TATIANISTA

Boston-area lovers of fashion-worthy knitting and fiber arts should check out the MAKE MINE LOCAL event on FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13th in Cambridge!

The event is sponsored by The Common Cod Fiber Guild and will be emceed by Shannon Okey, recent Yarn Forward Magazine editor and author of http://knitgrrl.com, who will be presenting submissions by creative knitwear and fiber arts designers in the greater Boston area. She will also be discussing life as a designer and heading a panel about designing in the New England with designers from the show.

I will be participating as a stylist, fashion show coordinator and model…would love to see you there!!!

UPDATE: Onyx Hardware Designs have graciously lent their gorgeous jewelry to accessorize the show! Yay!!!

While the late, great John Hughes profoundly influenced my taste in music and attitude growing up, I hold Tim Burton entirely responsible for the humble beginnings of my goth-before-I-knew-what-goth-was wardrobe which to this day (though not specifically “goth” anymore) remains predominantly black and freak-friendly. Growing up in the Connecticut ‘burbs in the days before Hot Topic and Marilyn Manson, I was just “that one pale, skinny, weird girl” who liked Oscar Wilde, wore Doc Martens with vintage dresses and decided, on a whim, to dye her hair black one day when everyone else was getting tans and going blonde.

Flash-forward nearly twenty years and I’m working in the world of high-end designer fashion, much of which is mainstream, or at the very least marketable (even when the clothing is from a more avant-garde” collection). It is ultimately up to the savvy fashionista or stylist to individualize what comes off the rack (or out of one’s own closet, for that matter) and turn it into a signature style. Your style tells a story that speaks to the world of who you are and what you’re about. Like it or not, people do judge a book by its cover. At least they do until they’re willing to take the time and interest to find out what’s on the inside (and it should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway: it’s what’s on the inside of course that matters most. Duh). Someone who takes risks and willingly chooses to stand apart from the masses is likely the person whose story you’ll remember most…sometimes it doesn’t really make a difference if you like the subject matter.

I might not have had a definitive style yet as an adolescent, but the first time I saw Beetlejuice I painfully coveted Lydia’s closet (black lace, ghosts and all) and felt reassured that I could be both creepy and cute at the same time. In contrast, Burton’s Catwoman made me secretly long for the day when I’d be both grown up and confident enough to sport stilettos, latex and red lips (and I am happy to report, ladies and gents, that the day indeed did come ;)). Not surprisingly, the movie that affected me most at the time was Edward Scissorhands. It was sweet despite its dark undertones, tragic but hopeful and profoundly imaginative. Need I mention that it featured a young, ethereally handsome, literally untouchable Johnny Depp with a mass of Robert Smith hair, bound in layers of leather and bits of metal? In other words, just about the closest thing to the perfect boy (umm, okay…minus the scissors) for a strange little girl. I’ve eagerly awaited every Burton film since then. I’ll be the first to admit that part of this has to do with the frequent inclusion of a certain undeniably exquisite actor in many of his films. Yet, more significantly, it is because he is a master of mixing the unexpectedly beautiful with the inescapably macabre on film. That duality is something I’ve grown to love in art, music, fashion and friends. I know I’ve retained some of this contrast in both personal style and personality myself, although it’s considerably more subtle now than in my “Lydia” days. In any case, the next time you see me out in and about in a veiled hat, a latex corset, tattered lace dresses and combat boots, you’ll understand why.

Burton’s cinematic style speaks to my often strange sense of aesthetics (and twisted sense of humor). More importantly though, he is genius when it comes to creating characters who are genuinely love-able weirdos, eccentrics and misfits. Is it any wonder that I had a total fan-girl moment when I discovered Tim Burton’s “Magical Fashion” in the October ‘09 Issue of Harper’s Bazaar. He teamed up with photographer Tim Walker to reinvent Fall Fashion with his own unique vision, combining characters and imagery from his collective imagination with a gorgeous array of designer garments and goodies from the likes of Gaultier, McQueen, Givenchy, Tao and Rodarte, to name a few. The photoshoot is by far one of my favorite fashion layouts in years. It comes in anticipation of the upcoming multi-media exhibit at New York’s MoMa, featuring a major retrospective of his nearly thirty year career. This undoubtedly means I’ll be taking a trip to NYC soon (as if I needed a good excuse). In the mean time, I might just have to revisit that now nearly-vintage Edward Scissorhands poster I still have hidden in my closet, buried somewhere in-between all those lace edwardian dresses, layers of black, skeletons and memories.

*All photos from the October 2009 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. More can be found here.

The Tim Burton exhibit will be running from November 22, 2009 - April 26, 2010 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Burton’s next film, his much anticipated adaption of Alice In Wonderland, is due to be released in the U.S. on March 5, 2010.

Now you can cyberstalk follow Tatianista on TWITTER. Daily mini-updates on the world of eccentric glamour, subculture fashion, innovative style, vintage vixenry. Okay, fine….and sometimes maybe just what I happen to be wearing that day.

When I was invited by my dear friend, Kambriel, (whose work is featured in the show) to attend the opening party for the Gothic: Dark Glamour exhibit at the FIT Museum last September, I honestly didn’t quite know what to expect (other than, perhaps, yet another misdirected, cliché representation of a mainstream observer’s answer to “What is Goth?”). Of course, when I realized that Valerie Steele was the curator, I knew it wasn’t going to be some lame collection of Hot Topic “Do-It-Yourself-Goth” ensembles. I was, at the very least, expecting something good. Really, really good.

It’s true that I have ridiculously high standards and expectations (which is probably why I’m still single) and, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not so easily impressed; particularly when the subject matter is something I hold dear to my heart and quite haughtily to my head. I was therefore both utterly thrilled and incredibly impressed (not to mention very relieved) when I walked into to an exhibit that, in so many ways, felt like home. Not only were some of my favorite pieces by my absolute favorite designers featured (Owens, McQueen, Demeulemeester, Gaultier, Galliano, to name but a few), as well as various costumes, esoteric accessories and exquisite antique mourning dresses but, at long last, there were honest-to-gothness representations of every-day, genuine goths in all their varied, underground, sub-cultural glory: from Old-School to Gothic Lolita to Steampunk to Cyber-Goth.  I didn’t want to leave and, in fact, went back the following day and stayed for another few hours. I think I was secretly hoping to find a place to hide and stay lost among all those lovely dark layers and textures, so enraptured was I in this mise-en-scene of so many of my passions all at once. I’d venture to guess that I was not the only one who experienced this, too. I immediately pre-ordered the corresponding book when I got home, hoping to reclaim some of that enchantment.

The book arrived, appropriately enough, in the depths of Autumn. It is deliciously thick with lustrous photographic illustrations and visual references that are gilded frame-worthy (and if it weren’t such blasphemy to pull it apart, I’d do just that…I want some of these images on my walls, dammit). Not surprisingly, the book often reads more like an academic textbook than a style guide, and thank heaven and hell below it for that. There are far too many “Like, OMG, Cheerleader-to-Gothgirl” how-to manuals out there already. The primary author of this book, Valerie Steele, has written numerous fashion-related books, many of which deal with how popular, as well not-so-mainstream and otherwise underground fashion, relate to both individual and cultural identity. She also happens to have her Ph.D. from Yale University and is currently Director and Chief Curator at The Museum at The Fashion Institute of Technology. In other words, she understands not only the Art of Fashion but the Theory behind it.

Steele references everything from the etymology of the word “gothic” to the early, cultural influences (everything from art, music, theatre and film to literature and architecture) that have shaped what we consider Gothic today. I’d like to think I’m an unofficial expert on this subculture (or, at the very least, an Old-School Goth turned Glamourous Eccentric…who also happens to be a costume history & fashion nerd), but Steele cites so many obscure and influences that I started to question whether or not I was a novice myself. Or a clueless, like, OMG!…cheerleader. I never would have considered, for example, Horace Walpole’s part—which pre-dates Byron, The Shelleys, Poe, Stoker, Wilde and Baudelaire—as being so significant in the influence of literature on the Gothic aesthetic. Nor did I really think about how the collaborations between photographer Sean Ellis, and the incomparable stylist, Isabella Blow, in the mid-90s (who were both inspired by the disturbingly beautiful collections of Alexander McQueen & Hussein Chalayan) helped spark yet another Gothic Revival in the world of fashion in years to come. Remember when Gucci did Goth?

In addition to sourcing some of the more obvious figures in fashion, the book takes an in-depth look at many of the important underground and independent players who have been responsible for molding and shaping Gothic Fashion over the years. If you didn’t already know who Kambriel, Lip Service and Plastik Wrap were before, or if you’ve never heard of The Batcave, the Gothic & Lolita Bibles or Propaganda Magazine, you will by the time you finish this book. However, it should go without saying that about Gothic Fashion would hardly be complete (or valid, for that matter) without giving some serious attention to its inseparable partner, Gothic Music. Steele does indeed write in some length about the role of music in gothic subculture, but it’s the latter part of the book which pays serious tribute to the subject.

“Melancholy and The Macabre: Gothic Rock and Fashion,” by Jennifer Park, is really a little book within a book. It is essentially a short history of Gothic Rock. From its early, pre-punk influences, such as Velvet Underground and Bowie, to its post-punk revolutionaries, like Joy Division, Siouxsie and The Banshees, The Smiths, Bauhaus and The Cure (still four of my favorite bands), who paved the way for the uber-goth bands of the late 1980s and ’90s. While I do think this serves as only a primer on what can be broadly defined as “Gothic Rock”, the featured album covers and select discography made me nostalgic for my cape-wearing, “gother-than-thou” days of olde.

In any case, it is certain that Valerie Steele’s expertise and passion for subculture and lesser-known fashion makes for an extensively researched, incredibly thorough read on the subject, appropriate for fashion enthusiasts, costume historians and more erudite goths, alike. Nevertheless, anyone looking for pseudo-morbid, pre-fab, darkity-dark fashion fluff should stick to the plethora of glossy goth-mags (no offense, Gothic Beauty) and cheesy goth-sites and clubs (we know you are…alas, you do not). You could always look at the pretty pictures, though.

Tatiana will be attending the Subculture + Style Symposium on February 12 and 13, which is being held in conjuction with Gothic: Dark Glamour exhibit at The Museum at FIT in New York City. The exhibit itself ends on February 21, 2009.

I’ve been a fan of the artist Mark Ryden for years now. A limited edition, numbered lithograth of “Meat Girl” is proudly displayed on the blood-red wall that abuts my kitchen. I’ve been dying to add more of his disturbingly saccharine and adorably dark images to my collection. As a former vegetarian (who’s now happily carnivorous) and a lover of twisted fairy tales, I think his brand of art is the perfect combination of the magical and the macabre, much like many of the glorious collections of Alexander McQueen & John Galliano. Come to think of it, how utterly fabulous would it be for an underground fashionista like myself to have wearable meat a la Ryden to add to my ever-growing, glamorously eccentric wardrobe? So fab, in fact, that someone far more clever thought of it long before I did.

Only recently did I learn that Mark Ryden collaborated with a brilliant and talented artist, Nagi Noda, to launch her “Broken Label” collection last year, which was sold at Collette in Paris (and apparently had even more limited availability elsewhere). This was the first and only collaborative fashion collection the two artists produced and will likely be as highly collectible as just about anything else Ryden has produced…even more-so now that Noda, whose broad body of work included everything from popular music videos and commercials to sculpture, conceptual art and “hair hats”, died tragically young last year. She left this world wearing her favorite Chanel boots, Victor and Rolf black lace eyelashes and one of her own Mark Ryden dresses.

R.I.P., sweet Fashionista.

A: What accessories do you wear everyday?
Black jelly bracelets, a la vintage Madonna.

B: What is your beauty routine?
Post A.M. shower: Contact lenses; Soften up the ol’ bod with Red Flower Morrocan Rose body lotion; Apply Kanebo Throat and Bust Formula; Moisture my face, apply foundation and press powder it all; Finish coffee/Red Bull, then brush my teeth; Give myself eyes (i.e., eyelash curler, Chanel mascara and brow powder) and lips (lip moisturizer, followed by the lipstick of the day…which has lately been Chanel “Vamp” and Shu Uemera sparkley lipstick); Finish drying/combing hair,apply Bedhead smoothing crap, then go to my room and stand in front of my two closets deciding what to wear for work (…so much for being a natural beauty).

C: What was the last item of clothing (for yourself) that you purchased?
Black, extra long, jersey-knit Junya Watanabe skirt from Barneys.

D: Do you use a dresser, closet, or both?
Two closets in my bedroom, a dresser and a coat closet…and still not enough room!

E: What type of earrings are in your ears right now?
None. Just a bunch of empty holes at the moment.

F: What type of figure do you have (measurements)?
According to more than one of my friends (or enemies, depending on your perspective), a “voluptuous” one. …VaVaVaVoom?

G: Do you wear glasses?
Yes, but only when I’m at home…or when I’m going for the sexy librarian look.

H: What type of handbag do you carry?
I’m not a huge fan of logos or bling-bags, so I try to keep it simple. I usually switch between my distressed and faded green leather Miu Miu bag or a black crinkled patent-leather Marc Jacobs messenger, with the occasional Ann Demeulemeester black linen minimalist hobo bag in the summer.

I: What is your ideal style?
According to Simon Doonan, it’s Existential with a touch of Gypsy. I’d like to say it’s a mix of avant-garde, urban chic and vintage glam (with the inevitable goth-y pants twist).

J: What is your favorite brand of jeans?
I don’t like wearing jeans, but for some reason I own four pairs: Helmut Lang skinnies, James “Hector” dark denim bootcuts, Earnest Sewn faded black straight-legs and Ever vintage-esque, relaxed fit jeans.

K: Do you wear knee-hi stockings?
Generally just when I’m wearing knee-high boots…i prefer over-the knees or thigh-highs + garter belts, though.

L: Do you *have* to wear matching lingerie?
I don’t HAVE to wear lingerie at all, but i do because, underneath it all, I’m a girly-girl. It doesn’t always match, though.

M: Do you wear makeup?
Yes. See above beauty routine (which is much more dramatic and complicated at night).

N: Do you wear nightgowns?
NightGOWNs…not so much. Nighties? Sure..sometimes. Mostly, it’s nothing but my birthday suit.

O: What outerwear do you put on when going out on a typical winters day?
Oscar de la Renta military looking black coat or something full of down. It is BAH-ston, after all.

P: What is your favorite perfume?
Eternity. I’ve been wearing it since I was fifteen and it’s still my signature fragrance.

Q: Is your motto “quality over quantity” when it comes to clothing and accessories?
It’s certainly gotten to be more-so in the past few years…although I still somehow end up with way too much clothing (which still never seems like enough).

R: Do you wear rain boots?
No (but I really do need some, come to think of it).

S: Do you wear socks or slippers when your feet get cold?
Socks….preferably with monkeys, kitties or something equally dorky on them.

T: Do you have a set of travel luggage?
No, but I’d love to get a vintage leather set with neat-o stickers all over ‘em. Wouldn’t that just be swell?

U: What is your daily uniform?
Uniform? Ha! I worked for a french luxury company for three years and it was a dreadful black suit every day. Working where I do now means that I could wear whatever i want….as long as it’s fabulous

V: If you are married, did you wear a veil with your wedding dress? If not, how did you do your hair?
I had long, red pre-raphaelite hair when i got married and wore a dress from the 1910s with no veil, but it was in Vegas and the effect was totally lost on that environment. When and if I ever get married again, I’d probably go for a vintage orange blossom band (or, what the hell…a huge, fucking crown, dammit).

W: Do you wear a watch?
Nope, but I do own three or four of them (none of which are ticking at the moment).

X: What item of clothing always makes you feel beautiful?
A corset.

Y: What is your favorite type of yarn?
Cashmere.

Z: Do you prefer zippers or buttons?
I like the sound of zippers. Then again, I definitely have a thing for rows of teeny-tiny little buttons. Oh my Gods….please don’t make me decide!

*Fyi, Ive been playing around with new design themes for this website and seem to have settled on this one for now. Please let me know what you think!

On Friday, October 31, 2008 (a.k.a. Halloween!), ONYX HARDWARE DESIGNS will be displaying new work at Brasserie Jo in Boston, as part of the exclusive Café Fashion Show Luncheon Series, organized by The Hub’s most fabulous eccentric fashionista, Marilyn Riseman. Come see the latest designs and enjoy a delicious meal!

I’m thrilled to be the stylist for this fun and fashionable event, and will be given the luxury of modeling much of this gorgeous, gypsy-glam collection, along with the designer herself.  Seating is limited and styles will only be on display from 12:00-1:30pm, so call 617.425.3240 for reservations and more information.

“Glamorous eccentrics are irresistible people.

They are irreverent, occasionally impertinent, a tad mysterious, charming, often self-invented, good at applying eyeliner, and above all nonconformist.

They are a fabulous confection of style, self-empowerment, and black patent sling backs.

Everyone wants to be one, but how?

Ubiquitous style guru Simon Doonan has the answer.”

Hence, I christen this blog, which i vow to dedicate to the oft-misunderstood world of underground style, obscure fashion trends, avant-garde glamour, subculture freak-istas (and the occasional self-promo here and there), with a tribute to Simon Doonan’s latest literary contribution to the world of fashion fabulosity.

To those of you who (like yours truly) have been scorned, mocked and ostracized for their unique sense of style and otherwise bizarre penchant for utterly weird and wicked wardrobes then this, I say, is the book for you.

Doonan makes living the glamorous-eccentric life as easy as 1-2-3 (literally) by dividing the “kingdom” into three distinctive categories: Gypsies, Existentialists and Socialites. Don’t worry…for the rare-few eclectic sorts who feel limited by these definitive groups, you are likely of the “combo-platter” variety. Once you’ve figured out just what kind of glamorous eccentric you are, Doonan provides all the tools needed to become a successful, fun-loving and ultra-faboo fashionista.

He also pays tribute to an eclectic list of infamous eccentrics and unexpected icons, including (among others) Tilda Swinton, Dita Von Teese, Hamish Bowles, Iman, the late, great Isabella Blow and, of course, his mom.

Simon Doonan not only validates but praises my fabulous fellow fashion freaks, while blatantly pooh-poohing the Paris Hiltons of the world with absolute candor and such a wonderfully twisted sense of humor. For this, I must give him 5 rhinestone-encrusted stars and two vixen-painted thumbnails up!

Read this book, my beloved revolutionary fashionistas…and, whatever you do, just “SAY NO TO HO!!! (…and yes to eccentric glamour).”