Fashion: March 2012

These books I've been making lately have been a good format for aesthetically cataloging the little worlds and movies I think I see sometimes, all the images and stills and songs and clothes and passages of writing that somehow make sense together. I used to try to embody each world in an outfit, but now I just want to dress like I'm actually in the world, so my outfits lately have been more simple…like when I got into Twin Peaks, I would wear my Laura Palmer pin, now I'd rather dress like Laura Palmer, if that makes sense.

Anyway, these are the spreads I'm printing for my next one. You know how you can feel totally underwhelmed by an album the first few times you hear it and then something happens, either an actual event or just in your changing person that you are, and it suddenly sounds completely different? That happened to me with Galaxie 500's On Fire when I was listening to it a couple weeks ago (in a tree house! In Chicago! In March! I don't know about this whole "global warming" thing, but I like what it's doing for my obsessive compulsive Abed-from-Community tendencies to try and live movie moments in real time!). I felt really ~*~inspired~*~ and wanted to make a little book of all the pictures it made me see or whatever but realized that I couldn't relate their music to a specific decade or place or season the way I do with all those other books because it kind of sounds like it exists outside of time or space. It makes me think of this diary entry I wrote a couple months ago in an old travel brochure:

Anyway, I guess disappointment is kind of eternal ("YOU'RE WELCOME" -my prophecy), so in that way it makes sense that these images aren't specific to one time or decade. And I did mention California but I think it's because the California I've experienced (just LA, really) is such an exaggeration of the dreams that are stored everywhere else, these suburban houses that are NEON, and giant gold churches, super tacky and cheaply decorated motels and psychics with huge signs…and Salvation Mountain is a whole world of its own…

Oh, and there are a lot of sources I couldn't find and Google Images got really slow for me so please email me if you know what any of the unknowns are! I'd like to be able to credit people properly and all.

clockwise from top left corner: darling dindon, unknown, jesse varner, internet k-hole, vincent j. stoker, luigi ghirri, unknown, claire milbrath for the ardorous, galaxie 500, and two unknowns

autumn de wilde, two unknowns, beck by spike jonze for interview

kim gordon by mark borthwick, three from internet k-hole

galaxie 500, unknown, mike mills for miranda july

galaxie 500, beth hoeckel, two unknowns

both unknown

david montes, arvida bystrom, unknown, grace denis for the ardorous

jerry de wilde, fruit of paradise, unknown, shelley duvall with mystery 70s man, creatures of the wind headpiece

two unknowns

joseph cornell film still, angela

unknown, mariam sitchinava, rodarte at yellowstone by todd cole for pop magazine

rodarte at yellowstone by todd cole for pop, internet k-hole

all unknown! wahhhh

70s skater girl, petra collins, unknown, wim wenders

luigi ghirri, galaxie 500, turned out by maya, luigi ghirri

luiggi ghirri, unknown, luigi ghirri, sonic youth

internet k-hole, kurt cobain by unknown photographer, george plemper, tim walker's the lost explorer, internet k-hole

sonic youth and bruce davidson

unknown, galaxie 500, the pixies

unknown, galaxie 500, still from the trailer for mike mills' beginners, galaxie 500

swedish hasbeens, two unknowns, dean wareham of galaxie 500

Creatures of the Wind's fall 2012 collection kind of felt like the physical clothing embodiment of all of these ideas for me. Sheba described it as being from the past and future at the same time, and that's exactly it…it at once appears to have an untraceable origin, time and place-wise, but also contains so many tiny references and motifs, fuzzy sweaters and soft flannels and liberty prints in '60s colors and quotes from The Last Unicorn and Mexican tweeds and patchwork, that all together make up something so familiar. Images related to the '60s or the Southwest have always felt like old memories to me, even though I was obviously not alive in the '60s and when we visited my grandparents in California when I was little - my only experience in the Southwest - we spent the whole time inside their house. They did have a great little hill in the backyard with grapefruit trees on top, and I liked to go up the stone path and pretend I was looking out on the whole world even though it was literally just the rest of their retirement community. God, that's depressing. But that's what I'm saying! Where did that delusion GO? And where did it COME FROM? Maybe I traveled throughout the Southwest in the '60s in a past life or something. Maybe I'm tired and still delusional! Wah wahhhhh.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, I think this might be my favorite collection of all time. Seriously. I wish I had never complimented anything else before in my life so that this would all have a stronger effect. It has a perfect feminine/masculine balance, there are all those little details that have MAGIC in them, but the pieces don't feel too fantastical or out of reach, they're still comfy and practical and made for a woman and not a little girl playing dress up. And the fabrics are from all over…the patchwork is made from bags from the '30s that Chris and Shane got at a thrift store, the lace overlay on this skirt is from a couturier in France, but the fabric underneath is from the '80s, thrifted.