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Classy by Derek Blasberg

This new book, about how to be a classy “extremely modern” lady, by Derek Blasberg looks incredibly entertaining.  Blasberg, who only graduated from NYU (That’s right!  Making the alma mater proud..) in 2004, is now Senior Fashion News Editor for V Magazine and also writes routinely for Vogue and other magazines. 

Available here on April 6.

via Refinery29

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Spotted:

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Alexa Chung for Madewell

Shortly after finishing this collaboration with Madewell, she signed on to do a collaboration with highly-respected British label Mulberry. #baller

Ok, I feel like I’m breaking my own rule since I just posted Spring/Summer looks and complained about how F/W looks are showing right now, when we all can’t wait for spring and can’t even begin to think about NEXT fall and winter, but I couldn’t resist posting this one.  Alexa Chung is having a moment, and if I saved this for next summer, when we’re all dying for fall again, the moment might be over.

But afer this one, I’m back on the wagon.  I really do think, if you’re a normal person and not in the fashion industry, that psychologically we should all be looking at spring and summer looks right now.  It messes with my head to think about what I’ll be wearing winter a year from now.

Alexa Chung for Madewell F/W’10 show via Refinery29

File Under: People Who Make You Feel Unaccomplished,
along with THE Zach (post below), >25 Olympians, and Taylor Swift.  Don’t worry Amanda, I’m perfectly happy with my life, but seriously, they make me wonder what I’ve been doing for the past 23 years.

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Something To Look Forward To 2.18.10

I can’t wait for spring and summer and dresses! And I LOVE these ravishing dresses from Sophie Theallet’s S/S’10 show.

I think it’s utterly confusing how the fashion world works– that it is currently Fashion Week for F/W of this year, and that these images above are now “old” since they are from the last fashion week, even though they are for weather we haven’t even gotten to yet.

But I personally like looking at spring and summer images when spring and summer are approaching, so I’ve been saving these images for a while, and I just couldn’t wait any longer to post them.

You may remember Sophie Theallet’s name, as she won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in ’09, and Michelle Obama has also sported her looks. 

via Pomegranita

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King of the Road

by product and concept designer Jenny Nordberg

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Hedi Slimane

More at his diary here, but I warn you, it’s addictive, and there are thousands of images.

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Bon Voyage

Doesn’t this make traveling look stylish?  Like it used to be?  Back in those good old days I like to talk about that I didn’t live through? 

So maybe she’s on a private plane and she had hair and makeup people because this is actually a photo shoot and not real life, but leave that out and she’s still heads above the rest because there’s not an Ugg or sweatpant (#petpeeve) in sight.

I’m not saying you have to look like this babe while traveling, but I don’t think it’s even passable to stoop to the ugliness of airports and airplanes and dress so dismally to fly.  Let’s start a movement to resurrect the era when airtravel was posh.

Flavia de Oliveira shot by Fabio Bartelt – it was an editorial, so not all one designer, but I don’t even know what magazine it was for… sorry!


via Maison Chaplin

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Malene Birger SS ’10

(click for full size)

Images from the website for the SS’10 collection of Malene Birger, discovered on This is Glamorous

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Lola

Photographer Joshua Scott was hired to do the product shots for Marc Jacob’s new Lola perfume.  Instead, he was inspired to, as he said, “attempt to photograph the product without actually photographing the product but rather the ideas and emotions that combine to create the product.”

According to Scott, since all perfume shots are just shots of liquid in a bottle, he wanted to do something different.  Pretty clever way to capture the intangible effect of a scent!

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Barbershop Revival

#1:  Old-school barbershops for men.

I don’t know why, since I’m not a man, but I really love the idea of old-fashioned barbershops for men.  I’ve mentioned this before, but I have an unexplained nostalgia for an era I didn’t live through when routine daily activities were glorified.  Like shaving.  Here, a barbershop in London called Murdock that is along the lines of Freeman‘s (below) in New York.

And for me, this begs a question.  I would say the female equivalent to getting a shave at a barbershop is getting a manicure– it could easily be done at home, but it’s nice to have someone else do it for you.  So why aren’t there classy manicure joints like there are men’s barbershops?  They’re all tacky!  Even the new trend in nail salons is the ultra-girly look (not feminine, girly, there’s a difference) where everything is pink and sparkly.  Ick.

This reminds me of the J. Crew Men’s store vs Women’s store issue… to me the men’s version is just so much cooler.  Why can no one get a grip on what classic, old-fashioned (but updated) femininity looks like?

Trend I Love #2:  Anything apothecary-looking.