Sonia Rykiel Lingerie at H&M

Kate Moss for Top Shop, check. Rodarte for Target in December, check. Zac Posen for Target in the coming spring, check. And now, as if these sorts of collaborations could not get more exciting, enter Sonia Rykiel for H&M, but with a few small twists.

According to WWD, the famed French house will unveil a lingerie collection at over 1,500 H&M stores worldwide this Saturday. In total, the collection includes 70 pieces, and what's also interesting to note is that these pieces will simultaneously be available at Sonia Rykiel boutiques. This is the first time an H&M guest designer has chosen to go this route and have their collection for H&M for sale at their own stores. Can you imagine the H&M Jimmy Choos for sale alongside their $900 sisters at Jimmy Choo boutiques? Me neither.

When I think of Sonia Rykiel, lingerie is not the first thing that comes to mind, but based on these photos, things look cheeky, girly, and just refined enough to still be lady-like. Tres Rykiel!

Here's a very much relevant confession. As excited as I get when designers I love and admire collaborate with high street or Target or like-minded retailers, I never, ever buy. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe I'm a snob and I fear quality will be compromised. Maybe I'm avoiding the increasingly circus-like, mega-mob mentality when these collections are released. I know that sometimes, it's because I plain old don't really dig how things turned out. Whatever it may be, I like giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, and with Sonia Rykiel's bras and knickers it will be no different.

The Contents of Lincoln's Pockets

Sweater - Sonia by Sonia Rykiel

Trousers - H&M

Shoes - Christian Louboutin

A Thanksgiving Postcard from Central Texas

In the immortal words of Brenda Dickson, WELL HELLO.

Even if motor oil were ink and puffy, fat, cotton-white clouds were stationary, I could not immediately begin to write about the events of the past two days.

Suffice it to say an epic road trip was had.

Did I mention that an unfortunate sequence of events eventually lead to us renting a safety yellow two-door roadster? It had a spoiler, and we named it Mr. Bumble. Oh, and as fate would have it, it was a Pontiac. Duh.

We brought the glamour, and worked it at every pit stop along the way.

Singing along to satellite radio helped pass the time, because counting water towers and cows gets dull after a while.

Our favorite stations were Boneyard, First Wave, and 90s on 9. Much to be thankful for, indeed.

Decisions.

I'm trying to figure out what to wear for a very precise, specific thing.
Ted and I have been together for well over a year, yet I have never once met or even spoken to his parents, as they live very far away in a city I've never been to. But this weekend, all that changes as we make the long journey to visit them and have Thanksgiving dinner.

Figuring out what I should wear for such an occasion is a somewhat delicate process. Their tradition is dinner in a nice restaurant, and this time I'll be tagging along. It's always interesting to break bread with folks you've never met, but on top of that will be a situation where you want to both be true to yourself and give a lovely first impression, along with mild job interview-ish sort of undercurrent. What does one wear for this situation? My friend Nicole suggested I don a 'sexy Santa suit' to get in the holiday spirit. It was just thing I needed to hear to make me laugh and bring me back down to earth.

All this mild nervousness is completely self-imposed. I'm totally over-thinking this. Probably going to throw on a tried-and-true, tasteful LBD and just go with it. That's what they're there for, am I right? So, this is all to say: posting will be light over the weekend. (I'll wear the Santa suit underneath and rip the LBD off at just the right moment while belting out Marshmallow World to the entire restaurant. This will be a Thanksgiving dinner they'll never forget.)

Sock it to Me

The last time I wore socks with any sort of print on them was high school, when I went through an argyle and stripes phase and would help myself over in the mens' sections in places like Old Navy and J. Crew. But for years after that, when I wore nothing but black on my feet, I saw socks with any sort of personality to them as belonging either within the pages of Fruits or on a small child. Or a small child in Fruits.
Blame it on the fact that I will be celebrating my thirtieth birthday in all of six months, but I find myself becoming much more adventurous in the way I dress lately. Not in my boring corporate work life, but in every minute that exists outside of that. If I had to dig into the most honest parts of myself, there are several contributing factors as to why this is so. The biggest reason, I am somewhat ashamed to admit, would be the fact that I feel as though I am inhabiting a kind of twilight hour of freedom in my personal style, because we are socialized to view our twenties as the time when we can wear anything, even if it's kind of a bad idea. So I'm stuck in this mad sprint to cram in all the nutty things I've always wanted to wear before my license to be eccentric expires. "I'd better hurry up and wear this before I'm not a twenty-something anymore."
Of course, I know that line of thinking is mostly complete tripe. One could say the same thing about being a teenager, or an octogenarian, and that there is no fashionable license that is revoked once your birthday hits a certain milestone. I can't say how I'll actually feel about things once I reach the big three-oh, but I am enjoying these lovely socks, and figuring out how to pair them with shoes.
These socks, from L'atelier du Savon, have a kind of dolly/EGL vibe to them when I wear them with black shoes. The super tall socks from the very top are from Vivienne Westwood, and the darker ones with the metallic thread below that are by Ayame.

A trend that is really being forced upon us is the practice of wearing delicate, feminine socks with open toe heels. It's one of those things that I think looks fine within the pages of a magazine, but I have yet to see it pulled off in real life, and would not sport such a look in public unless you made it worth my while.

These polka dot numbers are by Happy Socks. I always wear them with pants, usually dark skinny jeans cuffed at the ankle. I shot it this way so the orange tops could be featured.

Oh hell. Well, if we're going to go down that road....

We might as well not be half-assed about it.

Chicken Pox

Blouse - vintage

Trousers - Theory

Necklace - thrifted

Shoes - Christian Louboutin

"What's Up, Bonneville?"

Ted and I have this joke about Pontiac Bonnevilles. See, that's been his main ride for years, a white, four door mid-nineties issue that is all formality and no flash. A vehicle that may or may not be missing some paint, or a fully functioning cup holder, or a side-view mirror. A car that, what it lacks in the glitz and glamour department, it more than makes up for in faded window decals curling up at the corners. But for us, a car need not be fancy, it just has to get you to your intended destination in a timely manner, so we drive around with no thought given to the matter of vehicular appearances. To a point.

A phenomenon that I've noticed is that whenever we're driving some place, we will inevitably see another Bonneville cruising past us, also in the color white, and Ted will tip his imaginary hat in an act of solidarity and casually murmur, 'What's up, Bonneville?' He can be in mid-sentence, telling me a completely unrelated story about the Cy Young contenders, but the acknowledgement that we are in the presence of a virtually identical, mid-level American made automobile cannot go unmentioned. I had never noticed the abundance of Bonnevilles out on the road until we started dating and going for rides.

(God, how American Graffiti was that last sentence? Maybe I'll see Harrison Ford again at Mel's tonight, too.)

Anyhoo, this afternoon, just as the last streaks of sunlight were slipping away, I was half a block away from my home when I encountered THIS:

One of the things I love about my neighborhood is that every once in a while a random classic car will just fall from the sky and hang out on the curb for a day or two. And if I'm lucky, I can whip out my iPhone and snap some photos.

Interestingly enough, when I first saw this Queen of the Bonnevilles, I didn't immediately think of Ted. I though of my friend Kelly from college. One day we were walking to class and strolled past this absolutely giant, tank-like shiny classic car parked up against the curb. It was not a Bonneville, but it was impressively massive. "Wow," I remember saying to Kelly, "People could live in that car!" Kelly immediately corrected me and said, "People should be having sex in that car."

It wouldn't take much to have sex in that Bonneville, I suppose. I mean, it is a convertible. Jump on in! It's a no-brainer, really.

Harlequin

Would you believe that I spilled water all over myself - twice - while wearing this outfit and chatting with this lady this afternoon? True story.

Jacket - vintage YSL Rive Gauche

Blouse - vintage

Trousers - Banana Republic

Shoes - Manolo Blahnik

Nicola Formichetti Hands Me My Ass

Ah, yesterday. It was so long ago, and I look back at it with a wistful twinkle in my eye. Back in those days, I actually thought I could complete the simple task of picking apart Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video, sift through the extraneous matter, and unearth all occurrences of Alexander McQueen shoes. I was so young and full of dreams!

The next time you are curious to know what Lady Gaga is wearing in her videos, plug your ears and don't listen to me. Just take your honey baked ham over to the blog of the guy who styled the video. There, Nicola Formichetti, stylista extraordaire, lays all the fashion (not just the shoes) out for you, scene by scene, all the way down to those sunglasses made of razorblades.

I bow to Nicola.

Make Your Marc

Dress- Marc Jacobs

Belt- Salvatore Ferragamo

Stockings - DKNY

Booties - Manolo Blahnik

13 Things I Learned from The September Issue

So I've been watching my own personal copy of The September Issue quite a bit lately. As with most films, there are little things you pick up on upon repeated viewings, which is what this post is all about.

1. Candy Pratts Price is hilarious. I wish we could have had more fireside chats with her. 2. In the scene where Andre Leon Talley is yammering about how there has been a FAMINE OF BEAUTY in the United States lately, it looks like Vera Wang is consoling him, but really she is attempting no such gesture of kindness. It's actually halfway between a talk-to-the-hand moment and a Hail Mary wish that his lips will magically stop flapping moment. Either that or she's trying to stroke his luxurious fur stole.

3. Coco Rocha is like all up in there, all the time.

4. And Caroline Trentini.

5. And of course Raquel Zimmerman.

6. Here's Iek Stange at Marc Jacobs (the only one without a hat).

7. Bee is cute as the dickens, and quite likeable, I thought.

8. I really wish there had been more of Hamish Bowles.

But this is about as much as we got.

9. Stefano Pilati showed everyone how well ahead of the harem pant wave he was by rocking some gray wool numbers in the spring of 2007. Who else was doing that back then? No and one, that's who.

10. Getting back to Andre for a second. It's funny, because at one point he expresses disdain for a recent Calvin Klein collection, sniffing that it is "clinical"...

Then turns around and calls Isabel Todelo's creations "clinical," except this time it's the best thing ever!

I suppose there's a time and a place to be clinical (the emergency room?) and some days it works better than others, but Andre reminds me of this impossible boss I once had. You could do the same thing every day and each day you'd get a wildly contradictory reaction. He basically made you guess what it was he wanted, and if you guessed wrong, you were punished. Not fun. It was a famine of communication skills!

11. This shot of Grace's home is amazing. Imagine spending an afternoon going through her bookshelves and curling up on that comically fake animal rug, snuggled with some of her kitties.

12. Probably the most extraordinary thing I noticed was that Thakoon's voice was totally, absolutely dubbed for the trailer, which you can see at the :38 second mark.
In the film, it's such a sweet, honest segment, the moment where he gets a sparkle in his eyes when recalling how meeting Anna Wintour for the first time is like meeting Madonna. However, in this wholly unnecessary dub job for the trailer, it's the same words, but a totally different, slower, deeper voice, one that sounds like a lumberjack on Qualuudes. The next time someone tries to butch up a fashion designer's voice via dubbing they should maybe choose a scene where he is not waxing rhapsodic about Madonna. If you're going to go down that road and try to whitewash the charming musical gayness right out of someone's voice, at least pick the right line of dialogue. I'm just, you know, throwing that out there.

13. In the scene where Grace is alone in Paris drinking in this historic building and garden (Le Jardin de Tuileries) after talking about never sleeping in the car and always keeping your eyes open, I get a huge rush of calm and serenity.

It could be the delicate piano music that plays in the background, but at one point she says "I think I got left behind somewhere, I'm still a romantic." It's one of those delightful moments in documentary film making where the subject opens up in a way you didn't exactly see coming, but are so happy that they shared. Any good documentary will do this, and although The September Issue may not be the most brilliant doc ever made, it's still surely one of my favorites. Obviously, because I just made this little collage of moments that moved me, which I think is what most films always hope to do to their audience.