In Costume

If asked to define my style I'd love to lie and say I'm eclectic and daring but it's actually more conservative casual... tops in block color and lots of black in plain shapes and usually with jeans. However, the one aspect of my style that is verging on eclectic and often speaks louder than my clothes is my jewelry. 


While many say less is more and Coco Chanel herself said that you should always take off one accessory before leaving the house... I live the with the opposite mantra... more more more! Excess, not less. I feel as though a simple outfit and a piece of statement jewelry is an exceptionally powerful look. I love big pieces of jewelry... Costume jewelry, and that's what we're attacking today.

Urchin Cuff - Alexander McQueen Spring 2010. What's a blog post without a dash of McQueen eh?

My take on costume jewelry... I designed this for my senior prom to go with an exceptionally bright dress but it functions well with just a plain black one too.

To begin, I need to clarify what costume jewelry implies... it is fashion jewelry that is not meant to be classic and is intended for a specific outfit. It is meant to only be in style for a short period of time and is a reflection of the trends of the time. Below are some examples of Art Nouveau (turn of the 20th Century), Retro  (roughly 1930s - 50s) and Art Deco (roughly 1920s - 1930s) Jewelry. Dates and info from Wikipedia.

- Pictures courtesy of http://www.nelsonrarities.com/

Fairly tacky, but completely eclectic and original.

Coco Chanel was one of the pioneers of Costume jewelry in the fashion world and Karl Lagerfeld continues this legacy with relish today at Chanel. Here's a look at the Spring 2011 collection:

It's one of my favorite collections of the next season... more on that another time.

Burn after reading? No way, after reading I relegate all my magazines to a drawer to await their meeting with mes ciseaux et ma colle. So one day, when perusing an old Harper's Bazaar I came across a teeny article with huge impact. 

All about Dior's 2009 partnership with Camille Miceli, a young but very established jewelry designer.Well well, I did alittle digging and found some of the pieces...

This necklace twinkles at me and seems to be in constant motion, as though the links are spilling out. And just in case you or anyone else forgot who you were wearing, there are nice little C  D's to remind you. Christian Dior, je t'aime... and of course John Galliano. Duh.

You can never go wrong with pearls; with the chaotic, overly large chain links and the different strands of fabric, they inject a sense of order and class. I tend to use alot of pearls in my jewelry because they mix exceptionally well with any style bead. My supplier happens to be my dad, who buys me huge strands from a nearby market in Saudi Arabia. There are so many great shapes and colors to play with: seed, black, freshwater, pink, flattened, oval, round. It's one of my favorite things to scoop a handful and let them spill through my fingers.

I haven't made the jump into metal crafted jewelry and these pieces make me wish I have. Give me a welding gun and the tools to mint my own shapes and we'd really be in trouble. It's a spectacular collection of standout pieces that could take an LBD from casual day, to classy night while still maintaining a rough, hip and youthful edge. 

- Images from Style.com

In a several month old Grazia I found another article about a brand and jewelry designer collaboration. 

J-Crew and Fenton Fallon came together earlier this year to bring us a 'punk-meets-polish' collection that women everywhere should get their hands on:

Again we're seeing the mix of peal and chain. The delicate dangling chains are tipped off with pointed arrowheads... possibly a take on the modern work woman as a warrior, I do not know. All I know is that it's edgy.

This is the most expensive necklace in the collection at the moment with a retail price of $295. Again, there's a ladylike twist to the rope of chain, with some silk ribbon and diamante centerpiece. I get a very Art Deco vibe from this one, check back upstairs and I think you'll agree.

Don't mess... agreed. Again, some more Art Deco and studs. This woman is like Wall-street meets Mad Men meets Hells Angel.

- Images from J Crew website.

Often designers reserve costume jewelry for their websites or Couture Shows as the extravagance tends to detract from collections, but one of my favorite women's-wear brands, who never fails to create sensational clothes, Lanvin, has made consistently beautiful jewelry for the past three seasons. Each has had a strong motif that has me salivating to the point where I need to get wellies.


Spring Summer 2010 

I get an Eastern tribal vibe: serpents and dragons which lend a Chinese zodiac calendar vibe, an abundance of different semi-precious stones which lend a Silk-road-on-the-way-to-Europe-riches aura and an eclecticism that ties it all together. My favorite aspects have to be the twisting serpents spilling around the models necks and coming out of the regular necklace plan as though trying to bite anyone who dares get near these Amazons. I see turquoise, amber, onyx, enamel, lapis... all colors that I associate with the Middle and Far East.


Fall Winter 2010

This is a different tribal that the previous, here I'm being summoned to the plains of Africa and the jungles of the Amazon, the complete opposite direction from Spring. With an emphasis on wood, metal and crystal there is a rawness that is grounded in the mostly earthy tones of the collection. Also I like the circle within a square imagery... simple shapes reinforce this desert tribes vibe to me. Shuffle in some feathers, a dash of fringe, fur and claws and you're laughing.

Spring Summer 2011

The first word I though of was: Revivalism... not sure why I needed the -ism at the end of that (Probably because I'm studying for an slide test, but other than that)? Let's see, I spot moths, butterflies, leaves and florals, you can't get enough of a good thing. So let me explain my bizarre word choice: I think of butterflies as being born twice... first you're a little caterpillar and then you decide to become a bit of a hermit and construct yourself a cocoon and after a certain length of time, voila back to reality, newly reinvented as a beautiful butterfly. So yeah, I think this speaks about the clothes alittle as well because they are meant to be worn by women of all ages and the ribbing you see is meant to lend itself towards wrinkles. On the jewelry front it's all art deco/ bejeweled... hard and soft at the same time.   

I liked the animal vibe of Lanvin and then I saw Prosenza Schouler Spring 2011 collection I had a bit of a heart murmur moment. 

I bloody love the retro owl and semi-precious stone combination. The entire collection is a turning point for them, but these necklaces are what drew me to it. 

So I've brought up that I make jewelry pretty often and since this is my jewelry themed post I decided to show some the the pieces I am most proud of... so enjoy and I'd love to know what people think.

Turquoise, pearl and coral

I just noticed the leaf pendant in Lanvin's necklace and mine...

These are some of my favorite pearls... I don't know how they got this way, but I'm glad they are what they are: pearl, garnet and silver.

Definitely my favorite bracelet to make of all time. I love amassing all the different colors and putting them together.

- Life is good

Listening to: 'Cooler Than Me' - Mike Posner

Observations: Glee episode was one of the best I've seen... probably ever

Craving: No more sore throat

Please sir, can I have some more?

Geez Louise, I'm frustrated. So, I've been perma-hungry these days and I've tried to keep myself from binge eating like crazy, but with my current swim schedule it's hard not to snack extremely irregularly/constantly. And despite the seven practices a week, somehow I seem to be gaining weight so here's to hoping that this post will satisfy my hunger cravings in some sort of alternative psychological way...

I'm not sure what I was doing when surfing the web the other day, but I came across four things that make up this collective food inspired post:

1) The trailer for a film version one of my all time favorite childhood books

2) A man who created a certain pop-star's recent album cover featuring her floating in cotton candy

3) An article on Yahoo about 'Fashion as food'

4) Another pop star who has a fancy for eclectic dressing

... well inevitably the hungry beast inside me went 'COOL' and this was the beginning of the end.


So #1... If you didn't read this book as a child, you did not have a childhood. The 2009 film Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is loosely based upon the children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett and is my ticket to satisfying my hunger pangs without the actual eating experience.

- Courtesy of the SonyPictures Youtube channel

Personally I would love the title of 'shenangianizer'... and a machine that dispenses hamburgers instead of rain. Kingston would be a very different place... mmmmm. 

#2 Playing on Youtube is the absolute worst because you can jump so effortlessly from video to video without any obstacle and on this occasion I came across the making-of-video for Katy Perry's song "California Girls'. 

- Video stills from katyperry.com

Well, in said video Katy credits an artist called Will Cotton for the idea behind the candy themed video. Cotton is a painter who deals with themes of 'temptation, gluttony and indulgence' (from website willcotton.com). Cotton appears in the video as he was creatively involved in transforming some of his own paintings into part of the 'Candyland' video set and in addition to that he even created her album artwork, which I found out is actually a painting.... NOT a photograph. 

I shouldn't be surprised, right? I mean I know he's a painter, but this work is so stunningly lifelike that it's slightly hard to believe. 


I drew a parallel from his style to one which we touched briefly in my Modern class... and please bear with me, it does make sense; I want to introduce you to two quite influential artists: William Bouguereau and Paul Cezanne. 

Bouguereau, The Spinner, oil on canvas                                                                    Cézanne, Bather, oil on canvas

They're so extremely stylistically different, it seems impossible for them to share any sort of relationship. Would it surprise you then, if I told you that these works were painted about only 15 years apart? (Bouguereau - 1873 and Cézanne - 1887 -89). My interest is the way in which the painters apply the paint to the canvas... whereas Cézanne is refusing to conform with the aesthetics of the time and lathers paint onto the canvas, Bouguereau has manipulated the paint and blended it to render a more realistic figure. In Cézanne's work you can tell that there are layers of paint, it is raw and there are discernable brushstrokes. All these factors contribute to help declare it as a painting whereas one just assumes the same about Bouguereau who is attempting to blend his paint to create a smooth, flat surface with no distractions. Moreover, Cézanne uses a childish black outline (we all did it. Did you know that black is the first color crayon to be finished?) because he's concerned with his contours whereas Bouguereau is concerned that his word is rooted in realism and his figure is something we could see in actuality. Bouguereau's paintings were often derogatorily labelled, by his contemporaries, as 'licked' which is in reference to the smooth surface and extreme naturalism. This style of varnished surfaces led to exhibition openings to be called vanisages.

My point? I would call the highly realistic oil on linen paintings by Cotton licked as well and I definitely draw a parallel between what he does and Bouguereau's style. The funny thing is that when it comes to 'licked' the word could definitely be used as a double entendre... take a look:

This is probably the image that Katy Perry saw and wanted her album cover based off of. If only I liked cotton candy...

By now hopefully you're seeing some of the repeated imagery from Katy's film stills... like this candy forest.

I really really can see this as existing in the Alps somewhere... shrouded in fog and probably so good.

This flan pond is probably one of my favorites because it looks so conceivable.

My housemates didn't believe this was a painting, and to be honest I truly thought this one was a photo.

- Images courtesy of willcotton.com

Time for swim practice... yum, can you even imagine? I find his work extremely refreshing as I've never come across something like it before. It gives still life painting a whole new dimension, lay off the fruit and start painting candy!

#3 Yahoo.com is my wonderful homepage and I often find myself floundering aimlessly in its amazing niche of articles. It's my way of escaping the university bubble and breaking out into what's 'going on in the world'. Well, last week one of the featured articles was about 'Fashion as Food' and that piqued my interest as I'd already come across Will Cotton. So the artist in question, photographer Ted Sabarese, imagined up a shoot called 'Hunger Pains' in which models wore outfits completely composed of food. Designs were created by Ami Goodheart of SOTU ProductionsSabarese, on his website, 'I've had a fascination, lately, with the relationship between people and what they eat. The models wore clothes made entirely of real food that depict a meal each person was craving.'


These are some pretty creative people... these are the days where I wish I was about 10 years older and had already established myself so that I could have had a hand in this:

Carbs... pretty standard, don't all models crave carbs? This one is probably one of my favorites because of the big bun shoulder pads and the purse is insane!

This dresses was designed by two ex-Project Runway contestants

Lady Gaga... 'nuff said. But just to clarify, this came first. I think it's a bit more tasteful, yet still juicy.

Every swimmer's dream... a carb outfit. Bet all the spaghetti was pretty finicky to play with and try and manipulate.

- Photos courtesy of tedsabarese.com/blog - Hunger Pains shoot

Waffles for the win!


To emphasize how amazingly intricate these designs were and the time involved Ted uploaded a behind-the-scenes-video of the goings on and it reveals 

-  Video courtesy of tedsabrese youtube channel

I love behind-the-scenes videos because you get to see the big picture, literally. I can't even imagine standing up for six hours, let alone while someone glued leaves to me. 

#4 Lastly but certainly not least: an eclectic dressing pop star...ok so it's obvious I'm dredging up Lady Gaga once again. Here we see her again donning an outfit that garnered some criticism. A dress made out of meat... designed by Franc Fernandez, it had PETA alittle bit outraged. But then, I heard she's having the dress being made into beef jerkey so it's not going to waste. I can't even imagine the feeling... is it slimey Gaga? 

- Photo courtesy of the National Post.com

So, I should really thank Gaga for 'inviting' me into this fantastical world of food and fashion and art because if she says go... I do. No, in all seriousness each of these listed individuals is responsible for opening my eyes to something new, fresh and full of shenanigans... yum. I'm hungry.


- Life is good

Listening to: 'London and Solomon Vandy' - from the Blood Diamond Soundtrack (really beautiful)

Observations: Amazed that I ate a whole cauliflower (I usually hate cauliflower)

Craving: more baked goods