snap snap!

so i was on the set of a FLARE photo shoot for the first time today...  it was a great team and i loved watching everyone work together to create all the looks. luckily, it was a beauty shoot, so there weren't as many tasks for me, as a fashion intern, to do. this made my first time on set a lot more relaxed. 

my main duties were to transport the garments and jewelry, steam the chosen outfits, and make style notes to record what items were used in the photos. it was an early morning (7:30am), but we managed to be finished by about 4pm, thanks to the model, tamara mcdonald's (elmer olsen) short pixie cut (resulting in faster hairstyling).

i can't go without mentioning the amazing catered food! fresh berries, yogurt and eggs for breakfast and herbed chicken, salmon, feta pasta and spinach salad for lunch. not to mention the mini cakes and lemon squares for dessert! mmm! with that kind of food, i'm available for photo shoots any day!

edit. 

these are the resulting photos! see more of tamara mcdonald here.

surprise, surprise

so, working at flare, you'd expect to be surrounded by expensive designer pieces, right? well, the other day, i picked up an amazing pair of black chunky strappy heels expecting them to be marni or something. but, no - aldo. that same day, i did the same with h&m shoes and clothes and cheap monday/rodebjer pieces.

i guess what i'm trying to say is keep your eyes peeled for next season's shoes and clothing at places like h&m, zara and aldo. eek!

on another note, i am becoming obsessed with fringe! for those of you who follow style.com, you'll notice that the cover story is shredded bliss right now. 

so many designers from alberta ferretti to jill sander are trying out this look. fringe comes in many materials, from suede and silk to even plastic and metal chain. there's also a huge variety of colours and sizes, but my person favourite is the silky loopy stringy beige fringe. and (surprise, surprise) i stumbled upon a cute and classic fringe dress on h&m's website. 

gimme gimme!

like boys

today, h&m launches their comme des garçons collection in select stores. when i first heard about this, i was fairly excited and interested in what rei kawakubo would have to offer the middle class, but after taking a peek at the website, i wasn't very impressed. the asymmetric cuts, polka dot patterns and saggy pants don't do it for me. in my opinion, it looks cheap and thrown together. of course, there are many who will disagree with me on this, though. i'm just waiting for the day when h&m teams up with vivienne westwood (though i could imagine that looking cheap, too), or marc jacobs.

on another note, h&m is coming out with a new line called divided exclusive. i got a sneak peek at some pieces at flare, and they're surprisingly nice, considering their older divided line was juvenile and tacky.

sixty-nine

one of my lifelong dreams has been to own my own boutique. more recently, i've wanted to own a vintage boutique. i recently got the opportunity to speak with kealan, the owner of 69 vintage at queen west and dovercourt (beside that beloved bar that we all know and love). here's a little bit of what she said, for those of you interested...

this is garbage: what influenced you into opening a vintage boutique and when did you open?

69 vintage: we opened in 2004. it'd been a wish to open my own vintage store for 10 years and i had been collecting clothes since i was a teenager. i was lucky enough to meet some other guys who also shared my interest and collected clothes, too, so we opened a business together.

tig: what was the hardest part of starting up?

69: organizing everything to start a business.

tig: why shop vintage?

69: people are becoming more fashion-aware and they like a varied selection of clothes that are authentic and original. there's also a big price difference between vintage garments and newly manufactured clothes.

tig: where do you get the items you sell?

69: [laughs] i don't want to reveal my sources, but i shop locally, sometimes outsource, and i also have friends and connections that help me find new items.

tig: what's the best/worst part about owning a vintage store?

69: the best part is the constant changes in fashion. they're always unpredictable. it's nice to know that the clothes are being recycled, so it's environmentally friendly. as for the bad side... there isn't much of one. i dunno... sometimes we get in interesting customers [laughs].

tig: why do you think vintage clothing is so popular now?

69: people are ecologically proud, want to save money and want to have a unique style. the stigma of used clothes is slowly going away.

tig: how is business now compared to past years?

69: the first two years were slow, but it has increased ever since.

tig: what advice do you have for those of us who aspire to own our own vintage boutique?

69: learn about the retail industry and understand the importance of continuous customer care. prepare for demanding customers. create your own special service to make your boutique unique. keep in mind that the rewards are always the same . there's not much change in the job, so it's important to like what you are doing and be passionate. 

tig: any final words?

69: i'm basically living my dream.

obama fo' yo' mama

i may not know much about politics, but any friend of terry richardson is damn cool in my books.

flare fashion room, leigh speaking.

so my first day at flare is finally over. 

contrary to what i had gone in expecting, things were pretty slow today, however most other days, there is never an end to what needs to be done. shipping, receiving, packaging, labeling, organizing everything from lookbooks and past issues to hangers and boxes, answering calls, signing letters... and there's much more to learn in the weeks to come. to be honest, watching the hills can give you a fairly good interpretation of how the fashion room works and looks (like a closet). my new little hideout that i'll be inhabiting twice a week. hopefully things will be a little bit more busy on friday so that i can start getting practice to get the hang of things.

on another note, i just watched this short video from style.com featuring manolo blahnik. he's so cute! the newest video is also worth watching, featuring coco rocha and jpg at a fitting and rehearsal.

ps: congrats to fiona for getting the assistant fashion editor position! amazing!

uh oh

i'm officially a flare intern!

but with this success comes a ton of stress. i haven't even had my first shift there and i already feel overwhelmed! fashion school, part-time job and now an internship?! i don't know what i've gotten myself into, but i am going to try to change a few things in order to better manage my time...

anyway, tomorrow's my first day at flare! i can't wait to start.

bert & ernie up the ante

cut throat

tomorrow is my big day.

yes, i finally have an interview with flare magazine. i've been wanting and waiting for this for so long, considering i went into fashion dreaming of a future in the magazine industry. i want to be so prepared for tomorrow morning, because this is my only chance (with flare, at least). if i don't get it, that's that and i'll have to move on. but i can't let that happen.

wish me luck and hope that i don't fuck up!

strike a pose

so i've never modeled for a photoshoot before, but i guess there's a first time for everything...?

photo by: apple woods

i was asked to model for moist beaver magazine, a toronto based art mag. i was styled by hannah sider and photographed by geoffrey knott . it went really well and the mag will be out sometime in november. pick it up at sub rosa in kensington!

pages of the past

finally, what i've been waiting for: making magazine layouts. we just begun to touch on creating spreads in adobe indesign, which i've never used before, but i'm catching on really fast. these are two layouts that i've created for an article from nytimes.com.

my meditation

control

blood

porn stars & sailor hats

i can't be your superman...

life is a myyysterrry

flakes by mystery jets

this song is one i never thought that i'd play

but if you want me gone, there are kinder ways to say

so long than spitting in my face

they don't teach these things in school

they just lay down the rules

which are there for you to break

which are there for you to break

if i'm wrong, then dust me off and put me in my place

but drop a bomb, shall you blow me away without even a trace?

i'll be gone and i won't give chase

'cause when you're in pieces, you pick up the bits

and nothing fits, and the wind blows you away

oh, the wind blows you away

i pray there will come a time when i think of you and i smile

these days everything seems to last only a while

remember the names for the day when we'd have a child

but the trouble with dreams, they're not what they seem

'cause when you awake, they fall through your fingers in flakes

they fall through your fingers in flakes

qui êtes-vous, polly maggoo?

i found myself nested on a vintage sofa in a candlelit room in front of a small macbook screen last night, watching a very unusual film. the black and white contrasted shots circa 1966 made it classic; the french dialogue with english subtitles made it romantic; the abstract editing and seemingly absurd storyline made it artistic. this film wasn't anything we had expected, but it impressed us more so than the film we thought it would be. imagine a mod, fashion-based movie about a model where at any point in the movie, you could pause it and the frozen image looks as though it should be a photograph, an interestingly composed image. the storyline, though confusing at times, was strangely entertaining. 

what i found to be most interesting was how the filmmakers analyzed the movement of fashion in the 60's throughout this film, though it was made in the 60's. it seemed like this movie could have been made recently to be a historical look back on mod fashions. i watched it with this in mind and found myself even more involved in the movie, comparing the world's thoughts on fashions then with what we know to believe now.

watch this film with an open mind and an appreciation for unconventionality.

back 2 cool

so, it's back to school for me and so far, so great. with friends moving into new places, the end of summer and the beginning of assignments, there's no shortage of things to do. this week has been more than amazing for me, mainly because two of my best friends have come back into my life. 

there are also a bunch of events and afterparties popping up everywhere, thanks to TIFF. the main attraction for me would be the samantha ronson/lindsay lohan party at ultra, but that's the night before lovefest with benji madden and paris hilton that i'll have guestlist and v.i.p. for, so it's probably not the smartest idea to be partying with lindsay lohan the night before. oh, it's ever so tempting, though. we'll see what happens with that.

i could go on about upcoming events, but the thing that i'm most excited for is helping to paint rachael's new place and having a housewarming party there. i'm thinking a nice pasta dish with salad and wine (of course).

la la la time for class.

sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs

for those of you reading this who know me, you would probably be aware of the fact that for the past two (or so) years, i've been making an ongoing attempt at finishing my friend leonard, the sequel to james frey's a million little pieces. it's not that i dislike reading by any means; for my whole life, i've made an agreement with myself that i would always finish books that i've started. unfortunately after reading it's predecessor and subsequently discovering that it was, to an extent, fabricated, it was a hard task to even reach the half-way point of the so-called "imaginative story of a real life," without being skeptical and questioning everything i was reading.

i've now reached a stage in my life where i feel as though i'm comfortable letting go of a bad (or what i consider to be sub-par) book, without feeling guilty or even sorry for the author in regards to the fact that i didn't enjoy it as much as he or she would've wished.

today i purchased chuck klosterman's sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs: a low culture manifesto (now with a new middle), hoping that it would be as good as my friends have told me. i've read about 50 pages so far and it reminds me very much of my pop culture course i took last semester in university. it really makes me think about our society today, almost in a depressing manner. i'm actually not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing because after taking pop culture, i find myself being over-critical of everything i witness and am exposed to on a day-to-day basis. or maybe i'm actually not over-critical, but society is influencing me into thinking that questioning society and the media and infrastructure and social classes (etc.) is, in fact, being over-critical -- fuck! this is what i mean; it's hard to distinguish between what is "normal" according to our capitalist society and what is "normal" according to basic human instinct. i don't even like using the word "according" when talking about human instinct because it makes it sound like human instinct dictates things to us, when really there are no rules -- it is what it is and it comes natural to us as living beings.

i'm not even sure if the above paragraph makes sense to whoever is reading this, but it makes sense to me (in my head, at least). i could go on forever about the topic of how our society shapes and brainwashes us -- if you can even classify it as a "topic"; it's so broad. this post is, in fact, beginning to sound somewhat like a chapter from sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs or a piece that's better than my final paper i handed in to my pop culture professor, so i'm going to quit while i'm ahead, but i think (hope) you guys get the gist. 

i'll leave you with a quote from the book... a little food for thought...

"Being interesting has been replaced by being identifiable." (Klosterman, 40)

think about it, think think about it.

everything in it's right place...

i just got back from montreal yesterday evening. we were only there for two nights, but it was such a blast, though extremely exhausting... here's a bit of a recap.

the ride there was a bit of a mission in itself. we rented a toyota matrix which has five seats and a tiny trunk. there were six of us, one being in the trunk. anddd we just so happened to be speeding and got pulled over by the cops. thank the fucking lord, the cop didn't even notice the person in the back! he was plain as day but the cop just didn't even see him. it was so lucky, because who knows what we would've done if we were caught.

we arrived in montreal around 6:30/7pm and dropped off our belongings at "hotel eureka" which was more like a hostel thanks to the shared "douche" and "toilette." we threw our stuff down and left for radiohead, who was playing in parc jean-drapeau on ile. st. helene. it took us a good hour and a half or so to walk there (a 40 minute walk over the bridge alone) and ran threw the park literally to get there just in time to hear thom yorke's first word of the song 15 steps. a few words to sum up the show: rainy, muddy, fireworks (there was a fireworks competition in all the big cities across canada), loud french men, amazing music, marijuana, oh and did i mention an estimated 35000 people? yeah. it looked like some sort of music festival.

after the show we went to a sweet bar on saint laurent called korova. it reminded me of a mix between last temptation and the social. the people i was with happened to run into a few people they met in montreal when they went in may, including the dj. we ended up requesting some new order and david bowie. it was pretty empty, considering it was a wednesday night, but we shook our tailfeathers despite that.

thursday was our one full day in montreal and was more or less one giant mission. we walked the whole day. first to a restaurant called dustys for brunch, then along saint laurent for some vintage shopping, then to saint catherine to visit urban outfitters (haha), then to a statue which we defaced with electrical tape, and then to the base of what we like to call justice mountain thanks to the justice cross that graces the summit to meet our friends who were hammed at 6pm. being jealous, of course, we went back to the hotel and drank a few beers, ourselves, then met the rest of our crew at the best poutine place ever. that night we went to saphir which is a bar/club quite similar to the social, but in my opinion, better, because there are two floors and each play different music. we were on the second floor, which played electro. everyone was dancing sooo hard, it was one giant party. the dj's were so live and just pumping everyone up.

on our last day we had some tasty crepes for breakfast, then hopped in the car for a hungover ride back to the homeland. i wish we could've stayed longer.

relax, relapse, rehab, repeat.

time flies when you're having fun.

how true it is. the summer is nearly over. it's august and we're approaching the finish line; i'm not too sure what to make of that.

i currently have a minor case of strep throat - not to mention the severe exhaustion i'm experiencing from working all day and partying all night - so, i've been taking the past few days to relax. i'm on penicillin, drowning in lemon-honey water and watching movies, just taking it easy until i go to MTL on wednesday to relapse. i expect to party fucking hard as a motherfuck and did i mention i'm seeing radiohead? hellllzzz yeszzssss. it doesn't get much better than that. really. then i get back to home base that is TOR only to sleep and wake up at 4am to drive down to FLA - my rehab after MTL. this next week will be a bumpy ride. i can't wait.

on another note, i've been listening to she and him all day. i guess i was inclined to do so after watching zooey deschanel in almost famous last night. i haven't listened to much of them since the school year when i'd sleep at rachael's in her twin bed (cozy) and wake up to pancakes and she and him. i miss that so much.

listen to their cover of "bring it on home to me." love.