Ashamed

(Hedi Slimane)

I haven't posted anything here for so long.
Shame on me.
I feel like hiding behing my hair.
I have good reasons for this though. First, fashion week killed me.
I was litteraly dead for a whole week. Spent entire days sleeping and went to my parent's house for the week-end. That's generally a good sign I'm deeply depressed.

Then, fashion kind of bored me.
I mean... Lately I've been wondering if I still believed in fashion. It's horrible for me to say this, cause fashion is what my job in mainly made of, but see, with all this economical crisis going on - I AM OBSESSED YEAH - I feel like it's not OK to cry tears of joy in front of a YSL sequins jumpsuit - OH MY GOD did you see this gorgeouness ?

Sorry...
And anyways, there isn't much to cry tears of joy about.
I've been trying hard, though. I really meant to find something cool, fun, interessing, to write on this blog, fashion wise. So I bought a lot of magazines.


I read them all.
No excitement. Nothing worth blogging. Except, maybe the Lakshmi Menon Dazed editorial, but everybody already mentionned it.
Last week I went shopping with a friend. Like, easy shopping, H&M, favorite thrift store ... Absolute boredom. The only suff I felt like buying was torn black leggings and oversized vintage t-shirts. And then I realized I could just tear up one of my hundreds black leggings and I already owned 869 vintage t-shirts.

I thought to myself what's wrong with me ?
And realized I was just depressed.
By the Paris weather, by the titles in the newspapers, by the extinction of polar bears (I rent An unconvenient truth, the Al Gore documentary, the other night. I cried. Advice : don't see it if you're down, it will make you wanna kill yourself).
I am also depressed buy all kinds of family problems you don't want to hear about.
Let alone my unexisting love life.
I didn't say sex. I said love.

Anyways. I realized I was depressed and so I decided to do the only thing to do when one feels really down : www.topshop.com

Here is the result.
(You can tell I'm not Ok by the absolute randomness of the sizes I ordered. )

Ok so the belt is like a belt version of the YSL cage shoes, and I feel like dying when I think about how it will look when I pair it to my vintage leather dress. I think the beaded blue scarf is crazy and very me. The striped tunic is just so similar to the one that got stolen in my housewarming party a year ago - Yes. I know. That and a vintage cheetah print dress and a fake quilted Chanel bag and a scarf I just loved. I cried for weeks, but it's only material. The one shoulder dress and the bandage grey skirt look very Herve Leger to me and I feel excited.... And I don't really know what happened to me with the pink acid wash cropped t-shirt, it was an impulse.

I am now 200 € lighter, and you know what ? I feel better.
This, my friends, proves fashion still works. I am the living proof that consuming is a feel-good activity. That getting new clothes can make your life prettier, and that therefore, in spite of the crisis and all, the fashion industry is not going to die right away, and I will keep my job for a little while.
And most of all, I'll keep on blogging. Cause, even when I have nothing to say, the result after a few minutes talking to you guys is : I feel so much better.
xoxo

Trippin'

Not me.
Fashion.
And Karlie Kloss at McQueen's.
Fashion is facing so many contradictions it looks as if it was about to trip and fall, face against the ground, any minute.
It seems the economical crisis is the biggest challenge this weird industry has ever had to face.
I mean who is going to buy the 50.000 $ Balenciaga top ? A couple of Russian billionaires ? And then, what next ? The shows will take place in museums where us common people will be able to admire and analyse this thing called couture, remembering how our grand-mothers used to be able to afford at least a couple of pieces a year ?
The over-clever Musée du Textile curator Olivier Saillard told me recently that fashion was about to turn into a discipline, like contemporary art, getting a lot of media attention, but not consumed.
So what's left to do for the designers ?
Be really crazy and take fashion as an art, a big show, almost a joke ?
That's obviously what McQueen chose to do with his crazy circus.
That's probably what Jean-Charles de Castelbajac chose to do too. This designer has never been acclaimed by the fashion people. He even became totally "ringard" a dozen of years ago. But his humouristic, open-minded, political and sarcastic vision of fashion seduced many trend-setters, wanabe celebrities and cool kids in Paris. He is the only designer I know that communicates directly with the public on facebook.
Anyways his show was clever. No Zahm, Wintour or Roitfeld was there, but the room was packed with an original, crazy-looking, young hipster crowd that rushed on the catwalk at the end of the show to get a grip of the Obama bills the models threw in the air during the Finale.
Noone thinks his Wharol dress is sharp, stylish or futuristic. It's just funny and so accurate.
The designer endorses his role as an artist. As an artist, he's here to give emotion, analysis and his vision of society.What about the rest ?
Well the rest, the ones who still haven't understood that fashion for the next few years will all be about DIY and thrifting, they are just trying VERY VERY hard to be bankable. They just wish they could sell a lot of pieces to buyers. And the buyers need garantees it's gonna work. So what do they do ? They redo Balmain and Givenchy fw 08, cause it was the last thing that worked. And I think if I ever see another pair of leather slim pants, black wedges boots, panther print, fur details, torn tights, studs or pagoda shoulders, I might as well throw up.
And black, black, black, black everywhere.

Can't even remember where this is from. They are all SO SIMILAR.
People are tired. There are now fewer VIPs than street style photographers at the shows and even the most fashion-crazy bloggers are getting bored. Garance, July, Susie... They all call for inovation, creativity, confort, sensibility.
There was another option this season : designing such an ugly collection that the most beautiful thing on the show was this :
And whoever doesn't realize Lara looks like a birthday cake on this should get a new pair of glasses.
I mean WHY pink wool ???
The only thing Chanel did right this season, is this party rue Cambon, where I got a chance to dance with Milla, noticed that Kate Moss was really getting fat(ter), Lilly Allen drunk(er) and Jefferson Hack hot(ter).
There was an incredible fashion climax when I climbed up to Mademoiselle Coco's private appartment where Karl Lagerfeld, the Mulleavy Sis' (Rodarte), Suzy Menkes and Colette's Sarah Lerfel where chatting on Coco's mythic sofa. Anyone weaker than me might have fashion ODed at this very moment.
As I walked down, Lilly and Raquel where dancing and I wondered how they could still be that happy and healthy after four fashion weeks.
My secret crush ignored me cause there were too many models in the room and I therefore became quite irrelevant.
From that moment, as I was just finishing up my eighth glass of champagne, everything became blurry.

I left the place with my best friend, skipped the Castelbajac aftershow at Baron, the Kate Moss appearance at Montana, and had a huge entrecôte, with french fries, in a shitty restaurant open all night on the Champs Elysée, with my red lipstick and 15 cm heels.
That was the best moment of my fashion week.

Stuck

LET ME OUT !
I DON'T WANT TO BE A FASHION VICTIM !

There's something a little scary about Paris fashion week. This profusion of shows, people and parties is not normal. No normal person would be able to follow that crazy rythm. My days - even though they start around noon, which means I miss all the morning shows, but that's kind of their problem - my days feel like weeks to my poor little tired body and mind.
But thank god I am high...
High on fashion.
A famous fashion guru whose name I've already mentionned here (I don't want to write it down too often cause you might find out I'm kind of secretly in love with him) told me yesterday night that I have a "naive" view on fashion. I guess he is right.
I can love a monacal black velvet Lanvin dress enough to take 6 pictures of it in a row - blurry artistic picture though, have a look at this amazingness on style.com, it's the last passage.

(check out that this time I got a very decent seating !)

I love fashion enough to be excited to steal a picture of Carine Roitfeld running out of the show.
OK.
I mean Carine Roitfeld's back, running out of the show....
You cannot immagine how excited everybody was about the Lanvin défilé. It was a suspended moment, out of time, out of space, those splendid heavy strapped sharp black and shiny silhouettes walking for what seemed a second or ages on the wet black tarmac... Those exagerated gold jewels, those weapon shoes, those belted drapée. I felt shivers all over my arms. I really did. That only happened to me once before. Lanvin ss O9.
Anyways Lanvin was great. And unfortunately you can't tell what a moment of poetry was the Margiela show on this pic.
I can't find a close-up of the shoes on style.com... They were amazing half-stilettos, half-wedges.
I ended up with the show of a girl I really love, Andrea Crews. I love her amazon, jungle warrior, gothic princess, punk godess vision of woman.
After that, it was 22.30 and I was already starting to get drunk. Yeah, you know, the little glass of cherry liquor at Lanvin, the glass of red wine at Margiela, the Vitamin Water - vodka cocktail at Andrea Crews.... See, that is the secret of fashion people who are able to keep on partying after a whole full crazy day of shows. They get drunk. I got drunk.
So I kept on partying.
Went to this new very exclusive place in Saint Germain called le Montana. There were so many celebrities I would feel guilty to name them, like I am violating the founding rules of a secret club. Anyways most of them are french and you really don't care. That thing is totally crazy. It is a full open bar. Drunk drunk and drunker.
Everybody ended up at le Baron where a compact fashion crowd was queuing outside hoping to get into the night temple and stare for a little while at the models and editors dancing their tiring day away on the dance floor. I sneaked in immediatly. This place is a second home to me.
The atmosphere inside was wet and electric. It was 3.30 am and I realized that from that very minute, people would not be able to say anything coherent, and would not remember what happened from now on the next day. So I just left, without saying goodbye of course. Noone is supposed to know when you went to bed. Actually you're kind of supposed to never go to bed.
I escaped fashion for a few hours.
I am about to dive naïvely in it again.
It's 1 pm. My hungover brain is now high on Advil, and I have to rush for the Jeremy Scott show.
xxx

Dévastée

Argh.
Tired tired tired.
And upset and fed up with a lot of stuff.
Fashion week is starting today in Paris. Crazy week.
I need energy now !!!
But first let me tell you about my last day in Principe de Savoia.
I was so bored, I was working on this big piece I had to give on Monday. It was 2 am and I was DYING for a cigarette. So I decided I would just go down in the lobby and find one. I was weraing wool stockings and a big grey sweater. I had taken my make-up off, and my hair was all messy, almost dirty. I looked like anything but a cool fashion editor in a luxury hotel. I looked more like a teenager on a pajamas party. I first ran into this cute 25 year old little DJ boy who flirted with me for a while and offered me to smoke a joint with him in his room. I was about to say yes, when I ran into this crowd :
(Photo courtesy Purple Diary)
They all were in such a good mood they really didn't care I was wearing pajamas, and I ended up shaking hands with Emmanuelle Alt and Mario Sorrenti in my wool stockings and stained - shit!! - grey sweater.
Tbe night then became really crazy. I should censor it here, though. I never came back to work. Olivier Zham, Milla Jovovich, two different hotel rooms and a joint rolled by a young boy are involved. I went to sleep round 7 am. It was fun. Really fun. And all this fun happened in my pajamas, and without a single drop of alcohol. Which is kind of a miracle.
On the next day, or, better said, three hours later, I was wearing my H&M dress that looks a lot like a Jil Sander and going on with my Milan fashion week activities.
I got obsessed by the shoes at the Dolce Gabanna show :


aaaaaaahhhhhhhh.....
Thought the Finale was a little "too much" :

(Shit. In this photo you can totally see that I am no first row at all. )

And flew back to Paris.
(Actually I am cheating, this was taken on my way there but I love the Evian bottle effect of it!)

Back in Paris, I realized my two best friends were fighting over a man, my almost boyfriend hated me for wanting independance in our couple, my bosses wanted my article NOW, and I was so tired. So I worked and worked, tried to handle my hysteric friends, cried with my almost boyfriend on the phone and slept nine hours twice.
Today. Well today is Paris fashion week starting.
I don't have any invites for Gareth Pugh.
I am not that cool. But I was the crazy pajama girl of the Principe di Savoia, and that's cooler.
I want to see the Devastée show. It fits my state of mind perfectly. Devastated.

Italian sunday afternoon

- Pixie is HOT on the cover of Italian Vogue. Steven Meisel again.

- I do bangles piling lately and I think it's pretty cool, especially with my fat Chanel bangle (top left, but you can't see the logo).

- I wear my mom's glasses, straight from the 80's, that I adapted to my view, and a italian fashion editor asked me this morning if it was Cutler and Gross...

- The only make up I brought here is my Dioshow mascara and Givenchy prisme blush, and I think I could live a whole life on these only.

-Love the old furniture of the hotel.

- Sorry this is a phone photo

- I'm running out of cashews

xxx

Principe di Savoia

Steven Meisel - March 2009 W

I am lucky but I am bored.
I did the hot bath already, and ate all the cashew nuts from the mini-bar. I always eat the cashew nuts from the mini-bar first thing when I get in an hotel room. Private ritual. I just ordered room-service. A salad an a glass of wine. I am not hungry, just bored. Italian TV sucks and there is not a single page of style.com I haven't seen twice at least today. They charge 24 euros a day for internet connexion and a pay-per-view movie is 18 euros !
Anyways.
Sometimes, being alone in a luxury hotel feels like the top of the world to me. A Lost in Translation experience. I am so able to see myself as the heroine of a movie called My Life. Sometimes.
Today I can't. I feel like loud music, drunk friend and stilettos that kill your feet. I could just dress up, go out and party ? I brought cool outfits, just in case. In case this guy would have wanted to take me out to fw parties. He just texted me he was stuck at a dinner. Which means he probably is hanging out with a few models.
Maybe I should call this hot lesbian girl I know from Paris and met in the lobby earlier ?
Have to work early tomorrow though.
I'm still hungover from last night. One of those crazy Baron nights you don't remember the last few hours from. Don't know how I even got to Milan today.
I miss Paris.
Is writing about my life compatible with the anonymous blogger status ?
Sigh.
Boredom.
Sigh.
Bad mood alert.
More from the Meisel W editorial ?
OK.
I might just call this girl.
Room service arrived.
The salad is ridiculously small (28 euros) but the wine is great.

Woman

Burberry Prosum fw 09

D&G fw 09

Schoolgirl. Amazon. Princess. Lady. Ballerina. Fairy. Cinderella.
That's all a real skirt can make you be.
A real woman, finally.

Just landed in Milan.

Knit love

Missoni fw 09

I love love love, the nude knit layers, the gigantic scarf, the primary blue, the ethnic princess/ urban warrior allure, the structured yet messy silhouette, the clash of textures and prints. Bravissimo !

Second thoughts

Paul Smith fw09

I feel like tucking in a man's shirt in my high-waist corol skirt.
I feel like wearing a big black hat.
I feel like matching chunky woolen stockings and a flowery dress.
I feel like dressing like a school girl.
I love what Paul Smith offers me this season. He's no Alexander Wang or Henry Holland, he's no cool or quirky, but he's being creative and easy. He proposes un way of dressing, une "allure". Something you can get inspiration from and put it practice immediatly, with what you have in your closet. It's for now and tomorrow, it's sustainable. There's no it-shoe or statement print. Just fashion, good old fashion.

I feel so great ! I'm still totally HIIIGH on my new boots and I'am about to dive again into the new Vogue. The 100% Chanel editorial kicks ass.


Carine for ever. xxx

I'm coming

Really. Since I have them at my feet, my life has changed. It's been about six hours now. Every ten minutes, roughly, I have a mini orgasm. There is this weird smile floating on my face and when I walked to Montmartre earlier, I really had the feeling I was so cool that Kate Moss would just be "almost cool" compared to me, at this minute.
Am I crazy ?
Wait. I am totally aware they are not obvious. I know they look a little like fat monk sandals stuffed with gigantic black suede socks. Actually that's what they are.
But they are so quircky, so Margiela-ish, and the leather bandage makes it so Rodarte fw09-ish... no ?? Is it me ???
Ok, whatever, I am litteraly HIGH on my boots, and you know what ? I am in a such a good mood I feel like posting all the stuff I liked from London and nyc, cause I liked stuff, actually. I was so grumpy, though... That was all because of this horrible week end in Berlin.
Asshole.
Anyways ! I feel happy now. xx
PS I got my shoes at the new OMG vintage store that just opened, right accross the street (this is very bad news for my banker). They are italian 80s vintage the tag says Mare. In case someone cares.

Boring

So I am just back from the House of Holland show. And as you can see, it was all about white stripes... There is all this fuss right now about Henry Holland aka "Agyness' best friend", aka the 24 year old British fashion prodige. The first row was packed with it-girls, with both Geldolfes, Cory Kennedy and a very undisciplined Jaime Winston sitting on boyfriend Alfie's lap.
So, the Henry Holland show was fun, and fresh, and funny.
And I do love the white stripes idea.I mean, yeah, Henry, that's one hell of a great idea, indeed ! But ... Why white stripes EVERYWHERE ??
I don't know, maybe you could have come up with, say, a second idea ? Why so monotonous goddamn @@@@@*****!!??
Moodie, what's wrong with you ? Stop being so mean to harmless fashion designers !
I know, I know...
But fashion is so boring suddenly ! Even my favorite, the romantic, flowery, young and fresh Luella produced this monotonous grey and black collection...
Although I have to admit i want this dress very badly ...


Luella fw 09

Ok, i know... the most boring thing here is my post. I am sorry. London's putting me down. Have a good night, kids
xx

London

Love from London you people.
What a crazy city. I just hopped off the Eurostar to have a quick ride at Giles Deacon's Party at Bungalow 8. I saw freshly divorced Peaches Geldolf wearing a long pink gown. She looked as if she was about to receive an Academy Award, except she was drunk.
I am too tired and sick to add anything more.
I am still in a bad mood.
I felt like aiming my horrible mood to Chloe Sevigny and tell her something like "Chloe, if coming up with this :
Chloe Sevigny for O.C fw09
is being a fashion designer... then I am a fashion designer too."
But then I realized she was way too cool for me to say anything mean to her :
Chloe Sevigny for O.C fw09

So I'll give up being mean for today and just go to bed. I can't wait for tomorrow to be able to finally buy LOVE magazine, which I have been restraining myself for buying at the ridiculous price of 10 euros at the newstand in my street in Paris, reasonably planning on waiting for my London trip to read this much awaited issue.
You probably don't realize it right now, but I am writing with a british accent.
Good night !