wrapped in glasses - it's fantastic

For the past few days, I've been obsessively checking the mailbox everyday for the arrival of my new glasses. Eye glasses have always been the subject of an incredibly intense love/hate relationship.

I absolutely adore the aesthetic idea of a great pair of glasses and remember purposefully reading with really poor lighting when I was younger in hopes of weakening my eyes. In high school, I had a fake pair of plastic black framed ones that I wore constantly until a) they became ubiquitous b) I realized how horrifying they made me look.

In college, my eyes finally succumbed and I was diagnosed as a little short sighted, enough to warrant my first pair. Unfortunately, the pair I really wanted was from Oliver Peoples (translation: =$$$$) and in a hurry because my mom was waiting to make Thanksgiving dinner, I chose a pair of Ralph Lauren glasses that ended up being the bane of my existence. I still remember receiving them in the mail at Mizzou, trying them on, and being absolutely horrified.

Since then, eyewear and I have been had an uneasy relationship. Nothing makes me look super "Asian" and disfigures my face quicker than a pair of unflattering glasses, which unfortunately happens to be most glasses. I don't really have a face for them, truth be told, and I even avoided sunglasses until very recently because I think they make me look pissed off (via eyebrow juxtapositioning).

While in New York, I found a pair of gorgeous titanium ones at a sample sale for $50. It was perhaps my greatest find so of course I lost them promptly in Central Park. Since then, I've been without a pair, despite my eyes getting worse and worse.

Finally, with my parents' insurance running out in November, I've gone on an eyeglass hunt. I've found several pairs that I really love, but of course they're always really expensive. I can't justify spending too much money on a pair. I finally found a pair in Lawrence that were perfect, but a little too small. Despairing, I've taken to ordering online.

I subscribe less to the trendy-cool genre of mediocre glasses found on so many hipsters and more to the nebbish, New York intellectual aesthetic. Therefore, Moscot made perfect sense despite hesitations about ordering a pair off the internet.

Moscot is a Jewish optometrist in New York with a long history and an even longer list of celebrity clients that include John Lennon and Johnny Depp. All of their glasses are named after family members and have that really great Woody Allen-esque chic to them. They're not annoying like many of the black framed glasses out there because not only do they have history and authenticity on their side, but their frames, I think, are more interesting, have personality, and are of better quality.

Here are a few of my favorites:

The Lemtosh

The Nebb

The Nebb SEThe Zelig

Gorgeous, right? I was originally going to purchase the Zelig, but like all of Moscot's older frames, it was too small for me. So instead, I went with their newer line of modern reinterpretations and ordered the Yale.

I've always wanted a pair of tortoise shell glasses so these seemed rather perfect. I have to admit that the black Yales are even better looking online, but there was no giving up on my tortoise-centered dreams. Here's hoping they look okay! Otherwise, it's back to the eyewear store for me!

sunny side ups

Hate to leave you hangin', but because my life is currently more stressful than an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", how about you enjoy some photo inspiration courtesy of people other than myself?

head space

Recent obsession gratis of Jack!

blinded by light

a shot by the Sartorialist

In dedication of the start of New York Fashion Week and the recent book launch by one of my favorite fixations, Scott Schuman aka the Sartorialist, I'm devoting an actual blog post to the inexplicably addictive phenom of street style bogs.

These blogs document people and their outfits ranging from the quietly chic to the outrageous. Most are based in certain metropolitan cities, most often New York, Tokyo, Paris and assorted European cities. Having gained momentum within the past year or so, they have come to generate ideas for fashion, prompt discussion about standards of beauty, and induce a real idee fixe among followers. What separates these photogs from the society photographers and paparazzi of the past are that they focus on everyday cosmopolites. Most subjects may be fairly wealthy and a large number admittedly work in the fashion industry, but they are nonetheless everyday people, not celebrities, unless you count the obsessive fans that have now begun to follow them. Indeed, what's particularly amazing is the fatuous fan base that has spread from the 100+ comments that each blog post generates to real movers and shakers, such as fashion powerhouse Paris Vogue to department stores Holt Renfrew, Collette, and Barney's New York, both of whom have recently dedicated store windows and retail space to these street warriors. Wholly and undeniably, that is real power.

Moreover, many of these photographers are usually not professional. Instead, they share a keen sense of detail and a love of style, not necessarily the wholly unapproachable fashion that magazines and websites have traditionally paid tribute to.

Schuman shot by Garance

The big daddy of this movement is, of course, the Sartorialist, a former director of a showroom. Schuman is pure evidence of the power and interest that street style now wields. The Sartorialist.com, his website, is minimal with the most basic web design borrowed from blogspot.com and usually relies on a simple headline that describes either the mood, the key detail, or the location where the subject was snapped. Instead, the photograph says it all. They're vibrant and welcoming, a reversal of the distancing cool that fashion usually shrouds itself in. Like other street style photographers, the Sartorialist insists that he isn't necessarily following what is “on trend”; instead, he photographs what he finds beautiful and moving. It definitely works. In fact, getting shot by the Sartorialist has become an impossible honor and obsession for many cosmopolites, so much that the website Refinery29 released this tongue-in-cheek graphic as a guide as to how to get his attention:

I've been following him since he's started; checking his website every morning has become part of my routine. I only see a growing popularity with the publication of his new book. A photograph on a website can't always capture everything there is to see – sometimes you just really need it in hardcopy. Sometimes Scott's pictorial subjects have escaped me; flipping through the book is both revealing and enlightening as to why so many of these people are graced with his lens. My only complaint is its size: I was definitely hoping for a coffee table size publication, but the regular edition (versus his “bespoke edition”) is the size of a normal paperbook – not the greatest size for displaying the power of detail that is so central to his work.

Yet, one musn't forget that the claims to street style documentation belong Japanese fashion magazines, who have been documenting their fabulous citizens for years now, and Bill Cunningham, a photographer for the New York Times. Bill is an absolute legend who still remains somehow undiscovered, or at least not popularly discussed by a non-New York audience. His photo column "On the Street" appear in the Sunday Times, usually focusing on a theme or an event. If the Sartorialist is all about the outstanding individual – he photographs them in the light of the gods – Bill's photographs are proletariat and democratic. A problem with many street style websites is that they tend to get stuck in a rut photographing the same people or styles. With Bill, you never know what to expect. His essays inevitably contain a multitude of races, socio-economic backgrounds, and appearances, from Park Avenue grand dames to Union Square skater kids. Over all, they embody his vision of New York. Bill Cunningham is New York City. I insist you listen to his audio column that comes out every week at nytimes.com – he is an absolute gentleman.

Garance shot by Schuman

I would suggest that his demi-descendant is French photographer Garance Dore. Garance is a mix of the Sartorialist (she's actually dating him) and Bill Cunningham. She has Cunningham's warmth, most obviously and wonderfully expressed in her columns that accompany most of her photos. At the same time, her photographs share the same devotion to light and space as Schuman's. While the Sartorialist himself often times remains a blank (which may be a good thing, judging from his recent interviews), Cunningham's and Garance's photos are suffused with personality. One noticeable feature (as pointed out by a friend) is how consistently physically blessed all of her subjects are. I don't understand where she finds them, but it both inspires and depresses me. While Bill is decidedly American and Scott lends a more international eye, Garance's aesthetic seems undeniably French no matter where her subjects are sourced from.

a shot by Tommy Ton

There are also a bunch of trendier sites that also document the street. My favorite of those is Jak & Jill (aka Tommy Ton), who forms some what of a trifecta with Garance and Schuman in the Holy Trinity of Street Style. Many of these sites, while interesting, are a bit derivative and lack the real warmth, aesthetic taste, and talent that the Greats have, however. While still undeniably great, they lack that je ne sais quoi, if you will, that Scott, Garance, Tommy and Bill embody. Check them out nonetheless – here are a few that I keep up with:

Copenhagen Street Style
Streetpeeper
Style and the City
Stylesightings

i. love. this.

Ch-ch-check it. Check it out.

easy as 123

It's really amusing to hear people flip through a magazine and disgustedly exclaim, "ugh, who would wear that?" about some really avant garde creation. Well, I guess I shouldn't say "amusing" so much as "annoying" because for me, most of the outrageous/"ugly" stuff is precisely what is interesting about fashion. I mean, who wants to look at another tasteful Armani black pantsuit?

But here to help those fashion novices is Fashematics, perhaps one of the most diverting websites I've come across in a while. They break down the "inspiration" behind each look so that understanding fashion is easy as

1


+


2


= 3!

Here are some of my favs:

a swine-filled fluuuuzy

Ugh, the only solution for swine flu-induced boredom is a cup of tea and back episodes of "30 Rock". I tried getting into some other shows (True Blood, anyone?) but the only thing that could keep my attenuated attention span were the antics of Tina Fey. Well, that and Kung Fu Panda, but that's another story...