Ozone - Dragostea Din Tei

Ahhhh, a little bit of Eastern European kitsch. Lauren has convinced me that every college student has seen this video and was shocked that I have never seen it.

I don't blame her! I can't believe I've been missing out. This Romanian trio sure knows how to make video. It has everything! Airplanes, suspenders, lip syncing, tight white jeans, comic book overtones...Needless to say, it's got style.

China times in Teen Vogue

My friends always make fun of me for liking Teen Vogue. Grant it, the magazine is no Economist - in fact there's hardly any text in the publication - and it's geared towards teens. Nevertheless, the true substance of the Teen Vogue can be found in it's fashion spreads. The styling and creativity that goes into these shoots make it a high quality fashion magazine in it's own right.

Not convinced? Well then take a look at the images below. They're from the September issue - completely saturated in color and other-worldliness. It's hard to beat.





CL

Prep School

I usually don't shop at J.Crew because I'm never really drawn to super preppy clothing, but these two images from J.Crew's fall preview make me want to spend my whole paycheck at the store. The company has always been good at selling their WASP-y lifestyle image, but the photos below have a hint of Bloomsbury-ness to it - almost like outfits that Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell would have worn today.



CL

Why London is so Great: Reason #1027

I first learned about Persephone Books on Rita Konig's Girl About Town blog a few months ago. It's a charming bookstore in London that sells 72 reprinted classics. Their collection of novels, short stories, diaries and cook books are mostly written by women and each book is bound by a gray-colored jacket with fabric end paper.

I'd love to visit the shop one day. Until then, I'm grateful enough that Persephone books can be ordered from the store's website. So the only problem remains, which book do I choose?


Below are just three samples of the fabric used as end paper - reprinted classics, just like the books!

(All photos are from www.persephonebooks.co.uk)

CL

The Wizard of Oz as Fashion Inspiration

We've been huge Wizard of Oz fans practically our entire lives (might explain our love of shoes). We sat down and watched the entire classic MGM version for the first time when we were 18-months old. Apparently, we didn't cry once, nor did we show any visible signs of fear towards the Winged Monkeys or The Wicked Witch of the West - it all made sense to us (this coming from the girls that got spooked from a Brady Bunch episode). I've never really connected my red Mossimo Target pumps with Dorothy- they are more Jessica Simpson that Judy Garland, but when my coworker mentioned they looked like the ruby slippers, I couldn't have been more pleased (considerably more pleased than looking like a rather vacuous entertainer). In this pic, Toto's stand-in is our Agnes Scott scottie- hence the purple beret and scarf.
As it so happens, I received this shirt as a gift yesterday (thanks, SA!): my new favorite tee.
LL

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

We apologize for the brief hiatus. We've had a bit of a bumpy weekend, but Asiancajuns is back and well. Here are a few images from the new Elizabeth movie (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) due out in October. We loved the first Elizabeth movie and even though we know there is always a bit of fudging and muddling of history when Hollywood gets hold of the past, a larger-than-life biography of a strong, independent woman, we're always ready to support. The beauty of these stills helped to get us out of our funk- particularly the last one of Mr. Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh (bravo casting director).
LL

H&M Update

It's official, H&M has signed a lease at Atlantic Station! It's not slated to open until the spring, so that gives me plenty of time to decide whether or not to camp out before it opens...I'm leaning towards not.

Once H&M opens, Atlantic Station will officially become Atlanta's Sweden Town/Little Sweden because it already has IKEA. Come to think of it, this recent Atlanta/Sweden connection is really very fitting considering that the famous Coca-Cola bottle was designed by a Swedish-American in 1916.

Kate Spade: Behind the Curtain

www.katespade.info

Kate Spade's personal website is so much fun. It's filled with inspirational design books, objects and website links. The image above is from the Summer Reading section. You can print it out and use it as a book cover or set it as your desktop's wallpaper. Also make sure to check out the Things We Love section - you won't be disappointed!

Tibet Style

A couple of months ago Domino did a feature on Tibet Style (above). It's a coffee table book filled with vibrant images of nomadic Tibetans. I didn't think much of the article - especially since I couldn't imagine realistically using hot pink paint on molding in a dark blue room - until I saw the book in person this past weekend at B&N.

I was blown away by the photographs, which mainly focused on individuals wearing huge winter coats, lined with fur and colorful piping. From a superficial, stylistic standpoint, the Tibetans in the photos look incredibly stylish even when the temperature is around five degrees. The unusually-cut outerwear would give Mr. Alexander McQueen a run for his money any day.

The book is a great source of design inspiration - I hope it makes it into my local public library soon!


CL

Weekend Shopping in WePo

Friday night all the shops on West Ponce de Leon Ave (also known as WePo) in Decatur were having a sale. Not ones to miss an opportunity like this, we put on our walking shoes and headed west from the Decatur square. Fabutique, Eviva Shoes and Boogaloos had some great deals, but we were the most successful at Kaleidoscope Boutique and Heliotrope.

Lauren bought a tall, turquoise lantern and a beautiful pearl-y, shell-like necklace. The great thing about Heliotrope is that it has modern, chic items (vases, bowls, trays, candles, accent pieces etc) that are incredibly affordable. For those of you in the Atlanta area, we highly recommend it!


Usually Kaleidoscope Boutique is way out of my budget, but the discounts were good enough to make shopping there more realistic and less of a if-only-I-had-the-money experience. Lauren bought a flow-y, sheer tunic (pictures to come later) and I found a patterned, jersey tunic that I'll wear with my vintage, woven belt (left photo).


All in all, a very productive Friday evening.

CL

Outfits

We haven't done an outfit post in a while, so here's what we wore on Monday. Below you'll see Lauren completed her outfit with this week's must-have accessory, the seventh Harry Potter book.

Skirt and top from Target, shoes from Banana Republic outlet, earrings from H&M, book from Little Shop of Stories.

I've been meaning to do a post on this shirt for a while. Our friend that's currently living it up in Paris sent me this great shirt from H&M. It was such a sweet gift and now it's become my favorite shirt to wear to work. It's hard to see in the photo, but the shirt has super-thin, green stripes and I love the sleeves. Thanks for such a great birthday gift, Karen!

Sunglasses from Target, skirt and tank from American Apparel, pumps from Delias.



CL

In the Navy

I can absolutely not swim for the life of me and I have no interest in the current day American Navy, but of course that doesn't stop me from enjoying nautical-inspired fashion and home goods! I don't know where or when my love of navy/nautical things began, but I'm happy to know I'm not all alone. For example, below you'll see famous designer Philip Stark in his navy hat looking very much like Napoleon himself (apart from the bone and flannel plaid coat). This isn't the only image I've seen of Mr.Stark in that hat and he's even designed a piece of headgear with a ship on it, which just proves that he also enjoys the nautical look.

Then there's C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian who wrote the Horatio Hornblower and Aubrey/Maturin series respectively. Granted, these two writers probably did not devote a large chunk of their writing careers to this topic because they liked the hats of the admiralty. Nevertheless, whether it was due to the enjoyment of the ship's structure or maybe a strong interest in Napoleonic naval warfare, it's clear that Forester and O'Brian greatly enjoyed nautical-ness (how's that for a made-up word!).

Of course I can't mention ships and fashion without including Marie Antoinette. Her infamous ship hat even showed up in Sophia Coppola's 2006 film - albeit in a more realistic size.


Last but not least is Ann Wood's ships made mostly out of fabric. Make sure to visit her blog and see some other ships she's been working on.

C.L.

Man in a Suit

As a huge fan of fashion, an unabashed Jane Austen fanatic, a graduate of an all-women's college and former ballet dancer, I have to say that 99% of the time I feel pretty lucky to be a woman. Then there's that 1% - whether it's due to that dreaded time of the month or having just read that women still get paid less than their male counterparts on average - where I 'm incredibly envious of men. But what makes me more jealous than anything else, regarding the opposite sex, is the fact that any man - and I mean any man - can look amazing in a suit. It doesn't even necessarily have to be an extremely well made suit, just one that fits decently, and the wearer is immediately transformed from humdrum to Cary Grant. Women can look incredibly glamorous in a blazer and trousers, but it's not the same and we have no suit equivalent.

The image below (from the Sartorialist, of course) is just one of the million examples of the suit's greatness. Even with exposed ankles and a man bag, this guy looks elegant in such a strong, masculine way.
P.S.: The Sartorialist titled this photo "A Man of Underterminable Origin." I wonder if he's an AsianCajun...

CL

Keep Calm and Carry On

This wondrous fine is actually credited to our ever creative, inquisitive mum. Browsing around the bookstore website for Barter Books, she encountered this sage advice deliverable to you for a mere 6 pounds (sterling)- and that includes shipping, my friends! So, for a mere $10 you can purchase this historic poster (wonderful decorative item) plus a large dose of self-help without tuning into Oprah or visiting your nearest bookstore's Deepak Chopra collection .
The poster was originally distributed by the British government during the unrelenting bombings of WW II as a reminder to those stoic Brits to maintain that stoicism (stiff upper lip and all that). I think it's brilliant. And I'm trying to convince Cath that this is just the sort of thing we need staring us in the face everyday. A gentle reminder (or perhaps not so gentle. it's very red and very large.) of how to stave off the mean reds.
Also, we recommend visiting the Barters Book site for a look at their author mural (click on BB Mural). Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf chat it up along side Yeats and Hemingway (who is being felt-up by the acerbically witty Dorothy Parker).
LL

Gypsy Camp this Weekend

So Mr. Napoleon here is taken, but he had a few equally dashing friends last time we were at Gypsy Camp. And for a mere $100 (or so... some of his friends are a little nicked-up or missing all their limbs), you too can be the owner of a Marcus Aurelius, Bacchus, or Apollo. Now you know what your living room has been missing all these years.
LL