My year in pictures and words

It's the end of the year already, so we thought it would be nice to make a year post. This was my year in pictures and words! I hope everyone had a great year, will have an awesome new years eve and an even better new year!

Where I went:

Berlin; Medebach-Titmaringhausen (Germany); Brugge; Antwerpen; Maastricht.

I need to travel so much more, next year I really want to leave Europe again!

Things I did:

Set up this blog with Lotte and Angelika; Having a job interview at L’Officiel; Listen to all the albums in the RYM top 100 of all time; Tried to read Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust in one week (and failed); Make quizzes with my friends for each other about our own area of expertise; Playing Buzz with Lotte and Ewout; Helping my mom move out of my parents house after they got divorced; Getting photoshop lesions from Lotte; Going to Paranormal Activity 2 on Halloween with my boyfriend and being really scared all night; Bought really fancy champagne for new years; Going out with Lotte and Angelika for our blog and talking to strange people (which is pretty scary for me!); Got back into fashion, started following all kinds of blogs and buying way too much clothing; Making an inspiration lookbook filled with pictures from magazines.

Most played albums:
She and Him – Volume One; Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago; Bowerbirds – Hymns for a Dark Horse; Coconut Records – Nighttiming; The Talles Man on Earth – Shallow Grave; Glee soundtrack (all of them!); Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – From Below; Jenny Lewios and the Watson Twins – Rabbit Fur Coat; Charlotte Gainsbourgh – IRM; God help the Girl – ST; Jens Lekman – When I said I wanted to be your dog

TV/Films/Books:
Glee; Twin Peaks; Dr. Who; Community; Smallville; Gossip Girl; Supernatural; Project Runway; How I met your Mother; Chuck; Bored to death; True Blood; The Big Bang theory; Battlestar Galactica
Sunset Blvd.; North by Northwest; Scott Pilgrim vs. the World; Exit Through the Gift shop; Stalker; Metropolis (with live music!); Fantastic Mr. Fox; Kick-Ass; Primer; Mary and Max; Where the Wild things are; Moon; Let the right one in (Swedish version)
Scott Pilgrim series; Catcher in the Rye; The Corrections; Watchmen; The Magicians, Shades of Grey; Dance, dance, dance.

Best purchases + gifts: 
Leather satchel from India that my sister bought me; Sewing machine from my parents, I finally learned how to make my own things!; Tim Burton Coffee Table book from my parents; my lace-up boots; Oh Comely magazine from Lotte; All of the other magazines I bought myself. Inspiration is priceless!; My long leather skirt.

Style obsessions and influences:
Bow ties; pleated skirts; oxford shoes (still can’t find the pair I want); lace-up boots; Big wooly jumpers and vests; Monki; Satchels; Peter Pan collars; Alexa Chung; Twin Peaks; Smallville, Rachel Berry, Velvet ribbons

Best things I did for myself: 

Stop worrying about lots of things; not finish my thesis and taking some time off ; Expanding my writing to non-fiction; Dying my hair with henna instead of hair dye. It feels so much nicer right now!

Things for 2011: 

Quitting my job and start writing for money; finishing my thesis; Starting my Master; Turning this blog into a tangible magazine; Traveling, reading and writing more and having even more fun!

Dali Photography

Dali Atomicus, 1948

Salvador Dali!
Like everyone else I love his surrealistic paintings, but his lesser known photos are definitely quite as cool.
In the 1940's Dali teamed up with Philippe Halsman. They became partners on many projects, including a series of playful tableaux that had all the disturbing irrationality of dreams or a painting by Dali. Some became iconic, like the first two pictures in this blog. I think it is nice that everything you see on these photographs was also happening in real life, adjustments after taking the picture were not possible and not needed. At a time in which the most high-tech photo-camera's and photoshop are used, it is hard to imagine how much effort this would have taken.

Dali Skull, 1951

"Midsummer Night's Mare" 1950

The photograph above was discribed in a Fall 1950 issue of Photography Workshop:

"Still bent on suspending objects, Halsman and his willing accomplice, Dali, produced the explosion picture on page 39. The photograph was built around the fantasy of Dali's shoe exploding with the image of a beautiful woman appearing amid a holocaust of popcorn and French bread."

Dali also worked together with other famous photographers of that period, among them Man Ray and Brassaï. Man Ray is actually known as "The Dali of photography'. His photographs have been more influential than Dali's, although not as famous and well know among the mainstream public.

Salvador Dali and Man Ray Photograhped by Carl van Vechten

Le Violon d’Ingres by Man Ray

Back from Berlin

Finally my Berlin post! I got home on Sunday, but I was just too tired from having a four hour train delay and Christmas dinner that night. Yesterday night was spent watching Dr. Who and finishing Twin Peaks, which was totally worth not writing a post (especially the Dr. Who Christmas special, it was amazing!) I was not sure what to write about my trip, because it wasn’t very fashionable or innovating. We did nice touristy things like visiting the East Side Gallery, Checkpoint Charlie and Weihnachtsmärkte. Germany apparently really loves Christmas, because there were so many markets and lights everywhere that even I kind of got enough of the holiday. But besides all this, I had a lot of fun and saw some cool things! We went to a place called Hackesche Höfe which was originally a Jewish part of town. In the second World War the entire area was damaged. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall the building was returned to its rightful owners, who turned it into a cultural community. Now it’s a marketplace for designers, artists and other creative people. There are restaurants, movie theaters and concert halls. Right now it is one of the most expensive places in Berlin, because of its booming culture and influence on the city, which I thought was pretty cool! They had some nice stores, but I mostly liked the aesthetic of the place. It’s divided in small ‘hofjes’ (there isn’t really a great English translation, but you could call it a sort of patio) surrounded by trees and nice front walls. I took most of my pictures with Lotte’s analogue camera, so I don’t have that much to show yet, but just to give you an impression:

Near to this was the magazinestore I posted about earlier Do you read me?! and all I can say was that it was great! There were so many magazines and the owner had a really cute dog! I decided to buy some German magazines, because they were the cheapest and I can’t get them at home. I bought Sleek, Zoo Magazine and Indie. They are all partly in German, which is sort of a problem. I only know a small bit of German, so I might just skip over those parts and look at all the pretty pictures. 

One of the funniest things we did was look for the grave of Hegel, a philosopher I just don’t seem to get (I had to retake a test on his book Elements of the Philosophy of Right 5 times). He was buried on a small cemetery near the magazine shop. It was a very snowy place and we looked all over for the grave but couldn’t find it! When we finally looked at the map, counted the graves and finally found him, we took so many pictures of us next to his stone, it got kind of hilarious and creepy at the same time.

I love taking pictures of cemeteries!

We also saw the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin play at the Philharmonie. It was my first classical performance and I was really impressed. They played an amazing organ symphony by Camille Saint-Saëns with this tiny Asian girl on a double bass and another small girl on the organ. I was surprised the organ was played by someone so small and adorable, because it produced a wall of sound.

I also found a new cute cultural thing called Unser Sandmännchen. It’s an East German children’s series, with the cutest main character! They had a set of small magnets with images from the show, but I didn’t buy it which I now regret. Next time I’m back in Berlin, I’ll buy them for sure!

I hope everyone had a very nice Christmas, I had a great time. If you haven’t seen Dr. Who or don’t even know it, I strongly urge you to start watching. I’ll soon post something about bowties and unlikely style icons and this last episode of Dr. Who made me love them even more. Ok,  I’ll stop praising the show now… but it’s just so good! Go watch it!

Is he dreamy with that bowtie or what?

Things I love Thursday - The Lunar edition

Were you tossing and turning in your bed this Tuesday night? Did the sky suddenly seem a lot darker? Did you miss out on your monthly werewolf adventure? No worries, my friend; the World did not suddenly change into a cold dark place with no room for howling. There was just a Lunar Eclipse. A very epic one this time. This eclipse is happening almost simultaneously with the Winter solstice on the Northern Hemisphere!

This time of year is associated with light -- string lights, sparklers and of course, candles. Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition is the Festival of Lights, with 8 days of ritual illumination of the menorah. There's the advent wreath of the Christian faith and the all-night bonfire for the burning of the Yule log, a tradition with roots in Northern European pre-Christian times. The lights are reminders of the inner light, and hope for the return of sunny days.

 I know we had a Universe Things I love Thursday last week. But I totally forgot to mention the eclipse. So this post, is dedicated to the Moon!

The Earth as seen from the Moon 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

The lunar eclipse seen from Stanley Park in Vancouver

Black as midnight on a moonless night.
- Dale Cooper on his coffee preferences

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.
- George Carlin

You moon the wrong person at an office party and suddenly you're not 'professional' any more.
- Jeff Foxworthy 

What's your name Moon? - Full Moon names from the Farmer's Almanac
Full Wolf Moon – January: Amid the cold and deep snows of midwinter, the wolf packs howled hungrily outside Indian villages. Thus, the name for January’s full Moon. Sometimes it was also referred to as the Old Moon, or the Moon After Yule. Some called it the Full Snow Moon, but most tribes applied that name to the next Moon.

Untitled. van Guts met chain necklaces - Click on the link to find where to buy all these items!

And last but not least: Moonboots by Tecnica! You might think they look ridiculous - I think they are awaesome! - but you can't deny they'll keep yout feet nice and cozy.

Have an amazing Christmas! I hope you'll spend it with your most favourite people and maybe even get some nice gifts or do something real sweet for someone else.
Be good!

Love,
Lotte

Magazine Eye Candy

I'm packing my bags for Berlin as I write this, so all you'll get from me this week is this tiny post. I was browsing for some cool stores to visit during my stay and I found this amazing magazine store called Do you read me?!
It's a magazine store in Berlin (almost next my hotel!) with massive amounts of german and foreign magazines. If you look at the pictures you'll just see neat black walls, filled with pretty covers. I'm already planning on spending all my money in this store, buying every magazine I can't find in Holland.
I'll post some more eye candy from the store and when I get back I'll post some things about my trip!

Swanmarket

Everybody who’s been in London knows and probably likes the Camden Market.
Rotterdam, in an attempt to show off its creativity, now has their own version called Swanmarket, which includes shops that sell vintage, art, clothing & accessories and tasty treats. This weekend was a Christmas version of the lifestyle market, but the Christmas aspect was limited to Glühwein and the massive amounts of snow outside (my feet are still frozen!) To give an impression, we have some pictures and some links of cool sellers we saw today and luckily for you most of them have Etsy stores!

There was so much snow, people had built an iglo!

Empty houses were turned into a marketplace where several people could sell their creations. I really liked the leather bowtie necklace and chrochet jewelery from Van Rox. I have been trying to make a leather bowtie all night, but all I'm really doing is breaking my sewing machine (damn my hubris!). Another cool artist was Remona Poortman who makes twodimensional as well as threedimensional art. I love the drawings, but also the felt and leather teardrop necklaces

My favourite thing and what might be our new meeting place, was Rotabs. This is a stylecenter where  creative people can sell all kinds of things. You'll find big pieces of art like a stripped down slotmachine, but they'll also sell clothing, magazines and vintage! I was happy to find Mint Vintage, because Rotterdam really needs more vintage clothing stores. We'll probably write some more about Rotabs later, but just to give you an impression of the amazing things that are happening there we give you visual inspiration!

The most tasty scone ever at Lof der Zoetheid

They let you fill your own teabags!

Say hello to the world

I always like seeing how famous people started out. Watching their first movie, reading their first book or listening to that first album. It is not always great, but you do always see the potential shine through. I decided to use this experiment on blogs we like so here you go, the first page of the bloggers we learned to love.

Style Bubble

(before you click the link, please turn off your music)

The bubble has arrived…

Starting out in March 2006 Susie’s first post explains what her blog will be. She’s not a fashion insider and will not post catwalk pics and won’t have any fashion scoops, but she’ll be a personal blogger, talking about her own sense of fashion and her take on the things she enjoys. She even put a song in the post to celebrate! I love it how she just started posting away, doing multiple entries a day and always being friendly. My favorite post is the last one on this page, where she talks about meeting a coworker in a ‘fashion-forward’ outfit. Now she’s known for being a skirt over trousers person, wearing layers and layers of clothing, someone we look at for inspiration when working with our own closet.

Style Rookie

The new girl in town

The first post is short and to the point, she’s interested in high-fashion, neat websites and magazines. Comments are welcome. You actually have to go to page 2 to see some more posts, but that is where we hit the jackpot! The first pictures of Tavi and some of her friends. They just look to adorable! Also look at the top post, she’s finally getting a cellphone! When I think of how famous she became after this I feel really old…

Another Day to Dress up

First Post

Megan Stewart’s blog started a bit longer than a year ago with a simple picture of herself, showing her outfit and the word blog. There were no outdoor photo shoots with nice backgrounds yet, just one small photo for every look and lot’s of fashion pictures for inspiration. I feel like the first post here is not very representative for how the blog looks now. She looks a bit bored in it, but when you see new posts, she’s always smiling, the pictures are very nice and the outfits very inspiring. But if you look at the top of the page, this is already more the case, maybe she just had a bad first day.

The Sea of Fertility

The First thing is…

The first post, in adorable broken English, is about a new children’s book Xiaoxi Zhang is working on. It has a great drawing of what looks like Little Red Riding Hood with the bad wolf. The rest of the page contains pictures of herself and some fashion drawings. No drawings of her own outfits yet, which is too bad, because they are my favorite thing on her blog!

Hannah and Landon

On ragging your hair

I really need to try this first post! Hannah explains how you ‘rag’ your hair, which means wrapping your hear around cotton rags to get really cool curls. Instead of doing a video tutorial, she does it with pictures, because an earlier try of this was supposedly unwatchable. This made me very curious and I wish I could have seen it.

The Little Deer

First post

I love it when bloggers do an introduction post because you get acquainted with them right away. You know right away if they’re friendly or arrogant or nothing like yourself. Taylor Paige’s The Little Deer starts out with a short post explaining why she started a blog and apologizing for its appearance. It’s no nonsense but very friendly! The rest of the page is filled with pictures, two drawings ( one with an Oscar Wilde quote, jee!) and nice shoes.

Sea of Shoes

A brief introduction...

I haven’t been following Sea of Shoes that long yet and I was really surprised it started out as a mother/daughter blog. The first is an open introduction to all shoe addicts from Judy and Jane). There will be no doubt about it, they really love their shoes and are ready to share this with the world. Of course there will also be talk about other types of fashion, but their main aim are the shoes. This you see in every post on the first page. I do really like the cut-out pictures they did, it looks very crafty with the typewriter font!