May Inspiration

Clockwise from top left: Street style photograph by Tommy Ton; Lilacs photograph, source unknown; Louise Amstrup Fall 2013, photo by Susie Lau for Style Bubble; Details March 2013, photographed by Lacey; Lulu Frost Vendome Earrings (available here).

I've been extremely busy in my internship at the Cut, and in my spare moments each day at the office I often spend time finding inspiration on the Internet, whether it be shopping online or browsing the newest images to show up on my Pinterest.

Creative pursuits are fueled by inspiration, which is why it is vital to tend to a growing collection of images and ideas that provoke thought. Most of the time I prefer my body of inspiration to be exclusively visual, as what I can see always affects me the most.

This May mood board that I created for Girl Loves Color contains a select few images, but it encompasses the different design aspects that have been inspiring me of late. I have here a cacophony of flowers, omnipresent in my springtime mindset, that play well with the shockingly bright patterns that I have been especially drawn to. These phenomenal earrings by Lulu Frost call to mind my recent obsession with vintage-inspired jewelry: "vintage-inspired" is a broad category, but I've been particularly drawn to the 1920s, Art Deco and The Great Gatsby. Lastly, street style never fails to get me going, particularly the sartorial aesthetic of photographer Tommy Ton. I'm very into the idea of using prints to inspire the color scheme of an outfit, as with this emerald and cerulean example.

If you have any inspiration to share, I'd love to see it.

When Fashion Danced: Stephen Burrows

“Clothes should be fun and easy to move in. To me, they’re like toys for adults to play with.” So said fashion designer Stephen Burrows, whose dance-ready designs are memorialized in an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York. Aptly titled When Fashion Danced, the collection of videos, sketches and garments brings Burrows’ innovative design aesthetic, originally a fixture of the 70’s-era New York City disco scene, to a modern-day audience.

Below a ceiling draped with tissue-thin white fabric that evokes Burrows’ featherweight dresses, the stark white room provides ample contrast with the designer’s psychedelic color schemes and eye-catching metallic fabrics. The space categorizes the archival pieces by design signature, from silhouette, which focuses on his penchant for bias-cut draped designs that were enlivened by movement, to his use of decorative red zig-zag stitching and “lettuce hem,” originally the accidental product of a design assistant. Burrows learned the rules of fashion design only to break them, setting a precedent for leagues of avant-garde designers to come: “When they told me...that everything had to be on the straight or seams couldn’t be crooked, I just did it my way.”

Worn by the likes of Farrah Fawcett and Diana Ross, Burrows was a designer deeply embedded in the emerging counterculture of his time, an era of personal and sexual freedom that called for an exciting new way of dress. His exuberant clothing reflected the enthusiasm of a liberated culture that thrived in the increasingly over-the-top nightlife scene. The exhibition stimulates nostalgia for a time devoid of inhibitions, in which women donned Burrows’ gossamer chiffon dresses and draped metallic tops, and their garments twirled and flowed as they danced the night away.

"When Fashion Danced" is on display now at the Museum of the City of New York through July 28, 2013. 

Visit mcny.org for more information.

Minimal Efforts

While I'm certainly always a fan of a heavy print driven by cacophonies of graphics and patterns, the most recent months have seen a resurgence in my preferences, and it seems that somehow minimalism has been dominating my taste in fashion visuals.

Clean whites and blacks seen in a host of recent fashion editorials (such as Modernism is the Message in the most recent T Magazine) have had a lot of impact on me, but naturally as the founder of a blog called "Girl Loves Color" must attest to, brightly-hued minimalism sure does pack a punch.

In the fashion world, we've heard a lot about monochrome dressing. While the word "monochrome" may at first sight elicit ideas of neutral hues, as it does for me somehow, it refers here to outfits that adhere to the use of one tone only - and oftentimes a bright one, at that. It was seen down many a runway since the Spring 2013 ready-to-wear season, and once the coats evaporate, one might expect to see the look hit the streets on a myriad of stylish dressers.

Narciso Rodriguez 

(left: Spring 2013; right: Fall 2013)

It takes a great designer to create masterful simplicity. Go to any high fashion store and run your hands over an example, and you'll quickly see what I mean. Like the golden ratio, I find a perfectly tailored pair of trousers or a sharply cut blazer to have that effect of visual bliss. Maybe it has something to do with my father's background in architecture, but the crisp pleating of the lemon Akris skirt below or the precise lines and angles of Narciso Rodriguez's pinky-red blazer above are just enough to pull me into dreamy elation.

Akris Spring 2013

Yet while minimalism finds its glory in crisp tailoring, there is something to be said for the diaphanous renderings from the likes of Frida Giannini at Gucci. The impact is just as powerful, but the overall look is somewhat softer.

Gucci Spring 2013

All images from Style.com

Ultimately, monochromatic dressing is just as much of a statement as a bold print. It presents a new way of flaunting a bright hue in a manner that feels a little more focused. I am eagerly awaiting the next season of street style photographs to see how this idea translates into the everyday.

Candy Land

I recently looked back at the sweets-centric fashion editorial, entitled "Candy Land", in New York Magazine's spring fashion issue. Teenage actress Elle Fanning plays both model and muse for artist Will Cotton's sugary inclinations. Normally I am not a fan of fashion editorials that focus on celebrities, but this one marks an exception. In this context, the pairing is relevant, and it emphasizes the underlying story.

I took a class at FIT in Photo Styling, and I vividly remember a project in which we had to take inspiration from a shoe and use that to inform the setting of our shoot and the image that would emerge from that. A lot of magazine styling nowadays doesn't create a relationship between these distinct parts; instead, what we see is a beautiful image and beautiful clothing. Without a doubt, the result is often worthy of admiration, but I like to think of styling being much more than that.

The "Candy Land" spread takes the themes of naïveté and playfulness, stemming from the common young actress stereotype, and combines it with the season's best high fashion and couture. Yet much of the fashion isn't really clothing at all, but rather edible sweets that imitate specific pieces, such as a Vivienne Westwood headpiece, as in the cover image of the magazine and the first image seen below.

One thing that occurred to me was the idea of imitation within the fashion industry, and the way that Cotton translated that dilemma into sculptural pieces of candy and frosting. It's an interesting interpretation, although maybe not so far-fetched.

On the other hand, this fashion editorial really utilizes the epitome of what I learned in my Photo Styling class. Cotton turned this clothing into something more than that, creating a new interpretation of what we saw on the runways. One of the best examples is the image of Fanning lying amongst yellow plastic-wrapped confectionaries, in which Raf Simons's Dior frock looks just like a piece of candy. And that's the point.

Images via The Cut

Credit to New York Magazine

Artwork by Will Cotton; styling by Rebecca Ramsey

I especially enjoy fashion editorials that aren't afraid to connect the different dimensions of a fashion image. The "Candy Land" spread introduces a symbiotic relationship between design, props and model that has yet to be rivaled by many modern American fashion editorials.

Don't get me wrong - I love simple fashion editorials. But there's something about an editorial like this that reminds me why I love fashion so much.