You cannot deconstruct unless you know how to construct. - Alexander McQueen

In Praise of Shadows: An Imaginary Course Syllabus permalink

The thump of that party bus called summer feels long gone with fall’s forced entry into the Pacific Northwest last week (complete with tornado). Cooler and darker days are here to stay; pre-Halloween days good for ghost stories and tales of the supernatural. What follows is the syllabus for an imaginary course on the horror short story that you never asked to take.

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The stunning Anna Falchi as She in Cemetery Man, based on Tiziano Sclavi’s novel, Dellamorte Dellamore. Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) broods in the background.

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Tokyo Street Style, Dido Liu, Borre Akkersdijk and Blame permalink

Please forgive the free association below. I blame the coffee because I am a product of my culture and we overcaffeinate. (On reflection, it is disturbing that my huge Cthulhu tiki mug has become a perfectly acceptable single serving of coffee.) Really this is just an exercise in sloppily stringing together some of the inspiring fashion items I’ve seen recently.

We begin with a great article over at Tokyo Telephone on Coconogacco, or the Coco-Ten Exhibition at Trans Art Tokyo. The idea here is that the students are able to present their clothes in context before the fashion show:

…the design students of the Coconogacco school curated a series of rooms to contextualize their work which served as art exhibitions in their own right, and it is those that we are going to be looking around today. What you are going to miss out on though is the very real context of these rooms, housed as they were in a deserted seventeen floor building where you could comfortably go 10 minutes without seeing anyone else, all in the chill of the Tokyo winter, the only sound being scraps of found music before you accidentally stumble across a noisecore band rehearsing.

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Chiaki Moronaga at The Coco-Ten Exhibition at Trans Art Tokyo.

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Cocktail Culture and Cthulhu permalink

Was on a Lovecraft pilgrimage in Providence, RI today when, summoned by air conditioning, I drifted in to the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art and overheard that today is free day. So the elevator breezes me up to the third floor, the doors open, and to my left there are blown-up 1954 René Bouché illustrations for Vogue and on the wall ahead are cycling movie clips of stylish people drinking. Whoa. Ok. It’s the museum’s “Cocktail Culture” exhibit. It’s outstanding, and tomorrow’s the last day (10am-5pm).

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Red silk dress with cartridge pleats from the “Cocktail Culture” exhibit at the RISD Museum of Art. Designed by Norman Norell and Anthony Traina (under the Traina-Norell label), ca. 1949. From InStyle’s great slideshow of the highlights. The exhibit ends tomorrow (July 31st).

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