makes you want to design outerwear

I'm obsessed with my new camera

in looking back on these pictures I can see that they might not be that interesting to anyone but me in the moment. I kind of wish that I could get back into those trees to figure out the better/best picture to take. The second one is better, I think...but they both are super amateur-ish. Maybe cropping the top one would lead to a cooler image...


Canon PowerShot S90

man in montmartre


une très bonne amie à moi told me about her esacpes to Montmartre, and how for her it triggers a feeling of escape and freshness without leaving the city. And then scrolling back through my pictures, I see this man who looks to share much the same feeling about the place.

Les mechants

this is the brush you hide behind while approaching... the bad guy's lair

knitwear

I can't stop thinking about knitwear- and everything I look at becomes a stitch or a treatment-
like the nets and chains and lines in the photos below- imagine it is a big pile of sweaters- or the boat hull covered in barnacles- that it is some kind of knubby yarn that you wear when it your bones are cold and you want to wrap yourself up in cozy

Nautique

Honfleur- quand l'endroit est petit, il te force/permet de voir les détails

dazzlers

They call this style of carpet eyedazzlers-

friends

I have been flipping through the little (small but THICK) Taschen book 'the north american indian' (Edward S Curtis photographs) that was given to me by my friend Sophia. I am looking for inspiration for the next collection. Sophia and I met while studying in Rennes, France, our junior year of high school. We reconnected in New York where she attended NYU and I attended Parsons. We have very different paths ahead of us- behind us- and even while we were in NY our lives were totally different. But when she handed me this book- such a silly little thing in the grand scheme- neither of us could have pictured me here, now, in Paris while she is in NY continuing her studies to change society, putting this book to use in a way that is meaningful to me and that I hope would be meaningful to her as the giver.

NANA's France

Terrible image quality. I'm sorry you can't see the original
Inspired to make a version for 2010...or 2011...it won't have Nana's beautiful hand

KINDLING

The inspiration potluck, now simply 'POTLUCK', is ready at the printers-

and I will be going to pick it up on Monday

I'll try to have it online in the next week as well.

get inspired...what else is inspiring you...? TBA in # 2

moving in

strange: to look around and see all of these things that were in new york, and then a basement in CT, and then on a ship, and now in Paris. My office slash living room slash dining room is now even more organizationally challenged, since the little space is more and more full of the history that has been gathered over 24 years...I use the little space that is left over to try to move forward into the next 24/48/72

The 1903 Silent Film by Edwin Porter : The Great Train Robbery

into Fall research- it should hit like a bullet at the end...- just the impact. Boom





mini development

just a thought i had in the evolution of my perception of the medium of photography. With all of the amateur photographers out there (we are all amateur photographers now that almost everyone at least has a camera at least on their phone that really everyone has).
and so after such battles in affirming the medium as an art form, is it being abused at this point?
think of all the kind of ridiculous vernacular photography that might as well be a photo album on blown up on a gallery wall. (not to say that some vernacular photography can't give you those amazing beauty shivers or make you laugh or make you feel something kind of like art does)
but back to the point
my thought at the most simple: is that photography is the absolute best visual documentary tool that exists. I am going to excuse myself here from entering the subject of film by sticking to a comparison between methods of producing a static image.
so as a documentary tool, photography is at its best. i am aware this may be a matter of opinion.
the other extremely particular capability that cameras have involves their relationship with light. think of the impressionists fascination with the wild and ever-changing phenomenon.
so between light and documentation, photography has a pretty big responsibility.
so where does the element of art get involved?
that is where, for me, it becomes much easier once you've narrowed down the strengths of the medium.
Then you can really enter into the traditional questions of texture, form, line, color, value, shape, references...and proportion, composition, contrast, format...to really analyze the image and determine its success as a work of art.
the objectivity never ends, of course.
and what about people like me who are mesmerized by the concept of the photo essay as a selectively edited body of work, and a composition, rather than a group of independent characters.
hey, that sounds like a fashion show, too.

a single moment out of too many to choose from

this I was lead to via the jean-paul gaude website where the video mash-up he has up of grace jones is really amazing. And the rest of his site is as well. What an amazing career. both of them- they make me want to be totally fearless- maybe if I watch this video every morning it will remind me that it is totally possible.


a couple sips too many= overflow

this picture came from a friends apartment after several of us got together for a 'see you when you get back' toast before her departure. We ended up, three of us, going back to her apartment and settling in to a bottle of bubbly with candles lit on the table. Of course, paying more attention to our conversation than the overflowing candles, it wasn't until the stream became a free-fall to the floor that we noticed this amazing escaping wax.
what makes me laugh about this picture is that i remember being self conscious when I was taking it, trying to get an angle that made sense but realizing that i had maybe had just a sip or two too much to make sense of any 'sensical' frame. but mostly that I was thinking 'oh, man. I'm that girl who is getting all artsy-fartsy over the spilling wax...'
but for all the moments i see something that makes me want to whip out the camera, there are too many that i walk by because of self consciousness and what the witnesses will think: tourist, spy, artsy-fartsy.
and whatever this picture is pretty cool

growing up together

two nights ago I was sitting around a table at a funny little café near les halles in one of the ugly leather chairs whose seats were all sunken in and whose slight patent sheen reflected the violet neon lights of the sign from the café across the street.
there were six of us sitting there. six different styles, six different stories, six different presents, and six different futures. And all that difference mixed together to make this warm cloud of friendship and respect amongst peers who shared one formative experience.
what was remarkable about the whole thing only hit me just now- envisioning the futures of each of my five old classmates who were sitting around me at that table. how big and how small this industry is. how we are part of a web that is just now being formed- and as we grow up, together, that web gets stronger and wider. and we will think back on moments like these- the first reunions at fashion week in paris.
and kind of weird that I went on such a video kick there- I am not a youtube-er normally, and this stint at the Gallery has given me some strange time during the day where I feel a bit trapped (I love the idea of this space, but in practice....less). And so I go on youtube and feel like I'm doing 'research' but seriously doubt it is really something that I can count as priductive.
How about this blog post?
Productive?

...

i just had a phone conversation with the man at the printers where the potluck is being printed. He said he had not started the book yet because there were some things that seemed bizarre. When I told him that the thing was ok and to just go ahead and do it as it is, he said "c'est un livre très original alors."

and so my self consciousness rethinks the process and makes me want to take the project elsewhere, especially because the only reason I wanted to work with these people in the first place is because they seem very cool (they are very cool) and I thought they'd be down with a project like the potluck and not act like it is such a strange thing. I think this whole process has just dragged on for too long. At least for the next one I'll know what I'm in for.

Maybe I just print it myself and staple it together. That is more what I was going for in the first place

but no, I have already missed the opportunity to display it with the collection. No S1X elzévir. So I'll just ride this out.

Fashion Advice from David Sedaris

had not idea what to expect from a fashion essay by David Sedaris- and of course he takes the subject of fashion and accessories very seriously


+ 3:00 cosutme ski race

Fall . Winter is coming

This is just one of the things I'm thinking about these days- old faded colors and belted women in skis
and fuzzy blurry images that make HD look hyper real- and these soft images that are so much less harsh
and the feeling and freedom of gliding down, the size of a pea in comparison to the giant mountain

S1X Elzévir



the Spring . Summer 2011 season of L.A.D. outerwear
Silk Linen Leather Chain Bronze Brass Raw Wood

on display in the Marais until the 7th of October 2010.

The next collection already brewing...It is fall, and time to pull out the felt...