the clothes 2011

I have been in a strange mood for several days. It's a fine mood; I'm all giddy and giggly, but it is quite unusual for me. Getting recognized in a chocolate shop as a frequent visitor, watching your roommates have a battle with Disney songs, and reading entire books in bookstores without buying any might do that to a person...

In addition, to these facts today is Halloween. While it's not my favorite holiday, my blog should make it quite clear that I like dressing up. The Greeks may not be celebrating Halloween but there is a party tonight held by some of the other American students here and costumes are mandatory. I've been scrambling for costumes and ideas for the last couple of days and finally seem to have settled on something. It's not the best costume, but it might end up being quite chic... Pictures will come later once the party has occured.

Last year I was a doll. Here is the photographic proof. Note: those are my real eyes; I just kept them wide open. (What I "did" to my eyes was a common question that night.)

Here are some shots I took in dressing rooms the other day. I've been doing a spot of shopping. I failed at getting outfit shots the last couple of days...strange mood, remember?

Just discovered the photography of Bruno Dayan. I must say, better late than never. Several hours have wasted away while I salivated over his decadent images...

The source of inspiration is very hard for me to pin down. I have a fascination with turning the mundane into something interesting and beautiful. In this manner everything around me has the potential to be inspiring. I have written before about how colors largely influence me, but there is also the subconscious effect of our surroundings.
I think my most recent two outfits and their surroundings really illustrate this point. Both outfits also seem to me (in retrospect) to be variations on a theme: a play of pattern and texture with a basic color palette.
My passion with streetart is no secret and Athens has some great graffiti that feeds that fire. I really flipped when I saw the stenciled flying pigs the other day. Ages ago I made a stencil of a flying pig myself, but never got around to using it (I am quite a failure as a graffiti artist). I swear this was created by my soulmate...

Sart snapped these females who are the perfect mix of edgy and drop dead gorgeous. I suppose when you are drop dead gorgeous edgy might come naturally...


I am mildly, but completely obsessed with Fafi right now. I want to be a Fafinette.
Finally, people of Westfield London get ready for "The Village..."

I went shopping with my friend today and when I picked up a particular dress to try on, she informed she didn't like the dress at all. I shrugged it off and said she didn't have to wear it. Later, analyzing myself and the day I realized how little her disapproval of my wardrobe bothered me. Here was a person I am good friends with and I think dresses reasonably well and yet I didn't care whether she liked my clothes or not. I believe I have come to a place where I might actually dress for myself.

I like any other human being, like approval and affirmation. Yet, somehow (and I swear this is more recent) I have managed to overcome a great deal of my awkwardness/shyness/self-consciousness and it is reflected in my style. The change might not be obvious to an outside viewer and I have not been wholly aware of it, but it has occured.

Outfit details: dress- The Powder Room (Seattle, WA), shoes- Urban Outfitters, fascinator- Etsy, necklace- self made

So, when on the following day several people teased me that I looked homeless, I was likewise unmoved. Amused perhaps, but willing to change my clothes? Not a chance...

Outfit details: dress(worn as top)- some shop in Japan, shorts- J Crew pants cut down, shoes- H&M, hat- secondhand, raybans- street vendor

Hel-looks was one of the first street fashion sites I discovered before this whole personal blogging nonesense. Now, I tend to hit Facehunter or the Sartorialist first before stopping by this site, but the longer I wait the more there is for me to enjoy. It definitely makes me wish a trip to Helsinki Finland was in my budget. I think I would spend all my days skipping the sites of the city and merely sitting on a street corner admiring its denizens.

Apparently backpacks are hot again. If you didn't know before, you know now. And if you don't believe me, just ask Lulu.
Outfit details: dress- H&M, shoes- Kenneth Cole Reaction, bag- gift, sweater- Banana Republic

Right now, it's Strike Week here in Athens. Every time when we go to the center of town (near our university) we run across riot buses and police officers with shields and batons. Some of the protestors wave flags and signs, others play music. At one intersection there was just a crowd of people silently facing an army of police officers...as always, we are outsiders looking in.
Outfit details: dress (worn as top)- some shop in Japan, skirt- H&M, shoes- Urban Outfitters, bag- Ruche

I took a photography class several years back which taught me not only how to develop my own film but gave me a good grounding in photographers to draw from. A stranger in Athens, I am taking inspiration from the documentary-style, urban photographs of Berenice Abbott who might be best known for her series "Changing New York."
Between the years of 1935-1938 she photographed the city as it underwent a transformation into a leading metropolis. Her intentions in the creation of this project was "to preserve for the future an accurate and faithful chronicle in photographs of the changing aspect of the world's greatest metropolis, ... a synthesis which shows the sky-scraper in relation to the less colossal edifices which preceded it, ... to produce an expressive result in which moving details must coincide with balance of design and significance of subject."

More on "Changing New York" can be found here, and more of Berenice Abbott can be ascertained here.