May I Present....

So remember all of that exciting news I mentioned? This is a small part of it: the tip of the excitement iceberg? Okay. Weird analogies aside - I was in a play last weekend.

Set in 1912, the play chronicles the events surrounding Abdu'l-Baha's epic visit to the West and the profound impact that visit had on the early American Baha'i community. I had the opportunity to play Juliet Thompson - and had so much fun working with my new friends! [ps. we are none of us professional actors - but we had a GREAT time!]

 Backstage: finishing touches complete!

 This is one of my favorite photos!

Lua! (she seemed to say)

 Meeting the press...

 Candid shots (amidst the melee) are the best!

 With our director!

 Catching some pre-show vitamin D

 Last minute running of lines

"...I have a confession to make"

 The ladies

 Nancy, chilling in the green room

Painter's bag: check!

In case there was any confusion... my favorite part might be the dressing up part. Just saying.

Introducing...

I fancy myself a stylish woman... I tend to have strong opinions and correspondingly a strong personal voice that is manifested in the myriad ways I express myself.

But if there is one woman whose style I consistently admire, it is my friend Mojan Sami. 

Spring 2012 Trend Report

courtesy Mojan Sami

The rad thing about Mojan (okay... one of the rad things) is that she really does her homework. And this is why she is my ad hoc stylist - not only does she have her ish put together, but she legitimately knows what she's talking about. 

Like light blue for spring, which will supplement my deep love of all things orange very nicely!

Now only for some past due warm weather for spring.....!

All Aboard...!

All images courtesy The Sartorialist

I apologize for the gross neglect and inattention this little slice of my life has received, of late. Ironically, as I am not really (by which I mean at all) a "label" girl... it is Louis Vuitton's fine Fall/Winter 2012 collection that has propelled me out of my blogging hibernation.  

I feel like they have examined and redefined the steam-punk movement ...no longer riding the pop culture underground!

Masterpiece...

Victorian wedding party styled by BHLDN

Via Snippet & Ink

I know. As per usual, the cart is very much before the horse... (my kingdom for a horse! ...too much?) That's never stopped a girl from day dreaming pretty things, right?

Because I think that a party - wedding or otherwise - populated with Downton Abbey-esque styles would be amazing! And super fun. By which I mean happy Friday!

A Flare For The Dramatic...

Courtesy Honestly...WTF

You may not know this... but orange is my favorite color. I think it's just about the happiest color alive, so naturally I'm digging this lady's trousers - but what I really love is how free the layers are in this shot. The movement is so vivid!

Orange You Glad, indeed!

Fun Fashion Friday...

Okay, I concede that I may have gotten carried away with my alliterative self... but that's just how I roll. [Monday Morning Morrissey Madness, anyone?]

Anyhow, I spotted this on Honestly...WTF and was a little nonplussed by the stills. This is likely because I have very strong opinions about logos and brand image that rhyme with "it looks like you're sponsoring a fashionista - you should pay me to wear that", but I digress.

What I liked most about this video was watching the people at work! I love to see good craftsmanship in action - and whatever your thoughts on the LV aesthetic, you can't deny that the construction is legit.

Enjoy!

Who... Me?

Just when you thought they weren't listening.....

Part 1:

Part 2:

Okay... I know that these have been making the rounds, but this one is probably my favorite so far. I can't tell which side of the joke I'm on - and I don't really care.

All credit to Fashion Is Spinach.

On Fashion Cues...

Courtesy Lili & Mae

Me.

So I was poking around the interwebs today and spotted an ode to my favorite color (orange!) on Lili & Mae and I was quite tickled to learn that I was so fashion forward in my dress today.

But here's where I'm really going with this. Ladies, do you ever take fashion ques from men? On the street, in your life, at the office? There are a quite a few men's fashion blogs out there that I think, while definitely geared towards men, address a pretty universal aesthetic. Naturally, The Sartorialist is at the top of this list... but check out what James Nord is doing, or the ever dapper curators of Street Etiquette. Watch for things like incorporating color, accessories, and textures.

You can thank me later.

Bon Jour, Mes Amis...

Courtesy the perennially lovely Garonce Dore.

So I'm looking at studying a new foreign language this year... and it's a toss between French and Italian. I know. My house is an hour from Mexico - why not Spanish? Or why not solidify the tenuous grasp I have of German, Persian or Hebrew? All excellent questions.

I'm in the process of learning Spanish with a friend, so this frees me up for a concentration in either French or Italian.

It sounds a little zany, even to me (my iPhone doesn't hold regular conversations with me, afterall - yet?), but I think my google.reader has a pretty strong opinion on the language I learn. Because I look at so many blogs [definitely not because I'm lazy], I like everything in one place. One of my favorite fashion blogs is Garance Dore - who, despite currently living in NYC, just so happens to be French. Long story short, I accepted google.reader's offer of translation.

Except it now tries to translate everything else I look at into English.

I know, you may be wondering how many French language blogs I read. Just the one. And yes, that means that my reader sees the English on the page as French and translates it to... English. At first I thought that everyone had gone off their rocker - it is, to a line, idiomatically and grammatically incorrect. But now the fun game is to figure out what the writers were meaning to write when they wrote what they wrote.

Quirky brainteasers aside... any plans for 2012?

On Thicker Blood...

Via the perennially lovely Fleur

I can't believe that it's been almost three years since I was in Paris. ...freezing, wearing multiple (borrowed) unmatched layers and surrounded by stylish and chic Parisienne's - apparently immune to the cold. *And I mean snow. I know that I'm from Israel and SoCal, so you might not trust my value judgments on what constitutes cold: but this was it!

And I have to say that pictures like this take me right back. Because I'm shaking like a leaf here, and it's only in the 50s during the day (30s at night)... and these ladies are so cute it hurts me. So my recourse is to wear layer upon layer of figure morphing sweater, or to thicken my blood and walk out like a boss.

Which brings to me to my central question: how does DO that! Holler.

If I Had A Sugar-Daddy...

Lanvin clutch (see more clutch bags)

Truer words have never been spoken... also - it appears that my favorite fashion blogger and editrix, Johanna of A Serious Job is No Excuse (ASJiNE) has come out of retirement and can be found, regaling us all with her not inconsiderable wit, charm and style via Twitter. Huzzah!

Fly On a Wall...

Hubert de Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn

via Awesome People Hanging Out Together

In related news, I think I'm finally going to invest in a trench coat. ...particularly as I no longer seem to own warm clothes.

Repitition On A Theme...

Ellie Saab

I've been really into green lately: shoes, kitchens, lifestyles... and this dress. Holy cow, dear friends! You know how I feel about Ellie Saab - but this is just stunning!

All thanks to the lovely Laily of Fleur - and contributer to {this is glamorous} ::love.

Green With... YSL

Everyone's favorite Parisian blogger and fashion photograher, Garance Dore, has dubbed these the craziest shoes of Paris Fashion Week... methinks she must mean that in a very "bad as in good" Run DMC kind of way.

Because I want them on my feet.

A Thousand Words...

Unlike Scott Schumann (one of my favorite bloggers), I'm not tight with the editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia, Franca Sozzani... so I can only speculate as to her particular motivation in including these three lovely young women on the cover of the June edition. And I actually and sincerely appreciate that a publication as prestigious as Vogue - and in one of the major global hubs of fashion - would openly declare that women with curves are beautiful and fashion forward.

We're on a slippery slope indeed, however, when the standard of success of modern (post-post modern?) feminism is set by the further objectification of women: congratulations! Women of all shapes and sizes can now be viewed as sex objects! I know, I know: sexy people are desirable, desirable people are envied, the happiness of being envied is glamour, and glamour sells magazines.... We've come a long way, baby?

Last summer I read a really amazing book by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn called Half the Sky. It is truly "a passionate call to arms against the oppression of women around the globe - "the central moral challenge" of our time" (I totally took that from the book's jacket - but it's completely true). As a woman, I felt the lives of those interviewed - theirexperiences - cut into my heart, grab a hold, and rock me with the power of their story and the strength of their character. As a western woman, I couldn't help but feel slightly detached. This isn't to say that I wasn't still moved, very often to tears, by what I read - but I had no mechanism or concept of how to process my thoughts and feelings into something concrete and conducive to the betterment of the whole of society. Which is exactly what these myriad heroes were doing: working through their experiences and changing the discourse and reality of their society in positive, meaningful ways.

And then I had the opportunity to study a small, humble, yet infinitely profound document prepared by the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity (ISGP) called "Advancing Toward the Equality of Women and Men". I knew while reading Half the Sky that the inequality of women and men is as much a problem in developed nations as it is in developing nations....

Addressing the importance that a fundamental knowledge of our selves and of the purpose behind our creation can have in overcoming oppression, the ISGP states that "even in societies where women have been granted certain political and economic rights and are legally empowered, both men and women are denied knowledge of their true selves. Women are objectified and sexuality is made the core of their identity. Their aims and aspirations are set in terms of pleasing men. Attraction to beauty [...] is deliberately perverted to the point where women and men are seen as no more than means for the gratification of material desires."

It is true, the human body is a wonderful, beautiful thing. It has been uniquely designed as the receptacle of the human soul - and it is capable of tremendous things. Let us celebrate our appreciation of the 'body beautiful' for its achievements and for the service it renders the soul - and not because a small number of them have been used as a marketing tool in the advertising of culture.

...To Grow On

So you may or may not know that I just celebrated my birthday. As Jay-Z would say, I'm "young enough to know the right car to buy, but grown enough not to be rims on it"....

These women - via Advanced Style (a street style blog courtesy of Ari Seth Cohen) - prove that high fashion is appropriate at any age. I love that their conversations about and commitment to art and personal expression are so in the moment. Their fingers are definitely on the pulse!

All head's up credit (and thanks!) goes to the equally art and fashion conscious ladies at Honestly... WTF. Aptly named. Promise.

Fashion Sense... of Humor

Via The Sartorialist.

Ever the globe trotter, Scott Schumann is in Western Europe at the moment - as evidenced by this awesome shot from Amsterdam.

Apparently, a local football team (that's soccer, for the Americans in the house) had just won an important game and so the streets were alive and (literally) hopping.

I don't know what I love more: the obvious enthusiasm from these guys, juxtaposed with the "fashion subject's" droll expression - or the fact that Mr. Schumann just went with it.

Public Service Announcement...

Today's afternoon special courtesy

Elements of Style by Erin Gates

Did everyone get the memo? Okay... good.

Sharing is Caring...

Source: llamabananatiama.tumblr.com via Aimee on Pinterest

So my friend Haley recently introduced me to this new (to me?) thing called Pinterest. Have you guys tried it before?

You may be curious to know that I love pretty things. And interesting things... and that I'm kind of a hoarder of these pretty, interesting - and pretty interesting things. Particularly images. I have literally used all of the space on several flash drives (I know, I need to woman up and get a proper external hard drive) as well as most of the available space on a few computers [ahem].

Basically this serves as a really rad cloud-type space or an inspiration board for images that you find on the world wide interwebs. Saves them and categorizes them - and they're so easy to find! All at the click of a button! Swoon! I feel so organized right now!

Oh... and yes. You may have guessed that I have a board dedicated to men I think are amazing. ...inspiration board, right?!

Problem Solving...

Courtesy A Cup of Jo

When I was playing water polo in college and getting my hair cut at the beauty college, or some other $5 special... my friend was getting her hair done at this really trendy salon (that shall remain nameless because I'm sure it's trademarked, and I have no idea how to throw up that particular gang-sign). One day my friend and I pop in to "see her [hair] guy". Friends, your boy walked up to me, takes one look, and says - sneer and all - "ugh. What do you put in your hair? It is too healthy!"

Several years - and my own "hair guy" later - and I no longer wash my hair every day. Now that my water polo team is training more than ever, however, I really struggle to find things to do with my hair on 'day 2'. It should be professional, feminine, classy, and fresh.

Enter Joanna Goddard of A Cup of Jo fame. She gathered some of her rad NYC stylist/photographer/model friends and presto change-o! Solutions for a great hair day! You can peep the tutorial (complete with handy pictures) here.

No promises, but this may just be my look... two days hence!