The Fix

I'm going to Bergen tomorrow, which lies on the west coast of Norway. It rains a lot. But that doesn't matter, because one of my best friends, Marius, goes to university there and I can't wait to see him. We're going to The Fix to see Matt & Kim, among others. It'll be great! I'm looking forward to dancing, eating and drinking coffee in one of Norway's prettiest cities. Marius mentioned something about amazing midnight hot dogs. And maybe we'll even go on Fløibanen (floibanen.no). Yayhh! I feel like a kid again.

ffffound

Speaking of my wonderful sister, she also tipped me about this amazing website called fffound. To be honest, I don't really know what it's all about, it doesn't say that much on the site. I don't care, really. Because you'll find hundreds of fantastic images there. I could honestly spend hours on ffffound. Crazy. See for yourself. It's so nice. Here's a little selection.
www.ffffound.com

Elephant of the Week

Hmmm. I'm not really being consistent with this 'Elephant of the Week' thing. Gotta straighten up. I received these two elephants from my wonderful sister. I don't know where they're from, but I think they look great. The one on the left is me and the one on the right is my sister. Cool.

My Man Obama

Hillary Clinton annoys me. It's difficult to pinpoint, but there's definitely something out of sync with that woman. Why, oh, why can't she just give it a rest. Irritating woman. McCain will demolish her. Even though he can't raise his arms further than his chest. Huh.

Politics exite me. And the US Presidential Campaign has never been this intriguing. I wish I could vote, but sadly I can not. Damn my Norwegian citizenship.

If I could, I would vote for Obama. I think it's naive to think that the next president of the US is something one should take for granted if you don't live in America. I actually think Obama could make a difference and I have all my fingers and toes crossed that he'll win the nomination. Hillary is a hag.

Btw, I just love this poster by Shepard Fairey. Fairey is a renowned illustrator and graphic designer which a few might recognize as the man behind the Obey Giant. Because of Obey, he actually got named as one the most influential artists today by the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Pretty nice.

Doll Magic

David is a thirteen year old kid who lives in Jersey. He has hazel eyes and weighs about 128 pounds. He also loves doll photography, which is sort of strange, but strange is sometimes really good as well. Actually 'strange' is great. And David certainly is. His dolls are names Lulu, Ember and Lily, among others. He loves swimming and watching the sunset and flattens his hair with a flat iron. Cute. He also takes amazing pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/people/daviddesu/

Oh, if Only I had an Ice Cream Van

I went to the U.S. Embassy yesterday to get my visa for the trip. I was kind of dreading it since I was certain something had to go wrong with all the gazillion different papers I needed to bring along with $130 ("no change!"), 68 kr in postage and a 5 cm x 5 cm photo. Interestingly enough I actually got my visa without that much fuss. I've always envisioned the inside of the U.S. Embassy as some real fancy prominent place with marble and columns and mahogany. But, alas. It actually looked a bit like a post office. Disappointing. Mahhh.

Ah, well. I got my visa. I've booked flight tickets (direct flight home, yayy!) and lodging for the whole trip (I'll be staying in Brooklyn) and the sun is shining. Wonderful. And today I discovered the new LA Riots remix of Heartsrevolution's 'Switchblade'. And I like it! Sort of. It's definitely growing on me.

What's even better is that Heartsrevolution has their own ice cream van. If I had my own ice cream van I would eat pistachio ice cream all day. Nom Nom.

Outside My Window

The great (and a bit strange) photographer Gail Albert Halaban has started taking pictures of apartments in New York. His aim is to try to capture what the tenants are seeing from within. Pretty cool, if you ask me. Although, I'm not too sure if I would approve of people taking pictures through my window. I think I would call the police. Check out Halaban's website at outmywindownyc.blogspot.com/

Opeeeraaa

Spring has finally arrived and we actually hung out in the park today. After an incredibly long winter it was quite surreal to be barbecuing and relaxing outside. Nice change. Then we went to see the new Opera house. I was not expecting to be so amazed, but wooow, it’s really quite shocking how pretty it looks. Snøhetta has done a great job making the house as interactive as possible. With all the people walking around it resembles a gigantic ant hill.

In another way it looks like a big ship floating through water. We got sort of a Titanic-sinking-into-the-ocean-feeling, though, coming down from the big thing. Scary. And there’s so many gaps! We saw tens of people tripping. Next thing you know there’ll be blood all over the Opera. Gross. Except from that, the Opera looked great. Splendid.

On the Street

Creative, yet subtle menswear. De-light-ful. Photo from the one and only Sartorialist.

If Only it Could be That Easy

Kate Moss is a princess. And she's not even trying. Arghh.

Eloise

Oh, I should really get to work. But my head is hurting so bad that It's hard to think about anything too serious. Hence, I write about small funny things instead. Yeaaah. The wonderful writer Ms. Spinach over at Fashion is Spinach wrote about a cute little character a while ago: She adores the little childhood hero named Eloise, star of the iconic children's book by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight.

The book is about a little girl living in New York's famous Plaza Hotel. "She's wildly creative, absolutely quirky, highly imaginative, very opinionated and completely adorable", according to Ms. Spinach. And judging by the scanned photos she definitely looks like my kind of fashion hero, too. I adore the Kleenex-box-on-the-head-look. I'm betting that it'll be major for fall:)

New Retail

I'm fascinated by retail design. Store interior excites me. I spend an unreasonable amount of time in clothes stores (well, it's my job!) and good interior design is definitely the cherry on the icing for me.

Visiting Japan was a highlight, of course, which is something I'll write about in another post. I could fill an entire blog about Japan. And speaking of good interior and Japan, the wonderful publishing house of Phaidon has just released an amazing book on retail design called "New Retail". It features some of the worlds most innovative stores and the photos are gorgeous. The Prada building (designed by Herzog and de Meuron) and the Hermés store in Tokyo are featured. Obviously. Contemporary architecture rules. Yum.

Just because

Does it have to be a reason for everything? I would say that pastel colored persians are a good excuse for a post. No matter what. Look how lazy they look. Purrr.

Foals

The new Foals album "Antidotes" is so great that I don't know what to do with myself. Good music make me happy and there are few things that makes me more happy than hearing Yannis Philippakis singing "Balloons" right now. It's bubbly and beautiful. I'm going to Novafest tonight to see Love is All. Goody. Can't wait.

Moomin

Since I was a little girl I've always loved Moomin, the little fairy tale troll in white. The characters of the show are all so precious, from the overly ambitious Sniff (the brown dog-like thing) to the philosophic vagabond Snufkin (Snusmumriken in Norwegian), sweet Snorkmaiden, Moomin's girlfriend with the golden bangs and foot ring, the scary Hattifatteners and of course Little My, who is so small that she can sit in the Moomi family's milk jug. And who could forget Stinky, the small black creature who cheats and steals but never kills. Moomin is the best children television there is. Period. And Tove Jansson's drawings are amazing. Enjoy.

How can you not love PictureBox?

”PictureBox is a Grammy Award-winning art, music, photography, and comics publisher based in Brooklyn, New York, directed by Dan Nadel. PictureBox specializes in bringing artists’ visions to print in startling and unexpected ways.

All of our books are meticulously designed and printed to create as unique and immersive a reading experience as possible. PictureBox publishes its own books and also packages books and concepts for museums and galleries around the world.”

I found this web page by accident, really, but I was amazed to see all the great talent featured on the site. I fell in love with ”Paper Rodeo”, a magazine with comics and art from Providence. You dig?

I also really enjoyed seeing that they had ”Blueberry Boat” by Mike Reddy, the illustrated lyrics for The Fiery Furnaces eponymous album. Love it!

Visit Pictureboxinc.com. It sure made me happy.

Modern Menswear

By the way, the quote below is taken from the amazing book "Modern Menswear" by Hywel Davies (who lectures at Central Saint Martins), where Söderstam is featured along with talented designers such as Siv Støldal, Martin Margiela, Gaspard Yurkievich and Peter Jensen. The enfant terrible of Danish fashion, Henrik Vibskov, is also mentioned of course.

PS: Söderstam was also featured in the prestigious book ”Sample” a few years back. The book featured 100 up-and-coming designers and was written by Harriet Quick, current fashion features director of Vogue, among others. It’s defintely worth a look. I got it for christmas a year ago from my b-friend and fell immediately in love. The book cover is in white snake ”leather”. Sexy.

Oh, Patrik

I got quite sad when I realized that the wonderful Swedish designer Patrik Söderstam will stop designing garments and focus mainly on t-shirt design (sold exclusively in Japan, sigh). His look has been known to be synonymous with avant-garde shapes and the classic Söderstam silhuette is based around skinny jeans with padded calves paired with oversized tops. It was this look that caught my attention a few years ago. Söderstam illuminated such an interesting view on fashion and joined the ranks with fellow silhuette masters Yohji Yamamoto and Martin Margiela.

Yes, I know I'm a girl, but who cares? Really? Menswear is such a fascinating field. The focus on details in modern menswear design is amazing and the people who claim that womenswear have the upper hand should check out the likes of Siv Støldal, Dries van Noten and Victor Glemaud. But back to Söderstam:

"My aesthetic recipie is the play with extreme proportions, futuristic detailing, trash and sex, and a whole lot of otherness", says Söderstam about his designs.

And I couldn't have said it better myself. It's bit grotesque. A bit weird. But it's definitely innovative, and oh, so fascinating. Patrik is my hero. He will be sorely missed.

Spring Bliss

Oh, my head's a little shaky. Yesterday was a rather eventful day. It sounds really lame in one way but I had a great time just walking around in a part of town that I'm rarely in. I've lived in Oslo my whole life and when I manage to find places that are actually new to me, I can't help walking around with a smile on my face. Finding new small thrift stores and vegetable shops is almost as nice as birthdays. Almost. 

The weather was great so I had ice cream in the sun with my boyfriend before I met up with a girlfriend of mine and drank rasberry juice down by the dockside. The evening got filled with great indian food (from this super quirky restaurant with bamboo huts inside and colorful strings of lighting), beers and laughs at a friends apartment before a party with great co-workers. We ended up at Spasibar where I danced too long in too high heels. When I got home I put my leather boots in the sink to clean off the dirt. Idiot. Leather don't mesh to good with large amounts of water. 

Ah, well. It was a good night. Followed by a not so good morning. My head was killing me. Ouch. The plans for today are to finish reading Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and then maybe bake brownies. Maybe. 

Elephant of the Week

A cute little French thing from wonderful Littlebirdshandmade. Bonjour!

Dreaming of Russia

Yes yes. I know that I just boasted about my New York tour, but I have to admit that I'm also dreaming of going to Russia. Not now, obviously. My budget is rather limited at the moment. I've always had some wild fantasy about learning Russian, then taking up Russian literature so I could be an expert in Nabokov and Tolstoj. Maybe that'll happen in a few years. For now, I'll just dream. 

(PS: Super pretty pictures courtesy of Kris Atomic)

My Favorite Faces

Lily Cole - because she looks like a five year old girl and still manages to look like the coolest kid around. I bet she rocked kindergarten.  

Gemma Ward - because she never ceases to amaze me with her poses. And her eyes and cheek bones are magical. 

Natalia Vodianova - because she's the definition of a timeless beauty. 

Freja Beha - because of her bangs. And legs. And silhuette. And eyes. 

Lingua Franca

Well, one of my earliest posts stated that this blog was first and foremost for me and me alone. Hence, I wrote in Norwegian. And to some extent, yes, that is true. But, due to recent news I've decided to switch from Norwegian to English (most of the time, at least, when I'm not swamped with work).

I'm hoping this might give me some international readers since... I'm going to New York this summer! I'm failing utterly and completely in hiding my excitement. I love that town. I've actually been there av few times before and was longing to go back (a result of the freezing winter we've had this year?? Uh, yeah). And now I am. 

For the entire month of July I'll be living (and studying, mind you) in New York City, probably one of the most fabuolastic (hehe) cities on earth. Ahh, can't wait. I'll be attending Parsons School of Design in Greenwich Village. The school has a great reputation and I honestly don't know what to do with myself until then. 

Ok, I do know. Need to work. Pretend to be a journalist. Then wonderful Greece (Molyvos) with wonderful b-friend, then the Hove festival with a bunch of good friends and tents and beer and dancing and then NY. I'll be leaving on June 29th. The coundown has officially commenced.  

(PS: Lovely photograph from Daniel Chow)

Ønskeliste

nr. 5: Etch-A-Sketch. Sånn litt gammel og fjong.