The Sartorialist Rules

McQueen - 2010 Resort Collection. (Want. Crave. Desire)

Okay, it's not the most coherent of collections, but I want to wear every single one of these designs.

Too cool.

Not a huge fan of the "don't mind me, I've just been painting in the studio" look, but those sleeves are inspired. Love love.

Asymmetrical cardi with metallic stockings. Wow. This looks like someone I want to know.

Amazing stockings.

Ti hi hi! Check out the shoes!!

Perfect. Simply perfect.

Pretty cool. A little bit "boom boom pow", but I'm feeling those sleeves.

Okay, little costume-y (again), but hell, they're pretty fun.

Zipper dress. Always good.

Ooo, strong finish! Pretty!

Alexander Chameleon McQueen (Spring 2009)

Things I Need To See Before I Die, #2

Ernest Hemingway was once given a six-fingered cat as a gift from a ship captain, as a symbol of luck. After his death in 1961, Hemingway's Key West home was converted into a Hemingway museum/six-fingered-cat refuge. Today there are over 50 cats living at the museum, of which approximately half have an extra toe/extra toes. 

Sometimes referred to as mitten cats due to the appearance of an extra thumb, these cats were often the target of paranoid villagers with pitchforks, who believed them to be the familiars of witches.

Things I Need To See Before I Die, #1

Built alongside a busy interstate in Iowa, this colossal statue is part of the Solid Rock "Mega-church" and their attempt to attract new followers straight from the highway. They describe their church as "A non-denominational, Bible-believing church pursuing Jesus Christ and the Spirit-filled life" (though hyphen-heavy, I have to admire their attention to grammar). Made from Styrofoam, Fibreglass and metal caging, and measuring 62 feet, this figure is believed to be the largest Jesus in the world. However, due to its placement within a water feature, this sculpture is commonly referred to as the 'drowning Jesus'.

Wow.

Love love,

Centine.

(Note: numbers are chronological, and not a ranking system).

Shelving.

That is all.

Love love,

Centine

xoxoxo

Wednesday? More like Friendsday!!

So, I woke up this morning, determined to inject a bit of Dior-inspired half-dressed glamour into my day. This is what I came up with:

Tulle skirt, skimpy cardigan (showing a cheeky glimpse of bra-goodness, just as Galliano would have wanted), marle stockings and pumps.

The giant white spot is the base for a fascinator.

Alas, as it was freezing today, and I'm starting to feel a cold coming on, I switched my outfit to this:

Bam! Bam! Double scarf whammy! And check out my kick-ass sparkle-manic jumper! 

This saw me through the day splendidly. First met with Jo, Jason, Samira and Sal for a tea/latte session. And then a yummy lunch with Clay the Canadian. 

But the afternoon was reserved for my foster-puppy Pasha. Aw! Isn't she adorable? I desperately want to pull a Paris, and put her in a handbag.

... She dislikes cameras...

Pasha's Mum has a beautiful house, with this magnificent view of the Minnamurra River...

Love love,

Centine.

Christian Kickass Dior

Based on the back-stage documentation of Christian Dior's original shows, the latest collection by Galliano features bundles of half-dressed models and oodles of underwear.

(style.com)

I know what I'm wearing tomorrow, and it ain't much.

Love Centine.

Candlestick, now and then

Then: Perfect for a midnight toilet break. Effective at dissuading ghosts/madwomen from attacking.

Now: Available at Ikea. The most rad candle holder ever. Effective at dissuading swine flu and 21st Century Breakdown (both the condition and the new Green Day album) from attacking.

The God of Small Things including my heart

See this book? You must read it. Immediately. Why?

See this lady? This is Arundhati Roy. She is brilliant. She will show you how literature is still important in a fundamentally personal, enjoyable, break-my-heart-with-shiny-shiny-pure-love-talent-through-which-you-open-my-eyes-to-a-different-view-of-life-and-reality kind of way. 

It's not often that a book can be innovative with language, structurally clever and engaging all at the same time. "The God of Small Things" skips and hops (a little like two-egg twins are wont to do) through the story of an Indian family as they encounter a series of escalating disasters. Early into the book, you already know what will happen, but Roy will keep you hooked, wondering how it all fits together.

As Roy says herself on p229, "The great stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. they don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again."

And though this whole paragraph is as pretentious as an uncalled-for Shakespeare reference, there is a lot of truth to it. Every single time I watch Romeo and Juliet, I have to physically hold myself back from grabbing his pretty little jaw, turning it towards the awakening damsel and yelling loudly 'for god's sake man, just wait a minute longer!'

Everyone has there special list of books which are so familiar and enjoyable that they can be started on any random page. Those 'Great Stories', which aren't always 'High Literature', speak to you personally, communicating something unique to the book and unique to you. Here is my list: 

For "The God of Small Things", the clincher (apart from the epic word play, surreal imagery, outrageously-captivating story and valuable characters; evidently there is a fair amount of awesome in this book) to making this read truly worthwhile are the insights into human behaviour. To me, it is the descriptions where a literary situation becomes emblematic for a self-experienced moment, culminating in a fresh understanding, which makes a work momentous. It's these moments which make an author relevant to the reader. 

This is my favourite such moment from "The God of Small Things". The three children have dressed up as fancy ladies, and visited their adult friend. He, Velutha, pretends not to recognise them: 

"They visited him in saris, clumping gracelessly through red mud and long grass... and introduced themselves as Mrs Pillai, Mrs Eapen and Mrs Rajagopalan. Velutha introduced himself and his paralysed brother... He chatted to them about the weather. The river. The fact that in his opinion coconut trees were getting shorter by the year. As were the ladies in Ayemenem. He introduced them to his surly hen. He showed them his carpentary tools, and whittled them each a wooden spoon.

"It is only now, these years later, that Rahel with adult hindsight, recognized the sweetness of that gesture. A grown man entertaining three raccoons, treating them like real ladies. Instinctively colluding in the conspiracy of their fiction, taking care not to decimate it with adult carelessness. Or affection.

"It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain.

"To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do."

This bit also shows how clever Roy is with her tense and structure. The flashbacks occur simultaneously with other sections of the timeline, creating a flood of memories, thoughts, images jumbled together in some kind of fabulous plot risotto or omelette or... God, it's just so amazing. 

I will say no more.

Instead, look at these flickr images based on the book! Yay!