Saturday

LATEX


Flesh-coloured latex makes me think of Ted Bundy lampshades but the composition of these sleeves looks perfectly like an insect joint. 
eBay, Amazon and Alibaba's offerings - mostly featuring Asian girls in abbreviated bathing suits are a brilliant hybrid of sexy/bizarre/awkward e-commerce poses.  



Thursday

RAP FEDORAS



This image by Charlie Engman for V Man. Defying the humorous/accurate notion that "bucket hats are essentially rap fedoras"

<
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< Not technically bucket hats but you get the point. 

Monday

ALL PINK ERRYTHANG


Everywhere it's getting boring. Except you panther, you're great. 

Tuesday

BELATED VALENTINES

Self Portrait as a Tehuana (Diego in My Thoughts), 1943


There was no shortage of interesting men in Frida Kahlo's life - she was at school with Muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, married to Diego Rivera and for a time shared her home with Leon Trotsky.

I find the relationship between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera endlessly fascinating. Rivera divorced Kahlo in 1939 after fourteen years of marriage and they remarried the next year despite Diego's affair with Frida's sister. Frida once said of Rivera 'There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.' Ouch.

Initially blogged for work.

Friday

BABE IS LESS BUSY




There was something so good about this image but there was far too much going on. The fake tatt is on point.



3101




Monday

NIKE FETISHES


Not many brands inspire the levels of fiendish devotion that Nike does. Above an image from artist Hank Willis Thomas' 'Branded' series and a street style shot doing the rounds online.
Below there are no words.





















Read an interesting article on brand loyalty from Nike's European agency Weiden + Kennedy here. 

Tuesday

RAQIB SHAW





















































I first came across the work of Raqib Shaw when I was interning at the White Cube archive and a diamond*-encrusted lobster claw of his fell on my head. Not a fan of his 2009 London show Absence of God, I have been curious to see what comes artistically after giant sculptures of lobsters fucking women. 

Here he is photographed by James Mollison for W Magazine ahead of a big show in New York, I'm interested to read the reviews and very jealous of the bonsai room.


*90% sure it was diamonte





Monday

Wednesday

NUNS




















































































I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween and the idea of dressing up (doesn't everyone), but these Nun+* images have been accumulating on my desktop...

I hadn't realised quite how pervasive the fetishisation of nuns was until I started looking for them, tip of the iceberg:


Monday

CHAIR CHAIR CHAIR CHER CHAIR SHARE



Above: One and Three Chairs, Joseph Kosuth, 1965
Below: Cher / Chair / Share, Ole Ukena, 2011

No doubt I'm late to the party but Ole Ukena's update of Kosuth's seminal work is pretty funny. I'm definitely not going to get started on whether it's art or not.

Monday

OVERDRESSING


Reliquary cross pendant c. 1450-75 V&A Collection





















The idea that you openly display your fortune has almost completely disappeared from European culture. For centuries you could calculate wealth (if not nobility) through the cost of materials and labour on your back: raw silk, shorn velvet, golden thread, seams lined with seed pearls and valuable stones reset into rings, bracelets, seals and pendants by each new owner. It must be the current rehash of 90s minimalism that is making me nostalgic for an opulence I have never experienced, being able to identify a real Celine phantom or Cartier bracelet digging in to a chubby wrist just isn't the same.

Alexander McQueen AW13  /  Anne Boleyn, Artist unknown c.1533-36. National Portrait Gallery

Friday

THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE


POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE One of my dad's oft repeated phrases and infinitely preferable to the showbiz stalwart TITS AND TEETH! (Babs Windsor I'm looking at you). The Alexander Technique is a great basis for shoot because it puts in mind how clothes are being worn while providing a fresh contrast to the pigeon-toed slouch of tumblr. 
Once again, the brilliant Katie Shillingford at the helm.