magda

the swedish ethos

Doesn’t everyone just love stories of people who weren’t trained in a specific field and still manage to make a name for themselves in spite of it?

“Because for one, perfume is very French—there has been this hierarchy in the industry for so long. Which is good because you have incredible talent, and a refinement, but it’s also become stagnant. So for me, it was all about simplifying, for better or for worse. So as opposed to working with fifty, seventy or eighty raw materials for a fragrance, I work with maybe five or ten. There are these beautiful raw materials—I fight with Chanel to buy specific Neroli—and I thought it was a shame to mask them and cover them with different stuff. Maybe it’s something to do with the Swedish ethos, the simplicity…it was just simplifying in terms of creating a clear idea. So when you smell Accord Oud, you get it. You like it or not.”

“If I took you in the lab for two weeks, and showed you a spectrum, you would probably be able to show me things that remind you of specific memories. You would be able to develop your vocabulary to create a perfume. And that was the first phase for me, trying to understand the possibilities. Now when I walk down the street I can smell a lot more—dirty laundry, etc. I don’t think it’s a heightened sense of smell, it’s just awareness.”

“Because I didn’t go to school for this I had to catch up, but at the same time I didn’t want to become too technical, because I had this possibility to work with two very talented perfumers that do a lot of big work and are immensely creative, and I didn’t want to offset their process. So my idea was to push them in the right direction. I did that with words and raw materials, but also with images, emotion, music and poetry. My briefs were about sitting in a room and getting them to feel something. And hoping I would land close enough to.”
Ben Gorham (x)

sculptural femininity

“After a week of in-your-face colors and dizzying prints, Francisco Costa served up a palette cleanser for Spring.(…) What was new was the softness and the femininity. Occasionally in the past, Costa’s minimalism has erred on the conceptual side. He’s been slowly moving away from the sculptural constructions that used to define his work, but he said good-bye to them for good this season.

In their place were slipdresses that by their very definition had a real sense of the body.“
Nicole Phelps (x)

“In Francisco Costa’s hands, everything was as light and fragile as thistledown, the palette an ethereal blend of face-powder pinks, ice blues, and mauves, and pale vanilla yellows like Jazz Age lingerie. In fact, many of the dresses resembled lingerie of the type that Daisy Buchanan might have worn.“
Hamish Bowles (x)

série noire

 

“Those chic, sweeping black lines, kicking up sexily at the corners and made iconic by Monroe, Bardot and Hepburn, remain one of my all-time favourite looks.”

Sali Hughes  (x)

body conscious

  

Now that summer’s in full swing again, it’s back to working out on a regular basis. A nice side effect, that isn’t mentioned very often I find, is that because one sweats out all the toxins my face tends to completely clear up. Also, it’s true what they say – there really is such a thing as a runner’s high.
Mostly, I’ve just gone running regularly & every now and then I do one of those 20-minutes (limit of my attention span) 30-Day Shred videos.

And not to come across as too shallow, but as a result I’ve finally managed to loose all the weight I gained in Paris. Nothing too major, but still it’s nice to have dropped those kilos. That whole “French Women Don’t Get Fat“-concept — I don’t get it. But then again, the boulangerie down my street made the butteriest and most delicious croissants that ever were & together with some raspberry jam, who could say no. The French, apparently.

Also, God can we talk about how good freshly squeezed grapefruit juice is?! So good. If you haven’t tried it, please do.

“You can influence your mind by being serious about your body.”
Rem Koolhaas

mademoiselle

I feel like this girl would listen to Carla Bruni or Keren Ann, wear Miss Dior Chérie and read classics like A Room with a View or The Portrait of a Lady. C’est tout.

rose-lipt maidens

“With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.”

With rue my heart is laden, by A. E. Housman

recent delights

1. Though I rank contacts right up there with pain killers & stretch jeans as some of the great inventions of the last century, I’ve been wearing my glasses a lot again lately and as I am near-sighted I tend to just put them on the top of my head whenever I don’t need them – and man, I forgot how much I like the way it looks. It makes me feel very Royal Society of London, for some reason,  while at the same time taming my hair a bit, which as it is is no mean feat. (By the way, great article – The Royal Society’s lost women scientists - can’t wait for the book.)
2. Chanel’s Rouge Noir nail polish. Inspired by Lady Persie (Claire Foy) from Upstairs Downstairs. The first season was a bit boring, but I’m really enjoying the 2nd one because as mmorrow said: “I love it when shows are brave enough to make the protagonists more than mouthpieces for our perspectives.”
3. Black cigarette pants.
4. YSL — The Black Collection eyeliner pen.
5. Sophie Dahl’s writing. (Her novel should already be making its way to my apartment.)
6. Sali Hughes’ beauty video on nudes.
7. And just in case, you don’t follow me on Tumblr or haven’t really been paying attention – kinda obsessed with Stella McCartney right now. Give me all of your wardrobe, women.
8. Spring!

bright young things

So, when I saw this picture of Anya Ziourova I thought to myself: “Oh, what a swanky top! I wanna have one just like it.”
Out I went, stopped by H&M on a whim (because ugh, haven’t really liked their clothes in a while), picked up the shirt you see below & only realized back home that it was the exact same shirt. Saturday came & I decided to wear the top with black cigarette pants, velvety emerald heels & a dash of heady Belle de Nuit.
And then today, in an effort to dress up my daily Uni outfit a bit (which really is just a variation of: navy peacoat, striped shirt, jeans & white converse as of late), I decided to wear the top as can be seen below. Very revolutionary, I know.

P.S.: Tip on the side – don’t wear your nice heels out to bars & clubs, chances are you will get alcohol spilled on them. Alas, it’s a mistake I shall make again and again because really, it’s not like I go to gallery openings & weddings and other fancy events every weekend whereas clubs & bars…

il caffè

“A coffee shop is a unique place: I can spend hours there without feeling rushed, divorced from the set timetable of a meal in a resaurant.”
Alone Time, Brian Ferry for Kinfolk Magazine

“I once met an Italian who didn’t drink coffee. He made light of the fact, but you could see that he was tired of having to explain his disability.”
Italian coffee culture: a guide, by Lee Marshall