French Magazines

A much belayed post of three magazines I picked up while in Paris last weekend.

I will be posting some editorials from Numero and Paris Vogue {not like you haven't seen them on TFS, but humor me} soon. In case you were unaware, Numero is unbeliavable. Even though I can't understand the French, it graces my other favorites with its presence.

Chanel knows how to do an advertisement. I played with that for a few minutes.

Buona Pasqua

Easter {Pasqua} was crazy here in Florence.

First, I woke up with the roommates to go see "Scoppio del Carro" or the "explosion of the cart." How this thing resembles a cart, I do not know. I do know that we obviously did not wake up early enough because we were incredibly far away from the exploding cart scene {hence, the awful pictures}.

Waiting for the cart to explode, not knowing what to expect.

Oh! It explodes with fireworks. Lots of daytime fireworks.

Very smokey. But, what would you expect from fireworks going off 20 meters in front of you?

Italy does not believe in dangerous fireworks near people.

Easter continued with H&M {twice}, Easter egg sandwiches, spumante, and an Easter feast for dinner. Could I have said "Easter" any more in that sentence?

No school tomorrow since it is a national holiday {not like that means anything around here- Practically every store was open today! Not that I'm complaining.} I'll be beaching it up in Viareggio. Ignoring my pile of projects, papers and job applications. Yup.

Happy Easter.

Embracing Your Beauty

Sonja just wrote another great post for The Coveted entitled "Embracing True Beauty and the Beauty of Giving Back." Here's the accompanying video as well:

I love makeup as much as the next girl, but it is definitely important to embrace who you are and use makeup to enhance your features rather than to make yourself look completely different. If I had a penny for every girl in high school who were slaves to straightening their hair, and wore enough eyeliner to cover the Washington Monument...well, I would have enough money to buy the Washington Monument.

It's funny how laziness on my part is really what helped me embrace my natural self. My straightener burnt out the first night I was in Italy, so now I only use my roommate's to straighten pieces out or completely straighten it every now and then to go out. Classes at 9 AM {it really is impossible to wake up before that here; everyone who visits Italy says that an inexplicable laziness falls upon them} has forced a very "au naturale" beauty routine on me...not that I'm complaining. The only time I really focus on my hair and makeup is when I go out on the weekends and have free time to play around with it.

Please check out Sonja's post. I hope everyone is able to see how beautiful they really are.

Bloglovin' 2

Follow my blog with bloglovin´
{I had to write this post to "claim" my blog on Bloglovin. Whoopsie!}

Indian Dahl

It's no secret that I'm obsessed with Indian food.

I could eat it all day, everyday if I a) knew more recipes and b) had more necessary ingredients.

Since deciding in January that I wanted to cook more Indian food, I have only acquired about 8 of the 1000 or so spices most recipes entail. I know, I know...once you buy them they'll last you forever, but I'm waiting until this summer when I won't have to buy the groceries to add to my spice supply.

And of course, in college, I love cheap and easy. Vegetarian of course, and if it's vegan well, that's just another plus in my book. Easy vegan?! What?!

Last year I discovered the Vegan a Go-Go website and podcast. The recipes are stunningly easy and cheap for the most part. I've tried out countless recipes since I began keeping up with Vegan a Go-Go and was so excited when an "Indian Dahl" recipe was posted. I tried it out on Sunday and it made enough to last me through today {Thursday}.

Basically: red lentils, onions, spices, tomatoes, and spinach. Yummm, spinach.

So flavorful! So simple! So cheap!

Now make it. Even if you think it looks unappetizing.
{It's not.}

All Points West

Anyone living in or near New Jersey/NYC needs to go to the APW Music Festival this summer so I can live vicariously through you.

Vampire Weekend, Coldplay, MGMT, Artic Monkeys, Telepathe, We Are Scientists, Tokyo Police Club...
The list goes on.

July 31 - August 2
1 Day: $89
3 Days: $199

Let me know if you're going!

Patafisic

One of my favorite parts of college {I have learned} are the guest lectures and field trips. Yesterday, Brenda Cecchi came to lecture in my Fashion Marketing class about her knitwear label "Patafisic."

Brenda and her business partner started Patafisic in 1995 in Florence, Italy as an interior design/fashion/architecture company. As many know, Italy has an incredible history with knitwear; some of the best textile fairs in the world stem from Prato and Florence, and most production remains inside Italy from start to finish.
{Up until the early 1990s, 90% of knitwear around the world was produced in Italy}

In 1994, before they named and really began their company, the Patafisic team developed a DIY sweater kit comprised of tubular knits, a pattern, pins, a crochet hook, and yarn. It won a huge prize in Italy which led to Isetan buying the kit to sell in their stores around Japan.

The basis behind using tubular {and rectangular} knitwear to create clothing is to create as little waste as possible. Every pattern for the DIY kits, as well as the clothing they eventually manufactured used solely regtangular knitted tubes, sewn and folded together like origami. Think about how progressive such a concept was in the mid-90s! Patafisic was way ahead of their time.

In 2000, Patafisic began to show in Paris where the niche market for the avant-garde was at the time {and still pretty much is!}. While mass produced, each piece is unique: it is hand cut, hand sewn, and hand dyed, and the design team oversees every single part of production.
{After experimenting with the overseas market in the early 2000s, they decided to keep their production in Italy so that it could be more closely monitered and ensure much better quality}

Patafisic embraces a "slowly wear" concept -- they believe in clothing that will last a lifetime, not RTW, not "wear and throw away", and not "wear, throw away, buy again."

Brenda compared Patafisic's conceptual designs to MMM, but I also immediately thought of Harputs OWN because many of Patafisic's collections can be worn in a variety of ways.

Unfortunately, only two collections are shown on their site {you need a password to see the rest} and the mid-2000s were my favorites. Here are a few photos from their recent collections:

Fall/Winter 2008-2009

Spring/Summer 2009

Brenda told us that in a month, Patafisic will have an online store! Their pieces begin at 250 Euros but remember, they are meant to last a lifetime and can be worn in different ways.