Dyckman Farmhouse Museum

Lacking a little inspiration this past week, and for the first time in I can not remember when, being uninterested in Fashion Week, I was thrilled to stumble upon this jewel in Inwood, New York.  My sister recently moved up to Inwood and we were exploring.  

The Dyckman Farmhouse is located at 204th and Broadway and was built c. 1784.  Can you imagine a New York farm that stretched from the Hudson to the East River, and the change that the property went through as modern New York arrived?  The History Lover in me had a little field day at this house.  The old is enchanting and being able to experience something like this preserved in upper Manhattan is very inspiring and unexpected.

Outsider Art

 I had my first experience this week with Outsider Art,"art brut" in French, translated "raw art" or "rough art".  I am blown-away by this genre that I had previously known virtually nothing about.  Having heard about the fair through a Times article by Robert Smith, I was interested and went to check it out.  For those who like myself a few days before, do not know what this genre is, it is art that is created by individuals on the fringes of society, untrained in classical art, and separated from the traditional world of art.  Originally, this term classified mostly people in insane-asylums, people who did not think as the rest of society.  Now, the genre encompasses many more than those institutionalized for mental problems, it is any art that is made without the influence of the traditional.  Outsider artists are also people like Winfred Rembert, who while in prison, learned to make art on leather; his work is so descriptive as well as rhythmic and has a very clear commentary.

I found this art so special because it recognizes the artistic heart and sometimes the unadulterated flow of the mind; describing how things are and what the world is like.  In it, there often isn't such a strain to achieve perfection or demonstrate a certain learned skill and as a result, what is made often is very raw and very straightforward.  

Some of the art is very fun, and will make you smile.  Other pieces will make you think and stand in awe of the clarity that they achieve.  The genre on a whole, gives me inspiration and encouragement in my own work as well as renews my faith in our ability to see the value that all individuals have, regardless of what society at whatever particular time chooses to value.

Below are a few of my favorites from the show.

Daniel Belardinelli

Jim Bauer 

Sketch; for your Sunny, January, Tuesday

A Simple Kind of New York Morning

Breakfast at Foragers City Grocer on 22nd Street.

Sunday, Sketch Day

I fell in love with this street shot of Edie Campbell on the Jak & Jil tumbler.  She looks so chic and mysterious...I kind of had to draw her....

Exaggerated Proportions. Favorites from Pre-Fall 2013

 

When I watch new seasons being loaded on my Style.com App (in my top 5 favorite Apps), I begin to see things I really like and then begin to put them together, trying to run a thread through them to explain what they have in common and why I like them.

Above we have: 3.1 Phillip Lim (I want to be in all Chloe next Spring and all Phillip Lim in the Fall!),  Acne Studios,  Kenzo (all too adorable), and always a favorite, Rochas.

All these looks are really special because of their PROPORTIONS (kind of a pun on the caps...oops, maybe silly, oh well).  Nothing is classically put together. And nothing is expected.  There aren't rules as you can see: Rochas is big all over, usually a faux pas; while Acne has only an over-sized coat with tall skinny boots; Kenzo's look is loose on top and on bottom but the pants do become defined at the waste. 

NO RULES.  It's ALL STYLE. And those are the two reasons why I like this play-on-proportions for Fall.

Remembering My First Love (suprise, it's Marc Jacobs)

This is the look that inspired it all.  Well, ‘all’ may be be a bit of an exaggeration because liking clothes and wanting to make them, somehow always seemed innate.  No, this look opened my eyes to Fashion!  That is capital ‘F’ fashion.
 
It was home economics class, 10th grade, North Henderson High School, Hendersonville, NC.  Flipping through magazines (part of an assignment that I can not remember), I found this look, part of the Marc Jacobs campaign of Spring/Summer 1999.  The memory of this moment is so clear because my world came to a stop.  "What was this? " I thought.  "It is so amazing, so wonderful, a little impractical, a combination I haven’t seen before...?!"  I tore the page out and taped it up in my vanity, where it staid the remainder of high school and college.  I craved more of this ‘Fashion’ and started buying Vogue, learning designers and following the world of Fashion.  In this image, I had found a little bit of heaven and at the time, I thought, there must be no greater genius than Marc Jacobs.

This memory is what always brings me back, remembering my first love.  As I have been delighted by what Marc has been doing recently, in his own collection and at Louis Vuitton, I am once again inspired by him and I recall this memory and the Spring/Summer 1999 campaign that started it all. 

Wish I could locate the campaign photograph, but I can’t, therefore, the runway shoot will have to do.