It is unlikely that I will be doing much personal blogging for a while. I am far too busy with my job. But I am blogging actively and every single day on the almost blogs. Check out Almost Abode, Almost Dressed, Almost Heeled, Almost Packed and Almost Pretty for a daily dose of Julie.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Find Me At The Almost Blogs
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Sorry For The Interruption
Wednesday, December 10th, 2008Not feeling much urge to blog or otherwise engage in social media on a personal level much anymore. But don’t worry you can always email me! I believe that is real social networking.
Niagra Falls
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
I am in Buffalo for a few days working (great internet cafes in this town) and hanging with my big brother Scott. While he normally lives in Baton Rouge where he works as a chemical engineer he is in Buffalo for a few days for a client. Thus I hopped on a train to meet him up here for a few days of large bodies of water and chicken wings.
In The Summer, In The City
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008No need to watch, just listen
San Francisco Fashion Geek Out on Tuesday
Saturday, June 14th, 2008I am hosting a little San Francisco Fashion Geek out on Monday as I am in town. Weirdly I have discovered a lot of people don’t realize I am vaguely bicoastal now so I should probably let everyone know that I am in Williamsburg Brooklyn most of the time and San Francisco the rest of the time thanks to my employers Sugar who keep us fashion folks in the New York scene and make sure we get to spend time at the HQ in the Bay Area too.
Anyway, if you are interested in attending the fashion geek out session drop me a line at my gmail (this should be easy to figure out if you know my actual name) or leave a comment here. Hope to see serious fashion and geek contenders. Since we already did a blogger meet up this week for the Coutorture folks this is more of an industry centric dinner just fyi. I plan to have it at 6pm on Tuesday evening at a restaurant in the Mission.
Litany Against Fear
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
People confuse me. I often wonder why people see the things that they see. My confusion over my own perception by people close and anonymous has made me dread being open any longer. But I will face my fear. I had one of the most nerve wracking days of my life recently, and you know what, I am facing my fear so listen up. I am not the stone cold, big called bitch you think I am. I am the stone cold bitch you think I am.
Where others see a iron front, I see a goofy nerd. I spend a lot of time crying. I like Star Trek. I like chicken wings. I am silly and warm. I wear Marni pants like other women wear red dresses. My IQ is more than two standard deviations from the norm. My will to power would make Nietzsche blush. I wanted to be a radio astronomer. I want to believe. I want to go to the stars. I hate romantic comedies. The space in other women’s heads that is devoted to celebrities is devoted to cyberpunk, Captain Kirk, Picard, and Commander Sisko. Its not that I don’t care, its just that the memory is used up.
I don’t want to suffer for other women’s insecurities. I have many facets and I refuse to apologize for them. Yes I am terrifying when I need to be because that is my job. You have to be harsh to succeed, particularly as a woman. I will not silence myself for your ego. I will be truthful to you because I respect you. But ask yourself this, how can you fear a girl that giggles about Star Trek, longs for chicken wings, and will go to the mat so hard for you your opponent will never know what hit them? Or perhaps you should fear me because you don’t take the time to understand and I have no patience for it. If you ask me I will tell you. I will be truthful, honest, open and caring. I genuinely wish to understand you but you must ask first. I cannot be digested in sound bytes and false smiles. I will give you a real smile when we meet on open ground.
I have faced my fear. I am a full human being. I am a woman. And I will not dilute one thing to make room for another. I am all these things.
“Yes I know my enemies! They’re the teachers that taught me to fight me.”
Compromise
Conformity
Assimilation
Submission
Ignorance
Hypocrisy
Brutality
The Elite
All of which are American dreams
The Power of Mobile Social Media
Monday, June 9th, 2008Its 3am and I am spending the night at JFK. I have been trying to get to San Francisco for nearly twelve hours. However I have learned a few valuable things about social media in the last few hours. Namely that is actually works!
A funny thing started to happen around hour four (I believe 9pm) on the tarmac on JetBlue Flight 647. Starving, delirious, and just a bit cracked Sarah and I started twittering up a storm. Why on earth were we still on the tarmac? Why were there no snack boxes on a 6 hour cross country flight? What on earth do they mean we have to land in Salt Lake City to refuel? Wait, what do you mean our waste tanks are full? And thus with our fellow passengers we started to twitter @jetblue. And guess what we got a response! Some were pretty basic, like that the service rep would start to watch our flight. Some of the responses were downright whacky! Apparently around hour five we filled up our waste tanks and thus our hysterical Jetblue twitter friend told us that we could have no more snacks in jest lest we top it off!
Nedless to say we started to get a little desperate around then and wanted off the damn plane! We even had a few of our fellow passangers help us shoot and upload a Youtube cry for help video! Yes, we had a Verizon internet stick with us.
Blessedly an hour later they let us off. Though not for dinner! They canceled the damn flight since the crew had logged too many hours in the air. Though we are pretty sure around hour three this should have been apparent.
When we got off we were greeted by some surly service reps and eventually gave up and had Brian Sugar help us book a 7am flight on Virgin America. By then there was no real room in the hotels and it was too late to get back home so we are stuck here in JFK all night.
We are a bit sad JetBlue didn’t really DO anything to rescue us but really do appreciate that Jetblue spent so much time and effort twittering us back. And we fully expect a few free flight vouchers to make up for the rigamorale now that they have given us their email.
Thus Sarah and I feel that tonight proved social media makes you more responsive to customers, makes them happier, most importantly creates a forgiving clientèle that feels listened to. We believed in you after your last disaster Jetblue! And while we are still pretty pissed (we booked a 7am Virgin America flight because we couldn’t find anyone to help us rebook our canceled flight) we are nonetheless impressed by the many direct messages you sent to Sarah.
Sticking your toe in the twitter pool can get you in trouble. But we LOVED that the Jetblue Twitter was more responsive than pretty much anyone else at the airport. We couldn’t get an on the ground customer service rep but thanks to our mobile messaging we managed to get through to someone. Twitter is really a pretty great innovation.
Why The Hell It Means So Much To Me
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008I don’t really have much to say anymore on Almost Girl. It doesn’t feel like my home anymore. So much emotional energy goes into Coutorture that not much is left for me to be personal about. And frankly I don’t really feel like sharing anymore. I feel a deeply antagonistic towards readers and commenters anymore. I just got sick of hearing everyone’s damnable opinions on me, my personality, my work, my weight and my wardrobe that opening up has become nearly impossible. I just don’t enjoy being publicly consumed in the way that people seem to prefer. No one has anything constructive to say except that I suck. Yippie!
I got the life, the outcome, and the job I wanted so I sort of feel like telling everyone to bugger off. On that note the DVF sample sale editor preview was this morning and I went a little nuts on the color. I picked up a hot pink pencil skirt and a crazy bright wrap dress. And I really don’t care anymore anyone has to say about it because it makes me happy. The sheer amount of shopping I have gotten to do thanks to sample sale season is making me one satisfied creature.
Christian Dior Fall 2008 Video
Thursday, February 28th, 2008Complete and Utter Chaos
Thursday, September 6th, 2007If one thing went wrong EVERYTHING went wrong. Our photos are having trouble on the uploader, the videos are tricky to embed on Coutorture, publicists are even nuttier than usual (Sue Stemp FIRE YOUR PUBLICISTS, well except Brittany she was great) and the cab strike pretty much insured that no one got anywhere on time making shows run later than ever and then when a show didn’t run late (Ahem Jason Wu) you missed it entirely.
Hopefully by the end of the day shit will be taken care of! Sorry material isn’t up on Coutorture guys.
Y and Kei Spring/Summer 2007/2008 Video
Thursday, September 6th, 2007Why Can’t It Be Cool For Fashion Week?
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007Ten day weather forecasts are usually wrong right? Well I certainly hope so since it sounds like it is going to be warm and humid for Fashion Week. And that means no outings for everyone’s fall wardrobes. And that makes me totally depressed as summer clothing is not nearly as much fun. That means my Gucci boots, my new Miu Miu skirt, my new Jil Sander pants, and any number of dresses that go better with tights or leggings won’t get to go for a twirl. Sigh. September sucks!
Barney's Report
Thursday, August 16th, 2007The Barney’s Warehouse sale does not appeal to me very much. The frenzied crowds of non-industry women freaking out over any and every discount makes for a hot, sweaty and unpleasant shopping environment. Since by and large these girls probably don’t know about other events (well OK Daily Candy still does a fine job of ruining sample sales for most of us) the temptation to over shop and over spend means you are fighting insane women with like 6 pairs of pants hanging off their arms while you gingerly pick at blouses hoping to find a gem someone has overlooked.
But by some magical stroke of luck I was able to find not one but two pairs of amazing silk/wool Jil Sander pants. While the packed crowds shopped the “ready to wear section” (which in reality is contemporary but what do I know) I popped over into designer (i.e actual reader to wear) to see if I could find any gems. Low and behold hanging off the Size 40 rack were two pristine pairs of Jil Sander dress pants. Now as I mentioned in my excel sheet project I am on the prowl for pants as before today I owned 0 pairs of proper work pants so this was a dream come true. I decided to buy both pairs, one in basic black and the other in a light beige. After grabbing a Daryl K cardigan for good measure I high tailed it out of there by 9:15am and headed straight to my tailor Ramon on Mott street. We decided to hem them up, rip out the pockets and take in the waist by a few inches to avoid ass gap and VIOLA my Jil Sander pants will be prefect and ready to wear by next Thursday. Now I just need to get some white blouses. Anyone have any suggestions?
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More Musing on The Emotions Of Fall/Winter 2008/2009
Thursday, July 26th, 2007I spent more time thinking about the themes and emotions we can look forward to in the coming fall and winter seasons and I thought I would air them here even though I published them on Coutorture already. I am particularly intrigued by the interplay between ambivalence and anticipation.
*Ambivalence*
If I had not been told ambivalence was a theme I never could have come up with the emotion ourselves and yet the moment the idea solidified I knew it reflected the moment we are entering perfectly. The idea of duality is shockingly appropriate in a climate of political turmoil turned turgid. Opposites seem to do constant battle whether it be red vs. blue, Sunni vs. Shite, East vs. West, public vs. private and so on. The constant contrasting duality has led us to feel a certain emotional fatigue that manifests itself well in ambivalence. And yet it is this ambivalence that lends itself most excitingly to artistic expression. Premiere Vision suggested that this feeling could present itself between the interior and the exterior, details that are in the inner life of a fabric or garment. Layering will take on new meaning with bulkiness contrasting with fluidity. And of course irony and perfection playing into the new twistings of fantasy and reality in a digital age. I am strangely excited to see how ambivalence will showcase creative design
*Alchimie*
As urbanism takes on an increasingly prominent position in the inspiration and even external manifestation of design we can understand how alchimie, which Premier Vision sees in the inspiration of natural or artificially stimulated metamorphoses of daily life will show us the beauty of the regular. It is the alchimie of our own lives. The harmony in chaos, deconstruction and reconstruction of habitat, and the modifying principle of our existence that lends strength to this season. We will see it play out in rawness versus softness, oily versus dry and of course in textile the most obvious implication is the adaptation of industrial processes to create unique and irreproducible products. Of the seasonal stories I admit to finding that alchimie is something of a subset of ambivalence or even perhaps the interplay of ambivalence and the final story anticipation.
*Anticipation*
As we come to the end of an 8 year political cycle that has left most of the nation and the world confused and hardened it is unsurprising to find that even amidst our current cultural ambivalence that we feel a certain anticipation on top of our confusion. Premier Vision suggests that this means going beyond the known, adopting futuristic and poetic approaches. Conversely this can mean opting for anachronism, defying logic, and in doing so opening the door to unknown shifts and derivations. Aesthetics and science, organic and industrial, and the space between the ideals figures prominently without one space ever taking the lead. We like this lack of linearity or focus and indeed one key phrase that Sabine Le Chatelier used that was not in any of the materials was Fictitious Reality. To us that unreality of reality is both incredibly modern and yet somewhat mythic. A sort of Proust encountering Plato if you will. The shadows on the cave become real and yet it is their very fiction that provides artistic inspiration. The space between fiction and reality dovetails nicely with ambivalence. I feel it almost evokes a sort of quantum state of creativity, the hovering between states is exactly what gives us the anticipation and yet we cannot help but feel ambivalent as the interest is in the choices. Perhaps that middle space is indeed the alchimie.
I admit I wonder what happens when these creative states collide and we see the quantum classical reality of what the next season will truly bring.
Premiere Vision Trend Tasting Autumn/Winter 2008/2009
Monday, July 23rd, 2007As much as fashion can seem a navel gazing industry, in truth it is one that spends more timing looking forward than down (or even back). Being one step ahead of the curve is the professional obligation of nearly every member of the fashion pack. The obsession with trend forecasting is thus one born out of necessity. One looks forward for the bottom line rather than any need to be hip. That is merely ancillary an benefit or depending on your perspective the occasional curse. Thus with the stakes so high there are many excellent sources for keeping informed of the moods and emotions that will come to define a season still a full year away. The best of the bunch is invariably Sabine Le Chatelier’s trend tasting seminars at
Textiles naturally form the basis upon which fashion inspiration is formed, materials provide guidance and structure to the imagination of the designer. And Premier Vision takes its role seriously not only as the premier textile trade show on earth but as a gatekeeper for the many disparate ideals and emotions that percolate through the design and production process.
I personally find the trend tasting presentations to be one of the most organized and most easily grasped of the many trend forecasting services available. Colors, patterns, and textures are highlighted through key stories crafted by the Premier Vision fashion team. And each season I attend I find myself invigorated for the new.
Please check out scan of the presentation materials. I can only hope you too will find it as insightful and enjoyable as I have. I have included the entire brochure including trend stories, womenswear, menswear, and sportswear. (more…)