the autumnal equinox

That magic time of year when you can hang onto your tomatoes and your white lace top while at the same time excitedly rolling out your lower-half-leather program before it's even salt-stained.  If you have ever been a four-year-old girl, you know that this is the realization of every wardrobe dream.  Except if the boots were pink. And sparkly.

I may or may not have been representing in my pink hairy chest vest, so I was very happy too.

the Mulleavys of Minneapolis

Man this post is doomed by overwhelming fashion references that must be explained, see,  because it's so very pleasurable when I dribble on...  I'm doing it, I'm going in -- cover me.

See the headline up there?  Kate and Laura Mulleavy are the sisters behind LA-based fashion brand,  Rodarte. You know,  the ones who work for Target.  The two above are the sisters behind Idle Child, a Minneapolis-based fashion/styling/photography group.  Of two. Who do not work for Target as far as I know.  They have demonstrated one-third of their craft here by styling the crap out of their look.  Obviously, they're saying Rajastan without the camels boho-ed up in the Silver Lake neighborhood of LA and plunked down at, like, their millionth fashion show in the delightfully toxic (don't lick the walls) East Sex World neighborhood, or as I like to call it, Minneapolis, where their designs are going down the runway hip-bones first tomorrow night. But they're here tonight to support the local design community.  And presumably because then they get to create a whole nuther narrative in filmy fabrics.  Any fool can see that. And I did.

sista rosa

Not only is that her natural hair color but she is admirably nonviolent, e.g.  because she was wearing red hair and a Jemima crown, I asked if she was in a design-related field. Like a total a-hole. Instead of kneeing me in the groin, she replied very pleasantly that she works at Starbucks.  She was taking someone else's beautiful infant for a walk at the time. Here is a woman of great restraint and real command of color. Or as the design-related say, colour.

as I see it

Oooo, I'm sorry.  I must have had the Auto-Stoned on.  I'll give you a minute to fire up a fattie ... and now give it a go.  That's better, right?  She's not irradiated!  This is Claire Ward, recent U of MN Apparel Design grad and one of the designers who trotted her wares out upstairs at Envision.  She had seven looks in the show.  Looks.  That's fashionspeke for outfits.  Though not of her own design, she styled the living daylights out of this look which I like to call Business Casual At Gucci.  I've called it that once. Just now.  

Claire and I had a moment of shared low standards for ambiance, hygiene and a full set of teeth. Which is to say, we both dig Savers!  Claire likes the fact that you can score orange shiny hip-swaddling pantalones for $6.99.  I like it because I can feel elegant and uppity about, well, I guess that's the thing about Savers -- there is no room for elegant or uppity, but everyone's running on about 87% glad.

your mom wears biker jackets

No, really.  This guy is rocking his mom's badass Harley jacket.  Or is it his badass mom's Harley jacket?  Either way, I guess I wanna meet his mom.  Apparently she dated with leather in mind because this is one of two biker jackets from her salad days as a rebel. Even with all this testosterone going on up top,  I am just a-shiver over those exposed ankles.

Moving on...

It's official.  This group of photos is part of my Yellow Period in which I explore User Error In Post-Modern America Through a Literary Technique Called BS.

going long at Envision

You know it's Envision fashion show time when shins are covered and sternums are not. And I am there to get up in people's business document it.  See above.

Actually, I was a little distressed to observe that, in eight young female brains out of ten, the words fashion show are admitted up in Optical by a dyspeptic in a dead-end relationship, handed off to Megan, Megan R. with the shihtzu, in Cerebral Cortex, and after she "processes," read: coughs on, them,  fashion is shunted to the large intestine and its inevitable end, while show travels to the fingertips which experience an itchy sensation every time they come in contact with either a crotch-length bit of poly/lycra from Wet Seal or shiny plastic fake Louboutins that can double as car jacks.  The only way to relieve the itching is to out with the credit card. Hooker happens.

But not in this case.

On the left, is a flowy blowy great excuse to exfoliate your solar plexus. She got it at Akira in Chicago, along with everything else in her wardrobe up to and including her hair -- whoa, blowout sale!  She is obsessed with Akira. Which is fine with me.

Her friend, Red, is 110% Calvin Klein but hipper because she got it in LA. Neither of them actually has cartoon yellow skin -- camera error may or may not be at fault.  I like these women because they're saying Let's get this party started, rather than This party is going to cost you $12.95 for an hour.

beauty and the beast

This is Champex Lac in the Swiss Alpine town of Champex.  It's at about the 80-mile mark on the 104-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc which I arrived at by car, after following the runners overnight. This was taken at about 6:30 a.m. Of an outrageously scenic trip, this was probably the most ridiculously beautiful.

This is the beast, first place woman, Rory Bosio from the US of A.  She has run for 20 hours here, about 92 miles of trail like this but steeper, and is in 7th place overall.  Here she looks like the suffering Rory, the object of spectators' stares and cheers but oblivious, focused, though for most of the race she was quite goofy. Eg, both her headlamps died leaving her alone in the dark at the highest point on the course, yawning chasms 9" from her right foot.  No worries -- she busted out her iPhone and used the flashlight app to navigate the treacherous two-hour descent. As she approached the cheering spectators at the aid station, she said, "Oh gosh, my hair's a mess."  She's facing one last climb over a 9000' pass and subsequent descent into Chamonix in 75 degree heat. She finished in a course record time of 22 hours 37 minutes of constant movement, was only two hours behind the overall winner who also set a course record, and was closing on 6th place.  She rocked the running skirt the whole way and curtseyed to the crowds at the finish line. Four hours after crossing the line, she went out dancing.

in which I break my under-age rule

Being the highly ethical journalist I am,  I normally steer clear of children.  Mostly because they invariably ask if I'm The Sartorialist or Someone Halfway Famous -- the disappointment that registers on their dewy faces when I hand them my card and explain that I am absolutely the shit amongst my 16 followers is, well, insupportable.  At least adults don't throw the card out until they come to a trash receptacle, and some I like to think,  recycle it.

Anyway

Though it looks like she just discovered I'm not Scott Schuman, this might just be the pensive expression that all young models sport when they're in NYC for fashion week with their mums and must settle for a Shirley Temple at the Thompson rooftop lounge.  I'm going to hold onto this photo and when she makes the cover of Vogue, I'll be like, dang.

citizen of LaGuardia

This is what an Italian film production designer, living in LA, but at this moment in LaGuardia Airport on her way to Toronto (Film Festival), looks like on a Saturday morning. She is perhaps the only person who can get away with saying she's "based" in LA.  Most people who say they're based somewhere, Little Rock, for example, are just looking for an excuse not to vacuum. I'm not sure what a production designer does but I feel like I'll remember this woman when she trots up those stairs in Cannes.

when I have nothing to do in Schiphol Airport...

Isn't he cute?  Oh, the one in the hat too.  I try not to take photos of people who may or may not have poopy pants. I had the best layover (lay-over, perverts) ever from the cradling depths of this very comfy lounge chair with free wifi in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.  The Dutch, they make life very very pleasant, what with the coffeehouses with weed, prostitutes without diseases and bikes without hills. Here's something funny that happened -- a French journalist asked me if there was free weefee.  Considering the crap I have taken for pronouncing Mont Blanc and Lanvin like the house brand of laundry detergent from Walmart,  I really worked this guy over.  Hooted?  Oh man.  I made him repeat his question at least seven times just to hear him say weefee.  Finally, I said Oooooooh wifi. Wee wee, there is wifi. And I kept laughing for a real long time. French people like me.

larchwear fall '13

Leaves are so last summer.  And green?  Don't even.  This season is about bright stripes. While we in St. Paul are busying ourselves with emerald ash borer, trees in Les Contamine, a hamlet in the Haute Savoie are enjoying the result of knit bombing.  Vive le purl!