last love

'60s beatniks

I've been loving the '60s lately. I mean really, really loving the '60s.

And the '60s I am talking about here are the cigarette-drenched, poetry-fueled, beatnik '60s.

(As opposed to the all-colourful Swinging Sixties, which I am also super into right now, but that's another post entirely.)

Maybe it's because I'm turning 25 next year or because traveling 

 has reawakened my adventurous side, but I feel like experimenting again. Like getting away from that traditional wannabe-French uniform I've been aiming at for the last couple of years. 

And instead to try something new. Dyeing my hair blonde (the hairdresser talked me out if it, but the intention was there - that counts, right?!) or getting my nose pierced (I want to so bad). Even though that's the absolute opposite of who or what I've been trying to be for the last couple of years. 

I guess mostly it comes down to that most insidious of diseases: boredom. Now that I have a proper job, a steady income etc. etc. I need my clothes to challenge me again. I need them to be exciting. To dare me to able to carry them off. And to let me sulk a little. Let me have my own personal quarter-life crisis.

The '60s beatnik wardrobe is still very basic, nothing too out of this world. A lot of black. But it is made interesting by the materials.

Hence, the following purchases as of late: a puke green PVC rain coat, a fringe bag, a leopard coat, a Bella Freud sweater, a turtleneck & a suede popper skirt.

Now all that's left I need is "long hair, long legs and a long cool stare."

Well, I'd also like the classic Stuart Weitzman 50/50 boots, pretty please. Kate and Olivia look so good in them.

These kinds of outfits might not always come together perfectly, but that thing that's a little off, that little something wrong you actually can put a finger on for once - that's exactly what makes or breaks them. 

And what better inspiration than original cool girl Francoise Hardy.

"She was the ultimate pin-up of most hip, Chelsea, beat bedroom walls, and I know for a fact that many of the groups who were notorious and slowly becoming successful, such as the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones and Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and many others were desperately interested in having Françoise Hardy become their girlfriend in some way."

- Malcom McLaren (x)

t magazine in paris

 

(x)

Two wonderful features from the T Magazine archive - both Paris-based.

What's not to like?

• Sofia Coppola's Paris (that slideshow - always & forever)
• The Real Lee Radziwill & Talking About Lee

Lee Radziwill on Paris

"You know, Paris — well, at least this part of it — has hardly changed since Jackie and I first came here in 1951. We were so young! It was the first time we felt really close, carefree together, high on the sheer joy of getting away from our mother; the deadly dinner parties of political bores, the Sunday lunches for the same people that lasted hours, Jackie and I not allowed to say a word." (x)

Sofia Coppola on Paris

"You naturally feel a connection to certain places, and, for me, Paris is one of them. I would look at my parents’ French friends and think, That’s what you’re supposed to be like when you grow up." (x)

l'ecole des femmes

Desperately want these four L'ecole Des Femmes shirts:

• Oui/Non (as worn by Camille Rowe here)
• Une femme libre
• Faire l'amour à la Gainsbourg
• Emmanuelle

in love lately v

1. Am I French Yet? tank, by Leandra Medine for être cécile
2. Glue - Skins meets Midsomer Murders
3. Violet, Issue 2 - on the cover: Alexa Chung
4. Books Are My Bag canvas tote, by Tracey Emin (will be available to purchase here)
5. Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys., by Viv Albertine
6. You're Not Good Enough, by Blood Orange (directed by Gia Coppola)
7. Shelter Song, by Temples (whose frontman looks like some modern-day Tim Buckley & who featured in a recent Saint Laurent campaign - here he is photographed by Hedi Slimane)
8. Puberty Blues, season 2: Flaming Youth in 1970s Cronulla
9. Emma Cline and Her $2 Million Manson-Family Novel - everyone was obsessed with the Manson girls at some point in their youth, right? It's totally normal, yeah? Anywho, super excited for this book. 
10. Real, by Years & Years ("If I had been enough for you, would I be better, would I be good?")
11. Oceans, by Coasts ("We fell in love right by the ocean")

thumbed paperbacks

 

(x | x)

Adoring the comeback of the '70s-thumbed-paperback font & jacket design.

It's very Valley of the Dolls.

pieces of journalism viii

(british garden by honeylucy)

1. 40 Things To Remember When Fashion Gets Too Much:
   "Designers always admire their muse’s ‘attitude’ more than what the muse wears. So, actions speak louder than clothes, ultimately." & "If your parents like what you are wearing, you are clearly doing something wrong."
   
   
2. Karley Sciortino for Vogue is a blessing:
   "It now seems ridiculous, but I will admit that, in the past, I’ve actually wondered if I was above heartache. I relished the idea that I might be vaguely sociopathic, because at 28, I had yet to feel deep loss or sadness in connection to a romantic relationship in the way that so many of my friends had."
   
   
3. Whistles Inspiration. Especially her & her & her.
   
   
4. Loving The Great British Bake Off right now. I think it's because there's actual carbs, butter & cream involved. Ruby Tandoh, one of last year's contestants (who also writes brilliantly for ELLE UK, see: Dinner Party Philosopher), did such a terrific write-up of one of the recent episodes, that if you haven't been watching so far, I sincerely hope this will convince you to run & not walk:
   "And the scandal did not disappoint. It was everything a romantic could have hoped for: an old country house, heartbreak, melodrama, futility and a tormented, bearded young man striding moodily through the English countryside. A nation wrung its hands in glee." (x)
   
   
5. Going to see The 1975 next month & I cannot wait. This interview with Matt Healy, the band's frontman, is super dear to my heart:
   "I wasn’t a heroin addict – I never lost it to heroin – but I was a coke addict big-time. I was 18, I dabbled in everything. I wanted to be Jack Kerouac. I thought I was as decadent as all of that."
   Current favorite song. Especially once you read about the meaning behind the lyrics. Milk is up there right now, as well.
   
   
6. Good girls don’t sweat.
   
   
7. "The entire look was inspired by this moody teenager who heads to Blackpool for the weekend and plans on snogging boys at the bus shelter." (x)
   
   
8. "Was it Tomas Maier’s sky blue sweatshirt and reworked leggings for spring—or the flyaway buns of his pretty model corps that gave it away? For his latest Bottega Veneta collection, the designer was channeling the idea of a dancer on her way to rehearsal—and, perhaps less directly, the real world phenomenon of hastily pinned-up gym hair. His runway girl wore a relaxed, après-sport bun with unfinished ends and a few flyaways around the face down the runway." (x)
   
   
9. "Because that’s the thing about Sienna Miller: she’s irresistible and irrepressible – a party starter, a human firework. She’s fidgety and exuberant, coltish, gushy, tactile, generous with compliments and also larky and piss-takey. She’s vivacious, convivial, a joiner-in-er, one of the gang. Of course, she’s beautiful, too, disarmingly so: tawny, kittenish, slim, blonde, blue-eyed – a starlet in the classic mould. And she’s famously soignée, too."

"Sexual intercourse began 
 In nineteen sixty-three 
 (which was rather late for me) - 
 Between the end of the Chatterley ban 
 And the Beatles' first LP."

excerpt from Annus Mirabilis, by Philip Larkin (x)