Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Movie In The Park Tuesday: The Blues Brothers


One of the interesting free things you can do in the summer in Chicago is the Movie In The Park series, where they put up huge screens in various parks in the city and screen movies ranging from classics to cartoons. The last one Jay and I went to was a couple of years ago in Grant Park, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956). We had a blanket, food and drink and basically just waited around until the sun went down and the movie started. Today though, the movie was The Blues Brothers (1980), we had foldable chairs and food and drink was thoroughly enjoying ourselves until the storm started!!! Bad timing, it was about 10 or 15 minutes to the end of the movie..we were thoroughly soaked!!! It was fun though, the park was packed, and the audience was great fun, they were singing along to the movie..it was great!! Now if we can only find out when they're having Chicago Summer Dance this year...

Monday, July 28, 2008

Viva Villarin

I came across this collection while trolling Style.com for various runway pics & news for the fall collections, and I was immediately attracted to the feminine silhouettes of the clothes.

VICENTE VILLARIN INC. was founded by Joanne Cordero Reyes and was named after her grandfather, Vicente Villarin Cordero, a talented and creative composer who traveled the world sharing his music in the early 1900's. Joanne is deeply influenced by Vicente, and through him has learned the importance of happiness in life and carrying out your dreams.

VICENTE VILLARIN is the realization of a lifetime aspiration of Joanne, an experienced entrepreneur and creative fashion designer. Joanne began her studies at the University of Washington in Seattle studying architecture and then moved to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design in order to pursue a career in fashion. She interned for top New York design houses such as Vivienne Tam, Jill Stuart, House of Diehl, and Maggie Norris Couture.

In 2002, Joanne moved to Paris to complete her third year and design for the Fall 2003 haute couture collection of Ji Haye Couture. At the completion of her studies, Joanne became a freelance designer for Reem Acra's Spring 2005 women's eveningwear collection. From 2004 to 2006, Joanne joined J. Mendel as Designer for the evening and luxury ready-to-wear collections. Under the J. Mendel label, Joanne was an integral part of the design team that created dresses for many celebrities including Salma Hayek, Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, Rhianna, Kyra Sedgwick and Teri Hatcher. In 2007, Joanne moved to Los Angeles to design Monique Lhuillier's Fall 2007 luxury ready to wear collection.

After many years of working with the most prestigious fashion design companies, Joanne was driven to present a new sense of taste and luxury. By launching VICENTE VILLARIN INC, Joanne created a vehicle to present fashion as an art form.

VICENTE VILLARIN is graceful and stylish. The collection's signature lies in its timeless attributes, which are unaffected by fast-moving trends. VICENTE VILLARIN ensures quality through the combination of craftsmanship, materials, and finishing; maintaining excellence from one collection to the next.





Website: www.vicentevillarin.com

Velo-Chic

This was posted on Painfully Hip quite a while ago, and I just love the composition. And the vivid colors. Lovely!!!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Pics From Jay's Birthday 7/10

Nah, we didn't have a party, we just basically spent the day together doing stuff around the city, getting up early enough to eat breakfast at Yolk and doing the architectural boat tour on the river afterwards. The camera ran out of juice halfway down the south branch of the river, pah!, but we got some pretty good photos. Dinner at The Grand Lux Cafe after a good couple of hours shopping along State Street. The only damper was the sudden showers in the afternoon, but after sweating it out at temperatures topping 90 degrees, a bit of rain was, a blessedly good thing indeed.

The adventuresome twosome


Breakfast at Yolk

The "Lear" sculpture dethroned the poor silver moose from its spot
in the middle of NBC plaza

Chicago's Fair Lady


B'day boy

T'was a hot day

The Trump Tower going up and up and up...

The famous Marina Towers

This is apparently called a "trunnion bascule bridge"


The Sears Tower as seen from the river

Friday, July 18, 2008

The Tattoo Is Finally Finished!!!



..and here it is...as usual click on photo to enlarge..I will probably post more photos later..

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Girl With No Shadow, or, The Lollipop Shoes


I've been on a Joanne Harris kick lately. Which means I've been re-reading a lot of her books, Gentlemen & Players, Holy Fools (one of my top 10 books of the last five years), Five Quarters of The Orange, Jigs & Reels and of course, the book which started it all, Chocolat. Such a brilliant book, although I have yet to actually sit down and watch the movie starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche (I simply have to grab a copy of the movie soon). Love everything about the book; the setting, the cast of characters, location, and it's about chocolate for God's sake, and love and relationships and magic.

And so I was excited to find out, at the end of last year that Harris was coming out with a continuation to Chocolat entitled The Girl With No Shadow. It was actually already released in Europe under the name The Lollipop Shoes in 2007. In it (without giving anything away) Vianne Rocher finds herself in Paris with Anouk and another daughter named Rosette. She's trying hard to blend in, after leaving Lansquenet and Roux and her chocolate shop. Anouk is now eleven and a loner at her school, who's gradually resenting her mother. Onto this comes Zozie D'Alba, a stranger who reminds Vianne of her past self. But this stranger is not without her own agenda, and as Christmas dawns, Vianne must find the strength and magic within herself to protect the ones she loves.

This is a brilliant book, Harris is inventive and it's so easy to imagine the world that she has written about and you actually grow to care about the characters. It's beautifully written and I like it as much as I liked Chocolat. Will there be a movie in the making?

In other news, I will shortly post a list of recommended books from the last five years. As soon as I compile one. A list, that is.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Christian Lacroix Fall 2008 Couture

Yeah I know, this post is a bit late, but whatever. Just a few pieces and deets that caught my eye from the show.












Thursday, July 10, 2008

Finns United

One of the sites that I check frequently is Piksi's Flickr page, mainly because I love her sense of style, and she always seems to score brilliant finds, thrifted or otherwise. And she seems to always blend and combine colors effortlessly..and her shoes!!! They're brilliant!! Which was why when I saw her Minna Parikkas I just HAD to check out the site. Lovely site it was too, and this was one of the photos that popped up when I image Googled her...this ad is lovely!!. (As usual, click on pic for a better look).


For shoes like these I'd learn to walk in heels =)

Monday, July 7, 2008

Christian Dior Couture Fall 2008 Collection

Out of the 44 looks I've picked these out..love the pastel colors!! Reminds me of cotton candy!!! And the hats on the models are so 1920's, although at certain times they look quite drag-queen-like (the models, not the hats)...brilliant collection though.




















More looks here