batcave

I’ve never seen myself this way – natural, spontaneous. Many thanks to Camille and Julie for dropping by my den and showing me the things I never knew were there.

On bxlfashionstyle.blogspot.com you can read a very long interview with me and see other pictures too – merry clicking!

all photography by Julie Calbert

the volga route

The greying skies of the golden autumn, some wanderers like we are, the traffic is sparse. This new motorway…no it’s not a tiny road between two villages, it’s E22 route between Moscow and Ivanovo. You just don’t expect to see anything else than a tank station…and just for those who believe to drive on the ordinary route, there’s the magnificent village of Ozherelki!

The dull landscape turns into a drive-through Dreamland megastore – every house on that route has a huge stand littered with all kinds of extra-large stuffed toys. They are almost the size of a human – neon colours and cheap synthetic fur galore! You get astonished on seeing the first stand, but then there’s another one and another one and another one…

Умом Россию не понять,
Аршином общим не измерить. 

У ней особенная стать, 

В Россию можно только верить!

(Russia cannot be understood, cannot be measured, she’s of a rare kind, one can believe in her)

Fyodor I. Tyutchev

confronted with the inevitable. my grandad has passed away.
packing for long trip back to russia. leaving tomorrow at dawn.

in da house

today i had a visit from Camille of bxlfashionstyle.blogspot.com, so you'll soon see what my apartment is about. and on the question where are all my stuffed anymals gone i had to think of all who have adopted the stuffed foxes and eagles and weasels. down here it's scandi-cool now.
this visit made me finally put some frames up and i'm very happy with the outcome. it isn't like on Weekday Carnival yet, but my coloured poster frames make the space lighter, at once nordic. i'll add some more smaller postcards and drawings to that wall later. for now - the lucky three and various inspiration images.

to the finnish

yesterday i walked into the new armchair and almost broke my toe...curious how those little accidents can fuel my creativity! inspired by a lovely finnish blog Weekday Carnival, i'm considering painting more walls, installing some vintage Tomado shelves and actually making my own coffee table. the finnish people do it - why can't i?

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next week one fashion blogger is coming to take pictures at my place, and with all the projects in my head i'm starting to stress a little. i have never let anyone take pictures of my home and my personal belongings before, so i wonder how that will go. these two photos are a tiny 'preview' of what my place is about, and today i've added some details - the legs of my dining table are green now (supposedly matching a picture frame in my living room and a wall in my veranda, y'know). i've used some left-over window sticker vynil to cover the bottom part of the table legs.

it gets darker every day, and i just looove making playlists for autumn drizzles! a bit of Oneida, a bit of Pocahaunted, and everything in between. enjoy!

Carven sweaterA.P.C shoesCOS coat

A.P.C. bag

                                                                                                                                    COS mittens

I should be getting all of these because I just love looking like a rubik’s cube. The only real obstacle is the price-tag of the Carven gargoyle sweater, but I’ve got a navbar full of bookmarks for online sellers, so let’s just see who lasts until the Christmas sales. I’m loving the fact that COS has finally opened the online store – digital windowlicking made easy! And that’s always a plus.

a very random playlist for the last sun(ny)day

it kind of feels like a new start.

the blogger window has changed so much that i have trouble orientating within the page which previously felt like home. now it's all clean and white. i'm an old-skool blogger, i don't add any feeds or location to my posts. well, noone said it is necessary  in order to spill your thoughts out on internet. right?

cardigan Opening Ceremony
blouse COS
trousers COS
shoes Dries Van Noten

http://www.jnc-net.de/en/fashion/street-people/129-brussels.html

I have barely noticed how fast the time passed by. I guess that’s how it is when you’re confronted with the new. In my case it’s the new job – no more retail – time to lay low. I have many plans , but…I always have them. And whether the point of doing something else is to learn and grow or to bore the living daylights out of myself just to finally get up and do something, I may not know.

Well, enough rant, I’d rather feed you yet another streetshot and disappear for another month. This time is in J’n’C – a German magazine. The funny thing is that while flipping through the pages of the mag I came across a shoot made by two lovely acquaintances of mine from the Cologne/Berlin connection. It’s a small world.

Thom Yorke - And It Rained All Night

And it rained all night and washed the filth away
Down New York airconditioned drains
The click click clack of the heavy black trains
A million engines in neutral
The tick tock tick of a ticking timebomb
Fifty feet of concrete underground
One little leak becomes a lake
Says the tiny voice in my earpiece
So I give in to the rhythm
The click click clack
I'm too wasted to fight back
Tick tack goes the pendulum on the old grandfather clock
I can see you
But I can never reach you
And it rained all night and then all day
The drops were the size of your hands and face
The worms come out to see what's up
We pull the cars up from the river
It's relentless
Invisible
Indefatigable
Indisputable
Undeniable
So how come it looks so beautiful?
How come the moon falls from the sky?
I can see you
But I can never reach you
I can see you
But I can never reach you

±

I’m slowly trying to resume blogging again. I’ve been doing it for years just for the sake of writing, without conveying any message …just writing…just because I had nothing to do or no one to tell this to. Things change. And when they do they change for better. And so has the unstoppable engine has screeched to a halt.
And if I resume writing is because I’m being a good person, doing good things because there’s a good person next to me. I’m changing jobs, learning to play guitar, preparing the new issue of the zine and collecting hundreds of images for my Tumblr blog, which is surprisingly getting quite a few hits these days. The success of image blogs is puzzling, well tant mieux, I’m pretty much hooked up on it.

...in weekend knack

Just to prove that I still exist, there’s a silly streetstyle shot of myself. I can’t even be sure whether I like it or not. The part of any blogger’s jouissance is to be photographed in all glory the wardrobe may offer, to casually scratch the back of your head saying “ well, I forgot where I got these trousers, I think it was at some private designer sale in Antwerp”, and then you’ll probably site the designers by their first name, like they are all friends of yours, and then you’ll surely add to your ridiculous occupation of a sales assistant that you’re are a blogger too. And off you go – into the jungle of the city streets, sad creature longing to be hunted…
But what really happens is a poor lighting, clumsy pose and a head-to-toe COS outfit on the day when you woke up on the wrong side.

Time's up!

This is probably the only shop that makes me believe in vintage again.

Celine Resort 2012

Next year shall be a fashion fun-ride. Thanks Phoebe Philo!

it's a sign

Today is a public holiday in Belgium, but to be honest, I’m not even sure what we are celebrating. So I’ve decided to have a lazy writing day and ended up moving furniture and unpacking books again, followed by a long browse through ASOS. No, I’m not complaining! Doing (almost) nothing is my favourite way of spending time, but the deadlines are getting near and I have to focus on writing.
But let’s for a moment get back to the fact that this is meant to be a fashion blog…or at least a personal blog…well, whatever may represent my thoughts and state of mind. Yet I realise that I haven’t been honest or open on this URL lately. Probably because I’m a happy sausage, because life is giving me one gift after another. And when I previously wrote a lot, I wrote out of boredom or confusion or misunderstanding…now I’m just happy, so nothing to complain about, nothing to ponder on, no more Topshop wish lists because I’m satisfied with what I own and how I look like…to a certain extend of course since there will always be that little gnawing mouse inside all of us, but this time it’s not out of frustration but out of ambition. Does it make sense?
And to steer off the subject, here’s a small selection of the photos I made in Gotland, collecting weird and mysterious signs.

shy blog

As unfortunate as it gets, IKEA has stopped the production of my favourite Olle chairs, the ones I saw about one month ago and chickened out on buying without a place of my own. Now I have a home and now I have to search for alternatives. A vague rhetoric question is why does IKEA stop producing the most Swedish of its chairs…we may never know.
Well, let’s see the positive side of things – I just got one moment closer to buying the Hay RU chair.
This month’s budget though will be spent on light fittings for the living room and this month’s energy…on fixing those aforementioned light fittings to the 3 meter high ceiling. I’m thinking about making the lamps myself from several coloured electric cords in red and yellow and simple bulbs…a bit like on this picture, just with more loose cords hanging under the ceiling in a coloured spider-web.

And with yet another interior-oriented post I wanted to thank those who read this blog and enjoy it, despite of it being hidden and timid. May be in a couple of years I will share a link to Cut The Cute with everyone, but so far I’m happy with my personal electronic space and I’ll be keeping it in this way intimate. It’s a shy blog. And therefore the shy yet most honest thank you to those who care to read and comment. I greatly appreciate it.

Tomorrow I’m taking yet another trip to IKEA to hoefully come back with one more chair for the dining room, and then it will be time for the long-awaited purchase – the Hay RU chair in turquoise…and a bit later, the gorgeous multi-coloured wall clock from Habitat. So far these are the two darlings on my realistic list, but there’s surely the dream one too.

shy pastels

Having spent the entire day working in my garden, I still can’t get enough of design blogs. I wish one day I can take similar pictures here and virtually show you around the house.
These are all perfectly coloured in shy pastels and touches of neon on white background. I love white because it makes the furniture stand out and I love colours because they compliment perfectly well my favourite material – wood.