purple pants

last fall, when I was grieving after my deceased dark blue skinny jeans, I reluctantly picked up a pair of purple pants for something ridiculous like 5 euros, while shopping for groceries. it was the last pair, just lying there. my size, too. since gray was my new black at the time, I thought the splash of purple would fit in nicely. predictably, that pairing became very boring very soon. here's m. brainstorming for the benefit of her purple pants:

purple pants 5 by mariamariam featuring a green army jacket

purple pants 4 by mariamariam featuring slipper shoes

purple pants 3 by mariamariam featuring oxford shoes

purple pants 2 by mariamariam featuring crochet handbags

purple pants 1 by mariamariam featuring bright skinny jeans

oh, did I mention I got a polyvore account?

m takes a day off

8th of March 2012 by mariamariam featuring green handbags

on daring to wear and tear

Ode To My Socks (Pablo Neruda)

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Yamamoto RTW f12

Yamamoto nearly always yields himself to my obsessive interpretation of protect-me-fr0m-the world clothes. It's impossible to cover oneself up without revealing. Defenses always give us away. You pull the coat down to your ankles only to leave out the shoulder. Asymmetric capes hang down like worn out membranes or perhaps deformities. The bubble sweater dress is a shelter, but the seam looks like a string of stitches or a scar. The roomy coat is a world in which you're safe, yet, as a black-and-white diptych, it screams of the visible and the invisible.

Vivienne, mon amour

The latest Red Label collection captures what I love most about Viv's designs. She takes the best of wholesome, classical tailoring then switches the center of balance in the garment: elongates a lapel, shifts a few buttons, tugs at the hem of the skirt, loosens up the collar. If I didn't know how much thought and calculation goes into making these clothes look effortlessly disheveled, I'd imagine it's all the work of a bunch of mischievous smurfs who regularly break into the studio of a hard-nosed British tailor and put their own spin on the finished products. Or maybe it's a willful trophy wife who does what she can to rebel against some dress-code.

As a bonus, this collection is a study in my favorite color scheme. A teal undershirt peeping from under a coral dress; ice-blue tartan trousers worn with burgundy boots and belt, and a soft camel coat to tie it all together; the shimmering, cascading lilac dress; the beige knit ensemble i could live in; the perfect yet stubbornly asymmetrical black velvet blazer worn with a jabot shirt and - oh Vivienne - torn skinny jeans; and possibly the look I'd most like to own: the gray sweat-suit style two-piece worn with a laid-back chambray shirt.

zero waste design

yep, this anorac can be produced without any waste. designer Andria Crescioni, a graduate of Parsons The New School for Design, took the width of the fabric as a starting point and re-thought the pattern of this one-size-fits-most anorac so as to use all the material (100% wool, by the way), without leftovers.

Loomstate undertook to produce the garment and it retails at 345 USD.

Makes me think of that old idea I had of taking a pair of discarded jeans and consume it for various projects to the last scrap. I think I've done that with a pair of jeans already without documenting the process: in the course of three years, 1 pair of jeans = two soft toys and a kindle cover. Perhaps it's time for a new cycle. Especially since I have old jeans galore, a new teddy bear pattern, and a couple of grungy ideas.

curioser and curioser

I've seen a few selections of Alice in Wonderland illustrations recently (happy birthday to Lewis Carroll. As of Friday he is 180 years old, though not, unfortunately, alive and kicking), and I'm sure to please all four of my readers with the following sampler:

Arthur Rackham, 1907:



Marjorie Torrey, 1955:





m. cowers with shame at having been so far unaware of Salvador Dali's depictions of Alice:







Ryan De Haas, 2005:



and Maggie Taylor, 2008: