Payless, yes?

The stock market crash has hit my shoe/clothing budget hardest. But look-- alice+olivia+payless made these lovely ankle boots for $48. Nice. I love the front zipper and patent leather finish of these wedges.



These have a back zipper with a cute tassle:

... and Abaete+payless came up with these knee highs with studs for $55.

Christopher Kane + Manolo Blahnnick =

They had me at the steel toe.



Photos courtesy of the amazing fashion blog/stylist wetdream jak + jil

Gareth Pugh.

It's Gareth Pugh S/S 09. I love this collection.

Langoliers Preview

I finally got around to taking some pics of my jewelry line LANGOLIERS that I'm still developing. The line is inspired by the occult and Suspiria. Please let me know what you think!


This is a skinwalker pendant. he has brass loops in his head were i'm going to loop in a chain lattice work as hair. Imagine Rick James.

Pam's Ram. I'm an aries. It has skin like a sphinx cat. sculpted by hand out of polymer clay.


And this pretty lady is my kitty Tiny. Tiny likes to strike a pose with my crocheted brass chain necklace. it's just a sample for the kind of chain work i'll be doing for my company.

If anyone has any suggestions for me about price points, please let me know!

Elisa Johns

I discovered Elisa Johns through my subscription of New American Paintings. I love her gestural , high saturation oil paintings. They are very editorial ready. The landscapes are very epic and remind me of Sedona , AZ. Now if I had the money to commission a painting of wiley coyote in some couture dress...

Shoe Clip Roundup

In these bleak economic times a girl has to reevaluate just how dire a shopping trip can possibly be. Believe me, I don't think of clothes in terms of money. I think of clothes in terms of meals. With my average meal cost around $6.50 I have a hard time justifying the purchase of those Grey Ant jeans I've had my eye on if it means I have to skip two weeks worth of dinners. That's okay--it's just time to get a little scrappy and creative.

One way to get more bang for your buck is to do what the Victorians did: ccessorize your shoes. One shoe clip sets you back way less than a new pair, and suddenly those boring black pumps seem like something completely new. And believe me, your closet is more than the sum of its parts. Here's some lovely favorites:






1. Erica Weiner's Rosettes

Brooklyn staple Erica Weiner is ever present at Artists and Fleas, a Williamsburg market on N6th Street, but it wasn't until I didn't a little vintage shopping that I discovered these lovely shoe clips. These pretty little rosettes also come in black. $25.

www.ericaweiner.com





2. Jackie Clips

Absolutely Audrey makes these lovely Art Deco styled clips. I like the radial symmetry of the bow. $30.

www.absolutelyaudrey.com




3. Leather Stone Clips

There's something so lovely about the counter-intuitive. Aliza Karik makes these great clips by covering gems with creamy white leather. Very Mod. $32

Aliza Darik






4. Vintage Round

These simple round clips are so versatile. and Cheap. $7.50

www.goantiques.com














5. COC Design

Here are two takes on the COC design. What about it is so classy?

Top: $30 www.jewelsandfinery.co.uk
Bottom: $7.50 www.goantiques.com












6. Victorian Steel Cut

I love the scalloping on the sides. This clip has brown leather backing.

Ebay





7. Red Leather Bow

Don't these remind you of the Ruby Red Slippers? Probably more adaptable to daywear than Dorothy's stand-by. Very simple and very Lolita.

Ebay

Ringmaster Murrah

When is American TV going to catch on? Skins is addictive and funny and way more dangerous than Gossip Girl could ever dream of. Cassie is seriously cool and Hannah plays her with a lot of charm and wit. I loved that secondhand, ill-fitting tailcoat she was wearing when she was first introduced to the series. Luckily Topshop makes a pretty comparable one.

I like soft and creepy things

I love love love creepy things. Don't know why. I love my nicotine patches because they give me nightmares. So when I stumbled across these freaking felt monsters by licorice tree I just had to share it. I love the bunny on the bike the best.

Metalsmithing

I'm taking a metal smithing class and it makes me feel like a wizard or something. I've really come to appreciate Calder as a jeweler as well as a sculptor. He worked exclusively in wire (mostly brass which is dead cheap) and pounding it into gestural curves. With Wall Street coming apart at the seams, I'm thinking of fashioning some metal armor and charging into the apocalypse. I remember watching that Jackson Pollack biopic and Guggenheim was wearing these fucking beautiful mobile earrings from Calder. aahh....

Punky Brewster

RAG AND BONE

Florals and Leather... Studs and blazers... Oxfords and Zippers.

Did anyone see the organic zipper hems in philip lim?

PHILIP LIM

Topshop's got a great zipper hemmed tank. Looks good.

fashion bleak

Fashion Week every fall is met with stylephiles' gitty anticipation and interns' trepidation. My friend Brittany said it best, "I'm over it." Hours of coverage and ego wrangling is sure to wear thin anyone's enthusiasm, so it's with some hesitation that I wade through the archives of style.com and bring you my favorite spring looks. Actually... who the fuck am I kidding. I'm obsessed, and the designers came out top form.

1. Rachel Comey- Possible Home run.

Rachel, Rachel.... Just when I was about to cast off florals, you come along and show me how a little tweak of saturation and some deft pattern coordination, you can have something entirely different from Prada and Balenciaga's garden romp.


No one mixed patterns like you, and I'm about to tear up my apartment trying to replicate that cropped button-up tank. The styling was so smart, restrained and dark. You surprised me.

2. Thakoon's cut-out florals

Honestly, I usually check out Thakoon's shows for the shoes, but whoa... this look is really smart. Maybe I'm not so crazy about the silhouette, but conceptually it makes my head race. I love the sexy semi-sheer bodice peaking behind the trench. Reminds me of all those desperate fantasies of showing up at a guy's place with nothing on but a trench and heels.

3. Vena Cava's Egyptian Sensibility

LONG LEATHER JACKET. wow. I love the shit out of this look. The gender pins are a stroke of genius, and usually when I think of long leather jackets, Imagines of my ex's Dungeons and Dragons live action role play come to mind. fuck. But here, the way it falls and the collar fill me with all manner of covetous feelings. Vena Cava always delivers on the prints. No duh.


This beaded, shimmery bib keeps me up at night.

4. Karen Walker is White.

What a departure from last Spring's jockey pants and harlequin diamonds. I love the ease of this collection. It's classic and comfortable and the play of opacity in this dress is really innovative.

5. Alexander Wang Will Destroy the Planet.

Last Fall I snuck into the Alexander Wang After Party. That was when I first saw the collection projected on the warehouse walls. No popped inseams this Fall. Nothing but net. Well, more like mesh. I will be getting out my embroidering needle and bedazzler. I love this look, but these models look like they're going to eat me.

Black Belly shirt with sorbet colors? Alex asks, why the hell not? After all, this is the young whippersnapper who made us see that acid wash and belly shirts were totally fine. Who didn't run out and get an American Apparel scrimage shirt? I'm glad to see his over sized boyfriend blazer again, but that pink just brings it to a whole new level.

Systems

Part of uprooting my poor habits is finding systems that work for me.

Knock Knock biz has some lovely lovely tongue-in-cheek pads. I own two:

1. Daily Mood Tracker


2. Do your chores!!! fridge magnet

Real Simple has a great list pad with three sections-- To Do, Agenda, and To Buy-- for those of you like me who makes little lists in random notebooks all day.

oooh man

My friend Connie is an insanely good animator and makes funny, assless drawings of me.
oh yes.




(I totally love it.)

P: That drawing makes me look fat.
C: Don't blame the drawing. Blame your parents.

whoooa

My jaw dropped when I saw this chain top. Christina from 66sick/Arms and Armory made it. I'm happy to see she's still working! I don't know why Arms and Armory dropped off. I love the shit out of her acrylic key and crown necklaces.


...and check out the draping in the back:

delay

I'm trying to get my life together and come out of this hazy summer as some semblance of a stable human being. That means nipping my hardcore shopping addiction in the butt. I've quit smoking, started exercise, and just feel decent in general. I need to concentrate on school. no worries, I've been working on some lovely new knitted chains and i'll set up my etsy shop by the end of the month. Momma needs some cashflow.

Fashion week has descended on the city yet another september, and more on that later.

Having hardcore chronic depression is something I just need to deal with. I've realized that I need to start treating it like a disease and less like a weakness of character. I've been so wrapped up in what my life/career is going to look like after school that I can't concentrate on school itself. I like nyu. I like tisch. I like my teachers. That's all I need to think about, really.

I've been casting everything to the wind-- my grades, my writing, my money--and I need to stop. I don't even value my possessions. I have so much shit in my apartment, how could I possibly attend to all of it? I need to take a Qtip to the emotional gunk built up in my head.

I left my heart in sedona, arizona

Back from my trip to Arizona and ready to start a new school year. I feel like I've had a spiritual colonic. Getting out of the city and seeing how nice people are in the southwest really makes we wonder my I've put up with the pettiness here. Undeniable natural beauty does something to people. I like it. I love talking to strangers, and there's no pretense about it there. It frames things nicely once you realize you don't have to live a life of constant urgency. I realize getting let go of my bullshit job was a huge blessing in disguise. I finally got the motivation quit cigarettes. I started writing again, and many of you will be happy to know that I will stop buying clothes and start making my own. I took things too seriously, and you know what? I am a little spacey compared to the people here. I'm not really on top of my shit. I was never a neat, type A person, and the 9-5 grind wasn't ever meant for me. That's why I became a playwright. I'm not a magazine writer, and I never really will be. I don't have an arsenal of turn of phrases at my disposal. Nor am I retail girl. I take things far too personally for that. New York is great, but there are a lot of little people here.


I feel so good.