For when I grow up

The end of high school is fast approaching, and with the pressure of college and senior prom it feels like this year will be a blur of emotions. Due to the long list of things I must accomplish in the next 10 months I'm scared of missing the point, of overlooking the important lessons I'll learn along the way. At the risk of sounding like an after school special, I deeply feel like high school has more to offer than beer pong and AP exams. These past three years I've grown more than ever, and it has less to do with my age and more to do with my experiences. I may not be wise or knowledgable or logical, but I do know some things that I don't want to forget when I'm older.

For when you grow up:

- always validate your kids' feelings
- don't succumb to the pressure of age
- talk to your kids about sex (and not just about its dangers)
- watch the news with your kids. read books with them. watch movies with them. do arts and crafts with them. cultivate their interests.
- never call your daughter fat
- DON'T embarrass her in front of her friends
- don't teach her to obey men, and don't teach your son to feel superior to women
- keep in touch with old friends
- sit down to eat with your family every day
- ALWAYS go to your kid's play/game/recital. ALWAYS
- when somebody you love is sad, sit with them and whisper reassuring things until they're happy
- be kind to the kids at school from broken homes
- take baby pictures and take home videos
- just because somebody is feeling a certain way for the wrong reason doesn't mean they aren't feeling it. be there for them.
- never stop learning

back to the future

We tend to have a way of rejecting the recent past. I'm talking about how I'm always tempted to throw out my 9th grade diaries because of how embarrassing they are and how everybody seems to despise the fashion of the early 2000's. But as they say, time heals all wounds, and eventually we begin to see the beauty in all those once-terrible things (hence the popularity of high waisted shorts and the "Sepia" filter on Instagram).
But here is me breaking this cycle and posting outfit pictures that I took a year ago. Voilà, my friend Joyce modeling my clothes in a simple summer outfit. Enjoy!

Joyce is wearing a Zara backless shirt, necklaces from the souvenir store at the Smithsonian, a Caro Cuore bandeau, and shorts and wedges from unknown places

come sail away

It's hard to enjoy high school. It's hard because the C you have on your report card and the fact that everybody else is having sex except for you is terrifying, and it's difficult to see how petty these problems are without a window of time between you and them. Fear of loss dominates the scenery and no matter what direction you go there are road blocks and hidden traps and any of these could prevent you from ever having a worthwhile Future. And it sucks.
But let's forget about all that for a second. Let's just sit, listen to these songs about freedom, dream about summer, and try to forget about high school, even if it is for just 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

San Francisco - The Mowgli's

The Only Place - Best Coast

California Dreamin' - The Mamas and The Papas

Come Sail Away - Styx

Alright - Supergrass

Backstreet Lovers - The Crookes

Spice Up Your Life - Spice Girls

Write a diary, imagining that you are trying to make an old person jealous

I'm in a period of transition in more than one way. I'm about to turn 17, I'm close to the end of my junior year, and my interests are changing by the minute. The one thing I thought I loved more than anything -- fashion -- no longer captivates  me like it used to, and it's scary. My main source of inspiration has evolved from Burberry S/S'13 to Sofia Coppola movies and desert ghost towns, and I don't even know how long these obsessions will last.
So here's what inspires me as of now.

Natalie Pavloski Nails

Miu Miu F'14 RTW (because I still love fashion a little)

Submarine aesthetic

Stereotypical suburbia

 Pretty places

 

(I don't know the sources for these pictures)

//DVF//

         This weekend I decided check out the Diane Von Furstenberg exhibit at the LACMA entitled "Journey of a Dress". It's a fascinating and beautiful celebration of the 40th anniversary of the wrap dress, an item of clothing that revolutionized women's apparel back in the 70's. What made it really interesting to me was the emphasis on the power of clothing to change the lives and customs of women, which is what attracted me to fashion originally.

        My super crappy photography skills unfortunately fail to capture the beauty of the exhibit, but I hope they at least make you want to check it out yourself!

Brandy Melville top, Urban Outfitters jeans and sunglasses, H&M shoes, thrifted jacket and jewelry

 Although this exhibit does a fantastic job in chronicling the impact of fashion on the lives of women, nothing represents the idea better than this film by Miu Miu.

Buy n' Large

Over the winter break my family decided to make a very uncharacteristic spontaneous trip to Sedona, Arizona. I'm not going to pretend like being alone with my family for 4 days with only hiking as a pastime was eye-opening and epiphany-inducing, but some of the places we passed on the way there were lovely.

My favorite part of being on the road was getting to see pure, unfiltered America. I grew up in a very multicultural environment: my parents are from Argentina and never fully assimilated, I go to a French school with an almost completely French curriculum, and most of my friends are foreign in one way or another. I only really know English thanks to the extensive amounts of media I have consumed throughout my life. Consequently, I've lived in the heart of Los Angeles my entire life and I don't know the rules of football, I've never been to Wendy's or Wal-Mart, and I have never seen a real life suburb. I know, it's weird.

This road trip satisfied my obsession with an "In Cold Blood" type of americana and a Virgin Suicides/Edward Scissorhands perfect pastel suburbia.

"The suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out happy lives for themselves."

It does not get any more 'murica than this. I love it.

If this is not the cutest thing you've ever seen, you're lying.

Urban Outfitters jeans, mom's hiking boots, American Vintage flannel, Brandy Melville top, Forever 21 hat

Needless to say, I was feeling very tourist-y, hence the mismatching prints and hiking boots.

P.S. I've discovered that I don't like hiking. It was cold and there was no cell phone reception and the only source of entertainment was my parents (gross, right??).

#newyear #newme

So it's the new year and people are being gripped by a sudden sense of purpose that will ebb away in the next few weeks until the grocery lists go from "kinoa, kale, and Greek yogurt" back to "hot dog buns, Stouffer's, and string cheese". The temporary obsession with self-betterment will inevitably fade after it becomes overshadowed by this thing called real life.
Somebody mentioned to me at a New Year's party how selfish it was to analyze yourself and what you were feeling, which got me thinking a lot about the way I've been living. Yes, I agree, it is self-centered, even conceited to an extent, but isn't it also necessary? As David Foster Wallace put so eloquently in his commencement speech to Kenyon college: "There is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of". I'm not saying that we should only think of ourselves, I'm saying that we should look into ourselves as a means of understanding others, and therefore learning how to cope with whatever life throws at you.

And that was my pretentious philosophical rant of the day. Enjoy these pictures of my BFF Ruby modeling my clothes.

Thrifted jacket and dress

Garage sale necklaces

H&M shoes