I want to dress like Leo Tolstoy

It's been a while, dear readers. The bluebird of happiness is so far out of the picture these days that not even the chicken of fashion finds it worthwhile to drop by. And who can blame him? The last time he reared his head to peek through my dusty window I shooed him away screaming "consumerism" and "sweatshop-produced garments" and "vanity fair" at the diminishing silhouette of the scuttling bird. The chicken fled, and now I am feeling a little lonely. Perhaps I could lure him back with a bowl of corn, or with a small saucer of fashion. The trouble is, I fear I have exhausted my sartorial aspirations. I haven't had the energy to look at any of the runways from the fashion weeks, even though I was told Moschino made McDonalds uniforms this season. I am finding it so tiresome to dress myself each day. Can't I just wear a bathrobe and be done with it? I have a very soft and fuzzy one. It may even pass for a camel coat if you're willing to be charitable.

Right now I want to go and live in the woods, away from all this wearying noise. And if I must dress somehow, I shall dress like a muzhik, or like Leo Tolstoy dressing like a muzhik, or like Christopher Plummer dressing like Leo Tolstoy dressing like a muzhik. Perhaps in this disguise I will appear approachable again to my poor chicken of fashion.

I want to dress like Leo Tolstoy by mariamariam featuring a le creuset cookware

Gareth Pugh F2014

I promised garbage bags the other day, so here goes.

Always a chance I could be projecting, but it seems to me that Gareth Pugh goes out of his way to commemorate his punk origins even as he grows into a commercially successful designer. And I don't mean just the aesthetic side of punk, but that small freezing studio where he used to put together  beautiful things out of plastic and found objects. Back in February he showed lush gowns in wool and fur, then demonstratively produced similar designs out of garbage bags. And maybe those last couple of brushy ensembles were supposed to herald the luxurious feathers of his recent SS 2014.

Junya Watanabe, SS 2014

I didn't write because there was nothing worth saying, and now I'm trying to put a few sentences together to accompany these photos and I am speechless. So let's just say this is a beautiful and amazingly detailed fantasy set in a world akin to the Wild West, and it's all woven out of those prima facie odious DYI-ed t-shirts. (Ok, some of it is swede, bu it's the jersey that awes me.)

I think tomorrow we'll have Gareth Pugh's garbage bag dresses for good measure. 

Rick Owens as therapy

Here's Rick Owens on why he doesn't do couture, on prioritizing wearable designs, on being married to one essential idea and on why all his collections could be said to be one and the same, on wanting to preserve a space of one's own, plus a couple of touching phrases about his parents:

I've listened to this interview on days when my ADD was particularly bad -- the calm and logical flow of his speech has soothing and restoring effects on me. I try to conjure this gorgeous spirit when, riddled with OCDs, I'm fighting my intermittent war against the entirety of my wardrobe. What he says in the end about staying humble and focused and working hard is precisely what I want so badly to be able to do. 

Finally, in an attempt to make all this at least remotely about fashion: Rick Owens is, for me, the grounded antipode to the always admirably impractical Rei Kawakubo.

This is from his Spring 2014 menswear collection, and it's basically how I want to dress.