Icon: Scout Niblett

Scout Niblett is the kind of person you look at know that they are from another planet. She seems to dress like a grunge revival chick (flannel shirts, baggy sweaters and seemingly slept-in jeans) or a private school girl with mary janes and a peter pan collar. She even has a crossing gaurd outfit. Oh, and a skeleton suit. Sometimes Scout frames her Diva Dompe-esque face with a blonde wig on stage. Personally, I'm a fan of her seemingly wayward looking hairclip that rests on her cheek.

Scout is a lover of Mudhoney, Kurt Cobain's guitar playing and Scout Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (One of the best books known to man.) Her strange, haunting tunes are pierced with an intense voice that takes on a childish tone here and there. Typical song structures (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus, chorus) are not a necesity as far as she's concerned. One of her songs repeats the same drum beat while she happily sings "We are all going to die" until the end when she concludes that we won't know when or how. A favorite track of mine is Nevada. I watched a video of her walking in a city at night while playing the song. The blues riff in that song has me spellbound. It's a tale of two people going to Nevada. The perhaps Bonnie and Clyde-esque characters intend to drive 15 hours to get there by daybreak. The story ends with the words, "We'll come home alittle different...Oh my love/ Oh Nevada."

I imagine that Scout is the kind of person who says, "I am strange and I accept it." If that's good enough for her, it's good enough for me too.

Dreaming/Waking

*broken link has been repaired

photos by the talented Lina Scheynius

Its time to unwind with the weather. Its the season for evening walks again. Lina Scheynius' photographs make me want to wear a proper spring dress. I was first captivated by her work for an interesting dress project called Dream and Wake. The images reminded me so strongly of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides (a striking book and film). In her pictures I imagined that the models represented the Lisbon sisters trapped in their parents home and longing for sun to caress their skin outside of window panes. The dreamy feel of that kind of depression resonated within my strong memories of summer days blending like all of the shades of paint on my pallet into one murky, dull color. They no longer stood apart and time fell into that unwanted immersion of an endless day. Thank God its over.

"A clock became a hunk of molded plastic, telling something called time, in a world marking its passage for some reason." -The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

I woke the dawn....

Miki Fukai

The word 'patchwork' can bring to mind things that are rather unfashionble: quilts, farmers and not so great home sewing. Miki Fukai takes patchwork to a place much more remniscent of rock. She deconstructs thriftstore denim finds into some of the most innovative looking jeans I've seen. I can't stop lusting over the black and grey pair with the laces tracing the back of the legs. If you've ever wanted to the whole 'mechanic' look but too felt too blah in one shade Fukai's patchwork catsuit might be just what your looking for. Or maybe what appears to be a masculine yet dandy take on the jumper (think Wind in the Wires era Patrick Wolf) is more your style. And if dresses are always too girly her black numbers with corsetry lacing on the waist could very well suit your mood.

Spring/Summer 2008 sees Fukai entering the territory of woven leggings and deconstructed shirt dresses. Rompers are also present as well as a drop-waist, mid-calf jumper with a single cargo pocket. Miki Fukai is a has a quite a mixed bag of tricks that will no doubt keep heads turning.

A La Mode: Valentine Fillol-Cordier

"Coco Chanel, Kurt Cobain, Eva Hesse and Gianni Versace. All of these people express culture, class and a definite urge to live and create (even though they're dead)."

-Valentine Fillol-Cordier on her fashion icons, Nylon Magazine