theeyehastotravel.

    The High Priestess of Fashion.

"allure" is a word very few people use nowadays, but it's something that exists. allure holds you doesn't it? whether it's a gaze or a glance in the street or a face in the crowd, someone sitting opposite you at lunch... you are held.         style was a standard. didn't hurt anyone... but you gotta have style. it helps you get down the stairs. it helps you get up in the morning. it's a way of life. without it you're nobody. i'm not talking about lots of clothes.       now brodovitch was the tutor of all these people of harper's bazaar of layout, and many of them had gone to his classes at night. he was a very remarkable man, he loved his white space, he loved empty pages-oh, he couldn't stand me. i mean, i wanted, of course, to put in as much as possible. i only wanted fashion.

anyone who's afraid and does not search and give as much as possible to the world of pleasure is a totally ignorant person. we were put here for the joy of it, for the hell of it, and it's all here now; nothing has been taken away. it's a question of creating it.           style: all who have it share one thing—originality.       UNDER VREELAND, VOGUE BECAME A COMBINATION OF CULTURE, ART, HAPPENINGS, AND VIBRANT FASHION. "I THINK PART OF MY SUCCESS AS AN EDITOR CAME FROM NEVER WORRYING ABOUT A FACT, A CAUSE, AN ATMOSPHERE. IT WAS ME—PROJECTING TO THE PUBLIC. THAT WAS MY JOB. I THINK I HAVE ALWAYS HAD A PERFECTLY CLEAR VIEW OF WHAT WAS POSSIBLE FOR THE PUBLIC. GIVE 'EM WHAT THEY NEVER KNEW THEY WANTED."     can you tell I LIVE for diana vreeland!? i mean. she's just wonderful. hideous and marvelous. in her documentary "the eye has to travel" there was a quote about her that went something like "she was never a very beautiful woman and she was never a very wealthy woman, but she created beauty and wealth."

love.

all quotes from diana's book, the eye has to travel.

perfume.

Over the course of my trip I read 5 books selected to go along with the places I was visiting. While traveling through France, I read Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; which was set in the slums of eighteenth-century Paris. It was creepy, very strange, slightly disturbing but very passionate, tragic and beautifully written. and while in the French Riviera I was able to visit the Fragonard factory, one of the oldest parfumeries in the world (I believe) that happened to be playing the movie version of the book (lol).

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“He drank in the aroma, he drowned in it, impregnating himself through his innermost pores, until he became wood himself; he lay on the cord of wood like a wooden puppet, like Pinocchio, as if dead, until after a long while, perhaps a half hour or more, he gagged up the word “wood.” He vomited the word up, as if he were filled with wood to his ears, as if buried in wood to his neck, as if his stomach, his gorge, his nose were spilling over with wood.”

"Or why should smoke possess only the name “smoke,” when from minute to minute, second to second, the amalgam of hundreds of odors mixed iridescently into ever new and changing unities as the smoke rose from the fire … or why should earth, landscape, air—each filled at every step and every breath with yet another odor and thus animated with another identity—still be designated by just those three coarse words. All these grotesque incongruities between the richness of the world perceivable by smell and the poverty of language were enough for the lad Grenouille to doubt if language made any sense at all.”

“And what was more, he even knew how by sheer imagination to arrange new combinations of them, to the point where he created odors that did not exist in the real world.”

“Perhaps the closest analogy to his talent is the musical wunderkind, who has heard his way inside melodies and harmonies to the alphabet of individual tones and now composes completely new melodies and harmonies all on his own. With the one difference, however, that the alphabet of odors is incomparably larger and more nuanced than that of tones; and with the additional difference that the creative activity of Grenouille the wunderkind took place only inside him and could be perceived by no one other than himself.”

“He was not out to make his fortune with his art; he didn’t even want to live from it if he could find another way to make a living. He wanted to empty himself of his innermost being, of nothing less than his innermost being, which he considered more wonderful than anything else the world had to offer. And thus Baldini’s conditions were no conditions at all for Grenouille.”

1.2.3.4.5.6

luxury/escapism.

  R29 recently posted an interview with Meaghan Murphy of Book/Shop Oakland (one of my favs) and two of her responses really resonated with me and my feelings towards printed literature and reading in general. You can read the full interview here.

What are your thoughts on the argument that print is dead? "Print will never die, in my opinion. The books I collect don’t get turned into e-books, and, even if they did, I would never use a device to read them. There is a certain intimacy in the bends of the spine and the penciled notes I might jot in the columns of my books. I also wouldn’t be able to part with the stacks of books I have on every available surface in my home. Perhaps this is due to my inclination to collect things, but I find it so pleasing being able to pick a recipe out of an old book of Elizabeth David’s or select a book to send home with a dinner guest.   "I recently read an article about a new app that will allow you to read a novel in 80 minutes and, I'm sorry to say, I just don’t understand the appeal to this. Reading is about the luxury of slowing down for an hour and transporting yourself to another place and time. It is the best kind of escapism. I really have no interest in, or understanding of, anyone who sees reading as nothing more than a chore."     What is your philosophy when it comes to literature? "The best kind of literature never stops revealing its secrets to you. Each time you open it, it will speak something different. My favorite books are the ones I read once a year or once every few years — not because of the pleasure in it, but because there is still more to learn."

well said. photography by ashley batz.

slacking.

  yea so my plan to photograph and post about all of my favorite books and zines is already off track pretty much due to the ridiculous number I accumulated (on a regular basis) all at once. overwhelmed haha, but so good.

culture.objects.soul.

    I am OBSESSED with Jeanine Hays & Bryan Mason's (of AphroChic) new book, REMIX Decorating with Culture, Objects, and Soul! It's filled with beautiful colors, vibrant well-decorated rooms, a cute dread-head (love em') notes on the culture and more. The typography and layout is great too— which is pretty much how I judge books. These are a few of my favorite spreads..                   delish.

newstuff.

                Getting new magazines/books in the mail is literally as good as christmas to me. I recently picked up Man Repeller by Leandra Medine, The WAH Nails Book of Downtown Girls, MUUSE, and the Rookie Yearbook Two. Four COMPLETELY different publications, but delicious design goodness nonetheless. I especially love the rookie yearbook. I have the first one (of course) and wish these had been around when I was 13-16. I would have poured over pages (a la Amelia's Notebook anyone?). Reading them now is definitely nostalgic– and in the back of my mind I'd love to hold on to them until my hypothetical daughter/niece hits her preteen years. HA.