Spring Blazers

wear a blazer with Spring dresses or jumpers... like one of these from Anthropologie

Junko Koshino

I found this vintage Japanese purse for the store





It is vintage 1980's Junko Koshino, a Japanese fashion designer known for mixing punky and raw with Japanese traditional looking garments... she is one of two sister designers, well known in Japan.
Koshino started designing based on the Kimono silloette, blending new and old Japanese looks. She has also shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, and has designed for operas, and the theatre. Her work features geometric shapes and contrasting color, as found in the workings of this purse!
for more of her designs for the runway, see Junko Koshino on Foocheung's Flicker

Junko! (she also has the best name ever, by the way.
click on this picture, to the right, for an article about her>>>












on a side note, I wonder if Alexander McQueen might have been influenced by Koshino's penchant for
futuristic kimonos, as seen in the Homogenic
album cover that he designed for Bjork...

fashion rant

While flipping through magazines at Borders, a few weeks ago, I wasn't too amazed at many of the new fashion in the articles and ads of the ones I looked at. There is just a lot of the same; trends stuck in nautical, stripes and preppy. Although I love what Coco Chanel did with the mariner look for women, (invented,) I feel like it is a current trend that has evolved into an almost sick obsession with the mass market. It is nice, but when you see the standard striped navy (or black) and white shirt on every woman, from magazine to the street, to the dentist's office, I long for a fresh take on the mariner look. (don't get me wrong, I love stripes, I just get bored that lately every magazine has a striped cardigan or shirt feature trend report.) I'm also not a fan of those over-sized (and in my opinion unflattering!) balloon MC Hammer pants, as a trend. The ones that aren't too poofy are okay, I guess, but not the ones that look like borderline diapers.

I personally like the latest from Ralph Lauren (I used to work for them as a fashion merchandiser and I think I became hooked on their romantic refined aesthetic...) I really think golden or black party masks, and blue and green lipstick would somehow be great in the mainstream for fall X)

flying down to rio

Have you ever seen the movie, flying down to rio?? It's a funny little film that features Delores del Rio... the outfits are great and zany, just the kind of imagery that keeps me sane.




at first Ginger and Fred don't think much of the South American band musicians...

maybe it was because of their silly floppy hats, that I also kind of like...


they later realize that the South Americans know how to make music and dance! better than they ever did, so they do their best to try their version of the scandalous dance, The Carioca!!



later, as the hackneyed plot continues, the chorus girls show off more 1930's outfits of my dreams, while dancing in the sky...

the poor girls have to dance on top of airplanes, and they get harnessed into uncomfortable ropes and pullies...


some of their shirts are shockingly see-through...




my favorite clothing can be found on the yes girls...

I love this white romper, if I don't find it somewhere, I will probably make one.


but, I really love it when Ginger tries desperately to buy cookies! some of her outfits in this movie are really outrageous, and I cannot imagine anyone else pulling them off...


Flying Down to Rio (1933) directed by Thornton Freeland

these screenshots, by me