Autumn days

Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Amstrong - Autumn in New York 

Autumn comes on fiery wing 

of flaming leaves

and redbirds sing. 

And twirling leaves fall to the ground

igniting magic all around. 

So Winter waits, and Summer sleeps,

And Autumn, in the middle, keeps.

Belle Whittington

Photo: Ann Street Studio 

Dear Lisbon (again...)

After a long and unpleasant month, I packed my things and, for some reasons, I went to Lisbon for a week. Didn't went far, true, but far enough to have a blast of fresh air. 

Lisbon is such a city and as cities are my biggest source of inspiration I came home with all the batteries charged. During these days completely off of my daily environment, the quote below was the most important realization. Nothing that I hadn't realized before, but there are real moments when we are reminded of it.

People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don't think that's true. 
Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.

Kim Culbertson

More here & here.

Who actually made your clothes?

And just after my last post, here comes another one related to the subject with a pertinent question: who actually made your clothes?

Last week Mary Nighy debuted with her short film “Handprint” at the International New York Times Luxury conference. In the film, starring the model and actress Elettra Wiedemann, we find her in a roomy apartment littered with designer clothing. When she is about to put on her dress, suddenly there’s different hands all over her – helping her slipping on her shoes and zipping up the dress. When she looks at herself in the mirror suddenly she sees a bunch of people– the people who helped her getting dressed. 
In what way are these people involved in the making of our everyday wear? 
The film is directed by Mary Nighy and commissioned by Livia Firth, the Green Carpet Challenge founder. 
According to Vogue Elettra Wiedemann, who is starring in the film, said she is a huge fan of Livia Firth. “I loved the idea of making people pause and think about all the different hands their garment has passed through – from “farm to hanger”, so to speak”.

 
Handprint by Mary Nighy from White Lodge on Vimeo.

Source: Freshnet

Life detox

It's been a long time since I started to invest in good, classic and fair-trade pieces of clothes. I look at the clothing tags before I buy and, if nothing more, good materials usually prevail. Consequently, the "less is more" motto started to rule my world.
I believe that the beggining of this process is to start questioning our actions, habits, our needs (including clothes, food, objects, etc.) and believe me, as we are beings of habits, that's also the hardest step as it could take long years - or never - until we, our own selves, realize we could perhaps live with less, much less, or at least a more eco-friendly and sustainable lifestyle (the way we commute included). There's no need to go to the 60s or converting to a hippie style, the thing is nowadays everything come to our hands and life without we even realize why and how, we just assume we need them (technology, computers, tv, cars, clothes, etc.) without questioning.
On the other hand, the so called bobo ("bourgeois-bohème") is a good thing to call the beggining of this new lifestyle, although I don't think we need more "labelling" I hope you get the point: being cool and stylish but conscious and when it comes to buying, above all, products bio and eco-friendly. In a nutshell, we need to act in a more concious way and realize that every choice we made is probably connected to cruel processes, fabrics, industries, etc. we have no idea about and/or most of the times don't care and/or ignore.
This year was a year of changes in my life and little by little I'm trying to change some habits, including car dependency (less), food (more healthy and local food and less meat) and clothes (less, much less!). And so, I want to share this video: "Detox: how people power in cleaning up fashion" with most of my thoughts here in the way they unfortunately happen. As a clothes and accessories now-more-proudly-concious-lover, this is something I do care about.

Margaret Mead was right on the money: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. In just over 24 months, the combined efforts of Greenpeace campaigners, activists, bloggers, and shoppers across the globe have resulted in unprecedented commitments from 18 major clothing companies who have pledged to eliminate toxic chemicals from their products and supply chains by 2020. The work is far from over, however. “Major brands are influenced by public perception and global action, and your role in putting this issue firmly on the agenda of global fashion brands and suppliers, and forcing them to respond with the urgency the situation demands has been critical in the Detox campaign’s ongoing success,” writes Ilze Smit, detox campaigner at Greenpeace International, in a blog post. “There is still a long way to go, but our successes so far prove that when we work together, big brands are forced to stand up and deliver.”

Source: Ecouterre

I'm dreaming of a white christmas

I think this is actually a well done post, as it encompasses 3 of my favorites: Christmas, Michael Bublé and nordic interior decoration. Christmas all around indeed!

Michael Bublé - White Christmas

 Photos: The Style Files

O verso debaixo da pele

O verso debaixo da pele não é o mesmo que uma dor ou que uma inflamação de um orgão. Não se elimina com medicamentos. O verso que um homem saiba de cor só se elimina com a brutal amnésia. Ou, então, com o excesso de informação que o mundo imbecil o obriga a guardar.

Gonçalo M. Tavares, in O Senhor Breton

And this is I believe...

And this is I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.

John Steinbeck

Chamemos-lhe a História do Design e da Moda

A Maria Guedes é perita em fazer a arte do design de moda funcionar em perfeita harmonia com a arquitectura, urbanismo e as cidades, como já se viu aqui. É também perita em montar os melhores textos sobre o assunto. É por isso que com este post the bell rings! Não resisto em não partilhar, na verdade, o primeiro parágrafo resume tudo o que há para dizer sobre este assunto por si só, tão bem escrito que só lamento não ter sido eu a escreve-lo, mas depois ainda há a história de Charlotte Perriand lá mais para o fim...

Gosto de produtos de luxo; definitivamente não pelo estatuto, poder ou falsa superioridade que estes objectos podem sugerir mas decididamente pela construção, pelos materiais, pelos pormenores e pelos acabamentos. Coisas que uma pessoa como eu acha interessante (cada um com as suas, não?). Coisas que me levam a museus só para ver de perto e eventualmente tocar ou 'respirar' criações que exigiam tempo e sabedoria, que obedeciam a um processo artesanal e que indiscutivelmente representavam uma ideia original. Coisas que são mais ou menos como história da arte para mim, só que em vez disso chamam-se História do Design e da Moda (acho eu). Coisas que ainda se confeccionam hoje em dia. 

Esta clutch XXL faz parte da colecção Charlotte Perriand, uma arquitecta, designer, urbanista e fotógrafa que definiu o seu estilo minimalista nos anos 40 - um primeiro passo para o que é tão desejado hoje? - e descreveu-o genialmente da seguinte forma:

A new way of living awaited me there: work, leisure, discovery, representation. I had made up my wardrobe with interchangeable 'modules', as in my investigations of standartization: four skirts, long or short, for the lower body and sweaters, blouses and bustiers for the top, all of which combined to give me at least 16 possibilities. By adding scarves, stoles, atypical jewels and gloves, I achieved wide variety with a great deal of surprise and fantasy - always similar but never the same.

Há definição mais prática, económica e funcional de estilo?! Há maneira mais interessante de pôr a criatividade a funcionar do que reduzir as possibilidades - a oferta?

 A Louis Vuitton além de homenagear a estética e a personalidade Charlotte Perriand através da colecção icônes - agora nas lojas - tirou também do papel um dos seus nunca-concretizados-projectos de arquitectura e design.

Photos & source: Stylista & NY Times

The Pale Blue Dot

For days when we should take a step back and calm down our ridiculousness.

The Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

Down with 4, Up with 2!

I've now just organized my Categories on the left side bar and added the "Up w/2" - that should stand for something like "Down with the 4, Up with the 2 - wheels and legs"!

I've always been a big defensor of walking everywhere, both for pleasure and running errands, as I think we were born pedestrians more than anything - and this is my biggest conflict with most of people that think were born drivers - but the big news here is my growing sensibility for the 2 wheels - bikes and motorbikes - during this last year.

Again, it's not that I don't like cars, which aesthetically I'm a big appreciator, but it's just that I finally realized that most of the car trips I've done in the past, but keep seeing around me, are simply ridiculous. Most of my friends/family move on cars for really short trips, and by short I mean short... And that frightens me out! Even more because, of course, I live in a plane village and in a plane city - both perfectly walkable and bike friendly.

You'll find here the reasons why I'm a big defensor of walking and riding bikes - environment and health mainly - and also the reasons why classic motorbikes start to gain a little of my heart with all the story, power, freedom, feelings and journeys one can be lucky enough to make with them. I think this video expresses it perfectly!

I could have done it without expressing myself here, but I do see it as a changing-minds (mine at least) moment and maybe it could inspire or work for other people to look at this issue in other way (hopefully) - in Portugal generically speaking, as in Amsterdam and other cities, they're already struggling with space for parking bicycles...

And just for the record and making it short, people who ride bicycles and walk want to see more people doing so and it actually makes you feel good and safe when a lot of people use urban (or not so urban) space in a friendly way, whereas drivers only want to see less and less drivers/cars on the streets. (!)

For more, a lot more, just click here.

Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge

Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. 

It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to spend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.

Bill Bullard

Less is always more

Inspiration, inspiration...

Photos: ?

Off

Things are not always what they seem.

O bom do caminho

O bom do caminho 

é haver volta.

Para ida sem vinda,

basta o tempo.

Mia Couto

A história do que poderia ter sido

[Uma passagem escolhida pela Rita.]

"Todo futuro es fabuloso..."

...as vidas não começam quando as pessoas nascem, se assim fosse, cada dia era um dia ganho, as vidas principiam mais tarde, quantas vezes tarde de mais, para não falar daquelas que mal tendo começado já se acabaram, por isso é que o outro gritou, Ah, quem escreverá a história do que poderia ter sido. 

José Saramago, in Jangada de Pedra

Uhlala!

 Back to Emmanuelle Alt team. This woman got it all!

Photos: Emmanuelle Alt

More here & here.

My black heart

Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy - but mysterious. But above all black says this: "I don't bother you - don't bother me".

Yohji Yamamoto 

Rainy days

Bill Frisel - Gimme a Holler

I love rainy days. I love lying in bed and listening the rain on the skylights. Pull up rainy day playlist. The music fills my soul when I look out the window at the beautiful simplicity of water falling and washing away all our yesterdays.

 

Photo: Ann Street Studio

Jazz kinda days

Tea, readings, jazz, cold-sunny-Fall-sundays... Lovely!

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue

Foto: Mafalda

O Sabor das Coisas

Por mais raro que seja,

Ou mais antigo,

Só um vinho é deveras excelente:

Aquele que tu bebes calmamente

Com o teu mais velho e silencioso amigo...

Mário Quintana

Photo: Gioia Cabri

Who are you when no one is watching you?

You.

"You are who you are when no one is looking"

Alfândega, Porto.