moodboard

Alexa Chung & Poppy Delvigne Road Trip

 

I love taking road trips. Sometimes they are just to clear the mind and recharge, other times they can be life altering. 

The last one of signifcance was when we left California to come back to Kentucky. I think at the time we felt we were doing the right thing, but I kept thinking back to the road trip that moved us to Los Angeles.

We had left Kentucky with tears in our eyes but excitement building with every mile marker as we sang at the top of our lungs to California Love. As we drove into the city we saw a steady stream of moving trucks and cars towing U-Hauls going the other way, and I wondered at the time if they had given up on a dream and were heading back home.

Our life in California has really just started taking shape when we got the call that would change everything.  The thought of being so far from our families if something like that happened again was too much for us to handle at the time. 

So we decided to leave, once again with tears in my eyes, as I hugged my best friend in California goodbye. They say you start to idolize things as time goes by, and I'm sure I've forgotten all the hard things we dealt with in California. But being broke those first couple of years in LA are some of our best memories.  

If we had known that our families would be alright would we have stayed? I often wonder how our life would have mapped out from there. Would there have been a baby? Gosh, I hope so.

(The pictures above are from the latest issue of The Edit. Alexa and Poppy make that shoot look like a blast.) 

Fresh Faces: Model Maggie Laine

I haven't blogged in a million years but I had to post about this editorial in the June issue of TeenVogue. Model Maggie Laine stopped me mid-magazine flip because she looks like the magical love child of Kate Moss and Georgia May Jagger.

Digital images created by Moodboard from June TeenVogue/Photographer: Ben Weller

Favorite Runway Looks: The Row Fall 2014

In what is a very uninspired NYFW season for me,  I'm loving the most minimal collection. The Row's Fall 2014 collection has almost severe silhouettes and a restrained palette of black, grey, and cream. No bells or whistles, but I suppose simplicity is part of the beauty.

Though I have to ask if anyone else feels like they have seen that black dress before? The first person that popped in my head was Winona Ryder but a quick google search yielded nothing. Is it Beetlejuice? 

Images: Vogue.com 

 

 

 

Favorite Runway Looks: Rodarte Fall 2014

I might be able to finally convince my husband that I need (not just want) a runway piece. I wasn't expecting Rodarte 's Fall 2014 collection to have dresses adorned with beloved characters from Star Wars.

While the Luke Skywalker dress embodies the movie, my first choice would have to be the two moon dress. It's a more subtle reference and pretty all on its own.

And I don't know what it is about that glittering purple coat but it is causing fashion fireworks to go off in my brain. It looks like it popped out of the most decadent, tripping 60's movie ever made. 

Images: Vogue.com

Favorite Runway Looks: Chanel S/S 2014 Couture Sneakers

I'm still narrowing down my favorite looks in the Chanel S/S 2014 Couture collection, but I think the shoes may be my favorite thing. Decadently feminine sneakers suddenly seem so right.

Images: Vogue.fr

If They are Good Enough for Miuccia Prada...

 

 

After endless stalking, these Prada Double Strap Platforms from the Fall 2013 collection popped up in my size on sale. I'm planning on clomping around in them all year round. 

Favorite Runway Looks: Chloe Pre-Fall 2014

Clare Wright Keller's collections always have a pulled from the archives but with a modern spin look. The tangerine, white, and grey layers are such a fresh color combination. I'm not really sure if that's a fur vest in the first pic, but I love anything that makes you look like a swan. The window check pane items have me wanting to pull this vintage Bill Blass set back out for summer.

Images: Vogue.com

 

Favorite Runway Looks: Maiyet Pre-Fall 2014

 I'm loving Maiyet's Vermeer-meets-70's art school teacher 2014 Pre-Fall collection. There is casual perfection (that first image), ballerina bodices, and plunging necklines.

My need for clavicle baring dresses intensified after watching American Hustle. Amy Adams looked fantastic in look after look, though I will say that slinky 70's dresses can be hard to wear. Almost all the ones I own are semi-sheer, and slips don't really work at the top, so I guess that was the era of the brave girl!

Images: Style.com

Reflections

I started this blog almost 7 years ago when I was newly engaged and living in a small town. Missing the creative energy that had surrounded me in Los Angeles, I took to the internet. One day I stumbled across Flickr, and more importantly, its online community.

After posting my own personal and collected images people started asking me if I had a blog. I only knew of blogs at that time as online personal journals, so I thought that was an odd question. Then I realized they were now being used as platforms to write about design and style from a more personal viewpoint.  

The writing was something I was missing from Flickr. It seems people are wanting to read less and less, but that is what attracts me to a blog. The ability to expand on an idea or image, to give background on why they chose to wear something or put it in their house.

I started my blog as a way to join this community, which lacked the polished fantasy of magazines, but had the realism of chatting with your stylish sister, just one that lived far away. 

When the blogging world exploded the intimacy of that community went away. We were introduced to a lot of great new blogs, but also bloggers was exposed to a bigger audience (and critics). Blogs started looking smarter in design, but also more homogeneous. 

For me the online world got boring and weird fast, and I didn't want to be part of the way things were at the moment. Combined with a difficult pregnancy, I decided to take a step back from the blog.

Instead of writing I started an Instagram account to post more immediate things and a Pinterest  account which is the easiest way to remember where I found an image. I avoided Pinterest for a long time, but I finally broke down and now I'm a pinning (a lot of secret boards) fool.

I've thought about quitting the blog completely, but that's what I miss the most. Writing out the Why. So I'll continue to write for myself, as the whole point of this blog was to talk about what I was marveling over at the moment. I guess it's a personal journal after all.

Image: The gorgeous Freja/UK Vogue January 2014/Photographer: Cass Bird

 

In Her Closet: J.Crew Handknit Tile Sweater

While reading Vogue.com's Five Days, Five Looks, One Girl with Cynthia Smith I noticed they were wearing J.Crew sweaters that I hadn't seen before. I thought they might pop up in the fall rollouts and made a mental note of the blue one on the right

When J.Crew's first fall rollout came out I ordered the Merino Scarf Sweater and noticed they also had that blue sweater, the Handknit Tile Sweater, available as a pre-order. It came in a ivory/grey combination as well, and that is the one I ordered.

When I came home from the hospital both packages were waiting for me, and I wound up keeping the Handknit Tile Sweater. The pattern and chunky knit remind me of the sweaters from the 80's and 90's.