friends

"Okay, so my favorite thing to do is to complain about how tired I am, but bring a couple of friends and suddenly my energy kicks back!"

"I don't know her, but I have a feeling she's my best friend." (referring to Stella McCartney)

"...catching up with my friends Sex and The City style."

Garance Doré

"Three of Vancouver's best chefs providing the food, talking shop; I don't know about you but I love this stuff. I get to hang out with my friends, eat like a champion, drink a little too much and the editors and camera people pretty much do the rest."

"Like my three friends, Pinot, Vicro, Tojo, each from a different land, three widly different approaches, all coming together in a fantastic collision, a graceful natural fusion."

"If it's not just what you know about a place but who you know, this is who I know and knowing them is what Vancouver is for me. "

Anthony Bourdain

Watching an Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations episode one afternoon made me think of Garance Doré's "Pardon My French" minisodes on YouTube. Anthony and Garance couldn't be further apart; one's a hostile New Yorker who eats, writes and travels for a living and the other an uppity Parisienne who doodles and photographs for her own blog. But watching Tony with his Canadian friends at the end of the Vancouver episode from 2008 reminded me of Garance's final fashion week video. Tony ends the episode at a makeshift-indoor barbecue due to the weather with three of his best Vancouver friends who happen to be chefs. They all three cook their special Vancouver meal, have some wine, talk, laugh, converse. Quoting Tony, "I don't know about you but I love this stuff." It's the homey feel of having a couple of good friends over and making dishes with their own personal spin on it that appeals to me very much right now. Put on some good tunes and have a laugh.

Watching Tony hang out with his mates in the most simplistic way is similar to Garance meeting up with her three girlfriends during the last day of fashion week. After Chanel, she headed to a little café and shortly after her friends started to show up and they talked about their favorite shows of Paris fashion week and had some lunch. What registered with me was the fact that my two very best girlfriends and I are always longing to do exactly what both of these two have showed me. All we really want to is just laugh and giggle and gossip and chat and eat and drink and listen with good friends. And by "we" I mean me and my friends and also the rest of the world. Let's be honest, who doesn't love to share a meal or a table with a at least one good friend?

cinematic style: the rear window

After seeing one of my favorite bloggers Hannah of Capture The Castle follow in the footsteps of Stevie from Discotheque Confusion, I cannot help myself but to add to the pack of "Cinematic Style". As with a certain café or a lone wooded area, clothing in films help to establish a feeling or an emotion. Instead of the environment giving off the vibe for the scenes, the clothes give off a look for the character and help to create a personality to a person whom you do not know. With the help of the glorious website Clothes on Film, I'm now able to search almost any film I desire and gush over favorite looks.







After seeing Alfred Hitchcock's The Rear Window over my spring break, I really fell in love with Grace Kelly. I was in the midst of prom dress shopping so when I saw her first gown, I knew I had to get something like it. A fitted top with a beautiful upside-down fountain of fabric and tulle with strappy sandals. Grace makes it look so innocent and fun and twirly. A part of me loves that bright and happy feeling you get when putting on a very Dior-looking dress like so. Throughout the film, Ms Kelly kept the popular cinched waist that makes her look very collected and put together. Her character Lisa works in fashion and loves reading Harper's Bazaar. The black little dress in the second photo makes her look like a fashion girl: very clean cut but still fun yet professional as she is, after all, a lady. I've become obsessed with Lisa's halter blouse after she took off her mint green matching jacket. I remember when she pulled the sleeves off, I threw my head back because of the cut and fit of that cream top. Her pearls laying gently over the tightly pulled crossed neckline shows off her beautiful arms and collarbone. At the very end of the film, we see Lisa wearing something not a lot of women seemed to wear during the 1950s and 1960s: jeans. So casually put together she wears cuffed denim with brown leather loafers. I couldn't find a picture of her top but she wore a white crew neck with a pink menswear blouse over. Her lying so daintily reading Harper's was the perfect way to end the journey of Lisa's style throughout The Rear Window.