Twenty Seven Names NZFW '13

Today was the official start of  New Zealand fashion week, I had been wondering about whether I should get tickets for a while, but then the uni workload got to me and I completely forgot. Sure enough, as things do, it crept up on me and then I was ticketless, and unhappy. The day before the first official show, my friend Chelsea says she won two tickets to the Twenty Seven Names show which made me incredibly excited and also terrified. It would be my first NZFW show, and there was so much to think about. When being a part of a crowd of people with a common interest which was fashion essentially you need to be very fashion savvy. How was I going to do my hair, my makeup, what shoes, accessories, and the most important, what was I going to wear. I was still at Uni at the time, and was going to stay there until late so I wasn't even home to consider anything.

Nevertheless, I hauled ass in the morning, dashed on some orange lippy, and my shark print dress and walked almost a kilometer in blistering shoes to get to the show. Waiting to get in was a buzz, and extremely exciting in the simple act of observing. I was in the presence of a creative hub of people, whos primarily role was expression. It was all so fun. I admired the audacity and the cohesiveness of numerous outfits and pined over items of clothing.

The inspiration for the Winter Season titled 'I'm Lost' was the Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte (which is admittedly my favourite surrealist) whos work includes 'The Son of Man' and 'The Treachery of Images'. Twenty Seven names effortlessly blended in the more androgynous icons of the bowler hat, and blazers with their romantic and indulgent creams and whites. The patterns were whimsical, the looks fresh but somewhat very wearable. I mostly fell in love with the blazer and pants combo and the crop top and culottes, but I guess I'm a sucker for matching sets, and want to invest in an abashedly girly and a-line coat for next winter. Overall the day was extremely satisfying, my eyes were like saucepans the whole time attempting to absorb every look on display whether it was from the crowd or from the runway.


Lastly, thank you Chelsea for inviting me to the show! If it wasn't for you I wouldn't have this experience for which I'm extremely grateful. And the number of photos in this post should be a crime. Nevertheless, Enjoy!

- N

[Also, it was freaking badass that the collection was called 'I'm Lost' and the final song was Kanye's 'Lost in the World'. Great great great juxtaposition with a common thread of continuity.]

Trial

Screencap of a PDF of a trial zine that I made for a friend. 2/3 because that friend is in another country and I want to make them happy, and 1/3 to trial out printing and such for the actual thing.

Mostly just a compilations of the material substances of things that are part of memories that we share. Pages from books I like, poems, screencaps from movies, photography from my favourite photographer. Everything has been scanned in.

And I'm pretty sure I breached 100 copyright rules, but hey, this is for personal use.

I AM THE WORST BLOGGER IN THE WORLD

I'm pretty much the worst blogger in the world and I am extremely sorry if you decided to invest your time into checking this out at all. So there is my groveling and self-deprecating apology to you.

What have I been up to recently?

Well, I watched Spring Breakers, and strangely enough to my own surprise I fucking loved it. So so so so so much. So much so, that is haunted my thoughts for a complete week and convinced me to change my zine idea completely (But hey, it's all experimental anyway). It's now going to be called Love Letters to Cinema: (insert title and long subject)  and it's just going to be personal essays on cinema. Hopefully these interest anyone really, because instead of being technical and nitpicky, I'm going to have some freedom and fun with these, weaving in personal experiences and connections to philosophy or art or other cinema. I'm a freak. Above are some teaser photos. So I guess I've been working on that.

What else have I been up to...

My holidays I pretty much did nothing. I 'attempted' to study but not much was done. I went to my friend's bach (beach house) just for one night and it was surprisingly fun. I felt uncomfortable with 80% of the people going but to be honest it wasn't as bad as I had imagined. I thought it was going to be a Lost in Translation moment where I would feel painfully lonely surrounded by people. But yeah it was pretty good. It was Orchard's birthday. (Happy Birthday if you're reading this) so we (actually, Patricia) made masks of Korean boys (some idols which I couldn't identify) and surprised her. It was ubs cute.

I've been feeling pretty restless these days. I think it's a natural young adult late teen instinct, drilled into us from centuries of party loving cavemen and feasting knights and whoever else in history wanted to have fun. I just want to go out and enjoy every moment (as opposed to being locked up in a dusty room). It sucks. Sometimes I just want to experience it all. While I can, and soak up everything and see things with new eyes and a clear mind. Or am I going gonzo crazy I don't know.

I'm slowly meeting some pretty interesting people in biomed. It's strange though, because these people were just acquaintances last semester that I slowly just talked to more. I just I needed short term gratification haha. And I've started to self-diagnose myself with mental disorders via wikipedia which probably wasn't the best idea in hindsight and genuinely got worked up over things (even though a piece of me does feel this way still), alas, take me as I am whatever. (And sorry Jahn for being a emotional trainwreck)

I'm pretty much 3 weeks behind on all my papers so I should probably hustle. Laters gators.

Videos I'm Obsessed With

Tardys

Sorry for the extreme lack of posts due to Holiday/ broken laptop / uni starting

And sorry for the lack of context of these photos.
This was my holiday.

Dates and Mates

Photos taken by my friend Jahnavi on my new camera, and edited by yours truly. Talented girl trying to ninja photos of strangers hahah. Sorry for the lack of posts, send my laptop screen to be fixed and still don't have it back yet!

Zine Update

The first two pages of my zine that I have VERY SLOWLY been working on (Low Res too to try and not reveal too much not like that's working). My zine (if it ever gets around to completion) I'm hoping to be called 'Anonymous Conversations'. The first volume will be about escape. From this I mostly drew aesthetic inspiration from the teenage small town angst and entrapment of the films The Virgin Suicides directed by Sofia Coppola and Dazed and Confused directed by Richard Linklater. The cover is a direct homage to the title card of The Virgin Suicides - full of unabashed girlishness but also symbolic of youth, and imagination.

The contents of my zine I think will mostly be photography and direct homages to radical films. I'll see how comfortable I am with my face hahaha, as well as hopefully little drawings and lots of mixed media. I'm hoping these photos are full of sun drenched, youthful, extreme close ups and intimate portrayals of life. Acts of quiet rebellion, long nights and long days. As for the direct contents I've long been completely obsessed with the 'Before' films (Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and now Before Midnight, which I saw the other night and adored, all directed by Richard Linklater) and I think what I love about them is how genuine they are. I'm obsessed with things feeling real. I want to translate this into my zine, I want to have Anonymous Conversations with my friends (of course I'll tell them) where we discuss a topic (and hopefully the anonymity really calls for some soul searching and openness) and I write them down (also inspired by Interview Magazine, and my beaten up copy of Influence - yes that book by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen which I love btw) which reveals the beauty and the struggles of the day to day. Art imitating life. Hopefully I finished this ever. Okay bye homeslices.

Fair's Fair

Went to the Auckland Arts and Crafts fair today with Chelsea it was so cute! It was like Etsy had exploded into one room, and everything was so quirky and wonderful. All the stores were so cute, my favourite would have to be Bonjour Sweetie, which was an adorable shop which sold mini dioramas of everyday situations. These were in plastic squares, or necklaces or photoframes or even photographs of them. It came wrapped up in a 'popcorn' style bag and was so cute. I bought a 'flasher' necklace (second photo!) which was so hilarious and badass, almost like an subtle rebellion (also, while we're young right?). I also bought a necklace from Bailey's Alchemy (third picture) which is so beautiful and the colours are like the rainbows of an oil slick (in a good way!)

After I really felt like churros so I got some (and forced Chels to have some) and we took the bus home together. It was a really sweet day and a good catch up day! (Chels bought a really gorgeous necklace from a store that I'll link later!)

I'll write more later and add links to all the wonderful boutiques later, but this was so fun and effortlessly cute, totally going again next year.