The Beautiful people pt. II: the Personal Style blog and the Photography blog

The Personal Style blog:

My take on Zarna... I'm not convinced, but I hope she likes it!

Zarna and her blog, Zarna's Runway, are many things for me. I'll try to tell them without being cheesy but I think it'll be difficult.

First of all Zarna's blog is the only outfit-only blog that is able to inspire me and leave me enthusiastic after each post. Don't misunderstand me, there are also other outfit blogs that I like, but Zarna's really has something special.

The impression that you have when you look at her photos is that she is a real artist of the clothing: her mixes of cheap bargains and expensive items, her amazing sense and use of colors, her ability to use garments and accessories from the Indian tradition in a very glamorous way are all elements that make her stand out from the crowd.

"Jane Aldridge? Who's she??"

Van Gogh would be proud of her...

Zarna is also the kind of beauty that I'd like to be. She's thin, but curvy and her muscles are tonic and healthy. She sports a lot and I bet she eats in a good way (look at her wonderful skin and her hair... You don't have skin and hair like that if you starve).

One of these days I'll paste her photo on the wall on my desk "Be like this in 3 months". Oh Yeah. (mission impossible)

How to rock an old Indian skirt for an elegant dinner... Are you starting to understand what I mean when I tell you she's the queen of color-styling for me??

And, last but not least, Zarna is the first person (my aunt or my best friends aside ahah) that showed me an interest in what I was sharing on my blog. 

She  commented on my video about Japan and it was the first time I thought "Oh wow, so somebody actually reads what I write apart from me checking what I wrote after posting!!".

That is how I discovered her blog.

She's a very nice person, she is totally not full of herself and you can really see that she's doing what she's doing on her blog because she has fun, she likes to play with her clothes and with colors and you can feel this joy when you read her posts.

I am really happy I met her in the blogosphere and I really hope you'll pay her a visit too, your eyes deserve it! :-p

"Bye! And come visit my blog!"

The Photography Blog:

When I stumbled upon her blog, my thoughts that Garance Doré had the most pleasant street-style photography blog were swept away in a second.

Well, to be precise the blog of The Photodiarist (she has two: The Photodiarist is the B&W version and The Photodiarist in Color is the color version) is not ONLY street-style, I would call it more street-LIFE.

She makes such pictures that you feel you are there, living the moment. 

And her subjects are not only well-dressed girls but also a funny man on a street, a piano player in Central Park, a drop of water standing on a  tree branch.

And, mainly, her blog IS New York.

I was following it from several weeks, every day more and more amazed by her photography, since one day she published this picture:

and I felt the need to comment it IMMEDIATELY and tell her how much I liked it. 

The burned out light, the perfect representation of the icy weather and that pink hat just in the middle. Perfection.

She saw the comment and she, very nicely, came to my blog, she told me she liked it a lot and when I read that comment I started to jump all around my place, shouting "She said she likes it!!". 

Tommy thought I hit my head somewhere and then asked me, a bit irritated "But sorry, WHO told you she likes WHAT?"

So I took his hand, brought him at my computer and showed him some of her pictures "SHE said she likes my blog and my drawings!!!". 

He looked at the photos, and he immediately understood why I was so happy.

Now, thanks to her last posts, I also discovered that she is an incredible fashion photographer. 

Her boyfriend got her a ticket for the Luca Luca show at New York fashion week as a Valentine present (this girl is freaking lucky, we should ask her where she found her boyfriend, maybe it is a good place to find guys like that ahaha).

Actually I think that these pictures are the ones where her talent shows the most.

Look at them and then tell me: aren't they some of the best runway pictures you've ever seen?

Check the full A/W 2011-12 Luca Luca runway report here, here and here!

It's really a pity that she could go only to this show, I would love to see the WHOLE New York fashion week report by her... Sigh...

Anyway, it took me two hours to write this post and I really gotta go, I have a styling mission today: one of my male friends asked me to help him shopping for new clothes. I accepted "only if you allow me to go buy new colors to draw at the Schleiper shop and a blush at MAC" ahahah.

It will be fun I think!

I really hope that Zarna and The Photodiarist (I still don't know your name!! What's your name? ahah) and also all of you will like this post, I really love to talk about talented girls like these (there will be more in the future, some of my new illustrator friends should be prepared... ;-) )

Have a very nice week-end, a big kiss!!


Al

Al's favourites: Alila mag

An image from Alila mag... that really suits my eye condition ahaha

So today I went to the eye doctor and apparently I have been living for one week with a piece of plastic sticking to my cornea.


Explained all the pain, purchased the drops, I'm here with a kilo of anesthetic in my eye and since I have to rest a bit from drawing again (the light I use is too strong and I am more concentrated than usual on details... actually I shouldn't even use my computer but since I'll have to work anyway on a stupid powerpoint presentation all the evening I am excused. I guess.) I take the chance to talk to you about one of my favourite sources of inspiration online: Alila magazine.

I am always super excited when young Italian people do something nice and creative and these girls (the very nice photographer Ilaria and her friend stylist Alice) really did it well.

Illustration from the Flower Issue (issue 01)

Usually what I expect from a fashion magazine or fashion Illustration and photography is to dream. I like to view images and colours that inspire me an image, a story, a style. And that's what I love of this magazine, it really is able to do this thing to me, make me dream.
Very often, instead of seeing outfits displayed on models or described on magazines, I need a more abstract dose of style, a feeling, something beautiful, which is more or less the same thing that fashion illustration is to me.

From the Animal Issue (issue 02)

This e-zine has the perfect balance between fashion editorials, illustration and art. Plus, every issue is about a topic (my favourite is the flower issue (the first). The latest one is the tattoos issue) and this makes you feel like you're following a story, a string that pulls all the issue together and that I find very nice.

From the Childhood Issue (issue 03)

Moreover, Alila mag made me discover great people like the illustrator Yoko Furusho and the designers CoseAtre  (here I wrote a litte article about them).

From the Porn Issue (issue 04)

From the Tattoos Issue (issue 05)

I really suggest you to stop by their website, dream a bit, be inspired.

Now I'm getting of the dream cloud instead and I'll go back to my boring presentation, a big hug!


Al

The Beautiful people: Fashion illustration

After retail-therapy, fashion illustration-therapy. 


It's a while that I am thinking of showing the websites and the blogs that I like the most. 
Somehow, I feel like a blogroll is not enough: OK, I list all my favorite links, but I miss a lot the part in which I can explain WHY I like one certain website. I'm a review freak, if you want to put it like that. 


So the other day I thought about dividing my favorites of the moment in categories and I started to ask them for permission of using their pictures to show you their works, and voilà my first list is about my favorite three websites for fashion illustration (+ 1 extra).


I think that illustration and drawing in fashion not only are extremely beautiful, but they can even inspire my shopping like no other. I think it's because they suggest you a mood, a trend, colors and shapes more than an item itself. It's like a way of stimulating your creativity and fantasy, suggesting you the fashion of the moment in a more subtle way than magazines et similia. And plus, after a while you observe this kind of works, you feel surrounded by beauty and you can't stop it even in your real life. I think they're kind of a therapy.


One of my favorite above all is Garance Doré, but since I bet that everybody here already know her and since she also owns my favorite blog (above all) at the moment I am not going to talk about her too much here. Just check out her illustration and photography, c'est superbe.


So, after an hour of useless talking (as always, I would say) here is my list of three:

MAYA BEUS

http://mayabeus.blogspot.com/

I discovered her just two or three days ago, but her drawings hit me like a truck at 150 km/h on the highway would so I really felt the pushy need to write about her and show you how beautiful her work is.

I find her shaping of the feminine silhouette and face and her use of color the perfect synthesis between simplicity and detail. I could stare her drawings for hours, they embody my taste and my sense of beauty and color perfectly.

She's also very funny and nice to read too, I really suggest you all to check out her blog.

And, last but not least, she's a lovely person. I recently wrote a comment on her blog and she replied here with this:

"Your drawings are very lovely. Thank you for visiting and I hope you are gonna keep drawing as there is nothing sexier than an artist scientist! ;-)

Cu around Al!

M"

I mean... do you know anything that can boost your self-confidence more than a sentence like this? I don't. I told her, you're better than my red lipstick...

(Ah! I almost forgot, she's a member of Independent Fashion Bloggers too)

Some more drawings of Maya (I really had an hard time choosing just three of them):

IGOR + ANDRE'

http://igorandandre.blogspot.com/

This guy is amazing, he's so talented that he almost gives me pain. He has a wonderful use of colors but the thing I like the most is how he shapes the faces of women:

I think he has a very good rendering of depth, shadows and shape of the woman face, which I find very difficult when I draw. I always use his drawings as models to exercise ahaha!

I love the dreamy, delicate feeling of beauty his drawings give... That's what I meant when I wrote that a drawing can inspire you the whole meaning of fashion, after looking at some of his works I bought some that now I consider as staple pieces for me and I use every day. I don't know the mechanism through which this works, but I really guess it is just a "I see beauty I want more beauty" thing.

He also has an etsy shop where you can buy his prints:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyRoberts

I think I'll do that soon (I should stop looking at the blog of this guy or my wallet will start to scream for revenge)

PAPERFASHION

http://paperfashion.wordpress.com/

This is exactly how I would like to be able to draw. But believe, I am already grateful that someone that can draw something like this exists, because I can look at it and feel good.

I don't have much to say about the work of Kathryn Elyse, also because I think it's really better to let her drawings speak for me. Just that if a fashion magazine only illustrated like this would exist I would buy it every month. Multiple copies if necessary.

She also have an Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/kathrynelyse (she made a calendar that is to die for)

So, do you like these artists, did you already know them?

And don't you feel too that by looking at them something inside you is melting and you just feel that you would stare at the landscape for hours and operate to bring even more beauty in your life?

Do they make the same effect as for me on shopping and on your style, even better than looking outfits and magazines pictures?

Oh, how many questions, sorry! I'm just curious, I like this topic eheh...

Now I go to pack (again... back to Belgium!). Have a nice day!

Al

EDIT: Oh my I almost forgot!!! 

On I LOVE ILLUSTRATION you will find articles on all the best fashion illustrators around the world. 

I discovered so many of them thank to this website that is very nice and always up-to-date.

I really suggest it to everyone, and especially if you like to draw you can find real treasures  for inspiration there.

(and this was the "little extra"! And I forgot it! My, my Al what a brain!!)