My Tokyo: A Fashion and Design Shopping Guide

My Tokyo: A Fashion and Design Shopping Guide

Ok so Tokyo isn't actually mine. But this little project is.

 
When I came back from Tokyo last October I found I was completely exhilarated and exhausted by my shopping ventures throughout the city. I shopped so hard I ended up hiring a bicycle since my ankles more or less gave out. I spent all my money and ended up madly transferring from other savings accounts, then just making do with window shopping. I went to so many galleries and design centres that my eyes started to ache from all the looking I was doing, and I wondered if I needed to get my eyes checked. And when I arrived back in Sydney I thought - surely I can share this joy with everyone else! So I am!

My Tokyo is a guide to some of the most unique fashion and design shops in Tokyo. And yes, there are stacks of them. Did I not mention my ankle failure? It's a positively marvellous city to shop in. I've visited, reviewed and mapped everything out so after you get off the plane and dump your empty suitcase, you can head off (wallet in hand) to the best shopping districts and blissfully wander in and out of whatever stores take your fancy.

The guide in its zine form is now sold out (sorry!), but it will soon be gracing the screens of your iPads in its finalemente form - an app! App app hooray!

Enjoy, and be prepared to spend hard. Don't say I didn't warn you.

E.

Nice Legs, Shame About Her Face

Nice Legs, Shame About Her Face

Just a bit of lovely legwear that has caught my eye recently. Reject plain legs!

These epic Space Print leggings are by KTZ via Bitching & Junkfood (a personal favourite for leggy purchases)

 Basso and Brooke's digital print explosion strikes again, on some tights.

A/W 10/11 via WGSN

The very cute En Piste by Les Queues de Sardines.

La Palangre by Les Queues de Sardines. 

Wouldn't the design make a great tattoo? Go on, I double-dare you.

Shabd do tie-dye right with their Aurora tights.

I have a huge crush on these stunning art deco print tights.

Holly Fulton A/W 10/11 via WGSN.

Gorgeous icy blues by House of Holland, via WGSN.

 If you haven't already visited Patternity, there's a hole in your life waiting to be filled by it.

I'm waiting patiently for my pair to arrive, and already I'm dreading the day I put a huge snag in them.

Sarah Clarke's mesh leggings via Bitching & Junkfood. They were also available in the reverse colourway, but no dice! Sold out.

Fishy fishy? Scaley tights by Gal Stern from B & J.

Cavern Collection's awesome vivid yellow leggings.

Luxe gold devoré by Vivienne Westwood, via WGSN.

More tie-dye by Shabd.

E.

Miami Art Deco

Miami Art Deco

 Above images via Bolli Laurent

Above images via Geoff Goddard

Image via Murray Cox

I've never been to the US, and if/when I do eventually go I'm not sure Florida would be the first destination on my list. That was before I saw the photos two of my good friends took of the wonderful, sugary art deco buildings at Miami Beach. I'm smitten! I love art deco architecture, and in these ice-cream colours and beachside surrounds...well, it's kind of making me wish it was summer right now. And I was living in one of these gorgeous buildings.

E.

1LDK S/S 10

1LDK S/S 10

 

I love this austere, elegant photo shoot for Japanese men's fashion label 1LDK. Photography is by Takashi Kamei.

E.

Jamie Lidell: Compass

Jamie Lidell: Compass

This guy. Now this guy can sing.

I've been meaning to write up Jamie Lidell's latest album Compass for a couple of weeks now, and I've finally managed to take the damn thing off repeat so I can sit down and do exactly that.

This is by far the biggest, gutsiest album the British soul singer has released to date. It stomps all over his previous (and also fantastic) albums, the sweet Motown sound of 2008's Jim and the more playful funk of his first album Multiply. The amount of genres fed into this work is astounding, yet Lidell manages to pull them all together in his experimental jam session sort of way. He swings with ease from raw, bassy beat-boxing rhythms in Completely Exposed to channelling the smoothest of Prince-like vocals in She Needs Me and It's a Kiss, and offering up one of the most stripped down, perfect soul songs I've heard in a while with I Can Love Again.  You can sort of tell when a singer has found the love of his life and then written an album, can't you?

All photos via Jamie Lidell

He collaborated with a handful of musicians to produce the album including Feist, Chris Taylor (of Grizzly Bear) and most notably Beck, whose swampy blues sounds and eerie harmonies are clearly evident in some of the tracks. Even if Compass seems entirely genre-bending though, it is Lidell's incredible, warm voice that knots the album together.

The video for the title track The Ring is hilarious, and within the first 5 seconds of watching/listening I was pre-ordering the album. Lidell is a man slowly going mad on a beach searching for the ring that belonged to a woman he's not even sure existed. Tough day.

And please, for the love of god, watch this video. Jamie and his mates walk around the streets of Paris banging out tunes on all matter of improvised instruments. It's positively heart-warming. At least watch until the kid tries to kick a football into their giant cowbell.

A little odd, a little brilliant.

E.

Colour Splash

Colour Splash

Federico Herrero via Artnet

Rubber hooks by Gaku Otomo via Stilsucht

Kilim print fabric from Cocca

Cross-stitch watches from Cocca

Yukari Hotta's Kile Shelving via Materialicious

Kago bag from Cocca

Origami tiles by Lubna Chowdhary

Shelving by Francis Cayouette

Bags from Quico

Litho print by Tim Fishlock

Martha Friedman via WGSN

Just a little colour post...things that have caught my eye lately.

Do you know about Colourlovers? It's the perfect little tool for those of us who see colour and not much else. You can build your own palettes and browse through hundreds of colour schemes created by other colour fanatics. Needless to say, as a colour junkie I'm completely obsessed already. I'm going to start uploading palettes that I've put together relating to blog posts, designs I'm working on or just whatever has been inspiring me lately - all downloadable and free to use! So if you see a colour theme appearing in my blog, it will probably be up on Colourlovers. You can find my profile here:

C & T on Colourlovers

The first few palettes of mine are inspired by this very blog post!

Enjoy, my colourful friends. I promise I'll try not to use too much morange (no guarantees!)

E.