Oh the Horror

Here's your Halloween design fix, being that today is Halloween and all.  Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds is by far the best scary movie I've ever seen, and this is possibly one of the best movie posters I've ever seen.

(photo collected from SmashingMagazine)

The Grand Finale

In life, there are lots of endings.  The end of the ride.

The end of the road.

The end of the line.

The end of an era. (Karen and Jack's anniversary/divorce party invitation)

We can ignore these endings.

Or see them as a connection to new things and new ways of life.

I prefer the latter.

(photos collected from Google Images, NotCot, Styleite, and e.hunt)

Those With Loaded Guns

Classic Westerns have it all:  daring escapades into the bleak and desolate wild, epic gun fights, sometimes in showdown, shootout fashion, clusters of horses and cattle, usually gold, heroic sheriffs, evil bad guys, and intriguing, unknown drifters.  The cowboys also wore some pretty impeccable clothes.

Clint Eastwood in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in Cowboys and Aliens:  Love the vests, cuffed sleeves, and low-slung, double belts.

Antonio Banderas in Desperado:  Spanish influences are apparent in lots of cowboy movies.  The red, wound-obstructing bandana on one arm is a cool idea.

Steve McQueen in Magnificent Seven and John Wayne in Hondo:  Scarves, bandanas, and neckties.

Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, and Stuart Wilson in The Mask of Zorro:  You could look at each of these outfits for hours and not find all the hidden gems of texture, pattern, color, layering, piping, and creatively tied scarves entrenched in each.

(photos collected from Google Images)

Two Timing

If I saw someone wearing this belt, I would conclude that that someone was on an entirely different level of cool.  Not the trying too hard cool though, more of a chill, I-just-woke-up-and-threw-this-on cool.  The kind of cool you can only achieve by not thinking about it and not planning it out.  The best kind of cool.

Naturally, I saw this in Italy.  Those crazy Italians.

(photo by e.hunt)

Fluids

I was sitting in class yesterday taking a sip from my refilled-from-the-tap Dasani water bottle and started wondering how Springfield can legally run water this bad through its pipes, and why, for that matter, the fair citizens of this city put up with it.  Sidenote: I acknowledge that some people might think it's okay, or maybe even enjoy it (though that is highly unlikely), but I'm really picky about my water.  Always have been, always will.  If you've never tried Deja Blue or Icelandic Glacial bottled water, go to the store, hydrate yourself with the exotic spring liquids from afar, then recycle the bottle when you're finished.

In Italy, the variety in water was incredible.  You got a bottle with every meal and each restaurant had a different kind.  The shapes, logos, descriptions, and tastes never disappointed.  This kind was my personal favorite.

(photo by e.hunt)

Night of Imitation

Ah Halloween.  A night of tricks and treats when you're young, gossip and scary movies when you're a teenager, and sexy any-kind-of-stereotypical-occupation costumes when you're in college.  For those of us who would rather look cool than overly suggestive, here are ways to take the basic costumes you put together from stuff in your closet to the next level.

Mermaid/Sea Goddess/Loch Ness Monster:  The disheveled, haphazard concoction of fabrics, nets, and shells is what makes this costume work.  If you're really dedicated, keep your hair wet the entire night.

Pirate/Elf:  Adding some scarves and perhaps an eyepatch will help make the pirate thing more obvious, while some flowers or leaves will lend themselves to the elf take.

My personal favorite, Tron:  For the more ambitiously crafty, add blue glow sticks to a black shirt and be the envy of everyone's inner nerd at the party.

Schoolgirl/Librarian/Secretary:  The bow-tie adds instant cool points to the standard skirt, button-up, and sweater uniform.

The Universe:  How awesome would it be to answer someone with, "I'm the Universe" when they ask what you're supposed to be?

(photos collected from Google Images, Weardrobe, and NotCouture)

Grandpa's Tie

My Grandpa was a great man.  He shuffled a mean deck of cards for Up and Down the River, dressed to the nines every day, sang Frank Sinatra songs almost as good as Frank himself, and the love he had for his family was staggering.

Today I remember him by wearing one of his ties.

(photo by e.hunt)

The Go-Between

It's that time of the year when the weather cannot make up its mind: bluntly brisk in the morning then a well-to-do warm in the afternoon.  That time when leaves are turning and falling, but only because it is October, not because of a crinkling chill that makes them too tired to hold on to the branches any longer.  That time when it is really hard to pick something to wear that accompanies both chilly and sultry temperatures well.  This daunting problem can be answered through one word alone: layering.

(photos collected from Notcouture, Weardrobe, and Missatlaplaya)

We're Back!

So, after a brief vacation from the blog updates, I've decided to start back up again.  I'm no longer residing in Europe, but back in the good old usa, smack dab in the middle in Springfield, Missouri.  I study fine arts, design arts, and french, with a strong interest in all things fashion, so all of my future posts will concern things that inspire me pertaining to these fields.  Get ready to be shocked and display spontaneous signs of awe upon viewing; I have a lot of good things in store.

Here's a little welcome back image of one of the coolest things I've ever seen (and got to cross off my life list):  a black sand beach.

(photo by e.hunt)