fashion - The Seventh Sphinx

April 28, 2014April 28, 2014

the spring cape

A cape is a nice option for this schizophrenic spring weather. A loose, effortless layer. I’ve always liked a cape.

How I enjoy navy with mustard.

Brows can be much darker than this, of course, but this is dark for me, and about as dark as I can go without things getting suspicious. Without, as it were, giving the game away. This is a bit of pencil brushed through with some of Benefit’s gimme brow tinted gel over that. Quite like this gel, which I use in the lighter shade and find entirely natural on its own. My brows are not conspicuous and this is a quick way to bring them forward.

Brows and lips have, for me anyway, for my eye, the largest capacity for impact, and doing something to groom and present one or the other of those elements is all that is needed to convey the impression that you’ve done a lot more. I’m not really demonstrating this theory here, as I’ve done other stuff, but I’m convinced.

Express leggings, American Apparel cape (thrifted), Jeffrey Campbell France boots (similar), Mulberry bag (thrifted), J Crew turtleneck, mustard leather gloves (thrifted). On the lips: MAC lipstick in Kinda Sexy.

Wearing a bit of Tarte’s Amazonian clay blush in Exposed, a lovely neutral mauve shade so muted that I understand it can be a contour shade for paler skin tones. Its’ matte and subtle, as is this lipstick, a bit of a departure for me but one I’m liking.

April 25, 2014April 25, 2014

details: bold structure at Rosie Assoulin Resort 2014

Rosie Assoulin is a young (29) New York designer who has been mentioned more and more in the press in the last year as someone to watch. She researched and interned for several years (and this after helping her jewelry designer mother from 14 on) before her first collections, all built on noticing, decade after decade, patterns of long, floor-brushing pieces, generous volumes of fabric, sashes, and bold solids. The results are clean and sweeping, with an appealing blend of boxy and fitted elements.

Here are some of my favorite looks from her Resort 2014 collection.

images from rosieassoulin.com

While the concept of a resort collection kind of cracks me up sometimes (a line you would theoretically wear at a resort, or on vacation…or in the summer… but I guess ‘summer’ was already taken in ‘spring/summer’ and these things are immutable), I often like them anyway, if only for their heavy use of white (and other bright colors), of which I approve.

These structures strike me as regal and yet fully modern (if not a bit of the future). Their silhouettes are cousins of silhouettes many centuries old in some cases (sashes with giant, bustle-like bows, trains, floor length skirts, complex draping), but the textures and the complete lack of embellishment are current, and these designs do not read as old-fashioned in anyway to me.