Sunday, January 2, 2011

Color Me Barbra

My favorite image of 2010 is this Terry Richardson photo of Barbra Streisand from Harper's Bazaar last month. It was part of a larger story about Barbra and her home. She just wrote a book called My Passion for Design (barf) which is comprised entirely of photos of her various houses and properties. She has the worst taste ever (victorian shabby chic) and she actually built a fake street in her basement with fake stores. Like an old-timey, cobblestone street with a doll shop, a dress shop, a gift shop, a shop where she wraps presents, a candy shop, etc. She also bought an old farmhouse and made up this story about a family that lived there in the past---and renovated it accordingly! For example, if she imagined that the children would play on a swing in the back yard she would build a fucking swing. She is crazy. But back to the photo, have you ever seen anything so ostentatious in your life? It makes Slim Aarons' interiors look like Nan Goldin's. I love everything about it. 

Half Baked

My Humbodt Honey post last week got me thinking: what is the contemporary, fashion-forward eqivalent of a Humboldt Honey?  Does such a thing exist? The answer: tragically no. However, there is a look that I will lovingly refer to as "haute stoner." Hallmarks of the look are as follows: messy hair, pajamas 24/7 (preferably with heels), wearing a fur coat over your pajamas (vintage, obvs), wearing longs skirts with big sweaters, chipped nail polish, tangled necklaces, Tom Ford white patchouli perfume, tapestry bags, blanket coats, ikat, ombre, Missoni knits, novelty sunglasses, tie dye and other sartorial throwbacks to the Janis Joplin era, wooly tights, outfits with the same color scheme as the rastafarian flag, ratty lace dresses, Lindsey Thornburg cloaks, t-shirts from the little boys section at Target, lennon glasses, sweatshirts (obviously), and oversize handbags that are so full of crap that they need to be dumped out on the sidewalk in order to find essential items like wallets, keys, lighters, etc. Haute stoner fashion icons include: Jennifer Herrema, Mary Kate Olsen, Janis Joplin, Jason Segel in I Love You Man, Lizzi Bougatsos, Al Pacino in Serpico, Isabelle Adjani in The Tenant, and Abbey Lee Kershaw. I also want to give a shout-out to this awesome glassy-eyed haute stoner chick that I saw at the corner store last week. She was wearing a ratty fur coat with baggy sequin pants that were half-assly tucked inside a pair of scuffed flat ankle boots. Her hair was messy and she looked ridiculously cool, even though most people probably thought that she looked crazy.  I'm sure that most of the girls pictured below are not, in fact, stoners, although I have my suspicions about Agyness. That photo is too good!


La Danse

La Danse by David Hamilton is one of my favorite photography books ever. If you love Black Swan and Lula this needs to be on your bookshelf ASAP!

Monday, December 27, 2010

A Piece of Work

I finally saw the Joan Rivers documentary last week, god it was good! She is such a badass and a total feminist pioneer. It's unfortunate that she failed to be recognized as such because of her plastic surgery---whatever, haters! Watch it now on netflix.