knee high socks

I’m not a huge fan of socks. I find them a bit restricting and I prefer the look of bare ankles. But if I have to wear socks, I like knee-highs, and my favorites are Antipast:

and Pantherella:

ndc

I love ndc shoes. I bought a pair of the boots for my husband last Christmas, and even though he assures me that they are impossible to break in and are causing him great pain, I still want a pair. It’s difficult to find the ladies styles online, but I found this great online shop called laundry room www.laundryroom.co.uk which sells the men’s (and lots of other nifty boy things).

I would like these shoes:

or these boots:

Kingsgate Mall

This posting is a little Vancouver-centric, but I think it will touch the heart of anyone who has a favorite neighborhood shopping mall. Kingsgate mall is the best nee the only shopping mall. When I first moved to Vancouver, ten bucks could get you a bottle of wine and a halter top at the Kingsgate. And though my weekends are now spent getting drunk on (slightly) more expensive wine, and I am no longer in need of disposable shirts, I can still find cheap, slightly flawed American Apparel t-shirts (Ruffles Rack), discount Chuck Taylors (Scalie Shoes), and Murrays hair pomade at the Kingsgate. In short, it has something for everyone. On Fridays they have free drop in chess, and at Christmas, Santa greets the kids by riding in on a donkey.

So I am dismayed to find this picture of a reno plan for Kingsgate. Now, I hear these plans were scuttled by new management, but don’t be lulled into complacency, this could still happen. It’s time to stand up and defend our ugly mall from even uglier architectural meddling.

Rachel Roy

I was reading an article in the New York Times about a shop in Brooklyn called loopy mango www.loopymango.com, and this dress caught my eye. It’s by Rachel Roy. I don’t know much about Rachel Roy, except that she’s married to Damon Dash, she’s always very well turned out, and a little bit playful in her clothing choices. I’m not a huge fan of her collections, but I love this dress. The volume and colour are unexpected and fresh.

horses are a girl’s best friend

I have a real soft spot for prize ribbons and trophies. Last year, in a fit of insanity, I bought 150 vintage prize ribbons from a horsey guy in the suburbs. They are sitting in a box in the basement: I know that some day I’m going to figure out what to do with them.

Not that I’m in the market for more prize ribbons, but here are some great pins and prize ribbons I found on the ebay, and I found this website that makes prize ribbons: www.prizeribbon.com. They have a $25.00 minimum order (which does not include a typesetting charge or shipping) but it’s quite a bargain if you want to bulk buy your Christmas presents this year.

glamorous pigeon

A friend sent me this picture of an Old Dutch Capuchine pigeon. Doesn’t she look like she’s wearing a fur cape?

Allison Barr

This is from a long time ago, but I just came across the pictures today. This gal graduated from the Capilano college textile arts program and won a big GenArts prize in 2001. I have always loved this outfit- especially because she hand-wove the skirt fabric. Amazing! I have not heard of Allison Barr since, which is a shame because the girl has a lot of talent. Also because I would like to own this outfit.

Hella Jongerius

Today I was thinking about Hella Jongerius and about how, if I could have a dream job right now it would be working for her. This has nothing at all to do with what people are wearing, but I find her design work could (and probably does) inspire people in a lot of different fields of design, including the fashion.
I would love one of her sofas, but I will settle for one of her vases that she designed for Ikea as a (lovely) consolation prize.

j. crew

I wanted to inject some can-con into my postings, so I was looking at all of my favorite Canadian designer’s websites for inspiration, and there wasn’t a lot of spring to be found. And as it’s grey as a donkey’s ear outside, I cannot bear to post pictures of grey dresses right now. Hopefully, somewhere across this barren tundra, someone is concocting a lovely little green or yellow dress to keep me going through these endless dark days.

I did find some cute things on the very un-canadian j. crew website. I have a terrible guilty love of j. crew and all their preppy finery, but only in their catalogue or on-line. When I walk into their stores I feel terribly depressed, and I realize that j. crew is just like the Gap’s or the American Eagle outfitters.

However, in keeping with my j. crew catalogue fantasy life, here are some terrific bright and cheery items on their spring preview page.

spring 2007

I was talking to a buyer about what sort of things he was excited about for spring, fashion wise, and he couldn’t come up with a thing. And neither could I. There is not a lot of divine inspiration coming down the pipe. Sure, there are some nice spring pieces, but nothing unexpected and fresh. I was looking at style.com and their spring trend report listed these as the key spring looks for 2007:

get sporty

new romantics

pin up girls

so eighties

space odyssey

trapeze artists

So basically everything: eighties, future, sixties, fifties, forties, victorian and right now. Great. Thanks for clearing that up for me. All I could glean from this insightful trend report is that there will be lots of trapeze dresses (aka I didn’t know you were expecting) and Azzedine Alaia rip offs.

I do, however like the Derek Lam stuff for spring. It is hardly earth shattering, but very pretty and wearable: