I wish you were here (summer).

For my first personal style post in ages I chose an outfit I actually wore quite a while back: a crisp white shirt with a bright orange swingy skirt and cobalt blue sandals.
I wish I could still run around like that! Unfortunately, fall is not approaching; it has already come – to stay. So no more open-toed shoes, short-sleeved blouses and tights-less anything. Oh well, at least I don’t have to keep up with immaculate pedicures and perfectly shaved legs for the next couple of months.

  Shirt: Cos, skirt: American Apparel, shoes: Zara, glasses: vintage, rings: &other stories, Topshop, H&M

Ease.

Just beautiful, beautiful pictures:
Model Julia Nobis and her brothers, four-year-old Luka and Raphael, photographed by Stephen Ward at the Hillsdale Orange Orchard in Bulga, New South Wales for the October 2013 issue of Vogue Australia.

© Vogue Australia

I want to be a Pom, too.

Sun City, Arizona, is a town near Phoenix with a population of over 37,000 retired residents all living there. The community is renowned for being a senior citizens’ paradise. When London-based photographer Todd Antony recently visited the town, he met ‘The Sun City Poms’, the town’s cheerleading squad. They formed in 1979, recruiting 55-year-olds (and older!) to support the Sun City Saints women’s softball team. Today, the group entertains at around 50 shows per year.
Antony says on his blog: “While I was [in Sun City] I couldn’t help but think that with the American obsession for child beauty pageants, you have one age group of society trying to grow up way too fast, while at the other end of the age scale another group strives to hold back the years in some way. And does a pretty damn good job of it really.”
The Poms say of themselves that they represent the fulfillment of life at any age. They add: “Performing with spunk and energy of their youths, these ladies share positive aspects of retirement and aging, and shatter conventional images of “senior citizens.”
What I love about the women in the pictures are the grace, beauty and great sense of pride and energy they exude.

Greta Lois Shirley The group TommieAll images ©Todd Antony

Yep, even there.

Last week, I was asked by the people of the Frankfurt Book Fair (who happens to be the world’s largest) to take pictures of stylish visitors and exhibitors for their lookblog tumblr. Great! I thought. But wait a minute… Are there even stylish people at a book fair? It’s not NYFW, after all, where you stumble over fashionistas, whether you like it or not. And indeed, it wasn’t easy to find the handful of people who weren’t clad in shapeless jeans, t-shirts and “reasonable” shoes. But I did find some beautiful women and men with a great sense of personal style, after all. So, this is what I have been up to in the last couple of days. You can find all pictures here, and below some of my personal favorites.

Princesses and machos.

In the southern state of Oaxaca, Mexico, live so-called muxes: Men who think of themselves as women. What is so exceptional about this is the fact that they are not marginalized or bullied, but accepted and celebrated. Their social status reaches back into times before Mexico became Catholic, when there were cross-dressing Aztec priests and the culture was inherently flexible in regard to gender. Of course, like in most – if not all – Latin American countries, machismo prevails now and there is not much room for different attitudes towards sex. But in the state of Oaxaca, things managed to remain more fluid. The population believes that the muxes have special intellectual and artistic gifts, that they are lucky, chosen people, colonizing the volatile state between genders. They are considered a third gender rather than having a particular sexual orientation.
Nicola “Ókin” Frioli travelled to Juchitán and photographed the muxes for his series “We Are Princesses in a Land of Machos”. Stunning pictures and beautiful people.

©Nicola “Ókin” Frioli

Metamorphosis.

Julia Nobis, the one who always looks like she couldn’t care less, who’d rather be somewhere else, doing something else, born in Sydney, Australia, with the ghostly pale skin, the big nose and strong face, walked innumerable runways this past fashion month, all the while showing us how a truly great model changes herself, time and again.    

Gold and.

I just found my next favorite collection, courtesy of one Mr. Dries van Noten. He artfully juxtaposed opulent gold lace and embroideries with sportswear vests, let gold ruffles peek out under grey sweatshirts and cascade down the sides of simple cotton dresses or attached gold, super-sized rosettes to the hip of an equally ruched skirt. I asked myself, why do I like this so much? Well, the idea of playing with opposite aesthetics, with the feminine and masculine, combining decadent gold leather or lace with much simpler textures and colors is immensely appealing. And van Noten wasn’t the only one who did it (although for me, in the most original and interesting way). Haider Ackermann, the grand master of gender play, used  shimmering metallic fabrics on a boxy man’s jacket or slouchy shorts. Joseph Altuzarra put his model in a shimmering gold skirt and a simple white shirt. Alber Elbaz at Lanvin showed a thoroughly shimmering collection, not so much mixing the metallics with anything simpler. At Margiela, you had a heavily embelished, totally sequined gold top worn with man’s trousers. And of course, who could forget Proenza Schouler back in New York and their beautiful gold and chrome dresses and shimmery delicate pleated skirts. What do you think, do you like this as much as I do?

DRIES VAN NOTEN         

HAIDER ACKERMANN

ALTUZARRA

LANVIN

MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA

PROENZA SCHOULER

Watch this now.

The next time you want to watch a couple of cute cat videos on YouTube, watch this instead. I promise, every second of it is worth your time. What a powerful, beautiful and really strong message of female empowerment. I’m in friggin’ awe. Mr. Owens, thank you for having taken the risk. And sorry that these kind of things are still considered a risk nowadays.

 

Owens owns it.

There has been much debate about the lack of racial and body diversity during fashion week, with designers such as Céline, Dior and many more employing none or only one or two models of colour for their runway shows.
In the meantime, there is Rick Owens. Always unconventional and showing the unexpected, he hired a competitive step dance team from the US to model his collection. And of course, being a step team, they didn’t strut down the runway – no, they pounded it to the ground, step dancing, cheerleading, military drilling and mean faces making.
So, while the discussion about diversity continues to rage, Owens lets an almost all black, full-figured team of women rock his collection, making you forget that allegedly, clothes only look good on extra thin, extra young and extra white models. Or, in his own words: “We’re rejecting conventional beauty, creating our own beauty.” Amen to that.
Check out some videos here.

Bow down.

Sometimes, we all just need a reminder of how it’s done: high-voltage glamour, that is. So who better to teach us a lesson or two than Ms. Ross herself. Enjoy, and: You’re welcome.