These are a few of the polaroid portrait projects I was involved in taken by emerging photographer Keith Gonzales (no website yet!)

A peek at the Christoph Lemaire shop I stopped in while in Paris. I love this wall of speakers.

This is the spring collection forRebecca Turbow’s line called Safe, and that is Rebecca herself trying on all of the pieces. A lot of her clothes used to be teal, but now she is clearly in a gray phase. A great way to show a new collection.

Dresses I wish I was wearing this spring.

center images from Chloe + Sonia Rykiel

Inspired by the cute simplicity and pure merchandising aspect of Hello Kitty as a universal icon, artist Tom Sachs has created 21 ft bronze sculptures of Hello Kitty, Miffy + My Melody for his new installation at the Lever House in nyc. Growing up with that stuff (a lot of which I must admit I still have) and having designed Hello Kitty merchandise in the past I can’t wait to see these in person.

images from Hint mag + Interview hint mag.

my mix tape for waiting for the summertime… every year I foolishly get this excited feeling for summer, like I am waiting to go on summer break like in your schooldays, and then the summer passes and that summer break never happens. Does this ever happen to anyone else? It’s something that gets ingrained in you and then you have to go to work and never return to your summers off. It’s so sad. If only everyone could have the summers off, not just school kids.

1. Skools Out – Ladytron

2. Night of Joy – The Breeders (they have a new album!)

3. A With Living – Do Make Say Think

4. The Greatest – Cat Power

5. So Sorry – Feist

6. Girl Boy – Blonde Redhead

7. Superconnected – Broken Social Scene

8. THE MOST! THE BEST! THE GREATEST! FOREVER! – Black Black

9. Do the Panic – Phantom Planet (new album)

10. Oxford Comma – Vampire Weekend

11. Rally – Phoenix

12. When Summer Ends Summer Begins – Western

13. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere – Neil Young and Crazy Horse

14. She Belongs to Me – Bob Dylan

15. Major Label Debut – Broken Social Scene

16. Tonight was a Disaster – Cassiotone for the Painfully Alone

17. Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa – Vampire Weekend

image by Syrup Helsinki, a really inspiring graphic design team in Finland, apparently now called Kokoro & Moi.

I haven’t heard much from Phantom Planet in a while, so I wondered what they had been up to. Now they have a new album coming out, Raise the Dead, but something else has been keeping Alex busy. Black Black is Alex’s other band project with his girlfriend Diva Dompe, and her younger sister Lola. I LOVE their stage costumes and sets. It must be so much fun to be in this band and dress up all the time and play music. Things like this can make live performances so much more fun, much like a Flaming Lips show, although this has quiet a different feel. Their music has a quality to it that feels cute, dark and otherworldly all at once. If you live in LA you have no excuse not to check them out.

some photos by Mark

so my dear freind laurel took this photo (above) and emailed it to me with this super cute short short short story: “i spotted that model whose name i cant spell unless i copy + paste, i posted her photo on flickr. i go “thats the model cheri likes!” and scurried behind her and tapped her shoulder and asked for a very fast picture because i have a friend that likes her so much, and i told her your blog and she didn’t hear me and said what is it again? and i said “scout holiday” and she said oh! she was really friendly and cute. i hope she finds you and you become friends.” I thought that was so sweet of her to take a photo for me. I always have to think a little rhyme to the letters as I remember how to spell her name too! So many e’s. Since we are talking about Iekeliene, below are a couple of other great photos of Iekeliene (not taken by Laurel) I love that she has her own style and sticks to it, and for that she is a fashion hero right now.

On cold gray days like today, spring flowers planted all over the city really pop and add some color to a dreary palette, and they make such excellent hair accessories. I can’t remember where I found these images, so if they belong to you let me know and I will happily post a credit.

Ryoko Aoki is one of my favorite artists. Her elaborate fine lined drawings have such an incredible sensitivity and imagination, containing elements of things that vaguely remind me of drawings on school notebooks, although they never looked quite like this. I once saw an exhibit of hers, at the Hammer musuem that was just a small room but I spent a couple hours in there just looking at all the details there are to find in her illustrations and trying to memorize them because there is so much to take in and so little that I can could find published on her work at the time. There are two great books that she is featured in, Drop Dead Cute and Vitamin D New Perspectives in Drawing if you’re interested in checking out more of her work.

I can’t believe this is Christina Ricci on the cover of the new L’Official. She looks amazing but not at all like herself. She does however look very Blythe-esque on the cover.

Love this spread from MUSE, and I love that hat!

One of my favorite places I discovered in Paris on this trip was Rose Bakery. I ended up eating breakfast there 3 days in a row it was so good and has such a great atmosphere. Everything there was delicious, they make the best scones and orange marmalade I have ever had, the strawberry tarts are incredible and I never would have thought a spinach and ricotta omelette could taste so flavorful. I came across this place from reading an article on Martine Sitbon and her favorite places to visit in Paris. While I was there I spotted Rose Carrarini herself in the kitchen several times. I ordered the cookbook by her, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery online because I didn’t want to have to carry it in my already heavy luggage. It should be arriving this week, but I was able to flip through it at the bakery and it looks like it might just be my new favorite cookbook.

sandals by Azzedine Alaia

Speaking of Mayle, here are some favorites from Mayle’s Spring ’08 collection inspired by a Manet exhibition at Moma.

Someone who’s stlye, energy and music I have been inspired by for the past.. decade, (wow, now I am feeling old) is Kazu Makino of BlondeRedhead. Her best friend is Jane Mayle and she wears and embodies the spirit of Mayle clothes better than anyone. She really exemplifies how perfect dresses are the easiest thing to wear to look amazing. With an effortless and always very unique look, she is someone who I will always look to for style inspiration.