Back from the UK: please do this.

Sorry for the break. Just back from a week or two checking out Oxford, looking at colleges, etc.
British style: please do this. More to come but here's a quick list of areas where I think the UK excels:

1. Coats. This is not really fair. Obviously they have a lot more experience than we do at wearing coats, weather being such as it is. I was there in April. It rained every day. This is typical. At first I'm thinking, "What's the big deal? The English countryside is so beautiful!"  Day 10 I'm thinking, "Where is the nearest suicide prevention center?" Nice coats, though. Seriously.


This guy is in "Migration Studies." Everyone is.

- from Trussardi's f/w 2012-13. Buy it. Buy all of it.



2. Leather Goods. Yes, here too, the British seem fantastic. Greater cow to human ratio? I'm not sure what it is, but the abundance of rich looking leather goods boggled my mind. As everywhere, neons, fluorescents, and gem tones are huge.


- Mulberry's Holiday Bayswater 895 GBP from Harrod's



- from Etro s/s 2012




3. Manor Homes. This kind of thing happening all the time: people stomping around on their estates, in their 18th century converted church schools, on their farm manors, all the time wearing tweedy blazers, corduroys, linen vests and sensible waterproof boots. Are they for real? Initial research suggests that yes, they are for real.

Will you have a tea? I believe we met in the Migration Studies lecture last week.

- from Scapa s/s 2012




4. Mixed Patterns. I know, I know. Everyone is doing this everywhere all the time now. A J. Crew catalog last week informed me that "stripes were the new solids." We can do much better than that, though.


Attention America: please wear this to class.

- from Etro a/w 2012



5. Socks. So simple. So ubiquitous. So much better there. Why?


Socks: both critical and superfluous. It rained like 89" while I was there. My feet were never dry. This is why everyone else is wearing sensible waterproof boots.

- Bergdorf Goodman, Spring 2009


That's all for now. More to come on Oxford's morbid campus and ruminations on the lace dress. Stay tuned!

**

Besos! - Skyler

http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/





nearing sightedness



Bad ideas and eyewear

Douglas Friedman photographs for Vogue Italia via Bernstein & Andriulli

Big gold glasses. I want them. I want them as sunglasses, reading glasses, with funny embellishments. I want them as bi-focals, for nearsightedness, in case my Lasic doesn't take, in plastic or metal. I want them in Dior or Gucci, from Etsy or eBay, in vintage Turla. Gold, yellow, metallic taupe. Get me these glasses, stat.

exactly like these.

idyll & ennui

What could be more perfect and perfectly horrifying than a bunch of unsupervised rich kids? Obviously, they are up to no good. This is a classic horror storyline and a designer favorite. I heart overlap.

Here are eight terrible possible activities for kids that have too much time and not enough after school work on their hands.

 #8 Road Trips

 Every bored kid can relate to this. When there's nothing to do, just have your driver take you and your eight friends for a spin around the neighborhood. 

Bergdorf Goodman h/r 2008


#7 Smashing Everything
For a sweet real life example, see "Psycho Scions Rampage," a not-even-New-York-Post headline taken from the news of 1963. Basically, Fernanda Wanamaker Wetherill's pink-themed debutante ball in Southampton turned into a no-holds-barred smashfest at a rented mansion. Windows, chandeliers, crystal goblets, diamond earrings- everything ruined! See, they got bored at their rented mansion after the party at the mansion that they owned. It was a whole thing. You understand.



#6  Theme Parties


Looks like it's probably the entrance to a mansion. They are so dead. They don't even see it coming.

Tommy Hilfiger via the skinny beep

 #5 Poisoning & Murder
Rich kids travel to mansion in Mexico. It's safe to say that no good will come of this one.

Here's a description of Christopher Pike's sophomore YA horror novel, Weekend,

The sun is out. The beach is beautiful. And for nine friends this weekend in Mexico is a dream holiday. But the dream turns into a nightmare when they are poisoned and trapped in a snake-filled room - someone seems to be out to spoil their fun - but surely it couldn't be one of the group?

Everything I ever knew about what happens to four guys and five girls ( I know, right? Perfect.) who travel to Mexico to stay unsupervised at a wealthy friend's vacation home, I learned from this book.

This one is totally different than Slumber Party, where a bunch of rich kids go on a ski trip together and get all murdered. For more information on the 18 plot devices that CP managed to turn into 70 horror novels, see Forever Young Adult.

#4 Eccentricity

Vanity Fair's article celebrating British eccentrics paints a chilling picture of what generations of ennui does to a country of landed gentry.


Among them, this sort of thing. "Otis Ferry poses, in pinks, with foxhounds at the keeper’s cottage in the village of Eaton Mascott."

 #3 Pranking & Murder
April Fool's Day came out in 1986 and had a lot to add to the "rich kids go to remote mansion to die" trope.

IMDB explains,

A group of nine college students staying at a friend's remote island mansion begin to fall victim to an unseen murderer over the April Fool's day weekend.

Nine friends! They should have known! More:

A group of eight college friends gather together at an island mansion belonging to heiress Muffy St. John to celebrate their final year of school. They soon discover that each has a hidden secret from their past which is revealed, and soon after, they turn up dead. Yet, are they really dead? Or is it just part of some very real and cruel April Fool's jokes? The hostess, Muffy, is the only one who apparently knows what's going on. But then again, is it really her doing the killing?

Contains gems such as "welcome to lifestyles of the rich and undeserving" as well as teenagers drowning, stabbing, decomposing, etc. Why have you not seen this movie if you have not seen this movie?

#2 Pool Parties

  

Okay, then what?

Tommy Hilfiger 2011 via MM Scene



#1 Bonfires & Skinny Dipping

This is naturally going to happen with a bunch of bored teenagers at a resort town in New England. I think we all know that it isn't going to end well for poor Chrissy.



Or any of the people of Amity.

Jaws directed by Steven Spielberg, Universal Pictures, 1975 via Dan McGuigan

**

Besos! -Skyler

http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

 



the crazy vegetation of the springtime

Spring is here!



- Skyler, 2012

For Steven Meisel and Vogue Italia, spring brings with it all of the magic and wonder of the Everdeen household on Reaping Day. I'm guessing that he has terrible seasonal allergies.

 

Okay, yes. I see ugly bonnets, a couple bolts of calico Pa brought back from the county store last week, some livestock what needs plucking. BTW I spent $800 on this cardigan.

February 2008, via a mad tea party with alis



Alis is patient with these images. Claiming that most people don't know how to dress comfortably for the countryside, she thinks that these loose layers are a real breath of fresh air. The colors are natural and calm.

I am skeptical. I am reminded of a certain other someone's treatment of springtime colors. Or colours as it were.

For this strange beam of ghastly miasma was to him of no unfamiliar hue. He had seen that colour before, and feared to think what it might mean. He had seen it in the nasty brittle globule in that aerolite two summers ago, had seen it in the crazy vegetation of the springtime, and had thought he had seen it for an instant that very morning against the small barred window of that terrible attic room where nameless things had happened. It had flashed there a second, and a clammy and hateful current of vapour had brushed past him - and then poor Nahum had been taken by something of that colour. He had said so at the last - said it was like the globule and the plants. After that had come the runaway in the yard and the splash in the well-and now that well was belching forth to the night a pale insidious beam of the same demoniac tint.

  - h.p. lovecreft, the colour out of space, via dragonbytes

 


Plenty more work to be done, ladies. These beans ain't poling themselves or whatever. So...who does your arm waxing?

February 2008, via a mad tea party with alis

 

Maybe it's because I come from the land of no seasons, but I am a little excited about all of this.

**

Besos! -Skyler
http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

survival techniques: duck and cover

Duck and cover

This 1951 sci-fi / sci-reality informational film is as iconic as the matchstick women of fashion who have been perfecting its look for decades. Why are we so obsessed with the imagery of things falling from the sky?

Classic Sci Fi has a good analysis of the impact of atomic age angst on science fiction movie making.

The notion of mankind surviving a nuclear war -- even if mutated or diminished, etc. -- shows up in a great many sci-fi plots. From Arch Oboler's Five ('51) to Planet of the Apes ('68) and beyond, there is the background optimism that despite the terrible destruction, somehow, a remnant of mankind would live through it all. Apocalypse Survived is one of the most common sci-fi themes. Yet, a parallel theme is that of imminent danger from the skies. Compare D&C's warnings with that of Scotty's in The Thing from Another World ('51) "Watch the skies. Keep watching the skies!". It's not hard to see the Cold War playing out in sci-fi.

The images are pervasive. Frail looking women shielding their heads from disaster is a fashion classic.



Just pull inside your shell!





 Remember, the flash of an atomic bomb can come at anytime, no matter where you may be.

Bergdorf Goodman resort /holiday 2008

 




Go to the safe place your mom and dad have set up for you. Turks and Caicos?

Vogue Nippon

.


I get it. Long lines, stretching out the body. Every designer is envisioning their latest on a Chicken Little. And certainly no one feels particularly compelled to shy away from images of damage or danger to women. It makes for good photos! Because edgy. Because provocative. Right? See how much more valid our point is when we illustrate it with female bodies? You didn't get it otherwise.

But seriously, it does make your arms look less fat. Like certain annihilation, this is a valid concern.

**

Besos! -Skyler

http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

classic horror bangs

They're big. They're a little trashy. They really open up the face, allowing more big eyes, wide with terror. Okay, they're a lot trashy.

Making the runway-



Vogue Paris showing Naeem Khan
The trucker walk is not making these ladies look any less trashy.



Imaxtree showing Carolina Hererra

and in the classics-  



Lives; dies. Bangs do not seem to help one way or the other.

Grace Kelly in Rear Window via Sew Indigo "What?!? It's right off of the Paris runway and I don't see any problems either gardening OR breaking and entering in this;" and Lee Remick in The Omen getting a good additional 4" of height on her "Oh no, I'm raising the devil!" face.

 

**

Besos! -Skyler

a carnival should be all growls

Not since I read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes in middle school, have I stopped worrying about carnivals.

lo-fi via mjcphotoblog
by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes - that scottish play

An unnatural preoccupation with youth and aging? Fantasy, horror, glamor, the macabre? Sounds like a fashion ready story. Here's three SWTWC style inspirations.

#1 smells like cotton candy in town?

When this happens, you know things are about to get very weird.

john galliano at Paris Fashion Week via lala london; oscar de la renta spring 2012 via changing room; marc jacobs http://prettycoveted.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.htmlspring 2011 via pretty coveted

Rei Kawakubo, Comme des Garcons, Paris Spring Summer 1996 via monsieur j

#2 Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show

Cue the random photo montage. Alexy Titarenko's long exposure photo series "City of Shadows" is pandemonium and dark.

via Alexy Titarenko

Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing. -SWTWC

#3 Illustrated (wo)man

The runways favor a slightly less permanent vision of painted skin, be it in marker, eyeliner, or lace.

via elements magazine; marchesa f/w 2012 via thevoguevibes; rodarte spring 2010 via trendhunter and secondtimearound

The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men. Something Wicked This Way Comes, for sale here

**

Besos! -Skyler

http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

judging, reframing

Maybe I'm just projecting, but when New York-based photographer and mixed-media artist Bradly Brown says that he's into "organic decay, scrap-heap epiphanies and the reframing of consumer-culture ephemera as accidental poetry," I feel a little bit bad about myself.



via bradly brown


I'm sorry, consumer-culture ephemera. It's just that I'm so into you.

**

Besos! -Skyler

http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

thus paving the way for

Here's a couple in 1850, minding their own business, just taking a picture of themselves holding up a picture.



Couple Holding Daguerreotype, c. 1850, daguerreotype via realitybites


thus paving the way for like a hundred thousand of these:

lindsay josal photography via booooooom

and of course this sort of thing

via peter nitsch

overexposed a bit via intotemptation

walking dead like me

Louis Vuitton's $8 million fashion train at Paris Fashion Week A/W 2012



via Harper's Bazaar





via theclotheswhisperer





via fashion breakout



Whatever that was, exactly the opposite.

Magnetic Fields "Born on a Train"

I know that you were never young,
And I know you probably won't get old.
But honey, nobody's gonna hurt you anymore.
And nobody's gonna make you wanna die.

I hope this helps.

**
Besos! -Skyler

sisyphean wedge heels

An eternity of thankless efforts and unending frustrations, totally. Sometimes it feels like your toils are some sort of punishment by the gods for your hubris.

"Sisyphus" by Jankovics Marcell, received a 1974 Oscar nomination for animated short movie

These ladies know what we're talking about.
I mean, how many times are we going to have to carry this evening clutch up this mountain?

from September 2008 Vogue, via earthnocentric

Don't give up. Maybe this time you'll outsmart them.
**
Besos! -Skyler
http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

ball & chain: 1967 edition

How to get ready for that special day in a way that suggests your total unwillingness to go through with it and lets your friends and family know exactly what you think of them? 1967 spent a lot of time answering exactly that question.




Christo's wedding dress design notes, 1967, via Archives of American Art

 

"No really, this is the happiest day of my life!"

 

Physical Details: Photographic print : 1 item : b&w ; 26 x 21 cm.
Creator: unidentified photographer
Description: Identification on verso (handwritten): Christo, 1967 Wedding Dress [project]- white satin and silk ropes for opening night fashion show, Museum of Merchandise.
Forms part of: Joan Kron papers 1959-1971
Citation: Christo's wedding dress design notes, 1967 / unidentified photographer. Joan Kron papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.



 


Balenciaga single seam wedding dress, also 1967, via on pins and needles

 

"Yes, I'll be wearing this at the reception as well."



 



Jean Varon wedding dress photographed by Norman Parkinson for Vogue, 1967, via fashion vulture

  

"It's anti-malarial."


Use caution.

**
Besos! -Skyler
http://www.theseearthlybodies.com/

schizophrenic fashion

Having trouble thinking logically, differentiating between real and unreal experiences? Seriously, aren't we all.



Miu Miu s/s 2011 is not making this any easier for us, via fashionising