J'adore

Dudes and dudettes, check out these fab Sonia Rykiel mocassins I just saw on Jalouse.

 "I WANT IT ALL
I WANT IT AAAALL
I WANT IT AAAAAALL
 I WANT IT NOW"

Tattoos

I got my third tattoo last saturday. (I got it done at 10am - I had no idea it was possible to schedule an appointment for a tattoo  at 10 am at Lisbon's most bohemian neighborhood, but it just so happened that my super cool tattoo artist was an early bird.)

Here it is. It says 'Made in Portugal', like those scratchy little tags inside our clothes. It's got to do with my work and with my personal life, of course. But more on that some other time.

I had my Roy Lichtenstein yellow brushstroke (below) done at the same place last year, so as to mark a defining time in my life, as well as in order to manifest my endless admiration for this brilliant artist, of course, and last but not least, with the grand purpose of having such an interesting, conceptually charged image painted on me forever.

This brushstroke tattoo happened 10 years after my first one, which I somehow managed to convince my parents  into letting me do at age 17. Main argument: my brothers have tattoos, why can't I? I was a bona fide metalhead at the time and decided to express my love for my music via - thank the lordy - something simple and graphic: a stylized lightning bolt à la AC/DC. Dumb as I was at the time, I'm totally patting myself on the back for averting a disaster. Well done, kid.

I love the idea of tattoos but I am very fussy about which tattoos I like, though. I dislike both huge designs and the micro tats that are so fashionable these days, which seem just a bit too decorative to me sometimes. And I think tattoos can be perfectly chic, too. Take those lovely Valentino adverts, for instance, featuring photographer Terry Richardson's heavily tattoed arms. I LOVED these adverts at the first milisecond I looked at them because of the cool way in which they mix luxury with something usually perceived as subversive and underground. Who in this day and age is still one-dimensional anyway? In fact, I love showing mine off with girly outfits. 

I really like seeing mine when I wear girly clothes and jewelry, like pearls and stuff like that. It's like they can just neutralize the snobbery of chic and balance the bimbo out of girly, which is just what I can't stand. What's the point of living a good life if you're removed from the intensity of the real world? It's like accepting that we are not meant to last forever (so what's the point of being so precious?), yet, at the same time, recognizing in a tattoo a very serious manifesto of personal taste. 

Am I careless about the inevitability of aging? I'd say the money I spend at Kiehl's suggests otherwise! How will my tattoos look when I'm 70? Not too bad I hope, but I don't ever want to be a person with nothing to say. Not now and certainly not in 40 or 50 years.

Anyway, I gathered a few images of people with interesting styles and tattoos. Here they are:

 (image above sourced from garancedore.fr)

And my favourite, Alice Dellal: 

star of my favourite Chanel adverts: 

Eureka!

It should come as no surprise that we all oggle the Valentinos, the Saint Laurents and those irresistible red soles - they are impeccably designed. These brands consistently manage to come out in the most inspiring colours and innovative shapes, making us dream with nostalgia or fastforwarding us into the future. Ah, those frenchies and italianos, masters in the art of shoemaking, right? We, on the other hand, in my native Portugal, were never too keen on design but had craftsmanship as a proper tradition, to an extent where it become the backbone of a vast industrial capacity.

It's great to see a Portuguese brand such as Eureka put such exciting designs out there. I don't think their collections are entirely a hit, though; they seem to be searching for an identity or creative direction but whoever's in charge isn't scared of bold decisions or of making mistakes. I really liked walking into one of their boutiques; I wasn't expecting so many good surprises.

These were the first one; got myself these mofos as a present for myself this Christmas:

They kind of look like Vans, only with fancier materials rather than the usual canvas - suede and pony hair. Because of the whole grown-up, ton sur ton look of this shoe, I tend to wear mine with a variety of silly socks - ya know, polka dots, stripes, glittery ones, you name it. 

These puppies are now on sale: they're 79,99€, which is pretty good for a pair of impeccable shoes ethically made in Portugal. 

Then I went on http://www.eurekashoes.com/ to see once again what else I dribbled over when I checked their boutique in Braga. Check it out:

So ninja, right?

And I also liked these pristine white wedges (below). I love their unfinished appearance, kind of like as if a prototype was sent out the factory by mistake or something. But I would totally get it if people found them gross because they look like nurse shoes, only this would be the shoe of a nurse who's got one leg much shorter than the other, this being the shoe she wears on the tiny leg's foot. Only I don't see it that way!

Yet, I think I preferred the Eureka version before I realized they reminded me of the Chloé wedges below:

     

This is just a better take on the deck shoe, after all.  It just has a more positive resonance. It's not as chunky and it's much more feminine and delicate, and I do prefer a bit of detail here and there rather than the dry, unfinished, prototypey look. Still, kudos to Eureka for going down that road, I think. 

I hesitated between these and the grey ones I ended up getting because I am a sucker for the super modern look of these bad boys. I know, I know, these look like something Kanye West would wear. But look at this shoe; forget its functionality for a second and just enjoy the whiteness, imagine how soft that leather is, and the pony hair in that yummy honey colour. What a great object to look at. Plus they're slip-ons. 

Having just said I like most of the Eureka shoes for being so fresh and futuristic, these ones I dig for looking so nostalgic. Yet, the metallic heel sucks them right back into the 21st century. Not to mention the contrasting toe cap is très Chanel, dahlin.

Most of the Eureka shoes come in different colour combinations, so there really are loads of great options and you do get excellent value for money, I think. Another thumbs-up goes to super friendly boutique staff.

What I don't find as interesting, but to be honest, only relatively important, is the odd blatant copy:

Like these 2013 Eureka by Filipe Sousa oxfords (above)

...identical to Prada's 2012 Fall/Winter ones (above). But hey, who doesn't love Prada, right? I just think Eureka's original stuff is far more exciting than these two years old copies anyway. I am definitely keeping my eye on this brand, as the prices are decent, quality is superb and they are both stylish and really, really comfy. 

Nicely done! :)

Shoes! Music! Poneys!

Despite boiling with excitement about the good online sales, I never ever buy anything on there either because my size is out of stock, or because when they have my size I never think the price's gone down enough. Or, hypothesis c) the post-Christmas capital shortage I always seem to be affected by. Anyway, I was looking through net-a-porter and mytheresa.com and decided to just pick stuff that I'd buy if price and size weren't an issue. You know, as if I lived in Dreamsville and rode my poney to work everyday, only everyday was saturday so I never had to work.

Since this was hypothetical anyway, I threw in some music too. Basically, I have no idea what this post is about. Consider yourself warned:

From top left, clockwise: those yellow and nude Nike Air Max got me thinking of Donovan's 'they call me mellow yellow' (that's right!) - sooooo chilled out -.  while Simone Rocha's patent pale pink brogues with a clear heel somehow brought up the melancholy in John Grant's music, which, apart from his refined humor, is really what I like most about his songs.

There's something so light, so immaterial and conceptual about these shoes, that I find irresistibly captivating - kind of like a shy person sitting in a corner that you can't stop looking at. I love how they sort of emulate this idea of nothingness and abstraction. You look at them and you go 'MEH!', but in a great way! Then,  on the absolute other end of the spectrum, and because my eye usually prefers to wander towards the shiny stuff (it's the diva in me, but don't be fooled by the rocks that I've got, I'm still - I'm still Jenny from the block), I had to pick the Saint Laurent chelsea boots and those  mega sexy Alexander McQueen's ankle boots; to me they both evoke sexy guitar riffs like the ones  following the chorus in 'Gold on the Ceiling' by The Black Keys.

Listen, if you have no desire to dance on top of a table and rip your clothes off when you listen to this you better go get your head checked. Your soul may have escaped through one of your head holes.

Then on a blend of rock and mellow notes, or as I would call it, the best of both worlds, you have the Fendi sandals, which somehow even manage add a layer of retro to the equation. I love them. Again, switching to music, not many other could tie up all this referential mess together like David Bowie.

Which is also why you have those super duper cool Nicholas Kirkwood slippers up there. How crazy are they? There's no explanation for those. They are just retrofuturistic perfection (like David Bowie!),  a sculptural shoe reminiscent of the optic 60's, resemblig something that I'd want to admire on my shelf or hang on my wall rather than wear on my feet. Every single aspect of this shoe is unexpected and incongruent, which is why I like it so very much. Again, like David Bowie. PRESS PLAY!

Woman-repeller

I'm on this lovely beach holiday at the moment, and you know how laying under the sun surrounded by practically naked people is bound to make you both contemplative and speculative. So, after observing far too many peculiar specimens, I realized there is this one look that is just the biggest turn off of all, and I mean the look no man on earth (no matter how fit and hot and gorgeous) could ever pull off; this is the T-SHIRT + SPEEDOS + nothing else look. 

I just want to go up to them and say 'pardon me good sir, but do you know who you look like in your stupid t-shirt and speedos??' 

Yep. 

With the ever so slight anatomical difference that perhaps your package is... well, um - peeking?