rodarte barrettes

i could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me.

"Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves?

Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds?

You laughed as I covered you over with leaves

Face, breast, hips, and thighs

You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine

Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled wood vines twine

Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see

I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky

Your fingers played with grassy moss, as limber you did lie

Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air

Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they

As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away

The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below

Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned

Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned

There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why

The people laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown

Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown

Your shape and form is dim but plain, there on our mountain bed

I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head...

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams

To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas

I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land

And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears

I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here

My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain

Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.

All this day long I linger here and on in through the night

My greeds, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight:

My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain

Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again"

-billy bragg & wilco

one of my favorite songs ever. everything about it is just beautiful.

i'm spending the last week of my spring break in new jersey, starting tomorrow! my break technically began on tuesday (my finals ended then) but my brother, his wife and my nieces visited over the weekend. it was so nice to have them here and spend time with them. on monday, my boyfriend came to georgia to stay with me for the week and left this morning. the actual only negative part about our long distance relationship (aside from the distance) is the tease of having the best time doing anything together for days and then having to say goodbye for weeks/months. this situation is temporary and we're getting through it. i just love him.

everything felt like a little vacation and it was one of the best weeks ever. i'm sad it's over, i hate goodbyes and I need to get out of savannah for a bit so i cant wait to be home.

i love this.

dinosaurs

"Long time fashion writer Colin McDowell says that fashion and couture are “adrift and lost” today and yearns for the days of Diana Vreeland." - fashionista.com regarding this article.

Of course Colin McDowell would say that because he's an old man who is yearning for a time when he knew what he was talking about. Fashion is always changing. It's constantly progressing. Some things work, some things don't. Let's keep it moving. You can't sit around and whine about missing the past when you are in fashion. I'm a naive fashion student and even I know that the business is all about looking ahead, figuring out what's next and keeping the past in mind but never wishing for it. It's about the future. The industry depends on the next best thing, not the old dusty idea in the corner.

I'm tired of the old generation that can't keep up and since they don't understand it (whether it be social media, bloggers, or these crazy new fangled gosh darn designs that don't appeal to 75 year old Park Avenue Grandmothers), they criticize it. Go away. Of course there are people working in the industry that have been around for years and still get it. With the progression of technology, it's now easy for people who have valid opinions and a passion for fashion and an eye for it to truly make their mark without being in a stuffy office in a $4,000 suit. Like the world surrounding it, the fashion industry is CHANGING.

These people can't stand it because it's slowly sweeping them out. This is a different world than the world Diana Vreeland lived in, you can't even compare the two. Frankly I think the people who can't keep up, (like Colin McDowell and many others who release statements like this all the time) should not even be relevant right now. Case closed. Go retire with your millions and step off your soap box.

xoxo

I've always loved Emmanuelle Alt (who is now editor in chief at French Vogue) but these photos made me love her even more.

KAM

On January 18th, 2011, my 14 year old cousin Kameron took his own life. Unfortunately, he is not the first person that I have known to commit suicide but it is the first time suicide touched mine & my family's lives in such a close and real way. My heart broke upon hearing the news and still breaks, especially for my aunt,uncle and two cousins that live every single day without seeing their precious son/brother. The thought that keeps running through my head when I think about Kameron and what happened is "I wish everyone could have told him that it gets better." We all know that when you're 14, life can seem so much worse than it is.

Kameron dealt with bullies in school, which is something that I dealt with when I was his age. There was a point in my life when I was in 5th, 6th and 7th grade, when things started to get awkward and confusing and I was constantly being picked on (like so many others are) and the thought of taking my own life ran through my head a lot. My parents were going through a divorce, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and a couple of other issues were going on at home. And although I had love from my family and at home, all I wanted was a little escape when I entered the doors at school. However, an escape is exactly what I didn't have. It was pure hell at times. And if felt that life was never going to get better, but of course it did.

When you're young and just starting to deal with the not-so-perfect realities of life, everything seems 10 times worse. The last thing you want is a bunch of kids picking on you when you just want to feel accepted by someone because sometimes it's hard to even accept yourself.

When I found out that he was going through these things, my heart broke even more because I had been there too. I at one point felt what he was feeling and I wish I could have somehow told him "this sucks but it's going to stop soon and life is going to start." There is a light at the end of every tunnel. Because there are going to be dark times when you're 14, when you're 22 when you're 55. There will always be dark times but it will always get better. Sometimes those bullying stories that were once the source of so much pain can actually turn into good (and sometimes funny) stories 10 years later when sitting around with friends. As you grow older, you learn that a lot of people went through it too. It feels less weird and scary. But at the time, it's the worst thing in the world.

I will always remember Kameron as a very calm, gentle, handsome and quiet boy. Never once demanding any type of attention or causing any type of trouble. Not only did my family lose an amazing person, but the entire world lost one too. This just shouldn't happen.

In life, there are going to be bullies every single day in some way or another until you're old and gray. People are going to want to push you down, and perhaps you yourself may have pushed people down along the way without even realizing it. Feeling bullied is not something that just 14 year olds face, however being that young means not being prepared to deal with the emotional stress of feeling bullied. This is when parents/teachers/peers need to step in to stop this, or atleast recognize it in schools so no one has to live through hell in the hallways.

So in an effort to raise awareness and pay tribute to Kameron's life, my family has founded Kindness Above Malice or KAM- a foundation with a mission to affirm individual students that have raised the self esteem of another person, thereby preventing the injury that results from bullying. If you'd like to learn more about KAM and find out how you can help, please head over to the website here and follow on twitter.

mcqueen.

Paris fashion week, you are giving me goosebumps every day. That's for sure. Alexander McQueen's collection from today is absolutely amazing. The dominatrix feel in the beginning of the collection combined with the angelic virginal white toward the middle and how the two collide at the end , the over the top fur, the intricate detailing, the mix of textures, the shoes? No one can fully replace Alexander McQueen's vision and talent but Sarah Burton is doing an amazing job if you ask me.