Maarja-Liis' shoes

Maarja-Liis Ilus, 90s Estonian pop star, Tallinn

Marques Almeida, SS 2012, London

Catherine's décolleté

I decided to write a post about décolletés after a visit to the Peter the Great's House Museum Tallinn. There they had this unusually lively museum guard who gifted us with a lot of juicy historic gossip and one memorable thought went like this:

Women of the 18th century had very deep décollettés that reached almost down to the nipples, because it was extremely hot in the ballrooms, because it was lit with hundreds of candles, which meant that the party ended as soon as the candles were finished, because they couldn't replace all the candles so quickly.

What a beautiful thread of practicalities, even though it is obvious the whole outfit Catherine is wearing is working against her in that hot ballroom – deep décolleté or not. This is also why I'm fascinated with stories that the so-called history comes up with. Rationalizations that seem to work from one angle but completely dissolve from another point of view.

Katariina I dekoltee, 18. saj.

What is more exciting about deep décolletés is not when women wear them cause those reasons are pretty obvious but the implications of it in men's fashion. I'm not sure if this trend has died out a bit since ca 2008 because I've moved more north, to the land of conservative tastes, but there was definitely a wave of the deep V-neck. A big favor of American Apparel that raised some questions and doubts whether this is 'so edgy you don't get it' or 'so girly but I can't see it'. At least we know what side Yeezy is on.

An important man from earlier times with a strong liking to a wide décolleté was Francis I of France. It was a rather brief trend in men's fashion in the beginning of 16th century, right before the shirt under it was drawn tight with a string and became a ruff collar instead.

Tumblr

Note to self: with tumblrs, it's so tempting to keep scrolling and scrolling… but after a point the pretty pictures turn into an endless monotone monospace monochrome mono-…vortex. Everything looks the same.

drawing: Moebius

Houses of Tirana

As it says on the internet, in the year 2000 Albania's capital Tirana got itself a new mayor Edi Rama, a former artist/painter whose first idea was to give the city a visual face-lift. Down went the old kiosks, up went 1800 new trees and many grey old concrete buildings were repainted. My favourite is the block house with autumn leaves on it. Quality humor.

Hard to say if I'd like to live in this sort of festival on a daily basis but you gotta admire the man's vision. They really had nothing to lose in case of this autumn-leaved house, right? The fact that the surroundings don't take themselves too seriously is refreshing. Compare to London's South Kensington or some other historic and seriously beautiful architecture.

"Being the mayor of Tirana is the highest form of conceptual art.

It's art in a pure state." (Edi Rama)

Bad teeth

I was having some wine with a friend at a bar in Amsterdam centre one night. It was one of those 'brown bars' which means not many tourists go there and is normally enjoyed by local Dutch regulars.

We sat next to a lonely Dutch man, probably in his late 30s / early 40s. He had a bald head, wore a sports jacket and had glasses that probably belong to a middle-level office worker or someone from a bank. Not too trendy, with a stainless steel edge.

After his failed attempts in hitting on me, we had a conversation that went down more or less like this:

- Hi, where are you from?
- Estonia
- Aah, Eastern Europe. But you have really nice teeth?
- Yeah thanks... why shouldn't I?
- Eastern Europeans normally have bad teeth, because of the water you know..
- The water? There is really nothing wrong with our water. In fact, it is probably cleaner than in most countries.
- No but I have met prostitutes here that have really bad teeth. And it was in CSI once that they identified an Eastern European girl by her bad teeth.
- What if the prostitutes have bad teeth because of their work... y'know... Do you know what they feed her or what drugs they live on or whatever, to do their job? (I don't but..)
- No, they chose that job, believe me, it's the water. Why would they lie on CSI? Just google it, everybody knows the Eastern European bad teeth come from their water.

This is the distilled backbone of our endless ping-pong around bad teeth. A discussion that never concluded anything as neither side had evidence to prove the other wrong. Except for... we did google it and of course not even an urban legend of that kind exists.

I am not really offended by this incidence as I have come across this sort of random assumptions all the time. In the end, it doesn't matter. A lonely guy who's a bit too into CSI, late night at a bar just enjoying himself. But still makes me wonder...

So I should google 'Eastern European water' whilst I was born and raised there? In the end, which is more convincing? Which gives you a more profound idea of what is going on, a search engine or having my body physically exist in that environment for 19 years?

Of course Google is. If you can refer to a link that says the same as you do, it pretty much closes the case. I know that he knew that what he said was a crude generalization. That maybe there is better water in Estonia and maybe I am not a good example of the general trend. But when he walked out of that bar, he still had stronger beliefs in that CSI episode than he had in a person who is actually from there (and as it so happens – is not a prostitute). That really got to me, right there and then.

Taishi Hirokawa

Sometime in the 80s fashion photographer Taishi Hirokawa drove around Japan's countryside with a trunk full of clothes, all from Japan's most prominent fashion designers. He shot farmers, pig breeders, cab drivers and other commoners all dressed up in Comme des Garcons and the like. The NY Times has written and others complained that it is unfair and evil tease for the poor people to be dressed up in luxury clothes.

I understand how that can be one way of seeing things but there's also the counter-argument where it feels like a fixation of the bold & the beautiful themselves, as if the only thing separating the poor man from the happy man is an Issey Miyake trouser suit. At times I'm more jealous of their lifestyles than the clothes they are wearing. And I really like those clothes.

In the end it's simply interesting people wearing interesting clothes, that's all.

Pattern coordination

(via EnglishRussia)