Weekend Reading List

It's a particularly uninspiring moment in fashion.
The recent men's fashion season and spring couture seemed one of the most mind-numbingly boring in recent memory - there was alot shown, but scarcely anything to see. It's like the recent (Feb) GQ with the multiple covers (how many were there? Ten different covers? Twenty? One fails to care - it's marketing for nothing) with hardly anything to read inside. I flipped it back and forth (quick to do, it was pathetically thin) and found nothing redeeming in it. When did GQ become this dull, over-designed thing? The graphics seemed to have taken over the content as the vital thing, and this seems symptomatic. It's all bells and whistles, isn't it?Nursing a flu, I find great comfort in The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, the journal of a court lady of the early 11th century in Heian Japan. This form descends directly into the journal of today - the blog, and I can only wish blogs had this much to teach. The book was completed in the year 1002, and remains one of my touchstones. I'm sure Sei Shōnagon was quite a monster in her time, but at least she had something to say; She certainly had a point of view.
To round off the Japanese theme, I'm reading Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, published in Japanese in 1963, and translated into English in 1965. It's sublimely written, with the savagery of the everyday btween its tautly observed lines, so unbloated and unexcessive as to be the antidote of the flabbiness of everything else.

He Said She Said

"It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality." - Virginia Woolf

Tom Boy

The..."Rebirth"? Did Tom Ford die? Really? Justin Bieber may be cute as a button (debatable: GIVE?), but "The Beautiful One"? Really?
These stoopid coverlines really have to stop!

不悲 不喜/neither sad nor happy

你見，或者不見我
我就在那里
不悲 不喜

you see, or do not see me
i am there
neither sad nor happy

你念，或者不念我
情就在那里
不來 不去

you miss, or do not miss me
affection is there
neither coming nor going

你愛，或者不愛我
愛就在那里
不增 不減

you love, or do not love me
love is there
neither adding nor subtracting

你跟，或者不跟我
我的手就在你手里
不捨 不棄

you follow, or do not follow me
my hand is in your hand
neither leaving nor abandoning

來我的懷里
或者
讓我住進你的心里
默然　相愛
寂靜　歡喜

come into my embrace
or
allow me to live in your heart
quiet loving
silent rejoicing

- 傳 六世達賴喇嘛 倉央嘉措 [1683-1706] 作﹔ 待考

This really lovely poem was the alleged work of the Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso (1683-1706)

Poor Edison

Poor Edison. I tried to like this, I listened to it twice through, in part becasue he's so purty, and in part because I truly like Jay Chou, but it's just not working. This track, I Can Fly, was written by Jay Chou, but somehow, it's so indifferent, isn't it, unfelt and just white noise, if anything.

Nadal for Emporio

What do you think? A little too photoshopped? Is he recognisable?

He Said She Said

"As long as I'm wanted, I feel worthwhile." - Eartha Kitt

Thaipusam

Nothing racist about this comment, but does this not look a little Thaipusam? (Is she doing a Bollywood number?) But Anna Dello Russo likes VERY MUCH - she also want! By the way, how does one "catch the look"? Is the look a virus? Is the look falling down from the 13th storey? Slipping off a cliff? Is the look running away to join the circus? This magazine certainly makes free with the English language.

Miss Drag Cherie

Is it just me or does Natalie Portman look just a little bit drag in the Miss Dior Cherie ad?

Endless Love

He's pretending to read!Aunty Karla shows his endless love for Beloved Baptiste with a glut of shoots and projects with his muse this season. Truly devoted - do we hear wedding bells?

Dunhill

My friend HHH said: "This is such a lovely ad campaign - reminds me of the old GQ". I can't agree more. In its clarity and directness, it certainly cuts to the chase of what an ad is supposed to be about. It looks new, and feels fresh, although it's direct from the 1970s.

Calvin Klein Man

Nils Butler is the Calvin Klein man. It makes perfect sense. Who else to make desirable a rather indifferent spring collection? Mr Butler could make anything look possible. Complete cuteness. Below are some backstage candids - enjoy!

88,000

88,000 page views! Yay!!! Thank you everyone... I never thought I'd come so far (especially not while watching Korean dramas!).

Hardcore, Not

I find these magazines straining to outrage so... exhausting. And they fail. These covers aren't hardcore, just desperate, and finally (my favourite word) banal. I fail to care. I'm not interested.

Lara

Lara Stone is becoming one of those all-time iconic models with each shoot she does. Here, she's on the Feb 2011 cover of Vogue Paris (Louis Vuitton outfit), Carine's second last issue.

There Will Be No Peace

Though mild clear weather
Smile again on the shire of your esteem
And its colours come back, the storm has changed you:
You will not forget, ever,
The darkness blotting out hope, the gale
Prophesying your downfall.

You must live with your knowledge.
Way back, beyond, outside of you are others,
In moonless absences you never heard of,
Who have certainly heard of you,
Beings of unknown number and gender:
And they do not like you.

What have you done to them?
Nothing? Nothing is not an answer:
You will come to believe - how can you help it? -
That you did, you did do something;
You will find yourself wishing you could make them laugh,
You will long for their friendship.

There will be no peace.
Fight back, then, with such courage as you have
And every unchivalrous dodge you know of,
Clear in your conscience on this:
Their cause, if they had one, is nothing to them now;
They hate for hate's sake.

W.H. Auden, 1956

Spring Pictures

Shunga is a Japanese term literally meaning "spring pictures" and refers to a genre of ukiyoe pictoralizing the lives of the upper class and the floating world during the Edo period. It's a genre commonly misconceived as just erotic pictures. The most notable images have been erotic but it is not accurate to confine Shunga as a type of erotic art.Tomioka Eisen (1864 - 1905)

Milan Men's Fall 2011: Bottega Veneta

I think this is a solid, classic collection full of Tomas Maier's signature sensuality lending a regal rumpledness to the practical, dignified seperates that any man would look good in. These are attractive styles, and every item works. As ensembles, they signify an urbane, intelligent, no-nonsense man - the colours and textures though render this 'type' wonderously, expensively, sexy. The leather jackets are particularly swoonsome, the coats, shirts and sweaters glossy specimens of type. You hardly need to look anywhere else, as this collection seems to seems to be a combination of what Burberry Prorsum, Jil Sander and Prada is trying to achieve

Miss Bennet's Inbox

Lanvin: Kinga vs Iselin the Man

Steven Meisel's playful, drag take on classic Helmut Newton. I like. However: I don't get this liking for Iselin the Man do you? Are there no other models available?

Milan Men's Fall 2011: Jil Sander

I guess this is when fashion finally slows down to a screeching halt: This season, Raf Simons doesn't do an about-face from summer, but carries on with the vivid colouring book palette from the last season. It's a toned down version, without the theatrical volume and prints. The fit, though remains a bit roomier in the top, if the pants got narrower. It's a wearable, even beautiful collection, and I like the subtle oriental feeling from the fabrication - or is it the colours? It's certainly rather Japanese somehow. The coats could have been taken off the backs of a very hip salaryman, for instance.