Maybe the biggest news in France today was the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Since the news quickly spread, I’m pretty sure many of you heard about it. Personally, I saw the report on the TV this morning and later today, my attention was brought to it by friends who went to show their support for the magazine this evening at Place de la République. I’m positively surprised how fast and to what a big extent people reacted to this attack. In contrast to that, I’m sadly not very surprised at all that the attack took place, simply because the magazine has a history of stirring up controversy and also because there has been an incident in the past. Of course, nothing justifies terror and any kind of violence, no matter of which possible reason is unacceptable. But I do understand that certain publications might be considered as offensive or even insulting. And so I cannot help wondering about how we would react to an article or a caricature which obviously made fun of the beliefs, customs and cultural traditions which are enshrined in our society. (Hopefully not with a terror attack, that’s for sure!) Also, I am convinced that people should be able to make comments, express their opinion as well as criticism without having to be afraid of being persecuted in any way or being attacked, neither verbally, nor physically. Still, how far should you go when speaking your mind? That’s a question almost impossible to answer and there surely is no rule to apply. Maybe, today’s tragedy could have been avoided under different circumstances. And maybe, a better cultural understanding could have helped with that. Now, this said, I will go and read some Utopian novel.
New year, new beginning
Even though I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions – I think people should try to be the best version of themselves throughout the whole year and also make resolutions at any moment it becomes necessary – I actually do have some resolutions for this year.
The first one, which I’ve already started working on since November, are getting fitter, physically and also mentally. Having struggled with eating disorders for the past ten years, I’m becoming aware of the results of the horrible things I did to my body. I’m also noticing how my former lifestyle is affecting my health and how it might affect me in the future. Therefore, I started taking care of myself, which includes working out regularily, eating healthier, drinking less alcohol and sleeping more (and much better without the usual glas, glasses or sometimes masses of wine I used to have).
And since body and mind go hand in hand when it comes to your well-being, I also decided that I would challenge my brain more. At first, I started with the idea of simply increasing my IQ and trained myself by doing some IQ test preparation on my phone everytime I was taking public transports. In the meanwhile, I was thinking about how I could also become more creative. I have to admit that I kind of feel ashamed when people find out that I once started writing a blog, when I’m now totally lacking of inspiration and commitment. So I’m now planning on writing for at least half an hour a day – about anything, regardless of how it it could affect potential readers. (I’ve read that becoming adults, we lose the spontaneity that kids have. Kids just start drawing, writing, being creative without minding how their work will be perceived. As adults, we first of all think about the result we try to achieve, and sometimes get frustrated with our creative attempts, which of course, turn out to not be that creative in the end. So in order to escape this vicious circle, I’m trying to stop overthinking. I can still do that when it finally comes to publishing what I’ve written.) I hope in that way, I will be able to collect some ideas which are worth working with. That being said, I’ve no clue which direction this blog will take. There will certainly be less posts about fashion (there are so many talented people who are alreday doing a great job by writing about fashion). Instead, I will probably share more of my personal thoughts, concerns, opinions. Or to say it in a different way, I will use the blog for its initial purpose.
A few weeks ago, I read an article on the website of The Guardian. It was an critique on a modern artist whose name I forgot. (It also doesn’t matter in is case.) What really striked me in this article was the critivc asking if the artist had ever thought about what she actually wanted to express and in which way her art should affect the recipient. Apparently, she just went from painting to publishing, staying in the childish approach of not thinking about what kind of an impact her art could have. In any case, I thought that the question of purpose was a relevant one. And even though some people might say that art should have no purpose, I never shared this opinion. Also, I sometimes get the impression that modern artists don’t seem to care very much about how their art is received or if it’s accessible. But that’s another chapter. What I initially wanted to express with this rather huge parenthesis is, that even though I’ve given some thought to the possible reactions of potential readers and to the question if I could make an impact with my texts (probably not), I have no answer to that at all. And so I’m satisfied that a blog isn’t a piece of art.
Anyway, I hope I will succeed in sticking to my New Year’s resolutions and maybe, some interesting texts will come out.
Happy New Year!
Le parfum du voyage
Une impression de mes vacances qui m’a accompagné dans presque tous mes voyages, c’est un parfum particulier. Je ne peux même pas citer le nom ou la marque de ce parfum, mais je suppose qu’il s’agit d’un des grands classiques comme Dior ou Chanel. C’est un parfum très élégant, assez prononcé quand même. Il est parfait pour les grandes dames, et je l’associe toujours aux actrices fabuleuses des années 50 ou bien aux personnages féminins dans les films de Woody Allen. C’est un parfum qui inspire la mondanité, l’extravagance et l’allure. Mais surtout, c’est un parfum incroyablement féminin.
Je me souviens du jour quand j’ai senti cette odeur délicieuse pour la toute première fois. Je passais mes vacances d’été quelque part à la côte méditerranée et je passais des heures à lire les magazines qui trainaient au lobby de l’hôtel. J’avais peut-être treize ans, et c’était à cet âge-là que je découvrais le monde fascinant des magazines de mode, Vogue en particulier.
Le premier exemplaire du magazine mythique que je tenais entre mes mains avait beau être tout abîmé, avec des milliers des graines de sable entre ses pages, je l’adorais. Et pendant les deux semaines qui suivaient, je le reprenais régulièrement juste pour le feuilleter et ingurgiter même le moindre détail de cet univers magnifique qui venait de s’ouvrir à moi.
Quant à son contenu, cette édition n’était même pas extraordinaire. Mais ce qui la rendait tellement fascinante pour moi, ce qui m’attirait autant, c’était l’empreinte de ce parfum remarquable que sa lectrice précédente lui avait donnée. Je l’imaginais d’être une femme extraordinaire qui avait la finesse d’une ballerine, l’élégance de Grace Kelly, l’allure de Sophia Loren et l’esprit de Deborah Kerr. J’imaginais une femme accomplie, féminine, intelligente, audacieuse. Et je voulais être comme elle. Plus, je voulais devenir cette femme.
Ce numéro de Vogue, je l’ai gardé pendant des années, même que ce parfum qui donnait de la vie à ses pages brillantes n’était plus qu’une trace à deviner.
Depuis, en plus d’avoir un souvenir d’été qui m’accompagnera lors de tous mes voyages, je n’ai jamais perdu le goût pour les belles choses.
PS: I wrote this post in French because it seems natural to me, since France is the native country of great perfums and also of fashion and big designers. But very soon, this post will be available in English, too.
Miss Dior exposition
It’s been a while that I haven’t done anything against the intellectual decline which is haunting me since the day I graduated from school and so I decided that it would probably be a good idea to spend a couple of my evenings going to some expositions instead of watching a whole season of Pretty Little Liars in only one week. Still, despite of all my good will, I’ve never been a fan of classic museums and to be honest, I can’t imagine any place which gets me bored out faster than the world famous Louvre. So I have to start light. That’s why, when I read an article about the new Miss Dior exhibition which opened today at the Grand Palais in Paris, I thought I should give it a try. Also, I already was very cultural last Sunday when I went to the new exposition of Brassaï : pour l’amour de Paris which I enjoyed very much and which gave me the courage to do more cultural stuff. And so today, right after work, I went to see Miss Dior. Actually, I was expecting that it would be crowded. Brassaï was. And I was also expecting many many teenage girls, the kind of girls who are subscribed to Glamour magazine and who always tie their long sleek hair to a pony tail. You can spot them in the 17th arrondissement of Paris or around La Sorbonne. In summer, it’s even easier to recognize them because they also wear those huge sunglasses which became famous thanks to the wonderful Audrey Hepburn, and they usually wear ballet pumps. But not any kind, Repetto, please! Since this is Kate Moss’ favourite brand. Maybe it was the thought of the perfume Miss Dior which made me think that, maybe it was its name. It’s very fresh and flowery, notes that I used to wear when I was fifteen. I remember that Riley Keough used to be the ambassador of Miss Dior Chérie in 2008, she was nineteen at that time but looked much younger. I also always had the conception of the perfume Miss Dior being a very young fragrance. Furthermore, the word “miss” never made me think of a grown up woman, although I know that it just indicates a woman’s marital status but not her age. All in all, I was almost sure that the tonight’s exposition would be very girly, from its content to the people who would go and see it. Fortunately, none of my expectations were fulfilled. The first thing I saw when I came in was this huge, typical flacon of Miss Dior which was in the middle of a beautiful entry hall. The stairs, which then led to the exposition, were bathed in very bright, white and light pink light which made the ugliness of the industrial looking staircase fade away. When I finally arrived in the hall were the exposition takes place, I felt like being in a perfumery. Not only it smelled really nice there, the fact that I got one of those paper strips for perfume which was impregnated with the Miss Dior fragrance increased that feeling. And the place was simply beautiful. I didn’t even know where to start, there were light installations, pictures, paintings, dresses and of course flacons everywhere. And everything is set in the way that permits visitors to circulate as they want. There’s not the typical entry and exit you can mostly see in classic museums, and I really appreciated that. The exposition itself is very fresh, very modern. I think it’s fair to say that it represents the idea of the Miss Dior universe in the best way it could. There are a lot of facts about Christian Dior as a person and as a designer and you can get quite a good idea of his inspiration, his muses and of course, the history of Miss Dior. In addition to that, there are many works of art which are as varied as the different conceptions every one of the artists has to the theme of the exposition. And I have to ad that the different interpretations are really worth to be seen. Anyway, I guess it’s quite obvious that I had a great time. For everyone who is interested, the exposition is still on until the 25th of November 2013.
Autumn in Paris
Now that November arrived, it already becomes less easy to find eccentrically or very well dressed people in Paris, mostly because they are all covered in black winter coats. That’s something very Parisian, by the way. As soon as summer is over, people change their (sometimes overly) coloured clothes against much darker items. Especially when it starts raining, the national grief about the end of those two weeks of summer, which nature gives to Paris every year, can be particularly well observed. There is no single umbrella which isn’t black, except the transparent ones which mark a new trend, and except the funny umbrellas tourists use when they’re not wearing one of those bin-bag-like raincoats. And it’s not only the dark colours which make the city look like a grieving widow, but people suddenly also start to walk with their heads down, and not only when it’s raining. And besides of being very annoying, making a slalom run through all those people who might or might not bump into you can also be very entertaining. What I personally also find very funny is when people approach till a few centimetres close until they finally see your feet and stop walking. The look they give you then, as if you were Albus Dumbledore who just appeared out of nowhere, is priceless. I have to admit that I sometimes force this situation, just for my own amusement.
But I’m getting carried away, because I actually would like to present you two styles which I like a lot.
On the first picture, you see a very good friend of mine who is wearing a cool combination of jeans and leather. Black leather jackets by the way happen to be of my favourite items, amongst others. Except for very few people, they immediately give you the coolness of James Dean. And even dorky girls like me suddenly look like some hot biker chick that could also be in some calendar for guys (except that we keep our t-shirts on, and also our pants). Usually, people combine leather jackets with jeans. My friend also does that, but she’s wearing a jeans shirt. And you don’t see that very often. That’s why I like her look.
The second picture was taken in the Marais. This girl walked by and it was a coincidence that I noticed her amazing coat. So I, crazy person as I am, started running after her, telling her to wait in French. When I finally reached her, I found out that she was American and that she wasn’t afraid of me, but that she just didn’t speak French. She also told me that she had made the coat herself.
I just love the simple elegancy of her outfit and the little golden details on her shoes and her bag that match perfectly. I’m still happy about having run after her.
More music
Today, I would like to talk about some more fantastic music which recently attracted my attention. It’s music written Michael Sanders or Mikey Maramag (you will find both names circulating in the internet, and both are related to the artist), an artist from California who is better known under the pseudonym Blackbird Blackbird.
By the way, it’s quite hard to find out much about his background. But still, here are a few pieces of information which can be figured from different websites:
Blackbird Blackbird’s first album Summer Heart was released in September 2010. Compared to his latest work, this album is much calmer and in my opinion it also sounds a little darker. Anyway, it’s very good electronic music, which can also be related to many other genres, from pop to chillwave. And that is what I especially like about Blackbird Blackbird’s music: it’s a mix of very different styles. Above all, it’s anything else but boring. Sometimes, it has a slight bitter sweet touch, which makes it for me exactly the kind of music I want to listen to at the end of summer, when I’m looking back at all the events that took place and all the funny moments I’ve had. The two titles, which I definitely see as post summer music and which made me immediately fall in love, are It’s A War and All. They are both on the EP Boracay Planet which was released in October 2012.
And here are the video clips of the songs I like the most:
If you want to get some further information on Blackbird Blackbird, I recommend you to have a look at his official homepage or his Facebook Page, where you will also find many links to other websites. For more music you should definitely visit his profile on Soundcloud.
PS Paris Fashion Week
Since I kind of announced it in y last post, I think I should actually share the few pictures I did mention. So here they are: One picture showing André Leon Talley after the show of Maison Rabih Kayrouz, and three more pictures of bloggers whose style I highly appreciate.
Paris Fashion Week – thoughts & weird situations II
It’s been a while since Paris Fashion Week is definitely over, but still I haven’t shared all my thoughts, yet, which is mostly because of my very down-to-earth job that unfortunately takes way too much of my time and which has nothing of the eccentricity of the sparkling and exciting world of fashion. So I’m a little late on my report, but I start to recognize that this might not be too bad, since there are maybe not as many competing texts circulating than only two weeks ago. By the way, this actually brings me right to the topic I want to discuss, because quite a huge part is about the competition which is related to blogging. Although I didn’t believe it, I gave in to this competition much faster than I thought. And so, I did the exact opposite of what I announced in my last post just a couple of days later: I actually took pictures of other bloggers. Even worse, I became one of those celebrity stalkers who were running from fashion show to fashion show, hoping to get a glimpse and maybe a picture of some famous person who would attend. The only defense I have is that I really liked the outfits you can now see on my pictures. And since I was already there, why not taking a picture of some celebrities as well? Thinking about it, it also seems rather stupid to me not to take this or that kind of pictures just as a matter of principle. But even though it still feels as if I somehow betrayed myself, I could also notice a clear difference between my behavior and the conduct of other bloggers and photographers and I suddenly realized, how hard it is to make people notice you as a blogger, photographer or even as a journalist. There are just so many blogs, articles, fashion magazines, and every single one comes up with a huge special about Paris Fashion Week. The only way to survive in this struggle is to get as many likes and re-posts as possible. And unfortunately, all it needs to get there is a bunch of pictures; they don’t even necessarily need to be good, more important is that a famous name is tagged to them. And it perfectly makes sense: why shouldn’t people get excited about Iggy Azalea’s see-through top she was wearing at the Maison Martin Margiela show and that gave a very explicit Idea of her nipples? And so, star hunting seems to be one of the main occupation of photographers and bloggers, and it couldn’t have been more obvious than on that Sunday, 29 September. It was actually a very quiet day, compared to Friday and Saturday. Probably this was due to the fact that the venues were scattered all over Paris instead of being all in the same area and since it took more time to get from one show to another, I guess that star hunters were more selective by choosing the places they wanted to go. But still, when Olivia Palermo was spotted after the Chloé runway show, she caused a huge traffic jam. People went totally crazy and started to scream her name, chasing her, trying to get a picture. It was ridiculous. In contrast to that, when André Léon Talley showed up at the exit of the Maison Rabih Kayrouz show at Palais de Tokyo, people almost overlooked him. No screaming, no hysteria. It was as if there was a kind of disconnection: every one of the present crowd seemed as if they wanted to belong to the fashion scene really bad. But I got the impression that it was just a shallow behavior because those bloggers and photographers clearly were much more interested in the hype about Paris Fashion Week, and so, a few powerful personalities, who maybe don’t have the same notoriety as people who regularly appear in the yellow press, were slightly ignored. And this made me think of something else: How do all the people who are actually invited to the fashion shows actually experience this whole craziness? I’m really wondering if it’s not awful at some moments. Imagine, you get your invitation, which is awesome, and you already think about being part of an exclusive crowd who has the great chance to see one of the most beautiful spectacles of the year. You dress up as it befits a rich, important and elegant person, you take your beautifully designed invitation which was sent to you by post, not by e-mail, and you’re ready to go to the biggest event there is in the glamorous fashion scene. But then, when you get out of the luxury car which happens to be your personal taxi, you have to face the humongous crowd of hungry photographers and bloggers who are craving stardust, not hesitating attacking their prey and shoot as many photos as they can.
I used to work with a guy who had an invitation to a few Paris Fashion Week shows in 2012 and he was hesitating going there. Of course I told him he should go, and I nagged him about taking me there, too. In the end, he told me he was too tired and that he just wanted to spend a quiet night at home instead of being surrounded by hundreds of people. At that time, I thought that this was the craziest thing he could have ever said and I didn’t understand at all why he didn’t want to go to splendid Paris Fashion Week. Now I do understand.
Jonas Alaska
Since I metioned him in my article about Mikhael Paskalev, I somehow have the feeling that I should definitely also shortly present the equally talented Jonas Alaska, who has already had some great success in Norway. With the release of his debut self-titled album in 2011, Jonas Alaska was nominated in three different categories for the Norwegian Grammy and he finally won in the categorie of the « Best New Act ».
Recently, Jonas Alaska released his second album If Only As A Ghost in Norway. The album’s first single I Saw You Kid immediately became one of the top 5 hits in the radio charts. After having listened to this single, I can say that it’s perfectly understandable why it became such a hit in such short time. What I especially like about this song is the fact that there’s some sort of discrepancy between the melody and the lyrics, which are very intelligent by the way. All of his songs sound very light and relaxed, but then the lyrics are quite serious. And it’s this funny mix that makes his music so interesting.
To give you a small foretaste of his music, you can find a short list of song which are my favourites below (besides the two great songs that I mention above, of course).
October
In the Backseat
Dark At Last
Mikhael Paskalev
While you’re waiting for the latest streetstyle pictures (which will come up soon), I have some great music for you. The guy I will present is one of my favourite artists, if not even my favourite. His name is Mikhael Paskalev, and his career as a musician immediately took off when he released his first platinum winning single I Spy, for which Paskalev also won Norway’s national award for Best Unsigned Act in 2012. It’s been a while since I listened to the song for the very first time and since I watched the clip, but I’m still addicted to it. And it’s a perfect remedy against the bad mood a Parisian summer can cause (to be precise, Parisian summer is a synonym for pouring rain). Mikhael Paskalev’s second and already very popular single Jive Babe is not less addictive, and every time I listen to it, I want to go on a road trip really bad and drive a Red Ford Mustang Convertible. The clip to this song is inspired by Tarantino and Twin Peaks, and I have to admit that it’s a rather strange clip, but still, it has something. And the song is really great, anyway. And since I’m a big fan since I listened to his first track, I’m really happy that Mikhael Paskalev finally released his first album What’s Life Without Losers in February this year.
To give you a first impression of how great Paskalev’s music is, you can find a short list of songs that I personally like most right below:
Susie
I Spy
Jive Babe
What’s Life Without Losers
I Saw You Kid (here, Mikhael Paskalev performs together with another talented musician, Jonas Alaska)
Hidden Track (also with Jonas Alaska)
jlouisewinter 