I have heard it said that women dress for other women. Unless you are dressing
specifically for yourman (wink wink), Ithink for the most part that may be true, but I dress for myself and the occasion. I like to feel good about the way I look even if I’m at home alone and no one else sees me. Even if I’m wearing pajamas, they must be somewhat stylish. Even when I’m glamping…I tend to look like this photo (in my dreams). In my recurring dream I’m stepping out of a rolls in NYC wearing a low cut LBD and pillbox hat. Uh huh!While men may be appreciative of a woman’s overall style, women tend to make more of an effort for other women and there is nothing wrong with another woman appreciating the way you look and paying you a compliment. I do it all the time. Women like to look good for their girlfriends because we tend to pay attention to all the little details. Some men too, but those men are rare or gay. Sometimes it feels more special when another woman pays you a compliment because she is saying nothing more than “I like the way you look in that outfit.” The overall context of this short film is that we should be able to openly celebrate, look and appreciate one another.
The Way we Dress – “Notes on the Gaze” by Chelsea McMullan
*Short Film (if you are receiving this post via e-mail and cannot see the video please click on the blue title above:
Chelsea McMullan is a filmmaker whose works have premiered at Sundance, The Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Photography Festival. Her award-winning shorts have been featured by Nowness, Dazed Digital, Vice, and Vogue Italia. Whenever possible Chelsea inhabits the space between documentary and fiction filmmaking. She is a member of the artists’ co-operative What Matters Most and a secret but fervent topiary enthusiast.
Finally I’ll get to wear my Trina Turk tankini from Palm Springs. It’s exactly the kind of piece I’d wear for a party – not an everyday bathing suit. I’m taking a clue from these world famous pools and what women wear when either swimming or lounging at them.
Here are the 10 CHICEST SWIM DESTINATIONS and ideas for what to wear on your visit. Whether you hang out in The Joule’s rooftop cantilevered pool in Dallas or travel to Bali to swim among the treetops, you can be certain that these will outdo your standard midday dip.
Bondi Icebergs Club – Bondi, AustraliaHanging Gardens Ubud – Bali, IndonesiaSan Alfonso del Mar – Valparaiso, ChileGrace Santorini – Thira, GreeceHotel Molitor, ParisThe Standard Hotel & Spa, Miami BeachThe McCarren Hotel & Spa – Brooklyn, New YorkThe Beverly Hills Hotel – Los Angeles, CaliforniaThe Four-Seasons Hualalai at historic Ka-upulehu, Kailua-Kona, HawaiiThe Joule – Dallas, Texas
Source: style.com for story and photos
Photos: various – Net-a-Porter, Getty Images (Beverly Hills pool photo) and respective hotels.
Which is your pool style?
While I like them all, I gravitate more towards Paris and Beverly Hills (for the love of stripes) & Hawaii. But I love the lingerie inspired Texas two-piece.
I thought I could make it through summer without a pair of plain clean (they must be clean) white sneakers but that is proving to be not the case.
You would think that with the variety of ballet flats, wedge sandals, flip flops, gladiators, deck shoes and other colourful walking sneakers there would be no need.
I think white sneakers (not running shoes) are a necessary addition to a summer wardrobe. Here’s why:
I’ve always been attracted to Charlotte Rampling but not in that way…
Photo: Philip Sinden
…because she embodies that “wow factor“ in the same admirable fashion that Cate Blanchett does and Katherine Hepburn did. Very attractive but not in a conventional sense, in a much more interesting manner, smart, confident, a talented actor and so very chic – her own stylishness. Her stage play Neck of the Woods just wrapped at HOME, Manchester, as part of the Manchester International Festival on July 18.
Rampling on…
Words with Charlotte Rampling – on working with wolves, the power of the audience and what she means when she calls herself an artist.
Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? We all are, it seems.
Charlotte Rampling on the WOLF…
“I think humans have a very profound relationship with animals. Wild creatures are more mysterious to us – we can’t actually approach them so that makes them enigmatic, that’s why we study them and do art pieces around them. There is a lot that goes in people’s imagination about wolves, starting from the basic stories we hear all the time. There is a particular fascination – from the thought that one must be scared or wary of them, to the cultural idea of ‘the big bad wolf’. They have a strange character, they are mysterious, maybe more so than other animals.”
Charlotte Rampling on the power of the AUDIENCE…
“The study of an audience is very important. We are doing it for them so we want to get the best possible angle for them, and to bring them in. You feel when an audience is getting distracted or not quite following, and then you have to really start to understand why they are not with you. Yes, I think that is what live performance is about; you are facing an audience and you are saying it to them. It is not like you are in a play and playing to the people you are playing with; here you are playing to the audience so you must have them with you at all times. If you don’t – well, they are like a pack of wolves and they will take the play away from you if you are not careful. They will turn it into something other. If you let the audience go, you have lost the moment, and essentially you have lost the play.”
Charlotte Rampling on being an ARTIST… “All my life I have followed the thought that if I have already done something, why would I then want to do it again?” So unless the film is really intriguing then to me, it is just another film. I have always gone off the track and have looked at things that I can do that will allow me to see the world in a different way. It is just a basic form of curiosity on my part, to want to discover something and find another way of doing things. What I found is that as you get older your mind actually doesn’t get any older, you just get older physically and you obviously have more experience. Now that I am working with a lot of younger artists, it is very intriguing, as I am able to bring my life with me to the stage. There is a young French artist I am working with called Loris Gréaud. We did a film together with David Lynch called The Snorks, which was an extraordinary project based around animals that live so far underneath the sea that no one has ever seen them and they let out energy through electrics. The relationships that you have with other artists after you have done all these projects brings you into another world, and to me that is what living creatively is all about. I am not an artist per se even though I would love to be, I don’t do sculptures or the like as that is not my profession but I know that I can infiltrate what I have into the works of others.”
It’s been many years since the fashionable boutique on 4th moved to new headquarters in Kerrisdale. Happy to have them back in the Kits neighbourhood! Fab was one of the first little shops to bring designer jeans from L.A. and New York to Vancouver and what’s so funny as it so happens, is that when I surprisingly stumbled upon the store once again I was wearing a pair I had bought from them that I hadn’t worn in years. By coincidence I just pulled them out of the bottom of my drawer and said “hey, it’s been a while…let’s see if we can still get it on.” What’s even better is that they still fit and look as good as new. I realize that the items I did buy from them then, I still have and they did not go out of style.
I have my eye on the white t-shirt dress.
What’s new at FAB: some things are better tried on. I can now spot something that doesn’t quite go WOW on the hanger and know it will look great on and become a staple. Bonus – this time everything is under $100. They still sell jeans just not with the high price tag.
FAB Clothing
Ella (in stripes) and Andrea (in cobalt blue) will be happy to help you out.
2151 West 4th Ave. (between Arbutus & Yew)
Welcome back – we missed you!
They have some fun retro styles perfect for summer, lots of hats, accessories and even some choice nail polish colours by “Butter London.”
Wine & Dine – squinting in the Sunshine with my good friend Rosa who I met taking tango lessons about 12 years ago.
It has become a yearly tradition. A birthday celebration and rendezvous between two friends at the same place with a great ambience and view. I’m talking Sandbar rooftop, Granville Island. We talk about everything over a bottle of wine and discuss what has changed in the year since we’ve last been here. What were we talking about last time oh, I see…the same thing. What has changed? What have we learned? Where do we go from here? How can we improve on perfection. Of course I can’t give you all the details but there’s always lots of laughs.
Photo: Vancouver Sun
Honjin Sushidinner (regarded as having the best sushi in Vancouver – definitely one of the top places) in tatami room with adventurous visitors I met in Palm Springs who make their home in Philadelphia but travel all the time. Nice to meet up again.
Last night dinner at Cardero’s with seven other fun women before Theatre Under the Sky Stars (there were no stars in the sky last night) at Stanley Park to watch the hilarious musical Hairspray (not to be confused with “Hair” or “Shampoo”) – I loved John Travolta in the film version. The play was very entertaining with a talented cast who could really belt it out.
I speak for all women. Tank: Bear Dance Clothing (L.A.)Sometimes I want to be invisible…but it’s nice that it matches my beach bag. Coco’s Closet
And of course these two characters continue to engage me:
They look guilty. I surprised them.Waiting patiently outside Market Meats
“We’ve been sooo good so far today maybe she’ll forget about the snapping at that dog and person yesterday. What do you think she’s buying for us this time?”
You ain’t seen nothin until you WATCH THIS (1 minute video) and you will know why these dogs are SO SPECIAL:
Life is too short not to have some fun. Enjoy your weekend.
Remember the controversial ad campaigns for Benetton?
Children don’t know hate – they are taught it
They captured our attention with amazing imagery that had nothing to do with their clothes. The ads grabbed our attention because it was hard to escape many of the disturbing images which came with a message. They were meant to get stuck in our brain. I can’t remember all the sweaters I bought from Benetton but I do remember the ads.
I stumbled across this article which examines fashion’s new lifestyle approach to advertising through the lens of Jamie Hawkesworth’s India campaign for Trademark. Fascinating!Fashion advertising is an arena that, over the past few years, has evolved into an artistic entity of its own. As brands seek to consolidate and communicate a message that extends beyond the clothes they are putting onto the rails, those at the top of their game have eschewed traditional handbag shots and replaced them with montages that speak to a broader picture of lifestyle luxury – and Jamie Hawkesworth is often the man responsible.
In a market saturated with disposable imagery, it seems as though sustained success is coming from advertising with aesthetic longevity. Earlier this week in The Washington Post, Sarah Halzack noted that, in spite of an ever-expanding post-recession luxury market, flashy, logo-heavy glamour is no longer in *Vogue – a trend that is seeing profits fall for megabrands like Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton while those of their smaller counterparts (like Loewe and Miu Miu, also featuring Hawkesworth-shot campaigns) rise. “These are [brands] that really control the supply, and therefore they manipulate the market and the desire for their products,” explains luxury marketer Thomai Serdari – and, with the release of Gucci’s new campaign video and imagery this week, which has Glen Luchford documenting a softly intimate, Wes Anderson-style shoot and short film, it is clear that the big brands are paying attention.
One of the labels that is tapping into this idea of editorial-style lifestyle messaging is new American brand Trademark, whose S/S15 campaign was shot by Jamie Hawkesworth on a trip to India. “We were always fans of Jamie’s early work, particularly his series taken at a bus station in Preston,” explained founders Pookie and Louise Burch. “The images felt like documentary photography which was something we were both drawn to. We wanted to shoot the images for Trademark in the same vein so it felt natural.”
Sending Hawkesworth off with a suitcase of clothing resulted in a series of images that look as much like someone’s (brilliant) holiday photographs as clothing advertisements, just as his shots for Loewe’s accessories collaboration with John Allen are like family snapshots or his A/W15 Miu Miu campaign like an insight into a (very chic) schoolgirl’s life. In this new spirit of lifestyle shots, brands are paying to place advertising in magazines, and some of the pages that they buy don’t even end up featuring clothes.
John Allen x Loewe Photography by Jamie Hawkesworth
When a new label like Trademark makes a statement like, “The focus wasn’t on the clothing” about a (presumably fairly high-budget) campaign, it is clear that there is a shift in direction for those with the savvy to really listen to consumers: and consumers are buying into more than just ostentatiously trend-led pieces, but into an entire aesthetic. Jamie Hawkesworth presents relatable yet aspirational scenarios – an artfully-arranged pencil pot, a beautiful statue observed on holiday in India – and the occasional garment or bag just fits alongside. This is the new era of brand identity – one that extends beyond seasonal pieces – and it is one that seems to be selling.
I still love glamorous imagery in ads but I have great appreciation for where this Trademark direction is taking us.
Rings: Samantha Wills Bandwagon Sunglasses, Le Specs $60
Embracing Summer. For me summer is all about simplicity and taking it easy which translates to being more lazy. Hair lighter, toenails brighter, breezy dresses, no makeup, sitting on patios until the sun goes down, eating lots more fruit, plenty of barbeques and at least one beach picnic. It’s a breeze embracing summer.
beachy bracelets
Wearing fun jewellery that never sees the light of day when summer ends, ankle bracelets (I have a crazy collection), straw hats & bags, flip-flops (or go barefoot whenever possible), roller blading (after retiring my blades) & bike riding.
Gold Ring on Left: TomTom Jewelry Wild Child Sunglasses in Black, Le Specs $80 Sunset Multistrand Necklace, Holst+Lee $255 Wild Child Sunglasses in Pink, Le Specs $80 Turquoise Capri Amulet, BaubleBar $68
I may have grown up on what is referred to as ‘the island of Montreal’ but I also lived in Jamaica which is my idea of a ‘true blue’ Island and adapted to being there like a bee to honey. It was a dream waking up every morning to blue skies and a never ending beach outside my door, walking barefoot along that beach to outdoor yoga classes, continuous scuba diving, reading a lot more books, delightful doctor birds and live music at night. Yes, I adapted extremely well.
beach necessity
Double Selfie
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in perpetual summer. Maybe we need the Fall/Winter break to keep from becoming too lazy. And to get things done. Well that’s the excuse I give…to appreciate the sunshine when we get it.
Photographer (first 4 photos): Andrew Stiles at Grid Agency
Hair and Makeup: Alexis Swain at Celestine Agency.
I love beach cover-ups even if I’m not going to the beach. In honour of the first official week of SUMMER here are some lovely ones to consider.
hunky dory beach companion
I like having a light little something to wear over my bathing suit. Kind of like wearing a négligée to bed – not nearly naked. A little something to take off and put on again if there’s a breeze. These remind me of St-Tropez when I was in St. Tropez…that one time in my life….but still they remind me of there. I’ve been wearing a lot of neutrals this summer with a sprinkling of floral and more skirts and dresses so these all-white covers are so fresh looking, very pretty, flowy and romantic. Perfect for a beachy picnic. Careful not to spill the berries.
Elegant long white lace summer beach dress 2015 with long wide sleeves, open back and side slits. This is your dress, if you are looking for a fancy beach cover up.
Gorgeous white lace long sleeve summer beach cover up 2015 with deep v-neck.
Casual short white lace beach summer dress 2015 with three quarter sleeves and wide neck.
Funny, as I’m posting these I’ve come to realize that I’ve been wearing more black this summer and more white this past winter. Proves there is no right or wrong anymore in fashion as long as the weight of the clothes fit the season. Still working on the beach bod. By the end of this summer I’ll be perfect really good!
Wearing a watch now is more of an accessory or fashion statement because everyone can check the time on their cell phones and since every single person carries a cell phone….no need to wear a watch…unless it looks something like this one by Chanel.For the first time since the 2000 launch of the J12 , a watch designed by a man for men but that was picked up by women everywhere – the French powerhouse is unleashing a watch inspired by classic masculine codes but designed for women. Some male editors were overheard coveting it too.
Called theBoy.Friend, this watch comes with a wait period (please don’t tell me this will become the watch version of the Birkin). It’s being released in Chanel stores this September, and when it does, it will appear in just a handful of iterations, ranging from the sparest, small quartz model in beige gold with an alligator strap to the large, diamond-trimmed style in white gold – priced from $12,500 to $27,000 USD. You don’t have to wait, however, to see some styles, as modeled by Sam Rollinson here. Anyone interested in a preview of what Chanel has in store for Fall should check out the Paris editors vamping it up on Instagram with the hashtag #meetmyboyfriend.
Speaking of Instagram, it’s such a powerful tool now that I want to discuss it more in another post – I’ve been playing around with it.
In the meantime, I like this watch (more reliable than it’s human counterpart) but I love the advertising campaign photos even more. So artistic, but then we wouldn’t expect anything less from Chanel would we?
While men may be appreciative of a woman’s overall style, women tend to make more of an effort for other women and there is nothing wrong with another woman appreciating the way you look and paying you a compliment. I do it all the time. Women like to look good for their girlfriends because we tend to pay attention to all the little details. Some men too, but those men are rare 
Girl Who Would be KING on Life, Style and INSPIRATION. 
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