My whole life is a darkroom. One big dark room.

Instant self-esteem.

Text and illustration by Emily Smith, December 2010. Something to read when I'm feeling bad about myself like when everyone ignores me on LookBook... L.O.L.

MUGLER

SICK SICK SICK SICK SICKENING.

Why Look at Animals?

For the presentation of the pre-fall collection, Lanvin has released  THIS set of images, all featuring taxidermy animals alongside the models.

Im having a hard time forming an opinion of this shit in my brains. I have to say first of all that Im reeeally not diggin' like 75% of the collection in terms of styling and the actual pieces themselves. There seem to be lots of ill fitting shoes, and also just plain ugly shoes, and also what the fuck is that gross grey beanie shit??? OK there are also really lovely pieces - I particuarly enjoy the ruffle collar and the wine coloured wool coat, but mainly it looks tacky, deffo not the Lanvin elegance I am used to.
OK, so the animals. Its deffo not the first time that Lanvin has used animals in its promotion - the Fall 09 campaign with the cats remains actually one of my favourite campains ever... the look on the cats face is just actually priceless. For me however, I am not convinved by the inclusion of the animals for this lookbook. They are static and dead, and if anything they are a negative feature - how can you attempt to sell an exotic fur coat while standing next to a carcass?
So you see how Im mixed up? I have quite a large collection of taxidermy which I use in my artistic practice and always find aesthetically pleasing and always apreciate the use of it, particuarly in fashion stories. But for me this falls short. I have learnt in my explorations of the medium, and also from alot of research and stuff Ive been working on recently, all of it based on animals, that you really need to have a respect and understanding for the animal before just using it. Like it feels too PROP based, yknow.... Like they think they can take the vast beauty of nature and it will transfer into the garments? I actually dont know. I mean part of me still actually really likes it. I mean animals are the best. WOW, I RAMBLE. Heres the pix.

Tell me your opinions?? Tell me Im not going TOO insane? Tell me to stop writing because I'm bad at it?

The greatest gift of all

 

 WELL yesterday was bloody exciting. Not one, but THREE wonderful packages found their way to me.

I'd been complaining all year (yup, all 14 days of it) about how bad the January sales had been, and then all of a sudden I found all these fucking good bargains, NUTS!
So my possible favourite of these bargains came from My-Wardrobe.com after a tip off from the Attitude STyle blog. it took me possibly less than 60 seconds (Im a fucking good internet shopper) to track down the ulitmate bargain, lovely black Dr Marten 3 hole shoes, reduced from £100 to £30, yippeee. I used to have these shoes as school shoes, but they got wrecked in the mud at Glastonbury 2005. I dont think I wore my school uniform to Glastonbury but I am definately THAT square. Anyway I was well excited when I found them and Im telling you it was FATE because the ONE pair they had left was in my size!! THIS LITERALLY NEVER HAPPENS!!! anyway I was all like buy buy buy and then like 3 days later they arrived, and LOOK!!! 

 THE WRAPPING!!! SO NICE!!!!!!! And yes, if its a gift to yourself it still counts. And OK when I checked out you had the option of nice wrapping or plain wrapping, of COURSE I chose nice wrapping. And you could also add a handwritten note... I was feeling silly... This one goes out to my gurl Bea...

And heres the shoesies... plain but lovely. Classixxx.

But you know the BEST thing about all of this?? I realised its someones fucking JOB to wrap things nicely with bows and tissue, and write gift tags... like all day long??? WHERE DO I SEND MY CV PLEASE????

Marnie Weber is awesome.

 GUESS WHAT!! Ive pretty much finished writing my dissertation!!! Its been a chain around my neck for like, 6 months, but FINALLY in just one weeks time I will be handing tat shit in and saying goodbye to it FOREVER. Well at least until I get my marks back in June and realise how bad I am at writing. Oh wait, I already realise that. Anyway, ramble ramble.
SO, the one good thing about writing this little fucker is that Ive been able to do lots of reading about all my favourite artists, Ive had to watch lots of Harmony Korine films and probably the best thing has been finding cool artists I didnt know about. YAY!
And  the best of these has been amazing sculpture/collage/video/performance artist Marnie Weber, who recently had (actually its still on for another 3 days) an exhibition in a mauseleum!! cooooolll!!!!
I could pretty much fill this whole thing with her rad images but I think thats pretty rude so instead you should go to her website which is HERE. However here are a few just to intice you. Im mainly drawn to her animalistic pieces which lucky for me is most of them, yay.

woah.

EVERYONE BORES ME.

Im gonna sick you out.

This is pretty much what I wore for New Years Eve, but yaknow a bit more embellished for Jesus. Ive had this cardigan forever, I think I got it from like a jumble sale or something. And the black shaggy waistcoat Im wearing underneath has pretty much been my favourite item of clothing this winter. I usually wear it on the outside but sometimes just so it peeps through, even though it makes me look pretty fat that way. Ive shown this shirt before, I got it for free from a big pile of weird clothes and costumes that for some reason got donated to my art department a few years ago. I painted the black on it though. Im holding a skull because thats always nice and the red tie is because the chain isnt joined so I joined it together with a ribbon. fucking FASCINATING isnt it. Well not really but people like to know this shit and also Im annoyed because I spent ages editing this shit for my first lookbook picture but then when I went to post it I realise it went against pretty much every one of their rules. motherfuck!!!!!! Anyway so it ended up here which is probably better because you know how neglectful I have been. Thanks for your time, hi I love you. I was going to call this post O holy night but then I remembered Christmas is over.

or, yknow, dont.

Christmas, thanks for nothing.

Went away for Christmas. Forgot to water the plants. The plants died. Its the circle of life.
This is my poor little weird mint plant that I saved from the bargain shelf of Morrisons in July and nutured back to health. It served me well; I made the most delicious mint peas. Pimms in summer was minty fresh. It looked nice on the windowsill. But now Im a plant murderer!!!! Our strange tree thing also perished. And the lavender went months ago... Maybe its a sign...

TWOTHOUSANDANDELEVEN IS KIND OF HARD TO SAY.

Happy new years muthafuckas. I dont really have more to say except may the year ahead be prosperous and wonderful without sadness and shit. Although yaknow every year is full of ups and downs. Hopefully this will be an upper more than a downer though. Lots of exciting things are lined up this year, so yay. Even though twothousandandeleven does sound a bit like an inbetween year. Does that make sense? Anyways, fuck you 2010, the future is now. etc.