Inspiration from Moomin Valley in Midsummer

I kind of feel like spring doesn't really exist anymore. I've been habitually putting away my winter wool coats and sweaters every two weeks since March 1st, convinced that if I pack them away, the warm sun will emerge. Then Monday rolls around, the paper appears outside my apartment door and the forecast makes me fish out the warm coat again and wrap myself up. NOT COOL.

Who do I look to for inspiration in times like this but the Finn Family Moomintroll, who will always make the best of any situation no matter how disheartening. Sure, they basically spend their whole lives not wearing pants, but it's the details that matter! Come blazing summer, I will be keeping them in mind while organizing my wardrobe.



Moomin Papa is the definition of class, wearing a top hat year-round, for all occasions, unless he is sailing the high seas (he switches it out for a captain's hat).

Mymble and Little My have been rocking the Lykke Li top bun and tent dresses for decades. As any girl can attest, the best way to deal with DC summers is hair pulled up high and clothing that flows and doesn't stick to your body. Pioneers, these comic strip characters were!



Moomin Mama represents the best style rules to me, though. She picks two accesories (for life) that are both classic and useful and sticks with them, making them her signature. A striped apron and a black purse is really all you need to get by in life.

Before Lucy Liu...

...there was Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American actress ,who began her career in the roaring 20s. While (unsurprisingly) stereotyped as a "Dragon Lady" and temptress from "the Orient," she kept it very cool with unconventional choices; she took her talents to Europe when she felt too typecast in the States. Anna cavorted with the likes of co-star Marlene Dietrich, which fueled rumors of lesbianism (something I am pretty sure is still unheard of in the Asian community, even with the well-publicized antics of one Jenny Shimizu).

I would kill to sport this hairstyle.what a dress!

Very French meets East- always a good thing.
Best poolside outfit ever, but it would be a shame not to wear this everywhere.
In my imagination, Anna and Marlene were together. And what a stylish pair they be.
I wish illustrated movie posters would make a comeback.

(photos via "Gatochy" and artdecoblog)

Spring Shapes

These are the looks I am inspired by this season as I mosey along on the vintage trail...

(pics via Style.Com)

Jason Wu, designer du jour: the feminine pleated layers add to the imagination, while maintaining coverage.

Rachel Comey, Listopad fave: long highwaisted shorts are the new leggings. Love it!
Peter Jensen: love the subtle volume, like those bubble skirts of yester-season, yet simpler, better.

Karen Walker: Australian preppy gone good.

Peter Jensen: love the lines on the coat and the wide-leg trousers, hitting just above the ankle.

Sophia Kokosalaki: Egypt meets Art Nouveau.

We Interrupt This Broadcast

A little deviation from this week's intended theme that we just had to share with you: Influence hit stores today. (And I do mean hit. From all accounts, the scene at Barnes and Noble was mayhem.) For those of you who manage to stay away from the fashion blogs (it's so hard!) - Influence is a book. By Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Need we say more?



Occasional partners-in-crime Fashionista and Nylon have very kindly granted the blogosphere some sneak peeks - MK's fully-chicken-scratched Proust Questionnaire and 8 delicious scans, respectively. Salivate away, lovelies.

Music for Lovers: Little Britain

Sure, Kate Bush is a little kooks, but that's why we love her. In "Cloudbusting" she manages to hit all my style points for this season: vintage denim, collared shirts buttoned up all the way, English knits and boots (this is what I am talking about). The sweet pointy shoulderpads are just the icing on this cake. It's the right kind of androgyny and pauper throwback that we need in these trying times.

Fall Template

(Mociun's Drill Skirt at Standard Deviation)

Note: Yes, it is possible to look this cute and still brave a stroll through Malcolm X Park in the middle of January. Just do as Mociun do with layers upon layers of wool-y goodness.

Inspiration: L'Amant

"L'Amant" is a highly stylized film, though the visuals are very simple. Colonialism seeps through the picture, and class and race relations are sweated out in the heat of Vietnam in the '20s. But seriously, only watch this film if you are comfortable with older man + teenager sex (full frontal) and prostitution.



Anyway, on to the clothes. The unnamed protagonist (Jane March) can't really afford clothes, so she marches around the entire film (a span of maybe a year) in two outfits. One pair of shoes! It's gorgeous, though, and totally works. First off, the shoes are a beautiful high heeled concoction of jewels and velvet (she refers to them as cabaret shoes):



The dress worn throughout is a stark '20s affair: neutral silk sheath, loose as it's too big--yet still managing to emphasize the girl's developing body. It's held together by a loose striped belt that always seems like it's about to slip off:



But the crowning achievement is the men's fedora, obviously too big for her head, with a silk ribbon wrapped around. Paired with her pigtails (held together by more ribbon), this look blows my mind!



indebted to this site for the pics!

Music for Lovers: Norman Greenbaum/Spirit In The Sky

All photos from Norman Greenbaum's website

A guy at my job asked me a couple weeks ago, "Hey, you know that song 'Spirit In The Sky,' right?" I stared at him blankly. Three YouTube seconds later, I realized that yeah, duh, of course I know "Spirit In The Sky." It's right up there with the birthday song and the Tomahawk chop. Who the hell hasn't heard "Spirit In The Sky"? I felt dumb for a minute, but it passed.

Then I did some research on Norman Greenbaum, the song's writer and performer. I chatted with him on the phone-- for work, not for fun-- and he was friendly and eccentric. I asked him to send me some photos of himself c. 1969, the year his song reached #1. And guess what, y'all, Greenbaum was a hottie.

His look was as iconic as the song, and it persists to this day-- from Portland, OR, to Brattleboro, VT, to Richmond, VA. Where Katerina and I went to school in Western Mass (c 2002-2007), this was The Look for men. Women have their own version, too, but there's something so effortlessly sexy about men who pull this off.

I became a little obsessed with Norman Greenbaum, c. 1969. Can you blame me?

Home Work

I loved this piece on the Rodarte sisters from NYT Magazine. Their ethereal aesthetic really comes through from the interview, not to mention the great slideshow. Also, the bonds of femininity and sisterhood really inform the business side of their art, a wonderful alternative to the fierce corporate ways of other designers (ahem, Marc Jacobs).

The Post killed it with their style coverage this weekend. Two eloquent pieces by Robin Givhan, about famous bling ("emblematic of hip-hop's often ruthless crusade for success") and first ladies' steez ("so obviously interesting"), along with a healthy serving of Ms. Spinach in the magazine.

LL Cool D

Listopad loves cool Diane (Kruger).


(Yahoo! Movies.)

I love how Fashion has been riffing on this jacket for the last five years. It should never go away because it is very cute and flatters many a body. DK is working gray-on-gray so gloriously here, and she gets, like, 100 bonus points for her fishtail braid - one of our current obsessions.


(s/a.)

D (or D's stylist - the identity of whom the Internet has yet to reveal) has discovered what the middle-aged, fun-pursuing women of America have known for a minute now: the combination of red and purple is fucking John Blaze. Seriously: is world domination far behind?


(s/a.)

Cute. Just plain cute. Notice the dainty little bow at the collar! But f. you for those legs, woman.


(s/a.)

I like that she likes gray, stripes, dresses, and being ever-so-slightly tousled. These are all things we like.


(Marie Claire.)


Ok, this outfit is kind of whatevs but she has accessorized it quite nicely. Could just be plain old black dress (for which there is a time and a place, I know), but then you look closer and it's like, bam! Cutest little straw hat. Bam! Small-but-sculptural bracelet. Bam! Karl Lagerfeld. Well played.


(Go Fug Yourself.)

Um. Where can I get literally everything that she is wearing?? Go Fug Yourself needs to cool their jets because this outfit is off. the. chain.

Street Snaps: late August

I'm sure everyone's seen this on the Sartorialist by now, but come on! The layering is spot-on for this fall's aesthetic: long blazer, quirky knits, conservative color scheme. Lovin' it!

Portraits of Past

I've gone on and on about the National Portrait Gallery before, but I wanted to recommend a couple shows up right now after seeing them myself.

Kehinde Wiley's pieces in as part of the RECOGNIZE exhibit that Fiona talked about earlier this year...I mean, I mostly love Ice-T because of SVU but this is on a whole other level:



watch out though...you're not allowed to photograph this exhibit even though I did.

Ballyhoo!--dumb name, but awesome poster examples of portraiture. The posters really capture design aesthetics of their time and are truly beautiful:





Lastly, the Katherine Hepburn exhibit is tiny but cute--they even have her famous red sweater!

P.S. Aren't the online exhibit pages amazing? You don't even have to go to the museum! But you should ;)

Vintage Vault

Because we love all things vintage, we're introducing a new column around vintage "education." We want to share the knowledge with all of you regarding all aspects of vintage clothing and accesories...so you can learn to be obsessed just like us ;)

Bakelite: there is no one better equipped to teach you about Bakelite than this obsessive European guy. He's photographed his collection, which he also loans out to museums, for your perusal. Ah, the golden age of plastics, before we hated them for killing us and our planet.








Antique dealers are always hawking the stuff in case you want to start your own collection, and Antiques Anonymous in Woodley Park is a great place to start. Good luck!

Summer Street Snaps

Summer is starting to leave our minds as the fall collections hit stores and the days get shorter...Copenhagen is already feeling the fall in temperatures as you can see from this week's Street Snap pic:







Keeping it real in KBH--I love the tunic and the bebe's head peeking out from the bike.

Dear Andre Leon Talley

We were at the same performance last night! I loved your bright pink shirt and seersucker suit...but mostly, your black leather clutch. I really think more men should carry purses--bulging pockets suck.

Love,


Me

Street Snaps

Helsinki never disappoints. Can you tell that this person is obsessed with bats?

Music for Lovers

Coming at you with a great primer on 80s shoe fashions...this was Nu Shooz' second hit single, I would say it's a bit inferior to "I Can't Wait," but still good. The vid serves as great documentation of 80s shoe trends--neon, mesh, sneakers, it's all there. Enjoy!

Michelle O.

In the spirit of D.C. and the politics of fashion:

Hot

Even Hotter

Keep it Up

Sorry for the cheese-y title, I couldn't help myself. So, Keep is an awesome, woman-run, sweatshop-free, company whose shoes I love. Now they are going to be making clothes. So awesome!

Love Letters

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend Listopad your ears. We're plotting a new feature that we're really excited about.

We're obsessed with all things vintage and secondhand. This should be obvious by now. We shop a lot and we find a lot of beautiful things, both for ourselves and for our shopping parties. We're assuming that if you read this blog, it's because you like shopping for beautiful things, too, and you freak out as much as we do when you come across them. We're shoppers that appreciate the challenge of finding genuinely cool and interesting things in an economy where cookie-cutter looks are served to the masses, and we want to celebrate the fact that individuality is accessible—if you know where to look.

We know that you guys know where to look, and we know how exciting it is when you find something really unique. Why not use us a platform to shout it to the world? We want to see what our readers are finding. The next you're at a thrift store, flea market, vintage shop, or consignment boutique, and you find something—an item of clothing, a weird little tchotchke, a full set of La Fonda del Sol Bandas Goblets, anything—take a pic and send it to us along with a description of the item. Tell us where you found it, why it caught your eye, how it's going to change your life, or any other information that you feel is pertinent. Send us your love letters, kids! We love hearing from you!