&Sloe

Some lovely stills from the autumn 2010 campaign of Japanese brand &Sloe.

You'll want to click that for a larger image, my editing and blogging "skillz" suck.

Anyway, so I came across this little brand on Haco a lovely Japanese I suppose "Urban" fashion site. Its pretty wonderful but hard to navigate due to it all being in Japanese but eventually you come across some jems like &Sloe. Don't you love the daggy-ness? This campaign fills me with a lot of hope knowing that somewhere in the world my "style" that is lazy is kind of fashionable... I'll leave that hanging and presume you have raised eyebrows.

Also, its a lot like the frankie editorials... and if I can bring your attention to this blogs background, that means it's a good thing. Now I feel like drinking tea and pretending to have a bunny rabbit.

Hard Cover Books

Yves Saint Laurent

Florence Muller & Farid Chenourne

The Velvet Underground: New York Art

Kugelberg, Johan, Reed, Lou

The Selby is in Your Place

Todd Selby

My Favorite Dress

Gity Monsef, Samantha Erin Sager & Robert de Niet

There's just something about hard cover books that feel more special then their paperback counterparts. Perhaps its the fact that they don't fit in book shelves, or hands, the fact that they smell nice (creepy yes.) and use lovely grainy paper. Since when did "coffee table book" become a bad word? when did it suddenly mean the books had no substance? Sure you can't read them on the train, but the only reason their on the coffee table is because their too big for the shelves.

I love pulp fiction paper backs, for all the opposite reasons as to why I love hardbacks, but this post would be 5 pages long if I was to photo montage all the paperback novels I love. Also, I know this is... kind of old news but, I love that Penguin and Virago Books have started using covers that have this sense of oldness to them, or in the case of Penguin-- returning to the oh-so-trendy "no frills" packaging, it makes me feel like I'm buying books in the 1950s.

Lie to me and tell me that those book covers didn't make you a little excited...

I utterly disagree with the statement "never judge a book by its cover".

Les kooples m'incitent à vouloir être français.

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When I was in Paris at the beginning of the year I noticed 2 things (actually I noticed a couple of things but only 2 are relevant to this post). Firstly, French people wear black, A LOT of black, more then most people i'd say, and secondly French people look cool, wearing black and acting nonchalant all the time while they walk around being better then everyone because their French, hey its true... I wish I was French so I could justify being arrogant.

French label 'the Kooples' seemingly have a lot to do with this. I mean who doesn't want to evil eye the camera man with your armed wrapped around some hot guy when you're both wearing amazing clothes? The Kooples is a chain store in France, their on almost every big street that isn't inhabited by French high-fashion-- or thats what I noticed. Also, they always have pretty inspiring window displays (the one on George V featured an array of birdcages for a couple of weeks in January). The clothes are simple, barely venturing out of the 'essentials' category and mostly in black, white or grey, however there is something about the label that make people like me so curious... maybe its the fact that they use unconventional "models" like these guys:

(YAAAAAY AWESOME OLD PEOPLE)

Or maybe I just love the Kooples because of the way its marketed, the use of actual couples, the unconventional campaigns against the sometimes conventional clothing and that fact that the name isn't a profound word or pretentious. None the less their new collection is out and available for male order in Europe (if unlike me you have a European post box, in which case you should send me over a pair of "Pantalon Ciggarette" PLEEEASE).

I'm currently loving:

Their accessories are also mighty fine, such as these:

and the bondage inspired bags and shoes:

And lets bring back the winklepicker...

(The Horrors want you to)

That will be my last post for while, I'm in the middle of exams and need to ~focus~ Pfft...

I might consider studying after this, but now that I'm the resident Francophile I'll be listening to some wonderful French music on my ipod (cue: Second Sex, the Tatianas, BB Brunes, Eiffel, and the Parisians)

Sexy French breathing song.

aka. Nico Teen Love by the BB Brunes, you get it? its a pun... yeah... well it took me a while..