So I have been a bad and lazy blogger lately, taking a good week off during the holidays, but this lookbook is enough to bring me out of vacation mode. It was shot by photographer Lauren Alexandra Wang for the LA-based Mohawk General Store. It’s the kind of place I follow on Tumblr and fantasy shop online, even though I couldn’t pull off the stuff that they sell, most of which is minimal and slightly tomboy and basically the kind of thing I love but look awful in. It just doesn’t work.
But this lookbook is making me rethink all that. Maybe it’s just the extra romantic backdrop (the green green grass and stone steps make me think of Ireland and that old abandoned gate house we took pictures at), but the clothes look so much prettier and more accessible here. That first outfit especially is something I would wear in a heartbeat. Definitely good winter inspiration.
I was knitting a sweater for Drew for Christmas, but it turned out so bad that I’m scrapping the whole thing and starting over again. It was kind of a failure, but maybe not a waste of time since it gave me a good excuse to watch TCM practically nonstop. I think I’ve seen every Christmas movie TCM has aired this season, including The Bishop’s Wife, Christmas in Connecticut, and vaguely holiday-ish ones like Bachelor Mother (Ginger Rogers!) and The Shop Around the Corner that don’t really focus much on Christmas, but are so good that I don’t really mind.
This year I’ve been really fascinated by the Christmas decorations in old movies—particularly ones from the ’30s and ’40s. I love how showy Christmas trees were, and I wish that full-on tinsel would make a comeback (when I was a kid sometimes I would sneak some on our family tree until someone told me that it kills dogs, and from then on I was terrified Scarlet would eat some of it, but I don’t know why. She wasn’t that dumb). The tin toys are so much prettier than the plastic ones I played with as a kid, and even Santa didn’t look as creepy.
I found these photos on the always amazing site, Shorpy, and they all were taken in the ’20s and make me wish there were more silent Christmas films floating around. Holiday-decorated storefronts back then were so good and that tree is gaudily wonderful.
Here’s another winter collection out of New Zealand that makes me think of Christmas, if only because it features some holiday-ish dresses and some good green plaids. I don’t think I’ve ever done a post on NZ label Salasai, though I’m not sure why not, since they make a lot of the vintage-inspired clothes I always love. Things I love in this particular collection: sheer blouses, light colors, and perfect loose-ish dresses with little collars.
Photos: Jamie Hopper
Model: Sophia at Factor
Styling: Rhiannon Leifheit (and Jamie Hopper)
Jamie and Sophia have shot together a bunch of times, and they’re kind of a dream team. I’ve seen lots of photos Jamie’s taken of Sophia (including an editorial that’s in the current issue of the always adorable Little Thing magazine), and have been wanting to work with them both together ever since seeing photos from their first shoot. Which, by the way, I had the oportunity to style but skipped out on because it was too early in the morning for me—bad idea. This time when Jamie asked me to help style I started looking for clothes and things right away. It wasn’t hard to do; we were shooting during the prettiest week of fall, and fall is my favorite season by far. The location, an old historic farm-turned-park right by Mount Arabia, didn’t hurt either. And Sophia is so pretty she’d make any clothes look good.
Do you remember back in August when I did a post on Twenty-Seven Names’ newest collection, Take Cover? At that point I only had seen the campaign images, which were so good that they deserved to be posted instantly, but now that I’ve seen the actual lookbook photos I love the whole thing even more. It doesn’t hurt that it’s an autumn/winter collection and that most of the clothes are the kinds I want to be wearing right now. The green plaids are Christmas-perfect, the coats are all dream coats, and some of those cocktail dresses would be amazing for New Year’s Eve . . . .
