Could I Have That?

I’m excited to introduce y’all to Samantha Hutchinson, who blogs about style and other fun stuff at Could I Have That! Sam and I met in Santa Barbara, where she writes for Santa Barbara Magazine, amongst other fun freelance gigs, and I love her style (that is her on the above left!), so I asked her to share with us a bunch of her favorite things and inspirations. You know, one of those “my essentials” kinda things I’m strangely addicted to… So here’s our Q&A!

Where do you go when you need to experience wonder? The desert. There’s something about the dry heat and vast open spaces. I love going to The Parker or La Quinta Resort & Spa for a weekend of R&R. [elc: I've been obsessed with the idea of a dessert vacation ever since hearing this from Sam...]

What blogs/sites do you visit when you need to find inspiration? Garance Dore, Jak and Jil, We Live Young, P.S. I Made This, Smitten Kitchen, and Dress Design Decor [elc: these are some of my faves too!]

Favorite daydream?  I daydream a lot. But I have to say the one that pops up the most is playing the piano (or any instrument) really, really well.

Best gift you ever received?  My red hair. I have my parents (both gingers) to thank for that one.

What music do you listen to when you want to feel inspired?  Depending on my mood, I’ll turn on anything from Sigur Ros, Ray LaMontagne, La Roux, Rolling Stones, Radiohead, Bon Iver, Avett Brothers and Ryan Adams.

A film or person whose style made an impact on you?  Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. The clothes, the music, the setting and the story I just can’t get enough of. Kate Moss, Alexa Chung and Olivia Palermo are a few that always know how to look effortlessly chic. [elc: agree all around!]

Essential item(s) you will buy over and over?  J Brand Jeans, OPI’s Bubble Bath (it’s the perfect pink nail color), Moroccan Oil, YSL under eye concealer

A visual memory you will relish forever? I was a ballet dancer for 16 years and I’ll never forget the view from performing on stage.

Ideal picnic: location, food, company, etc.  The Figueroa Farmhouse in Santa Ynez is so beautiful especially during wildflower season. I’d set up my giant striped picnic blanket in the meadow overlooking the valley and pack tri-tip sandwiches from the Los Olivos Market, a bottle of wine and chocolate dipped strawberries.

Favorite words?  Electric, demure, stellar, amour, fringe

Ideal vacation?  Somewhere in Baja California with the beau in our own casita next to a deserted, white sandy beach. Days would be filled with catching some rays, reading (me), surfing (the beau), margaritas, carnitas tacos, swimming and exploring.

Go-to outfit?  I have a few go-to outfits that are in heavy rotation. But it usually goes something like this… skinny jeans or an oversized dress, short boots, an oversized mens oxford  shirt, a scarf or sweater and my aviators. Here’s a few favorites…

Favorite house or room you’ve ever been in and why? Last summer we stayed at a house for a week on Martha’s Vineyard and I fell in love with it. Between the paint colors, cozy living rooms and quiet surroundings I felt like I could have moved in and lived there forever. Since we had all kinds of weather during our stay (rain, thunder, 80º and sunny) we took advantage of the pool, fireplace, beach access and beach cruisers parked in the barn. The design of the house was that of a simple country home with crazy cool antique pieces and custom wood work. I think my most favorite thing about this beach home was the amount of light inside. A few pics of the house and our trip… [elc: I love these pics!]

One surprising thing about you?  I eat a lot! People are always so surprised by how much I can actually eat.

All-time favorite shoe? My Ash cutout platforms. I always wear these when I need to up the ante. Seen here.

Guilty pleasure? Junior Mints

Item you will always splurge on? Handbags. I love good quality leather that will last and get better with age.

Always in your handbag? Tom Ford’s Blush Nude Lipstick, my Moleskin notebook, hair pins, aquaphor, an antique silver mirror compact, Girl Meets Pearl by Benefit, usually some sort of candy, cash and a sharpie or two.

Check out more of Sam’s style and favorites over at her blog!

Missed Connections

Y’all know I love the Missed Connections illustrations based on the craigslist category of the same name, so I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I have never forgotten this little incident. This happened four years or so ago, when I lived in New York, and I’ve never forgotten it and just had to share it with you.

So here’s the story. This guy, Patrick, sees “the girl of his dreams” on the subway, fails to make a move, and decides to create a website– NYgirlofmydreams.com– with the above illustration to try to find her.

The site and illustration went viral, ending up almost immediately on the cover of the AM New York and Metro, the free papers that are handed out as you head onto the subway in the morning, meaning that pretty much everyone in New York was following this story and wondering if they knew the girl. A terrific example of crowdsourcing, the case was cracked pretty quickly when a staffer for BlackBook magazine recognized the girl as one of their interns.

Speculation swirled as people wondered if this was a publicity stunt by either BlackBook or Vimeo, which Patrick worked for, or both, but I like to believe that it was sincere. (And if it was a publicity stunt, it was freaking brilliant, so I guess I’m fine with that too.)

You can search if you’re curious for the end of the story, there are gossip accounts out there, but I prefer Patrick’s ending that he posted on the site: he said he was going to stop updating the world because unlike romantic comedies, we would have to imagine our own ending to the story.

And why not? Isn’t it enough inspiration just to know that someone would go to such lengths to find a potential missed connection, and moreover, that we clearly still believe in fate and romance as a society, if the whole city would be interested enough to become totally obsessed with the story and trying to set them up?

The Rolling Hotel

I’m having a major Wes Anderson-meets-Motorcycle Diaries daydream right now due to discovering “Das Rollende Hotel”– “the rolling hotel” concept by Rotel.

Their converted buses have little sleeping cabins like trains, freeing you from having to stay within a day’s drive of a hotel while you travel and letting you traverse destinations all over the world way off the beaten path. Meals are eaten at local eateries or cooked bus-side after finding ingredients at the market.

This has officially been added to my list of trips I need to take at some point in life. The destinations they offer are amazing!

French Fashion Item #1

Two French style/fashion items I’m excited about today.

First: April will be the first issue of French Vogue directed by Emmanuelle Alt, whose style I love, in her new role as editor-in-chief!

The cover, featuring Gisele, was just released. I really like that she went for a look so different from her own style! Very smart, as a lot of people were speculating that the magazine would take on a much more rock n roll look with her at the helm.

Now all I need is a subscription for French Vogue… (Mom, I promise this is not a hint aimed at you, even though you were sweet enough to get me the Cire Trudon candle I posted under LustList!!)

PS – An interesting interview with Emmanuelle here. Ever wonder how she has those super thin legs? Well, it’s not through exercise. Sister has never been to a gym and hates physical exertion. Lots more interesting tidbits in the interview…

Images via I Wanna Be An Alt

French Fashion Item #2

Second: Veteran French model and style icon Ines de la Fressange’s book Parisian Chic, which promises not only a style guide but also a city guide to Fressange’s favorite spots in Paris, comes out in English in a couple of weeks! (Pre-order here.)

For the style guide, Fressange herself and her daughter Nine model the classic looks Ines considers essentials.

‘Hey Look’: the iPhone App for Discreet Public Gossiping

Thought this app was awesome.

Reimagining the Recipe

Last month, Good Magazine started a contest to “redesign the recipe,” and the submissions are in.

I actually have a really hard time following recipes the way they are usually written out in a cookbook– I have to read them multiple times to understand what is actually happening at each step, so I will often re-write the whole thing in a way that I can understand, and it usually does involve a more graphic, visual approach! So I personally wish that all cookbooks would evolve to an approach like this.

Also, it is really is fascinating to see how if you give someone a relatively blank slate and a mission like “redesign the recipe” how differently people will approach it!

My favorite approaches, as in, the ones I found the easiest to understand, were these simple, lovely illustrations by Katie Shelly at top, and this very clear, creative graphic above by Jessica Kreir.

More Kulte Goodness

In researching for the post last week on Kulte’s photography for their new campaign, I was looking around on their website and discovered their online magazine-meets-catalog called Kultorama, and it is a treasure trove of even more wonderful photography and eye candy.

With a combination of a sort of travel journal/vintage photo album feel, articles, and outfit collages, they have definitely figured out a formula to creatively communicate their brand identity and to totally hook you on it!

I am really digging the aesthetic of whoever their artistic director is!!

Check out previous issues here and their online store here. You could spend quite a while browsing the Kultoramas. Really quite brilliant because often times I feel like when I discover a store/brand I like, I want to really delve into it, not just to browse the online store, because there’s no story or feeling there, but there’s nothing else really to do on the website. Kultorama certainly gives the consumer a way to delve into the brand…

‘Test Drive’ VW’s New Car via Ad and App

This has got to be one of the most innovative ads I’ve ever seen.  In fact, outside of the use of StickyBits, it’s the only print ad I’ve seen that utilizes and integrates iPhone technology and apps.

Here’s the scenario: Volkswagen has just introduced three new innovations that they want people to experience, because experience is really the only way to understand innovations such as these.

The usual strategy for a car company would be to get people in for test drives, which in reality only a handful of people will actually do. VW had the brilliant idea to use a medium with a much broader reach– print ads– to get more people interested, and then to let them “experience” the innovations through an iPhone app!

So the print ad provides an aerial shot of a road that the user can “test drive” using the iPhone app! The app has three modes, one for each innovation– a sensor that vibrates when you get too close to the edge of the road, another for when you get to close to a car in front of you, and a third that lets your headlights bend around curvy roads.

Check out the video to see it in action.

I’d download the app and try this just to “test drive” the ad, even though I’m not in the market! Just to see the technology in action! Brilliant!!

PS- Did you know that not a single Superbowl ad featured or encouraged connecting to their brand via social media? Isn’t that remarkable?! What a missed opportunity… all those people sitting there with their cell phones within feet. Apparently, the big ad agencies are slipping behind when it comes to creative integrations of social media! I realize this is rather unrelated to the post, but in contrast to all those Superbowl agencies, VW’s agency came up with a very creative new media ad-integration.

Cinematic Chromatics

I confess to knowing next to nothing about filmmaking in the technical sense (honestly, “nothing” is probably more accurate than “next to nothing”), but I am a keen observer while watching movies, and one thing I do tend to notice is the use of color and color filters.

So, I found this project, called Movie Barcodes, highly fascinating. The concept is this: using data compression, each frame of the film is reduced to its mean color, and that color is represented by one vertical sliver in the barcode. When all the slivers are lined up sequentially, you see the whole movie in order in terms of its colors.

Most of them are fairly monochromatic, with the exceptions usually being animated and children’s movies, which makes sense! At top is Dumbo, which I thought was a rather pretty one.

Above is the barcode for the Matrix, which is a fun one because you can see when they are in and out of the system! Another one I liked was the Amelie barcode because that movie was so noticeably greeeen with punches of other colors, and that is exactly what the barcode reflects (see gallery).

Oddly, on the tumblr that presents and indexes all of these “movie barcodes,” there is no information or credit as to who is creating these, and I hunted around on various blogs that mention it, and none of them mention the creator either!

They do mention that this is not an entirely new concept, as Jason Salavon first did this about 10 years ago with the top ten music videos in MTVs history. His use the same idea, but his “slivers” are little bars that were laid horizontally and stacked end-to-end and meant to be read left to right and top to bottom. Interestingly, the music videos seem even more intensely monochromatic, which makes sense as soon as you think about it.

Below is the Express Yourself video:

Check out the full index of movie barcodes here.