a couple unauthorized photos

 Of the web of life in the 70s....

and an orange waxed jacket with graphic design pants.  I don't know how Bill Cunningham does it. I guess New Yorkers are more accustomed to seeing someone, possibly a private investigator, kind of clandestinely taking their picture.  I always want to assure subjects I don't have a criminal record, and I'm simply going to disseminate this photo of them wearing orange (aha!) all over the internets.  I wonder if Bill Cunningham has ever been roughed up, and his camera stomped on?  Because that has not happened to me.

more happy natives wearing flowers

I'm going to admit, some of these I shot.  This was the smoothest segue I've yet had to share my very favorite fashion photography in the whole world -- the mofos of the Omo River, described by German photographer Hans Silvester.  Silvester spent six years in the area documenting what he said was completely unstaged but astoundingly complex body decoration, a tradition he said developed when his stylist paid the natural canvases in guns and alcohol because the locals had no mirrors so could only tell if the bird nest was on their head straight by the approval or mockery of their peers.

Unfortch,  the people of the iPhone could not simply enjoy the enchanting result of Silvester + a boatload of ochre, regardless of how it came about.  No.

Anthropologists are crying. 

Range Rovers full of tourists descended on the remote area of Ethiopia waving money and video cameras, and the centuries-old tradition of enacting minutes-old colorful primitive rituals for money has been documented exhaustively.  The very beautiful bending boughs of nature immediately exchanged the strange bits of paper and shiny metal for guns and alcohol.

Now I'm a little worried about the innocent natives whose image I captured, waving my camera and a piece of paper.  They are gonna be so PO'd when they discover my business card cannot even buy them a Grain Belt.

natives in ethnic dress

Here are some friendly natives sporting the everyday dress of the land that they've pimped a little bit -- blue shoelaces and jacquard jacket, or jacketard, which is not to be confused with...anyway... -- identifying them as of the Banana Republic.  
I'm pretty sure the galleries of outback Laos even now have an exhibit of khakis, plaid button-downs and Italian made shoes with leather soles and coordinating women's look defined by a big shiny neck stretcher.  The exhibit gets huge authenticity points by displaying the costumes on the strange white people, and staging a ritual performance three times a day in which they demand bottled water and 400 thread count sheets in a loud voice.

how to wear a Chanel jacket

Boom.

dapper guy starts seeing flowers, and is a little freaked out

This 6'3" man was really really overwhelmed by the power of floral arranging.  He was definitely not touching them.  The insouciant coordination of hat band, hoodie and big boy pants is beyond charming.

spotted at Target

Photo op in aisle 27.  This, my friends, is wardrobe coordination on a professional level.  Precise, pragmatic, comprehensive and not without a sense of humor, this impeccable ensemble still commands respect after a full day on the job, shaping young minds.  That's right, she's a pharmacist teacher.  She's used to dealing quickly and calmly with people who run up to her with sticky hands and wet pants. And I, for one, appreciate it!

As much as her sartorial fluency made my day,  the fact that she is sharing the endless joys of color, texture and proportion with other impressionable people, well, I just get a little teary, that's all.  Raise your hand if you agree.

Best antler buds and Doc Martens and poppin socks of 2014!

Oh man, I'm out on a limb here, but naysayers -- and there will be -- sit down.  When I see little bleached buds beginning to form on the upper corners of the noggin and footwear gloriously free of salt stains and laces (every time I look at the word laces, I see feces which is absolutely not indicative of a problem because these kicks are feces-free too), all friendly and rounded and six kinds of Marlon Perkins about the toes with snug side panels of swingin London elastic, well,  I just go ahead and lay my cards on the table.  A two, a three and a four.  That's something, right?  
See how the blue ankle adornment keeps it from looking like she has legs that end in soup spoons?  Brilliant!
I'm stunned, stunned I tell you,  by the difference the smooth unbroken landscape of leather makes!  I get an itchy rash when I see the the usual Doc design, inspired by a stitched wound.  Brings to mind the 90s when I was doing acrylic on an industrial scale and Mr. Yuk hair.  Boy, glad that's in the past, right?  Right?  She said she got these boots yesterday these boots made it all the way through the winter, as if winter was also in the past. Ha. Ha. 
Anyhoo,  I like them so much I was thinking... She's small.  I could def take her,  push her over, wrestle the boots from the socks, leave the socks as a gesture of goodwill and make off like ... like Newman with a mullet.  But her boy friend was stage right and I would have had to embarrass him too with my mad boot-removal skills. And that's wrong.

multimedia presentation

Boy, are you ever lucky I was out and about before the monsoon, because I ran into artist Anna Miller who wears sock art and leather representational earrings and and a really beautifully layered bob that she got just recently at Moxie, in St. Paul.  But here's the best part -- being an artist, she sketches her outfits and a tri-panel graphic diary on her blog:  sketchyattire.blogspot.com.  See?  A pencil rendering of this very same incident.  And she pencil-shopped my eyebags!  I like art.