I've never seen Zoolander. (yes, i live under a rock.)

Modeling.

There are so many stigmas and stereotypes associated with modeling it is eencredible. And like all stereotypes, they started somewhere.

Anorexic. Big ego. Shallow. Talentless, just capitalizing on their looks. Overpaid. Dumb.

I’m not going to say anything about any of that. I’m just saying the things that have struck me in while looking at innumerable photos of these people and the lovely clothes they wear.

Modeling bears some resemblance to acting. Without speech or movement if we’re talking about a photo.

Also I’m aware that they are coached and prompted, touched up and digitally changed. But I’ve also noticed that there are things that cannot change.

Your bearing, your posture, your attitude, your aura, if you like, is something elusive. A model and the people who work with them have to communicate a whole world, a whole message, in an image. That’s hard. They have to use those elusive things to communicate to you, the consumer.

They are acting out the story of the clothes they are wearing. I’m sure there is diversity in how seriously models take that.

Let’s put it this way: I would not call myself unattractive, in fact, I’ve been told the opposite. But I’d make a terrible model. If I’m just being me in clothes, I’m told I can “pull it off” (it being, odd, unwashed, raggy, weird, thrifted, or otherwise strange apparel). But if I stop and think about it, I absolutely freeze. To this day I hate being taken pictures of. (mother, that's why i make faces.)It’s like way back in the day when I tried to act. It didn’t work.

So props to all you people out there who do your job in spite of people asking you if you’re anorexic.

oh boy oh boy oy boi.

My nose is running. WELL YA BETTER GO CATCH IT! that's what my dad would say.

The neighborhood where I have corsetry class reminds me a little of Cedar-Riverside. There are a million different cultures. Here's a mural.

Then I biked to Hyde Park. It was the most gorgeous day. Ah to be a seagull with nothing to do but eat fish and chill on the roof-pole.

Here is something I scrawled in my sketchbook while I was there: "What an absolute glory of a day! Perfect sun, tugging breeze, and nowhere on God's green earth I'd rather be than Hyde Park. This will have to be a regular thing. The water is so ridiculously blue. The birdies bathe in it, flapping. People are doing all the things that should be done in a park: kissing, biking, talking, sleepings, sitting waiting, wishing, longboarding. A sanctuary, like a library.
P.S. there's a paddleboat full of French kids who yell like little children whenever the big Canada geese fly near them.

That was on Wednesday.

Today, we went to various things to do with London Fashion Week, namely went to Topshop to hear the cool Charlotte Taylor talk about starting your own line, producing collections, manufacturing, how to find retailers, press, so on, so forth. She has awkwardly adorable prints, one of which she was wearing. She was so kind as to let me take a photo:

there was a cycle race

hhhaha side note i'm now watching some vid about an entire family who plays World of Warcraft....

anyway, after that we went to Somerset House on the Strand, stared at all the expensively dressed people, went and had dinner at some little cafe, sat there till they closed, then went back to Somerset (which is one of the venues for shows during London Fashion Week) and asked to register for the show screenings they do, and found they were about to close, though there were still lots of people there. Then we asked where the bathroom was, and sneeked right past the guard fellows into the bathroom, drank some free champagne, watched a screening of Cassette Playa by Carrie Munden's SS 2012 collection (May I note that though the clothes were very cool, the word intelligent was misspelled on the brochure, and my inner grammar geek giggled) and then went and people-watched in the lobby till they started kicking people out. it was close quarters so I took no photos of all those ridiculously well dressed people, and was wary of asking them as we really didn't have any sort of pass or anything we should have had......but it was a bunch of cool peacocks, believe me.

And it was next to the river and it was preeedddy....

also, here is this very blurry picture illustrating your trend for the day: ombre'd hair. it has the potential to look cool, and the potential to look like you have the longest roots in the world.

und zat, chilllens, is all for today. i have many a thing to do, tomorrow, yea, even tonight.
groodbai.
-Lu

Una Noche del Fashion.

Fashion's night out, in case you are not aware, is an event begun by Vogue Magazine, wherein countless retailers in every city with any sort of fashion scene stay open late, have deals, celebrities around, DJ's, new snazzy window displays, free cocktails and champagne, and everybody dresses up and admires everybody else's clothes. It's fun.

We (flat-mates and I) betook ourselves to Bond Street, home of expensive, beautiful clothes/shoes/bags/people. And really well dressed salespeople. Of course.

Here's Allsaints Spitalfields. Their entire storefront is vintage sewing machines. How.....vintage.

This post will likely be just storefronts, however, I think I'll have to devote another post to the street fashion I caught in the lens that night: there's plenty, of every imaginable sort.

NOW. The icing on the cake, the proverbial prize, the place with the longest line, was without a doubt Alexander McQueen. If you ever listen to me talk about fashion in person, you've heard this name. We spent at least a blissful hour in here. Some of the photos are not the most stellar quality, but chalk that up to me avoiding the gaze of the photo-forbidding shop assistants. pweese. spanks.


Le storefront and window display. For the record, this is the Fall/Winter 2011 collection. Yes, the bodice of that white and blue number is indeed pieces of porcelain. Why? BECAUSE IT'S ART.
(P.S. i can die happy now. )

Le inside. Trey beans, as the sergeant in War Horse said. But wait, we're not there yet.

you see those clutches. The brass-knuckle ones. I WANT them.

an some shoesies.

COATS. I apologize for the blur.

Heatherpants, that last one was taken with you in mind. It's calfskin. And I wanted to eat it.

And shoes. ah, shoes.

And believe it or not, we did go other places. That one was just my favorite. Here they are. The first two are Dolce & Gabbana, since it isn't immediately legible. Unless of course, you're a fashion nerd and recognize the collection.

And that's enough of that. that street is going to get another visit from me, and further drool on the windows/shop floors. It is always enjoyable to pretend one has the money to buy such things.

The streets were so full, and I mean cars-can't-get-through full, of well-dressed, happy fashion nerds. Such fun.

slow down the room please and let me off.

AHHHHHHHH what a weekend. I don't believe I've stopped moving since Thursday. And then I wake up in the morning still tired and feel like this:

yes. Well, let's just say the vintage shopping in old Mpls will seem rather pooey after this, because yours truly went to Brick Lane today. more bout's that later, and a sampling of le London hipster.

But for now, an incident that appeals to my coincidence-and-clothes-loving soul.

On Thursday, while waiting outside Alexander McQueen, whilst I was admiring this one redheaded girl's coat, a tall guy walks by and I think to myself "where have I seen him?" it then hits me i have his picture off a style blog. I realize that may be ordinary for some people, but I had never had it happen, and it's slightly surreal. Not exactly a conversation starter. "hey I have a picture of you!" "ehhhhh...."

well, i managed to snap a picture, and you can decide for yourself.

Here's the blog picture, from the London Style Scout, (check it out!)

and here is my reflexive, neither-polished-nor-posed snap:

I thought i was mistaken till I realized the tats were the same: those rarely lie. Right, creeping over, now I'll actually blog about FNO, because it was AWSOME.