Stylin' & Profilin': Ranna

Meet Ranna. She's a twenty-something Scandinavian chick and a freakishly adept thrifter. Her finds are incredibly cool and seamlessly mixed into her well stocked H&M and Topshop wardrobe. She throws in a few designer pieces and snags from her mom's closet for good measure, and documents it all on her blog Only Shallow.

My least favorite thing about the super fashionable is that they often appear completely unapproachable. But, Ranna is cute as a button. She's the type of girl who I'd have no trouble going up to on the street and saying, "Great dress! Where'd you get it?" Although, seeing as how she's a university student in Helsinki, I don't think I'll be bumping into her anytime soon. Fortunately for all of us Stateside, I know exactly where she scored her finds, and we can all buy them ourselves from her Etsy shop. The prices are dreamily reasonable and with what I'll save on airfare to Finland, I can afford a boatload of her cool wear without caring too much about the steeper shipping costs. It's like combing Europe's greatest second-hand stores with an expert guide, all from the comfort of my couch. Thank goddess for the internet.

Make it Big

I had family in town this weekend, and my favorite part of hosting guests in the big city is always the opportunity to see this amazing place with a fresh set of eyes. When I'm with someone who's new to New York the cabs seem faster, the lights look brighter, and the buildings feel taller. One of the tall buildings my Uncle passed prompted a question that I couldn't answer: "Do they really hand paint those huge advertisements on the sides of those big buildings?" I had to admit I wasn't quite sure, and I promised to investigate.

Turns out they do. And by they, I mean the Sky High muralists at old-school outdoor ad company Colossal Media. Yes, they hand paint those multi-story high billboards. Remember when this mammoth Madonna for H&M ad stared down into Soho?

They did that. The process takes about a week of non-stop painting from atop self-constructed scaffolding. The talented painters don safety harnesses and have earned the nickname "wall dogs" for being roped to walls for hours like Lassies on leashes. The company has very successfully revived what was a dying art, and have become the premiere poster painters in America. Many fashion houses have utilized the young, Brooklyn-based company's services to create one of a kind, work of art advertisements. Besides H&M, Diane von Furstenberg and Kenneth Cole have also maximized their exposure with Colossal's help.

Watching these guys work is fascinating, whether it be little by little, witnessing their patience inspiring progress on a daily walk to work, or seeing things sped up in one of the time lapse videos the company posts to their website.

Check out the Sky High team in action:

Impressive, no? Turns out the company also does their part for street art. They were behind the execution of the cheeky New York City Rat murals designed by preeminent street artist Banksy.


Love the tromp l'oeil wall painter in the piece above.

Some hardcore graffiti purists think the co-opting of the art form for commercial purposes is disrespectful to the movement, but I have to say if you're going to shill for the man, why not do it with real talent and incredible craft? The sheer scale of these projects makes them awe-inspiring. The level of detail makes them masterpieces.

Images: ColossalMedia.Net

The Shape of Things

Images: Marcio Madeira for Style.com

Rei Kawakubo's latest show for Comme des Garcons was a love letter to black and white hexagons. Maybe she's a secretly huge soccer fan, or perhaps she's trying to reach that coveted goth-glam-football-hooligan demographic. Whatever the reason for the shapes, she certainly made them her own.

Ms. Kawakubo's work for Comme des Garcons is always something of a phenomenon. It is usually shocking in its unique way, but her vision always seems to filter into other collections a season or two later, and ripple on down until every girl in Forever 21 has an outfit on that somehow quotes Kawakubo. In fact, you too can have your very own Comme clothes when Rei teams up with H&M and takes over the duty of translating her fashion for the masses herself.

Images: Courtesy Nitrolicious.com

This collection WILL sell out like Japanese hotcakes so you better go line up now for the November release. I'll see you there.

One More NY Note

Now that we are thoroughly enmeshed in the craze of future Spring looks, Fall has arrived in real time and it's time to do some shopping. As a Jersey Girl, I was raised in malls. Now that New York is my stomping and shopping ground, I've discovered that there are certain blocks that can provide the same one-stop-shop experience (minus a few of the perks like climate control, easily accessible restrooms, a centralized food court, and mall walkers).


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My favorite mall-like shopping stretch in the big city is 5th Avenue between 15th and 19th streets. This is where the practically priced looks live. You've got Anthropologie, Banana Republic, Free People, H&M, Gap, J.Crew, Zara, and a slew of other reasonable retailers at your disposal. I have a pretty good hunch that this is where the Village Voice's excellent, eccentric fashion writer Lynn Yaeger did her research for this recent article. It is a well-written summary of the above mentioned stores' fall offerings. Print it out and take it with you as you follow the Google Brick Road.

As long as you are in the area, if you take 17th street and head west towards 7th Avenue, you walk through the best two block stretch of vintage stores in Manhattan (don't miss Housing Works Thrift Shop) and wind up at Loehmann's, every patient shopper's best friend.