Polaroid's From Our Fall Photoshoot

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Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter

I'm a little obsessed with Jesse Sykes' dark and magnetic music and I'm also a little obsessed with her style, which has been distilled into a uniform of just a few items.

They are:
Dramatic turquoise and silver necklace
Iconic CBGB Black t-shirt
Western Shirt (worn open over t-shirt)
Straight, long, glossy black hair parted down the middle, ala Ali MacGraw
Dark calico printed shirts and dresses





Please head on over to her website and check out her music:
http://www.jessesykes.com/

What's Up, Preppy?

Chances are if you're into fashion, blogs, or news, you've already heard that Harvard has licensed it's name to a high end clothing line. On August 12th alone there were 300,000 hits on google for the line and I myself got the news from radio news program Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!.

I got pretty excited when I heard the line would feature Liberty Prints. The collection will launch for next Spring and I hope the commitment to Liberty will be strong enough to last until next Fall, but somehow I'm worried. For now, we just have the above. Not bad, but probably too twee for Oliver Barrett IV.

Happy Birthday Steve Martin, with all my love

Norwegian Wedding Dresses

My Grandma's family comes from Storebo, a small fishing town in NW Norway. My Mom has recently been emailing me photos of our Norwegian relatives and I am totally floored by the clothes, many, if not all, which were lovingly made by hand, including these highly-detailed wedding dresses.

Andrew and Christi

This is my favorite of the dresses. I love the rumpled look of the silk which I can almost feel in my hand. The wide lapels are amazing too--very simple, almost austere for a wedding dress.

Ole, Andrew, Nettie, and Josefine

Isn't that crown-shaped headdress amazing? Crowns were traditional Scandinavian headware for brides and this looks to me to be a "modern" interpretation of that shape. And look closely at the wicker chair. Those were the golden days of wicker.

Gustav & Bertina

It seems to me that dressmaking was more akin to cake decorating in the Victorian age. Look at the horizontal layers of knife pleats and scallops of lace. Yum.

Peder and Brita

That wicker! That headdress! Again.

Sometime in the 1940's, Uncle Hans Living Room
Spokane, WA

I've included one last photo in lieu of an update showing my relatives after immigrating to the US. Little boys in suspenders and short pants: check. Lace curtains: check. Girls in braids: check. Piano piled high with sheet music: check.

Forever Loving Watts--My Teenage Trail of Tears

This is not the best John Hughes' film but it's the one that had the greatest impact on me. I watched it over and over again and I think I can still recite about 3/4 of the lines. Watt's is the anti-heroine of the movie.

She plays the drums, drives a cool car, wears red tasseled leather gloves, and winklepickers. She's all tough talk and wisecracks and she knows how to give a great kissing lesson.


She dresses not unlike a butch lesbian with cutoff jeans and big t-shirts and a surfer boy haircut. Despite those transgressions she's a total knockout and way more cool than the cheerleading Ms. Amanda Jones. AND she gets the guy in the end and walks off into the sunset with him wearing a cute little drummer girl outfit.


If you haven't seen it I recommend you rent it--it still holds up. The writing is strong and the characters are complex, thanks to John Hughes' hand. And when you hear the sweetest Irish jig version of "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" play in the closing scene, remember the 13 year old me, mouthing the words, tears streaming down my face.