WE FOUND A MAP TO CANDY MOUNTAIN, CHARLIE, CANDY MOUNTAIN!

Going through the 117 pages of Sleek and Pure, hours spent with Jil Sander made me feel like...



...candy mountain, candy mountain, you fill me with sweet sugary goodness, a land of sweet and joy and joyness, la la la laaa, ye-ye-yeeah!

Jil Sander campaings with Malgosia Bela/AW99 and Angela Lindvall/SS98 from here.

VIDEOCHAT WITH FRANCA SOZZANI

Did that just happen? Did I really mumble questions awkwardly to...Franca Sozzani, the editor-in-chief of Vogue Italia? Yes, and say hi to our dorm room bunk bed. Vogue Italia has meant a lot to a magazine enthusiast like me. I can remember the first issue I bought when I was 15, in January 2006. The androgyne, rock-inspired cover and 70 page editorial shot by Meisel featuring such models as Irina Lazareanu, Sasha Pivovarova and Heather Bratton (RIP). Later I subscribed to it and when I was 17 and visiting Italy for a film festival, my souvenirs for home were three issues of the famous Black Issue. Three because I couldn't find the fourth cover. Everyone else bought pasta. Well, I also got some Moleskines.

Vogue Italy has during the past years always put something fresh to the table and in a way that you can vividly remember the editorials and covers thanks to their originality and topics not usually seen in fashion magazines. They have become iconic. Vogue Italia has also made a successful transformation to the online world with Franca Sozzani writing an editor's diary to the vogue.it website that has now been made into a book. So you can imagine how excited and flattered I am to first be interviewed for vogue.it and then given the amazing opportunity to ask questions from Franca Sozzani herself. Thank you again Vogue Italia and congratulations on your new book, The Vagaries of Fashion, Mrs. Sozzani!

Click HERE for the interview!

AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN AN INSOMNIAC DREAMS

Happy holidays friends and readers!
Tonight when it gets dark, I want you to go out and watch the stars.
They have seen themselves in you.
Hug your friends and family.
Ask them how they are doing.
You are lucky.

Best,

Maria

Ps. a post about interviewing Franca Sozzani is coming up soon!

ICE COLD

Holidays...do they mean the time when we listen to christmas songs sang by cats and accidentally get half-drunk every other day for the greater good at friends house?
I'm in.
I've seen the stars at 5.30 p.m - childish pleasure.
I am not thinking about my CSM portfolio, print costs or school work, except at 4am and it's all good.
That's different...
Like a new obsession with white organza...because that blue shirt deserves a nice vest.

Dissolved silk knit, italian wool pants and one of my favorite shirts,second hand.

// HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!

BREATHE ME

You've got to give credits for the new guys in Helmut Lang for producing some pretty nice tanks in the last couple of years like this cellophane print silk madness here. I couldn't resist when I saw it on the outnet, it's beautiful and the discount high, click click, here's another present for myself. This week I also bought a long, black cashmere coat from second hand for five euros, my roommate said I look very grown-up in it. Every time I wear it I feel like I'm closer to something, or maybe in a new wave film...that's the power of quality dressing, kids! Just do it!

I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS

This is waiting to be unwrapped in my room. White gun soap.

Man, I am tired but inspired. Was it all the broken glass and totally random intense jamming sessions and chili cacao I stumbled upon this morning? You never know where the cold streets and warm hearts can take you, I love you Helsinki.

Ps. Carine Roitfeld resigned from Vogue Paris for a personal project, intresting!

I ONLY KNOW WHAT I KNOW NOW

Rick Owens shawl, old old Benetton cardigan with slits, Tiger of Sweden tencel tank and second hand Italian wool pants.

This is a variation of what I wear every day to school: black, wool, merino wool, faded black and dark under-eyes to top it off. This time Laura took some studio photos of me with Mamiya and I made her snap my outfit while at it.

Today I woke up early and photographed dancers in snow.
It was nice.
Waking up to life sometimes seems worse... like R.Kelly would put it!

"People think that freedom is going out, traveling, being 'free'. Not at all! I'm locked up twenty-four hours a day here. I travel from behind my desk, with my mind. I have all the freedom I need at home. I have my friends and I spend more time with them than traveling. Every evening we are twenty at dinner, sometimes thirty at lunch. Luckily I have all that. Sometimes I say to myself that the real success in my life isn't fashion, it's the friendships and the people that fed me and allowed me to do my job. I have no regrets except not giving enough time to my friends and family when they needed it."

Azzedine Alaïa in Self Service

"Mr. Alaïa would show you how to make the dress and shut up about the rest. Not talking about it is also a way to avoid a falseness — the falseness of thinking poetic language can be applied to dressmaking. At some point you have to decide what color “pain” is, and whether it should have long sleeves or short."

Cathy Horyn on Alaïa in New York Times


Ps. I bought woolen Helmut Lang LBD for 40 euros, nice!

WITH YOUR FRIENDS, LONG DRIVE

Yup, I'm a vampire. Who wears second hand silk knits and fur sleeves.
I also love miso soup and blue leather vests.
And taking pictures of hungover models.

Photo's by the person who I share a bunk bed with: Laura Vartiainen.

Ps. I asked a couple of questions from Franca Sozzani via skype on Friday, I will post a video soon! Yes, I was very awkward and it was pretty awesome. After it, I decided that I'm going to apply to Central Saint Martins. Thank you Vogue Italia!

NOT AWAY, BECAUSE THERE IS NO SUCH PLACE

Champagne, bath and white limo in Copenhagen and a quick visit to Maison Martin Margiela exhibition when in London during Loud Tate. So, I guess this is what I did this summer (when I was not crying, ha ha...)

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it's normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

-Ira Glass

From here.

LET THEM TALK, LET THEM HATE, IT AIN'T MY FAULT

"I just know I'm feeding the cats and this is why..."

Apparently one of my favorite models Querelle is doing a comeback with something major...happy days! This editorial from POP AW 2003 photographed by Peter Lindbergh is something that has influenced me immensely when I was in middle school. I bought the first Peter Lindbergh photo book I could find, read Jean Genet's Querelle and presented in front of the class when I was 14. Happy days, indeed. Well, this is it, this is what defines perfect to me. Also, the magazine I'm doing, the first issue is going to be all black and white.