MARIA LIN

- Maria Lin

My favorite Robert Montgomery. The man is f*ing brilliant.

The friendship bracelet I made yesterday…it wasn’t too hard. If you’re a friend and want one, let me know. (Taken with instagram)

I’m not a big nail art person (I stick to either red, pinky nude or wine) but I couldn’t resist trying the Sally Hansen peel and sticks that everyone’s been talking about. I admit, pretty cool.

Stuck with the fishnets—think they look kind of killer. They definitely go on neater than painting them myself. Hope they last as long as they say (a week).

paris apartment sill

- Henry David Thoreau

Oh, and a perfect little gelato from Grom. (Taken with instagram)

And a simple leather belt from club monaco (Taken with instagram)

A blue Zadig and Voltaire sweater… (Taken with instagram)

For my birthday…heady white roses (Taken with instagram)

I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE BARNEYS BRAND.

Gone is the lightheartedness and whimsy that was such a special part of the brand experience, that Simon Doonan epitomized and the creative team helped define. Instead of “Taste. Luxury. Humor.” it’s now apparently “Italian. Mafiosa. Death.”

What used to be a brand vibrating with color, spontaneity and quirkiness is now a humorless and cold high-fashion look that is unappealing as it is unapproachable…I mean, black and white? How am I supposed to tell what color that Goyard is?

Everyone in the Barneys buying office is leaving in droves, and I don’t blame them—the management has completely changed overnight, names are on the pink list every other day, and even if you made it past the guillotine, would you really want to stay? The brand seems to have changed drastically, and I know for a fact that the buyers weren’t there for the money (given how little they were paid). They were there for the brand.

Just snagged me this Mulberry this past weekend—the Alexa, named after style icon Alexa Chung. It’s the perfect bag—like my Balenciaga motorcycle grown up, a little more refined, and taken to the English countryside. It’s made of the most luxurious buttery leather, has the perfect amount of understated matte gold hardware and detail, and fits my 11 inch Macbook air. It’ll take me well into spring, summer, fall…and…well, I don’t want to think about next winter again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had an ultrasound like this…maybe someday again.

“Speak your truth quietly and clearly.” - Desiderata

This is a personal mantra I repeat several times a day, because I find it so hard to do. In a world of glitter and noise, the truth can be lost. We talk over each other, clamoring to be heard.

Truth’s note is clearer and quieter than all the others. It has a pitch I’m trying to pay more attention to, so that I know it when I hear it, and so that I learn to hit it myself.

I think truth is when someone wears something that is exactly her, be it a cashmere scarf or a ratty t-shirt or 5-inch YSL stilettos—not trying too hard, not being falsely modest, simply not attempting to be someone or something she is not. It’s when someone owns her voice and speaks her mind. Owns her body and treats it well, and listens to it.

It’s when someone is at peace with who she is at that very moment, and with the circumstances of the life that surrounds her.

inothernews:

From Smithsonian Magazine, a look at the surreal works of 16th century artist Giuseppe Acrimboldo:

The job of a renaissance court portraitist was to produce likenesses of his sovereigns to display at the palace and give to foreign dignitaries or prospective brides. It went without saying the portraits should be flattering. Yet, in 1590, Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted his royal patron, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, as a heap of fruits and vegetables (opposite). With pea pod eyelids and a gourd for a forehead, he looks less like a king than a crudité platter.

Lucky for Arcimboldo, Rudolf had a sense of humor. And he had probably grown accustomed to the artist’s visual wit. Arcimboldo served the Hapsburg family for more than 25 years, creating oddball “composite heads” made of sea creatures, flowers, dinner roasts and other materials.

Though his work was forgotten for centuries, Arcimboldo is enjoying a personal renaissance, with shows at major European museums. At the Louvre, a series of Arcimboldo paintings is among the most popular in the collection. Sixteen of the jester’s best works, including the Louvre series, are on display until January 9 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the first major American exhibition of its kind.

“We wanted people to have the experience that the emperors in the Hapsburg court had,” says David Alan Brown, a National Gallery curator. “To have the same pleasure, as if they were playing a game, to first see what looks like a head and then discover on closer inspection that this head is made of a myriad of the most carefully observed flowers, vegetables, fruits, animals and birds.”

Above, Acrimboldo’s piece, Water, 1566.

(more at Smithsonian Magazine via BoingBoing)

inothernews:

WHITE ME   A man walked his dog in Central Park.  (Photo: Peter Foley / European Pressphoto Agency via the New York Times)

Happy end of 2010.

inothernews:

misterhippity:

Tracy Chapman sings O Holy Night.

Just beautiful.

One of my favorites.

ONE OF MY FAVORITE SONGS, IN STUNNING SIMPLICITY. MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE.