they’re so cool that my mind is busy clouding itself with delusions that mayyyyybe they miiiiiight work …. meh.

VGS,
allison b-t

except, oh. $368! total bummer, cos i could really see myself wearing it .all.summer.long.

VGS,
allison b-t

though i’ve been trying, 4″ heels are still a huge chore for me and i don’t really have a spare 86 euros hanging around. even so, a girl can dream.

VGS,
allison b-t

my summer theme last year was “kep-ustard”, a red and yellow fueled homage to my favoritest of things, burgers. as fall approached, i split into two new themes (without cool names), the first being oranges and yellows, the second being purples, violets and grays. been doing that for ages and am now brainstorming on what the upcoming summer looks like for me. currently, i am dreaming up lots of bright pastel ballet inspired comfies with bright gold zippers and pyrite jewelry. i can’t wait to get going into my next round of sewing classes and get to the point to where i can start crafting all these dream pieces missing from my current closet.

in the meantime, i’ve been dressing something like this-

mis-matched twin set with cap-toed flats, and an un-pictured pair of jcrew minnie trousers and long yellow resin chain necklace.

what does your summer look book look like?

VGS,
allison b-t

sewing class! last saturday i took in some old jcrew capri’s, that despite their bright hues, wore like soccer mom apparel. so i shortened them to, well, shorts. and then i get home, crack open the jcrew catalog that came while i was in class and voila! i magically predicted and made this seasons shorts. total magic.

VGS,
allison b-t

but i’ve also been doing things- just like i posted about here, for me 2012 is the year of doing. so i got a rowing machine recently and am working on getting in shape. and maybe i have it facing the tv so i can watch k-dramas while i row, but it’s multi-tasking! currently i’m watching ‘secret garden‘ which is pretty awesome. a chaebol falls in love with a stunt woman, she resists him and then they go to a spooky chicken shack in the jeju island woods, drink medicinal wine full of fake flowers and switch bodies! hilariousness ensues. naturally! i don’t know why more people don’t watch k-dramas. i try to spread the good word but now i know what door-to-door religion peddlers feel like. ok, not really. but seriously, you should check out k-dramas. next on my list is ‘my girlfriend is a gumiho‘ (i thought a “gumiho” might be a chick who sluts it up for haribo but it’s actually a mythical nine-tailed fox. DUH.)

and yesterday i started sewing class.

{what i did in class yesterday}

 
i’m sure i’ve written before about my childhood dream of being a fashion designer? if not, now you know when i was a kid i dreamed of being a fasion designer. when i was 13 i learned to sew pillows and scrunchies in home ec. then i asked my mom to teach me how to make clothing from patterns. i love my mom but she is not the best teacher. i definitely inherited my impatience from her and she took the project over within an hour of trying to show me what to do and made the dress herself. to her credit i’ll admit that i was probably whining a lot and proclaiming i couldn’t do it.

since then i have tried making super simple items like curtains and table runners and it’s been pretty disastrous. i was convinced that i was doomed to never learn how to sew. so i am super happy to report that my first sewing class yesterday was great. i learned stuff (including why my previous attempts turned out so disastrously!), practiced sewing techniques and didn’t break any needles or mis-thread my machine. i am super pumped and looking forward to next weeks class wherein we learn about adding zippers and making button holes. scary stuff! but i sewed a shoulder seam yesterday and got it on my first go … at least, i did if i am going for pleating on the shoulders. which i do love so yeah.

it never occurred to me that sewing required practice but we were told it totally does so i’m gonna start practicing sewing in circles, sewing shoulder seams and sewing in straight lines. next thing you know i’ll be writing about my new clothing line! seriously though, i am feeling totes optimistic about this.

i am hoping to write a little more this week but my sister gets in wednesday from north carolina, where she’s been for two years. i haven’t seen her since she left those two years ago, and she had a daughter now! i’ll be meeting my five month old niece, leilani, for the first time so this week may be even more hectic. we’ll see. i’ll get this blogging thing down someday.

VGS,
allison b-t

i first saw nathan’s skillz on display in the music video for madeon‘s re-mix of yelle‘s ‘que veux-tu’-

then he did his thing again for yelle’s ‘comme un enfant (freaks remix)’ video-

apparently in between those two videos he did one for madeon-

AND if that weren’t enough to keep him busy, he’s also started a series of videos instructing people like me on how to learn his sick moves-

 
enjoy!

after jean dujardin slowly but effectively won me over in the ‘the artist‘, i was intrigued to see that he and michael hazanavicius have teamed up before, namely to re-imagine OSS 117, a french secret agent character created by jean bruce in 1949. OSS 117, aka hubert de la bath, is a charming but egotistical and womanizing bumbler of a spy who perfectly spoofs ian fleming’s james bond character four while years before the first james bond story was ever written.

though many OSS 117 films were produced between 1956-1971, none were met with much critical acclaim. enter michael hazanavicius and jean dujardin (and even berenice bejo in ‘cairo: nest of spies‘) who made two OSS 117 titled films between 2006-2009. and just as hazanavicius so expertly made ‘the artist’ look true to it’s time period, he does the same with the stories of hubert de la bath, perfectly evoking the swinging sixties in a way that i can only guess is a simultaneously honest and romanticized rendition. with lots of laughing. LOTS of laughing.

{city hunter‘s kim na na sporting a wrap-around bunny-eared headband – and grimacing while holding her ear from eating food that’s too hot??}

{jung so min of ‘playful kiss‘ mugging it up for clinique in a wrap-around style bunny-eared headband}

i think i’ve been drawn in because it’s cute but subtle. i would normally stay away from cutesy trends like this being that i’m 5′ 1″ and already look younger than my 33 years- factors that keep me away from “young” trends in general, lest people think i’m a silly 20-somthing. don’t get me wrong- i totally condone the silly 20-something look and am sure i wore it aplenty, but i’ve put those days behind me. however, i decided recently that i wanted in on this trend since the design generally allows the “ears” to also be worn down to give more of a bow-like appearance when the upright “bunny” position might not be the most appropriate.

so how jazzed was i to find sweet, spring-ready, bunny-eared headbands for $5 each at my local new seasons grocery store?? i am ALL ABOUT these headbands right now–

 
 
and here i am showing off my magnificent headband modeling skillz–

{ears up}

{ears down}

is there a trend you’ve been dying to try lately??

VGS,
allison b-t

so i was stoked when i recently learned that both glass candy AND chromatics have new albums coming out this year. first up for release will be chromatics, whose finest songs are deep dark ethereal washes of gorgeous and haunting genius with a disco beat- and whose less than finest songs can sometimes be mind-numblingly repetative. but i love them because when they hit, they HIT. (and it’s likely that i just have far too many of their demo’s.)

chromatics latest pre-album single (4 of 4 to be exact), candy, definitely hits, ranking up with their finest and i can’t wait for the album release which i’ve heard is “soon”–

 
if you’d like to check out more new chromatics music, try the song below which is a bit poppier with it’s earnest 80′s synth pop touches. it sounds just like something andie walsh would listen to–

VGS,
allison b-t