It’s all good in the hood

Darling M,

I must tell you about something so wonderous, so profound that it will surely change your life for the better! Such positive occurences happen around these things that all of a sudden, you’ll find yourself believing that miracles do, indeed, occur in everyday life to everyday people.

I am talking about Spirithoods - a fantastic company based in L.A that designs and creates animal fashion accessories in the form of hoods. These fabulous hoods are made of environmentally-kind faux fur – have snuggly mittens with adorable paw prints and come in all types of animal great and small with lovely furry ears and pattern to match. BUT the part that I love the most is that the company donates a portion of their proceeds to animal charities around the world, who work tirelessly to protect, conserve and build the numbers of these endangered species. If the hoods don’t give you a lovely snuggly feeling – this fact in itself is sure to imbue a sense of the warm fuzzies.  

Pretty Ponies

Sweetest M,

Inspiration can come for the most unexpected of places.

Lately, I have been hooked on certain ideas. As mentioned in a previous post, I have an enduring fascination with Spring. I also adore Rococo styling and My Little Ponies.

Due to a passion for anything pretty and ornate, it follows that I would adore anything even slightly Rococo. Thinking about it, it is likely that this adoration began during infancy, when was borne a most ardent fascination and adoration of My Little Ponies. This happened when I was gifted my first little pony – Lickety Split, who came on many adventures with me and stood patiently through many hours of dressing, hairstyling and general playing.

These candy-coloured ponies are most certainly ambassadors of the Rococco – pretty pastels tempered with coloured neutrals. Their innocent expressions, overriding feminine design and sweet auras would leave them very much at home in the apartments of Marie Antoinette – that most vocal supporter of this particular school of style.
 

Nature's child

My dearest M,

Spring has well and truly sprung, the days suddenly filled with yawning azure sky, and a sun so warm your skin feels alive with the season change.

Winter was spent inside, industriously submerged in technology and career pursuits. Every day now, the warmth and new joy beckons just outside the window. Thoughts of mile long beaches, sun shining through trees and daydreams of laying in the grass, making pretty pictures in the clouds interrupts industrious labour.  

As I develop a stronger dependence on technology, and all the convenience and possibility it brings, I find myself moving my living back outside to reconnect with my innate, natural self. Long afternoons spent picnicking under sighing trees, climbing out of bed and into bathers to rush into winter-cold waves. All these things conspire to calm my being, and bloom my creativity.

This little light of mine

Darling M,

It takes a lot of energy continuing through life with the innate confidence to carry out your convictions in everything you do.  And I mean in absolutely everything. How you respect yourself, how you treat your friends. How you treat your family, how you love and cherish your partner.

From time to time, people will see it as their right to get out the candle snuffer and have a right go at suffocating your light. It is at this point you must shine your brightest. How punishing for those weak, negative souls to see you lit up and brilliant! They say the greatest revenge is just to live your life. Do this with a set of fiery fireworks I say.

As the poet Dylan Thomas so wisely said, “Do not go gentle into that good night/…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” In this context, I encourage to use your spirit, your right to the good fight to light up your soul and let your true colours shine through, in the face of enemies and adversity. Then those whose souls are sullied with self-hatred, greed, jealousy, anger and insecurity cannot feed on the misery they so desperately seek to vindicate their own sense of self-loathing and self-entitlement.

Once were children

My darling M,

Do you ever look out the window, on a normal workaday and think what you would be doing on a day like this back when you were young, and the world was simple? Remember laying in the grass, imagining pictures into the clouds. Remember when nighttime was exciting, staying up late something to be savoured like each precious chocolate. A time when the imagination was a toy, a friend for adventures.I think it is my connection to my childhood that fans the flames of attraction to the Japanese Harajuku style genre. The bright colours, incorporation of animal elements and joyful revelling in the possibility of pushing fashion to its boundaries – wearing those very high heels with a ratty old  sweater round the corner for errands because “I want to”, clashing prints, clashing styles, clashing the acceptable with the very challenging. Why not? Why not challenge the accepted and the norm? It is this spirit alive and burning in Harajuku that I find entirely enthralling. How exciting to be empowered with a “devil may care” attitude towards that which others deem appropriate. How fabulous to throw caution to the wind and maybe even win a few smiles for your bravery along the way!While in Kuala Lumpur, I was seized with such a mood, and piled on old and new for a photographic flight of fancy. Enjoy, and hopefully I raise a few little smiles along the way … 

Boy Wonder

Oh my goodness, M!

I am in love. I am in love with the designs of Kermit Tesoro. Even the designer’s name is rocking.

Kermit hails from the Philippines and brings a mind-blowingly fresh perspective on avant-garde design. His aesthetic is faultless.  Of course, his full-bodied education at the University of The Philippines Diliman (College of Fine Arts), Fashion Institute of the Philippines (Fashion Design) and School of Fashion and the Arts (Fashion Marketing) would make for a great foundation upon which to build the tendrils of artistic genius.

Kermit’s latest collection, FW 2011, is heart-breakingly awesome, with its surreal biological and terrestrial references. Heeless boots rise archly from the floor, while dresses executed in slinky nude and black, are electrified by panels of blood orange and pastel pink. The heels of pumps and booties are reimagined, with grinning skulls and life-like hearts carved into them.