the cheap date guide to style

here comes another installment of ...reviewed by me, for you, as yet another book has been added to my (severely clogged and nearly sagging) bookshelves!

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the cheap date guide to style by kira jolliffe and bay garnett: i first read about this book in a blog entry written some time ago by miss susie bubble of style bubble. of course, susie being far more eloquent than i could ever be, describes the book to a tee:

After I read through the whole thing in about an hour, I concluded that for me, the book would be better named 'Style Affirmation.' The book, far from adopting a 'Do this, don't do that' methodology is about encouraging a unique personal style, cultivating eccentricities and really putting your own stamp on things.

in other words, this ain't your typical style guide...it's a completely different animal, one that celebrates realness, quirkiness, risk-taking, and being offbeat, if that's your way. or really, whatever your way is, if it's really *you*. it's probably not for those people who need a lot of help trying to figure out who they are, but rather, a little mutual-admiration for those who already embrace the beat of their own style drummer and create their own look or looks.
the book has an imperfect, scrapbook-like, teen-magazine-in-the-80s-sort aesthetic, and is filled with loads of photographs that have a flash-lit, harsh, "i took them with my little old point-and-shoot film camera" style, i.e. the whole affair is not a high-fashion glamorously glossy and perfec production, and is thus approachable. it's more grassroots, like an anti-fashion fashion magazine in the form of a book. inexplicably, in it's realness, it takes on a magical chicness and honest glamour.
(fyi: bay (a british-born stylist) and kira are hard-core thrifters from way, way back, and together they penned a style zine called "cheap date", which apparently focused heavily on secondhand shopping and gained a sizeable cult following. the book is a result of that zine's success, from what i can garner.)

one of things about the book that really makes it for me are, as susie also mentions, are the quotes peppered throughout, from the authors, and from other style mavens. here some words from the book i quite like. in fact, they are sentiments i am forever beating to death in this blog and over at wardrobe_remix, ad nauseam:

"Stylishness is elusive, yet everyone is innately stylish. It boils down to confidence about your appearance. One things for sure: there's no specific type of dressing that's more stylish than another....style - to state the bleedin' obvious - is in you. It's not something you can buy."

"For anything to be stylish, there has to be an honesty behind it."

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i love this quote by the recently deceased eccentric british stylist isabella blow:

"I think thinking is stylish. Looking is stylish. Culture is stylish. I think you need to be inspired by something in order to look good...I think style is about a person recognizing what their best features are."

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when asked what inspires him, karl lagerfeld said:

"Everything. Inspiration comes from having open eyes."

and when anna piaggi was asked the same thing, she said:

"I take inspiration from myself."

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"Being stylish is a way to project whatever we like, to be who we want to be in our fantasies and to manipulate reality."

"There are no rules...By listening to your own opinion, the possibilities are endless."

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"style affirmation", indeed. thanks, susie.

on the gentle art of selling yourself...

one of the things i really like best about having a blog/presence on the web is connecting with and interacting with readers. you people GET what i'm trying to say here, even if i don't always know myself! people send me cool links that they think i might like, on a myriad of subjects: knitting, sewing, designing, books, fashion, art...if it relates to something i talk about in the blog, people have emailed me about it. i get comments and emails all the time, and LOVE them all (they are 99.9999% positive), and lament the fact that i can't address and respond to them all in a timely manner, due to the pressures and demands of everyday life. so please understand and forgive me if i neglected to get back you or took forever to do so! but do know i appreciate the fact that you read or relate, enjoy, and are inspired. you in turn inspire me. keep those emails and comments coming...and be patient with me! :)

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on that note...

last week, a reader named kendra sent me a link to a guardian unlimited article called the gentle art of selling yourself by design critic stephen bayley.

feel more than free to explore the article in it's entirety at the aforementioned link, but i wanted to share with you some interesting quotes (and my thoughts about them) that pertain to one of my perennially favorite topics, the importance of dressing oneself...as it pertains to image, self-expression, and interaction within the culture at large.

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stephen bayley says:

"Self-invented people are the most interesting ones of all."

any other type of person would, in my opinion, appear hollow, upon immediate observation, or would likely reveal themselves to be so after some interaction. in the matters of fashion, i believe the most interesting people are those simultaneously heed and trust the call of their own inner voice and fount of creativity, other people's opinions be damned, while at the same time, keeping themselves abreast of what is happening culturally, whether they choose to participate in those movements or trends themselves. a self-invented person trusts themselves first, believes in their own vision, and in turn, is able to sell it.

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stephen bayley says:

"Psychologists know that first impressions are based on our spontaneous assessment of status, clothes, sex, age, size and posture, speech and facial expression. Let's just deal with the clothes. Lord Chesterfield advised his son: 'Dress is a very foolish thing; and yet it is a very foolish thing for a man not to be well-dressed.' And Jay McInerney says of life today in meritocratic Manhattan: 'You won't be judged by your accent... but you will be judged by your shoes.'"

i constantly see references to fashion as something frivolous, something unimportant in the scheme of things. but i am personally not convinced (and neither is mr. bayley, apparently). it is at once something important, and not important. yes, food, health, shelter, peace and happiness are far more important subjects, but i stand by the notion that fashion is not a wholly hollow thing. i believe that the way we adorn ourselves is an art that is rife with meaning, with signals, signs, statements and clues. it is a language of expression that, with the juxtaposition of different elements, tells a rich story about our current situation (both in an immediate and broader sense), who were are, where we come from, what we like, and what we believe in.

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"This is nothing to do with Church's or with Prada but with attitude and style - style being the dress of thought, the feather that makes the arrow fly straight, not the feather you put in your cap. It matters because somebody who does not care about their appearance will care about little else. But we are locked in a game of continuous evaluation from which there is no escape to a value-free neutrality. Even the decision not to wear clothes betrays a set of prejudices. The person who says: 'I don't care what I wear, I just put on a T-shirt and jeans' is merely confirming how much he cares about creating a certain sort of wearily insouciant impression."

"In matters of dress, you can be sympathetic to your audience, subvert it or confront it, but you should not ignore it."

appearance is everything. the people i admire most (stylish people as well as other significant, intelligent, creative individuals, of course) are those who care about the form, expression and impression they are making on and in the world, WHATEVER that may be, in all aspects of their person, clothing and action alike. people who claim they are "too lazy" about making an effort about the way they dress or act are, let's face it, probably lazy about other things in life. and i think that's a shame. laziness is an excuse, and i don't buy it.

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"In all of this self-invention, confidence plays a part. The great thing about confidence is that it is self-perpetuating."

YES! confidence is key to matters of expressing an authentic personal style statement...OWN YOUR DECISIONS when you take personal risks. if you want to wear a pink sweater with orange plaid pants, and love it unabashedly, then resolve to hold your head high and BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. other people's opinions be damned. seriously! if you believe in something, and sell it with confidence, sass and style, other people will react to said confidence in a positive manner, and you might even find that people will eventually join you in support of your ideas and expressions. confidence is the seed from which TRENDSETTING ideas spring.

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feel free to comment add your own thoughts (negative, positive, or otherwise) to my borderline non-sensical ones. i adore a good discussion (it's the not so latent academic inside of me!)!

thanks kendra for passing the article on to me, and thanks to stephen bayley, for giving me food for thought/further words to spurn on more articulation of my personal fashion philosophy.

you (inspire) me

the above photo mosaic and the prevalence of rainbows within it reminds me of my undergrad studies. i was an art major at the university of north florida, and in my last semester there during my final year i was doing an independent study printmaking course, under the tutelage of my printmaking professor. i was trying to come up with a concept for a project, and was showing my professor what i was thinking about, using some quick and dirty sketches in my sketchbook as illustration. one of them used every color of the rainbow. she was a very restrained artist herself, kind of bitchy frankly, and saw my little rainbow-y ideas, and shot me and the idea down, saying "that's too RAINBOW-Y."

you can take the girl away from the rainbow, but she'll always come back to it, if it's inside of her. frankly, it's what i like, and no bitchy person or their judgmental opinions can take that away from me.

i think it was about then that i truly started becoming obsessed with and falling in love with color...i became fascinated with how colors interacted with one another, and i started playing with color on my person and in my creative work, which i am still doing today. it was around that time that i also had pink and orange hair (both colors at the same time). ha! that was fun.

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other things that happen to be inspiring/entrancing me *right now*:

-the amazing little blog treats & treasures where the author, marieke, who's studying graphic design in amsterdam, netherlands shows off the contents of her sketchbook, and occasionally shares cute little knitting patterns, like this one, for a simple yet lovely scarf. -neet magazine. the idea of it, really. wouldn't it be great if more "fashion magazines" were online? for the people, by the people. a way to circumvent the often elitist magazine world and fashion world. also, it totally reminds me of zines and that whole movement back in the 1990s, as does blogging in general. -all my fashionable peeps over at wardrobe_remix, especially this gal and this gal and the way they put clothing together in general. -anything marimekko. -the concepts in joseph albers' book the interaction of color. -the look of acid wash, STILL. i'm starting to see it more and more in the stores. this tickles me to no end! i've been predicting this since 2004 or 2005. -geometry and geometric shapes. -clothes that combine simple lines and bright contrasting colors or clothes with interesting texture or piecing. -this knitting pattern for a bolero that features feather and fan. i can see them in bright, bright colors over my other bright, bright colors. and that acid wash above. hah HAH! i have some other knitting projects to attend to first, but i'm definitely giving that one a go sooner rather than later. -all of lisa congdon's work. period. end of story. -the thought of going to amsterdam, paris and bruges in may.