suit fitting at bindle and keep

Internet favorites: Giant, Loose, Unaffordable

Those who know me well know about my unstoppable passion for giant, loose clothing. Basically, if it looks like you might wear it as penance, I probably like it.

For example, I just bought this "raw-edge linen sack dress" in two colors:

Internet favorites for August: Odds and Ends Wishlist

What are these little things? They are the sorts of things that prevent me from living a minimalist lifestyle. Here are the rest of the internet favorites.

1. Tell my mother I love her, from Explorer's Press

2. Eye earrings that go on either side of your ear, Bauble Bar

3. Small bronze hands from Small Bronzes on Etsy

4. Eyes by David Prossler, PAOM

5. Alexander Henry Frida's Garden fabric (for a curtain maybe??)

6. Ayame socks from Koshka

favorite perfume

Internet favorites for June: favorite wallpapers

Here are the other internet favorites!

I don't know when I'll ever own a house. But I dream of having a room of my own where I can write at one desk and draw at another. I don't think my gf would like to have wallpaper--she's all about simple, white-box style--so I'd need my own space to put up one of these beautiful beautiful prints.

Hygge and West is what kicked off this strange new obsession with wallpaper. Feast your eyes on these beautiful designs from Rifle Paper Company:

1. Rosa in indigo

Internet Favorites: the world's most beautiful teatowels

1. flying geese

Special report: Flying Tiger Copenhagen haul

Can you imagine a mash-up of Kikkerland, Ikea and Party City? Well, it opened in New York four days ago, and it is awesome. Flying Tiger Copenhagen is a kind of Danish dollar store. I'd never heard of it, but apparently there are 452 locations, though this is the first in the US. I went in thinking, "I'll just have a quick look," and then my eyes turned into spirals and I whipped myself into a frenzy and my "minimal living" "quality over quantity" "please don't buy anything else, Molly, you make $10 an hour"* went out the window.

favorite spring fabric trends, and some shopping in manhattan tips

anytime i have anything vaguely stressful to do in manhattan (and every possible reason i might have to go to manhattan is stressful), i wind down afterwards by going shopping. i don't always buy things (though i buy a lot more than i need), but it is very soothing to touch all the different fabrics and think about the future.

so here is your trend report (click through if you dare):

Internet Favorites for April: Print All Over Me

Some more heart's desires from your desire expert. Here are the other internet favorite posts.

Do you know the website Print All Over Me? Like Society 6 or Spoonflower or whatever, you can upload images and get them printed on all kinds of gear.

1. This scarf by jessssssseeeeeeee

2. This shirt or this shirt by Saskia Pomeroy

3. This tote bag by Sara Andreasson

4. This shift dress by Nathalie Chikhi

Internet favorites for February--a shopping list for winter

 Internet favorites are back! Here are some snuggly things I'd buy if I were a woman of means.

1. This "magnet pattern game" rainbow toy handmade in Germany, I'd just hang it on the wall next to my Albers color studies and stare at it all day

2. little wire string lights, one step more magical than Christmas tree lights, though I love Christmas tree lights too.

3. This perfect scarf from Leah Goren, ugh come wrap yourself around my neck

4. And everything from Rikumo, but in particular this "broken cloud placemat" and this beautiful wooden raccoon which I absolutely do not need but that Rikumo has put in its "office supplies" section to tempt me into thinking that I can use it as an office supply.

internet favorites for november: jewelry wishlist

Internet Favorites, a monthly series, continues its trek into the wilderness.

I can't really afford any of this but I love it all so much.

1. Bijoux Brodés
Designed by 2 friends from France.

2. Verameat
All kinds of morbid and delicate things, that universally cost too much. After we visited their Williamsburg store, I swore to Eve that I would squander the entirety of my hypothetical first book advance on their lovely adornments.

3. Old Gold Boutique. Alas the web store seems to have gone out of business. But, like Verameat, they used to carry things that looked like they belonged in a cabinet of curiosities.

internet favorites for october: 3 favorite online stores

Some more internet favorites from a grizzled internet veteran.

1. Kaufmann Mercantile. Everything here would be a great gift for my boo. It's a lot of hard-wearing, all-natural, Brooklyn-ish homewares, the kind that's hard to find on the internet.

Since we don't have space for much, we've started to care even about the beauty of things like sponges and laundry hampers. That way everything's beautiful from the inside out, and even cleaning wares can be put on display.


2. OMG Posters!
 I keep worrying that whoever updates this site will quit, because it seems too good to be true. This site documents all the noteworthy new poster releases from all kinds of independent and under-the-radar designers. They're mostly concert posters or art prints, mostly screen-printed, mostly limited-run. You can't shop directly on OMG Posters, but the site gives you links to buy everything that's featured. I've gotten so many of my very favorite decorations from them. I'm recently really digging these Thick Lines posters by Aaron Draplin.

3. ASOS Africa
These clothes hit every nail on the head. They're wearable, weird, and pretty affordable (especially when on sale), and they're sustainably made in Africa. I'm always checking back to see their latest items.

Paris, 2013

Picking out the things you like

 Above: My palette right before I cleaned it for the last time, May 2012

In the fourth Betsy-Tacy book and the last childhood one, Betsy talks about how during the Christmas season they'd go to town and visit the department store (I think) where there was a huge array of Christmas tree ornaments. They'd spend hours admiring every one (in those days, they were all fragile blown glass), and finally, at the end, each girl (Betsy, Tacy and Tib) would pick out just one ornament for herself, and that one object would embody the spirit of the season.

Lucy likes anything with a hand motif. She also likes anything with suns and moons with faces on them (within reason). I find I like anything with an eye motif. I would buy a lime-green thing (my least favorite color to wear) if it had eyes embroidered all over it. In my painting, I never get sick of naked women. I've already discussed my love of sweaters, but in college I went through a phase of being particularly obsessed with taupe cardigans. I own about eight cardigans in shades from dark gray-brown to beige, and sometimes wear them all on top of each other, which is my idea of fun. Because of my habit of wearing three or even four cardigans on top of each other, and because of Harvard's habit of overheating the classrooms in winter, requiring the students to undress and re-dress at every class, I'd always be the last one out the door after the lecture.

Lucy and I went to the Folk Tree in Pasadena and I admired every single brightly-painted mirror and ornament of hammered tin. There were torsos and buttocks, flying skulls, hands with bright-red hearts on them, and dozens of desert animals. I lack the restraint of Betsy-Tacy and bought about eight. Lucy bought a silver ring with a large stone set in the top, and some silver earrings that look like tiny chairs. She is such a good present-giver, and spares no expense on the people who will really appreciate it (mostly her sister). The best presents I have given in my life are to guys who aren't that into me. If I could somehow convince myself that I was writing stories for a guy who wasn't that into me, I would be insanely prolific.

For some reason, creative writing teachers like it when they can read a story and tell it's yours, and painting teachers like it when you develop a palette that you like to use. It is so satisfying seeing classmates develop their own styles. I always felt, by the end of the semester, that if we showed a bunch of unlabeled paintings, we'd be able to figure out whose was whose. Even the wild "recipe" experiments of Non-Observational Painting and Monsters were about building up one's way of painting, not destroying it. In high school I was so unsure of everything, and in college creative courses (taken with mostly upperclassmen) they expect you right away to be sure.

My high school art teacher told us to put as few colors as possible on the palette, so I chose a selection of colors that I found exciting and authentic, and they are still the base of all my paintings: Cadmium reds and yellows, alizarin crimson, cerulean, indigo, pthalo blue, yellow ochre, various siennas and umbers, tons of white, and Payne's gray, never black. You can get a more harmonious black by mixing burnt umber and Payne's gray. The first story I ever wrote as an adult centered around a kid who was so obsessed with his watercolors that he wanted to eat them.

I've been having a huge crisis of confidence and direction recently.

Style Blog

In Berlin, my friend Sara told me that Stephen Prina, her teacher, always buys a pair of socks in every place he travels.

"But I'd be worried that I'd get all those socks mixed up and forget where I'd bought them," I said. I thought you'd have to buy fancy socks.

"No, he just buys regular socks," she said.

Imagine: A suitcase full of regular white socks bought in every place you've been. (Now that is style.)

Free advertising for H&M

I'm sorry I keep writing about clothes.

Anyways I somehow missed that Maison Martin Margiela was doing a collaboration with H&M. ("What's that jacket, Margiela?" --Kanye West.)

I can't afford any of these things, and also there's no H&M nearby, but the collection appeals to me in every way.

Things it has:

1. A coat made out of a duvet, and you can actually take off the duvet cover and wear that as a different kind of jacket, and plus the sleeves are removable:

2. A clutch purse made out of metallic faux leather that looks like a giant candy wrapper (and, on the guys' side, a fanny pack as big as a backpack):

3. A purse that you wear upside down (it actually has a zipper on the "bottom"):

4. A dress made out of two different dresses (below). H&M describes this as "half lined," which is the first time I've ever seen that in a clothing description. Also, there is a dress made entirely out of dress lining, and many other pieces made out of incorrectly used materials/materials masquerading as other things--a men's jacket made out of belts, a belt made out of a watch band, jeans sewn inside out, tops made out of scarves, a dress made out of car-seat leather, and skin-colored leggings with a fishnet print on top.

5. Beyond the candy wrapper, a ton of giant things, including this necklace that looks like a huge key chain. There's also a women's peacoat big enough for Mamadou Ndiaye, and a massive turtleneck with "extremely long sleeves," which is the thing I'd most buy for myself.

But the single awesomest thing, that made me write this post and that reminded me of Proust, is this linen tablecloth set, that is printed with a photorealistic image of a tablecloth after a party.

Here is a close up of the napkins:

It is so beautifully executed too--I mean what kind of party was this? It looks like a party with ribbons and confetti that were then covered with a thick layer of ash. No one had time (or everyone was too careful) to spill their wine or drop bits of food.

It's great how a lot of the clothes put on a good show of being multifunctional (that split dress, for example, or the sweater you'll never outgrow), but are actually deeply impractical. I think I particularly like this collection not only for its jokiness or narrative or fairy-tale proportions, but also because it doesn't seem to give a shit about being "body-conscious." Most everything, except for the shirts and leggings that are supposed to resemble skin, would not flatter anyone's figure. I never like those designers who, in Vogue or wherever, talk about their careful study of the feminine form, their strategic darting and pleating to bring out the body, and especially how such garments give women self-confidence. I don't think self-confidence goes that way. How about clothing designed to make invisible and conceal the body--or something that tries to make you lose confidence in yourself and the world around you? (The skirt that looks like you didn't realize it got hitched up in your underwear when you went to the bathroom--the fake-sequin dress that shows that you are clearly a fraud--the tiptoeing person who actually has plexiglass heels?) So you can expose yourself in a different way. But what I like even more is the option to sequester yourself away in these clothes, those huge coats in particular, and hide.