Wild Prom Night

Takato Yamamoto

"When a woman smiles, her dress should smile with her."

My borderline-obsessive interest in Isabel Toledo has led me to read almost as compulsively about Madeleine Vionnet, an early 20th century French seamstress and designer. I feel the same sort of reverence for her as I do for Isabel, and so strongly wish I could have lived in France at the time, even as a little fly, and watched her take the brilliance in her mind and transform it into clothing. She helped alter people's perception of ideal beauty by turning away from the straight shapes of the 1920's and instead accentuating women's curves. She was the creator of the bias cut, which allowed clothing to move with the body instead of constrict it. Vionnet turned her nose up at much of her day's fashion world and was a bit of a hermit, which makes me adore her all the more. To read more about her and the exhibition you're going to see once you book your trip to Paris next week, continue here.

In the meantime, gasp and gape here:

Lazy days are here

Vacation time for me has finally come, and I find that all I want to do is the following:

Sleep:

















Roam around the neighborhood:




















And somehow be near water:




















Let these three wishes (captured by Tuija Lindström) be granted me and I shall be a happy woman!

Excuse me, you have golden sparkles between your teeth

Ichigo is thinking of starting a baking blog, and we were talking about how frustrating it is when people post pictures of what wonders they made, and don't show you how. So I am going to show you, mostly by links, how to make pumpkin cookies:

Step 1: Find a recipe such as this one.
Step 2: Substitute that frosting with a cream cheese frosting, except use half the amount of sugar.
Step 3: Get yourself to a Williams Sonoma or NYCake, or another store that sells golden, shimmering sugar, and dust that on the cookies.
Step 4: Put it on the dessert table.
Step 5: Stand by the dessert table and count exactly how many cookies each guest ate. This number is now directly proportional to how much you like each person! Keep reminding them of this until they run away from you, leaving behind a trail of crumbs.

Enjoy!

Sinnerman

Thanks to Amazon's awesome deals, I finally have all the Nina Simone songs I could dream of, including my favorite- Sinnerman. For exquisite listening pleasure, all you have to do is click (second song).

And for your exquisite remixed listening pleasure click again (first song). If you insist on sticking your nose up at Felix Da Housecat, do it in public. In private, just dance!

Also, as you can see, I can't figure out how to switch the song order. Technology, what a burden upon my mind!...Any help I will take and treasure.

Mil Besos

I recently saw heart stopping pictures from Ruven Afanador's just published book Mil Besos. The photographs capture Spain's flamenco dancers in all their beauty and strength, and I really love them. Here you are:

The dancers appear to me like mermaids, prophetesses, silent film stars and intriguing great-aunts, and really, isn't that what all women want to be?

Moswow

Fall is here and winter is coming, so it's time to start wearing shirts buttoned up to the neck (not that I ever stopped during the summer, but now it will be more comfortable), turtlenecks, shawls, and fake furs. What better to guide us into our cold weather lives and cloaks than films set in 19th and early 20th century Russia?

Nothing is better, that's the answer.

Dr.Zhivago:

War and Peace:

Anastasia:

Even if high collars are not your preference, these are still perfect movies to watch for when it's all chilly outside and all warm inside and you happen to have a refrigerator full of beer and borscht.