Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Warby Parker

Finally, prescription eyeglasses that don't break the bank or act like a walking advertisement for couture design houses. Warby Parker is our new favorite brand. They not only offer a convenient shopping experience (the virtual try-on), they give the tortoiseshell its own genre rather than pigeonholing it to a single color or choice. For those of us towheads, a tortoiseshell frame (whether it's the light Fillmore shown above or a dark amber shell) softens the look of thick frames. Jimmy Dean did it so well, showing us how stylish a pair of tortoiseshell frames can be on one who's smaller-framed and fair-haired. We also like that it reminds us of The Talented Mr. Ripley, one of our unspoken, inspiring style guides.

Learn more about Warby Parker here.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Secret Show Alert

It's only a matter of time before the faces of The National are gracing the cover of the New Music Express. After all, they did sell out their May date at the Royal Albert Hall in London. For those of you who missed getting your tickets to their sold out headlining gig at Radio City Music Hall in June, or if you're  just coming late to the party, there is hope in the form of two secret shows taking place at Brooklyn's Bell House next month.
March 11th & 12th
149 7th Street, Brooklyn

Friday, February 19, 2010

Mixtape: Surfer Blood

Our best friend gave us hundreds of soundbytes last weekend. Upon listen the cream immediately rose to the top, and it goes by the name of Surfer Blood, a Florida quartet seemingly too young to have spent their angst-years crammed in some older brother's 2-door nodding their heads to the kind of bands that permeates their 90-'s pop sensibility. Our break-out fave is Swim (to reach the end). They perform Sun 2/28 at Mercury Lounge, NYC.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Notebooking

If you step into our living room when company isn't around, you'll see a coffee table covered with barely legible notes, old hotel stick 'ems and pads, and ruled cahiers. We couldn't function without hard records of what needs to be done, was done, and is, in an ideal world, something we'd like to be done. Sometimes we step it up a bit from the usual throwaway paper, as we are now in our hunt to locate hard-to-find refills for our Marie Papier hammered metallic notebook that got quickly used last summer. But we always keep a moleskine at hand, indoors or out, for when the moment arises to jot something down. This photo represents just a fraction of John Hughes' many notebooks found among his effects after his death last Fall. His sketches of daily life from the mundane to the professional to jottings as observed by his writer's observing eye remind us how the written word brings back the romance and intimacy of a tangible documentation of one's life, complete with the grime and smudge from the environment, fingertips, the weather, lead and ink. Notebooks do what digital diaries can't by unintentionally recording the peripherals of one's existence and allowing outside eyes to be a fly on its pages. Hughes was only a few blocks away, taking a ritualistic early morning walk near his NY hotel while visiting with his family, in the last moments leading up to his death. What his relentless sketching of life as recorded in his Smythson Panama notebook and camera has told his family in almost up-to-the-moment detail is exactly what he saw and reflected upon in those last moments.

vanity fair, march 2010 (photo by dan winters)
vintage composition book
field notes
our personal moleskine and muji cahiers
vintage moleskine
smythson panama notebook
hermès ulysses leather notebook


Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Thrashin'

I grew up watching this movie, long after I started skating. You could call it the West Side Story of skateboarding movies (girl meets boy, girl's brother hates boy, drama ensues...) with a vintage gem/time capsule of the Red Hot Chili Peppers performing in Venice. Maybe this clip will bring back some long forgotten memories or remind you just how incredible were those soundtracks to 80's film trailers.