esCENTials: LBD

Let's talk about cold weather: winter winds creep in and it's impossible sometimes to get dressed. Who wants to creep out early on a cold morning to assemble an ensemble that's chic but not enitrely cold weather appropriate? That's why it's time to return to the basics: a LBD is perfectly timeless and the greatest wardrobe piece for both warm and cold weather. It's blank canvas also makes looking fabulous in the winter time simple: layer on necklaces, throw on a scarf, pair it with fun tights and boots and be sidewalk-runway ready in moments!

The Night and Noon Dress from Anthropologie is my favorite:

It fits and flairs perfectly and has a rich texture. I wore it all through summer, fall, and soon - winter!

However, at $158, it's a bit pricey, so a great alternative is the Jennifer Lopez Pleated Ponte Dress from Kohl's:

For only $42.00, it's an esCENTial!

Fall

It is perhaps quite obvious how great my love of film is. And this fall I have a few films I am eager to see.

These two are the ones I am most interested in:

To prepare, I plan on reading Kazuo Ishiguro's book of the sam title: Never Let Me Go. I also want to pick up a copy of this:

I ache for Autumn.

Io Sono L'Amore

Perhaps the most beautiful film I have seem in quite a long time is Luca Guadagnino's Io Sono L'Amore, or I Am Love.

After reading compelling reviews that sung its praises and viewing a magical trailer, I wandered into the theatre. I cannot say I was surprised by its presence, but I was surprised by how profoundly the film affected me. The beauty of it all broke my heart. It is a great epic, a tragic story of love. Bitter and honest and absolutely lovely.

Story aside, the imagery was breathtakingly beautiful. Scenes of Italy and London, punctuated by the soft sounds of the Italian language stole me away completely.

The film reminded me of another equally poignant, if melancholy, love story. That of Jan Kounen's Chanel et Stravinsky. This story however holds slightly greater significance because it is based on the love affair of Parisian designer Coco Chanel and the composer Igor Stravinsky.

I saw the film in Paris, and despite my French, was able to comprehend the story through the images that cascaded across the screen.

It seems that love is the same in every language afterall.

Second Degree Relics

I am most captivated by contemporary visual culture and am compelled to insist that the most profound way we connect with other people, other eras, and other worlds is through imagery. The compulsion to express artistically is a common thread throughout the annuls of history. What is crucial to such images, such documentation of the past, is the way in which people are depicted. The deep purple robes of royalty, the rough materials of peasants, the nakedness of muses are all elemental to one’s understanding and discovery of society. The portrayal of clothing was infinitely linked to the portrayal of the individual. It is how societies gained knowledge of distinguishing peoples; it is how we today can gain knowledge of peoples long gone. When archeologists search for the remainders of lost civilizations, they document articles of clothing, jewelry, accessories, and such as second degree relics – the superficialities that serve as artifacts to another existence, artifacts that help us to piece together a lost era. To me this is the purpose of fashion. Fundamentally I know that clothes serve a commonplace importance in the lives of all. Everyone should be able to dress himself or herself and perhaps the actual garments are of little grand significance. But in the long run, the pieces of our wardrobes, of our selves, serve as the greatest representation of our culture for future explorers; what we hold sacred, beautiful, treasured.

Source: Pair of Jeweled Bracelets from Byzantine | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

I suppose I have been so fascinated with fashion that I might be making it a grander production than it is. Still, something in me finds our history and our clothing inextricably linked. And my fashion philosophy is to approach garmentry as such: as art, moving, living, breathing art. Much like humanity itself.