Gareth Pugh SS 2011

Gareth Pugh always does really dramatic, theatrical clothing you either love or hate. Everyhing is so futuristic, androgynous, sci fi like. The bold patterns, the crazy geometric cuts, the combination of hair and make up turn the models into really cool characters of a high budget movie. This collection is no exception.

The video is so gorgeous. It's a really cool thing being able to see how the clothes react to movement, and how the models react to the clothes.

•  Director: Ruth Hogben
• Performance: Kristen McMenamy at DNA models, Jonathan Baker at D1 Models
• Director of Photography: Simon Chaudoir
• Styling: Katie Shillingford
• Hair: Martin Cullen
• Make-up: Alex Box
• Nails: Marian Newman sponsored by Minx
• Production : Gainsbury and Whiting
• Executive Production : Sam Gainsbury and Anna Whiting
• Production Management : Kat Davey
• Set Design: Simon Costin
• Casting: AM Casting
• Styling Assistance: Beatriz de Cossio Dominguez, Neil Kalonji
• Hair Assistance: Neil Hopkins, Mark Francome-Painter, Soichi, Jaimie Tanner
• Make-up Assistance: Suzy Rycroft, Poppy France
• Nail Assistance: Adam Slee
• Music Direction: Matthew Stone
• Phantom Operator: Martin Goodward
• Camera Assistance: Nelson Oliver
• Gaffer: Gary Varney
• Electricians: Steve Davis, Martin Duncan, Lee Wilson
• Runners: Harry Flinder, Sandra Leko, Julia Monsell
• Location: Park Royal Studios
• Special thanks to Panalux, Park Royal Studios, Pirate

midnight urge

i feel like eating pizza. a big slice of pizza, full of cheese. hmm that's it.

Chocolate Pear Pudding

I have been wanting to try this recipe ever since i saw it on nigella lawson's culinary show Nigela Bites. (i took the picture off of her website) In case you have no time to go explore the website, the above recipe goes as follows:

Ingredients

• 2 x 415g cans pear halves in juice
• 125g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder (on the show it felt more like she was pouring at least 100g cocoa powder, that's the amount i'm going to use)
• 125g caster sugar
• 150g soft butter, plus extra for greasing
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6 and grease a 22cm square ovenproof dish with butter.
2. Drain the pears and arrange them on the base of the dish.
3. Put all the remaining ingredients in a food processor and blitz until you have a batter with a soft dropping consistency.
4. Spread the brown batter over the pears, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
5. Let stand out of the oven for 5 or 10 minutes and then cut into slabs - I cut 2 down and 2 across to make 9 slices - and serve with chocolate sauce.

I am going to try to finally bake it this afternoon, so be expecting an update later on with pictures.

EDIT (08:18 pm):
 
First of all, once you get in the kitchen do not forget to start pre heating the oven.
Then get the base buttered (for this amount of pears it's recommended a square base with 22cm, i didn't have one, so i got the closest i had) and acommodate the pears beautifully in it.
Then, i always start by mixing the sugar, the butter and the eggs together (don't forget to break the eggs into a separate bowl just to make sure you don't add a rotten egg in the mix), and then i add the two teaspoons of vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl i mix all the solid ingredients, i actually used about 50g of chocolate instead of the above mentioned 25g, the batter should end up looking shiny and soft. I actually added about 6 teaspoons of the juice of the canned pears, because my batter was starting to get really tough to mix, then, i just pour the mix with the help of a spatula on top of the pears and tried to get some batter into the cracks as well.
Finally it's off to the oven. It needs to stay there at 200º for 30 minutes, i kept mine for about 35-40 min and it turned out ok, you don't want the mix to be as cake like, you want to keep it a little unbaked.

final result.:)

The cake mix is really really good. The pears break the sweetness of the doe. I am going to try doing this with pinneapple next, i really love pinneapple so i'm guessing it is going to be extra tasty :)

Uncanny Places by Virgílio Ferreira

This past September 25th, portuguese photographer Virgílio Ferreira won in Braga (Portugal) the 1st edition of the international photography award «Emergentes DST» prized at 7500€.


The body of work of his portfolio «Uncanny Places», was elected by 20 critics, who admired the ability of the author to challenge our usual visual perspective by making double exposure photographs of actions decurring in very small time frames. 
The result are breath takingly beautiful, intricate and fantasy like compositions that go beyond our common knowledge and experience of day to day events.
This is a project the author has been developing since 2007 while on trips around Europe, United States, China and Russia.

 If you wish to read the personal view of the author on the content of his work you can follow the link and while you're at it enjoy some of his other beautiful projects and commissions.

Here are some of  Virgílio Ferreira's Uncanny Places:

wildfox fall 2010 + heritage 1981 fall 2010

so... time to get some dirt on me.
i am a little tv america's next top model junkie.
i have watched a couple of season's and so far my favourite girl to win has been nicole fox. probably 'cause she represents the petite side of modelling or just because of her social awkwardness throughout the show. anyways, i related to her and so every once in a while, i get curious and google her to see what she's been doing.
the latest campaigns (i think) were wildfox and heritage1981 2010 fall collections. both of which i love despite having such different feels.
wildfoxe's tells the tale of three misfit girls who find out they've got magical powers.
heritage1981's bets on the nerdy look, back to school vibe. both are adorable.

here are some shots i chose from both campaigns featuring nicole fox.

Heritage1981 Fall 2010









Wildfox Fall 2010

Wildfox Couture Fall 2010: It's Witchcraft from WILDFOX PR on Vimeo.

if you wanna read the whole story of the lookbook follow the link.

i feel like i'm satan in a sunday hat

school was fun while it lasted. never could say i wasn't a bright student. one of the best at highschool. not the best at uni, but still, good. now that it's all over, my academic persuit (for now) at least, i'm afraid age has made me dumber. like i've lost my balls somehow along the way. maybe it was going to an artsy major. insecurity kicked in.

i used to love looking at photographs. and feeling something. not necessarily knowing what it meant. what it was for. even what was depicted. just experiencing it. apparentely that's not something one learns at school. we are told there are these artists who should matter more to us, educated folks, than those others we see floating around the web. because these artists are really artists, and those others not.
well, i don't fit into the artist type. now what?

yesterday i heard something richard zimmler wrote in one of his books, it goes a little something like this: we spend our lives living in the shadow of the person we could have been.
it's only starting to hit me now, how the choices we make, how the opportunities we don't seize, how the stuff we let pass us by or not ends up creating this weird path there's no turning back from.
the writer continued to say, "i am now a writer, i love my work, i am so grateful, but in truth i could have been a basketball player (he loves it so it seems) and so many other things." he's 54. the same age my mom is. and although she isn't really upset that she chose to live her life to raise her kids, i do feel she has just realised how many things she's missed in her life that she would otherwise have if she didn't gave up her job to raise us, if she'd travelled and mantained a close group of friends and so on.

up until now, my life has been much planned and thought out. i mean, every child is supposed to go to school, and then once we become teenagers we are expected to graduate and until this point it's all great and peachy. it's easy. we know what to do. what to be. then college. that's where things start to go downhill. i got into journalism. i was supposed to love it. i hated it. i've always been more of a dreamer and way more into fiction than reality. guess literature should have been my pick. i thought philosophy. but soon found out it is mostly a bunch of people trying to impose their ideas on others. it's definetely interesting as a solitary ride, but stressing over ego trips isn't an adorable way to spend time. at least not for me. so i stuck to art. a year had passed and i thought... you love to stare at pictures. why not?

Although everything's now a big mess and i just feel like i've gotten out of my higher education with no substancial knowledge to get myself a job, i'm giving it time hoping it will start to feel different in a while. maybe, it's just a phase.

kicking things off with music.