modern women

Greta and John in "Flesh and the Devil."
Modern Romance!
Vena Cava Spring 010. Thank you!
Modern midriff!
Bernard Frize. Not a woman. Just awesome.
Modern modern!
Renee Perle in net, nails, and tee. 1930s
Modern makeup!
AH by Bob Willoughby in all red, a la Celine. 1950s/60s
Modern movie star!

This is a silly post!

press mute


Marc Jacobs's colors for Spring 2011.
Yippee!

Call it a come back, k


Hello Hello and welcome back, loyal Reader!
It's been a long time,
and so much has happened in my blog absence.
Moved to California,
got a job,
working,
living together,
family time,
trees and lakes and friends!

And the first Vena Cava show I haven't seen in five years,
and, like every season, it's my favorite!!!

Notes on Tone, back in Business!!

awesome


it's going great.
beautiful new house,
lovely new neighbor,
and a cat named jesse james.
yay!!

Just a few more days...

!
Till we move into our adorable new Silverlake house!!!
Hopefully it will be as wonderful and cozy as this!

The Feast has moved

Moving back to LA from New York terrified me for a few reasons,
but one of the most dire was "there's nothing to eat in LA!!"

I am relieved to report that I was so wrong! I am loving it back here in LA.
We've gone exploring in Malibu (dead seal beach), eating thai food and mexican food and korean food, and sandwiches plus I've been cooking and cooking like it's my job. Perhaps it should be my job!

A list to prove the joys of LA in under a month of living here:

1. Lemons everywhere! I've made basil lemonade, lemon gelato, lemon pasta and lemon curd. Next on the list: madeleines (my favorite recipe). Another stroke of genius - take your homemade lemon curd and put it into your favorite plain yogurt and stir. Add some walnuts for texture...and delicious!!!


2. Thai food: I was lamenting the loss of proximity to Sripraphai in Queens...but then I remembered Jitlada! Their morning glory salad may not be as delicate as Sripraphais. Maybe the quality has gone down a bit with their popularity, but whatever! It's still delicious and spicy hot and slow burning and great.
Love their veggie red curry and the crying tiger beef salad. Mmm.

3. Korean food: this is a cuisine I thought I loved, but I don't.

4. The garden: tomatoes and strawberries, three types of basil, brussels sprouts and squashes, apples, oranges, lemons, and beets. Yes Yes Yes!

These pictures are not, unfortunately, of my own garden
but of the expansive gardens of a villa in Athens we stayed in this past spring.


get a ropey

Before I left New York my lovely and wonderful roommate, Dena, gave me some hair products that weren't working for her. She favors a sleek and straight look while I am lazy and let my curly hair look like the pile of dried up tomato vines I cut out of the garden this morning.
UNTIL NOW! I have discovered the way to the ropey, lanky locks I've been searching for since my hair was long enough to look like a disaster.
Sally Hersheberger has the answer. I'm not the hugest fan of S.H. since I stopped going to her incredibly expensive, poorly lit and obnoxious salon on 14th Street. I couldn't handle it there. But I can handle this stuff! And it's under $20 which is so exciting (take that Frederic Fekkai!).
Even my mother comments on how good my hair looks these days.


(Images from sallyhershberger.com)

beauty things


style.com has a great feature on beauty bloggers today.
Oh man I can't wait to go out and get some new products.
There are some really good ones in this list!!!
Check it out!



Hi Cate Blanchett, looking perfect as usual.


la la la los angeles

Back in LA it's time to reassess the wardrobe rules.
LA is faaaar more casual and laid back than New York,
as we all know.
So all my lovely silk dresses, black ensembles and lacy Mayle frocks are all a wee bit over the top.
I put something on and people ask if I'm going to court.
Here are some fun things from recent resort collections that will be perfect for la:

Vena Cava
Prouenza Schouler
Celine
Viva Vena by Vena Cava
Celine- color and movement!!


three sisters




Images from Woody Allen's 'Interiors.'
Between this and 'Hannah and her Sisters' he captures moments between trios of sisters that show this complicated and fraught relationship from very relatable angles. Especially if you have two sisters.

100th post

poppies in massachusetts.

coming back atcha

And we're back!
Have just packed up all few belongs we have and are moving back to California today.
Just up in Providence for a few days
Eating fried clams and pruning the roses and emailing under a 200 year old Japanese Beech tree.


Here's some things we've been up to:






















Parting is such sweet sorrow...

I'm off on adventure! Be back in a few weeks. Thanks for checking in on these Notes.

girls with curly hair

vanessa paradis

remember this face??

shalom harlow
marion cotillard

gotta get you into my life

Who couldn't do without a shot of color from Tucker?


The fearless one


Every girl who has a fashion blog does some kind of Chanel quote/image thingy.

Here's mine. I must always be typical, you know.

I admire her not just for her talents or her style but for her fearlessness. She truly did her own thing, didn't give a fuck who knew or who cared. She had a vision and went straight for it no matter what. She didn't give a fig about being a wife or a mother, being a lawyer or a doctor, having the latest thing or being the latest thing. She cared about love, about clothes, about living life. And she was a riotous success. The movies with all their production and care can not capture that. People are always wondering things like 'why ees thee french girl always zo sheek?' what ees thees jay nay say qua?? Chanel is the first Parisienne, the one that all other Paris girls model themselves on whether they know it or not. I believe that if you truly want to have a french style then follow Chanel's dictums and life. You don't need Chanel to be chic or elegant or beautiful. She didn't have Chanel when she started out. She only had herself, and look how hot she was, always, throughout her life.

It's just that she was, and is, right and no one else is saying what she said. Moreover, no one is listening to what she said or what she did. We like how she looks and praise her for her accomplishments (and ignore that she dated a nazi), but she knew how to dress women and how a woman should dress, and most importantly she knew how to live and to get what she wanted without compromising herself.


1. A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous.”

2. “How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.”

3.“"The best color in the whole world, is the one that looks good, on you!”

4. “A woman is closest to being naked when she is well dressed”
5. “I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.”

#5 (in more ways than one) is my favorite and something that gets me going in the morning. I once worked with a wise woman named Elaine and she'd walk around, mother-hen like, around the bustling advertising agency and if she saw a woman without lipstick she'd bark at her and say "you never know who's going to walk in here!" She was right. You never knew who would walk in there.

6. Elegance does not consist in putting on a new dress

7. Elegance is refusal.

8. Jump out the window if you are the object of passion. Flee it if you feel it. Passion goes, boredom remains.

9. Look for the woman in the dress. If there is no woman, there is no dress.

10. Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.

#10-Vogue should listen to this one!



Pretty in pink


The other Westminster competition. They do it for the attention.