we noticed a smashingly outfitted girl on facehunter sporting a fantastic necklace in the shape of a human heart. observe:

neat, right?

after a few months of quietly pining away for said necklace, we stumbled across paraphernalia, where a woman named vanda makes an eye-boggling assortment of really unique, dark, quirky necklaces and pins, including the above pictured heart. i bought it right away, and continue to ogle the sleuth camera necklace to this very day. most of the jewelry is between $20 and $30, which is not bad at all when you imagine this massively talented woman hunched over her kitchen table with a pen and a magnifying glass (whether or not this is an accurate representation of her artistic process, we still think her stuff is pretty damn special) handcrafting a super awesome conversation starter, just for you.

support small businesses. save the world’s economy. look nice.

[ stefanie ]

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