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Tamu McPherson

Ramona_Canino — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:12:50 +0000

As a veteran fashion stylist, I often feel that those behind the camera are as interesting a subject as the ones typically in front. Like Tamu, those in the background can often be the ones who have not spent a lifetime prepping to be in the limelight, and, as a result, have an unrehearsed charm and natural self expression that is so much more intoxicating than something staged. It isn’t the mint cable sweater and royal skinny jean that makes Tamu, it is Tamu that makes the clean and colorful sweater and jeans right. We don’t need corporations to tell us what is “in,” when inspiring and independent minded people like Tamu are so in touch with making clothing and trends their own. I take notice of her innovative white shirt buttoned to the collar with a floral, slit pencil skirt, yellow socks and her favorite kitten heel, pointy sling backs, as much as the fact that she has a law and business degree, a son, a successful street style blog (one of my absolute favorites), and has also moved to Italy, learned the language, and is now the Editor in Chief job at Grazia in Milan. Let’s just say, while Tamu has a crush on the styles of her unique street subjects, I have a crush on hers– it’s a win win for the new, fluid and creative way fashion is being consumed.

Visit Tamu’s blog, All The Pretty Birds.

If you love Tamu, you may also like Rashida Robinson, Gloria Baume and Alesssandra Calabi.

Tarajia Morrell

Ramona_Canino — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 22:43:54 +0000

Tarajia was scouted by DJ Louie XIV and then intern Matt Jacobs at a Charlotte Ronson event, way back in our first year. Unfortunately for Tarajia, one look at how chic she makes a breton and cut off jeans and I was determined to do this feature on her, despite her shyness. I discovered that Tarajia’s mother is her biggest role model for how effortless she is, “even when she is coming in from the garden with dirt on her knees she looks elegant,” Tarajia states. Walking into Tarajia’s world has that same type of polished, without trying, feel. Her home in Brooklyn looks like it is the chicest of barns in upstate New York (where she spent a lot of her childhood) and her dog sleeps on a fisherman knit cardigan. Tarajia’s black metallic cut off Geoffrey Beene 60′s dress, made out of something akin to astroturf, on her looks dignified with the help of some patent Louboutin pumps.

Transporting herself through the romance of tradition is what captivates Tarajia. She gets dressed up at her vanity to go out at night (even if just a date with her boyfriend) and warms plates in the oven for a dinner party, like her mother did. You can see the thread of classicism in everything Tarajia wears and does, from the quintessential Chanel blazer that she wears with the perfect vintage YSL satin shoes with bows, to her obsession with cooking, turbans, old china, fish from the fish market (not the grocery store) and her layers of heirloom rings. She doesn’t get rid of anything, because everything old becomes new again, she feels, so Tarajia remains relevant in a Giorgio di Sant’Angelo knit dress from the 70′s worn with Margiela boots. Like food, Tarajia believes that clothes are emotional and the common denominator between everyone.

Check out Tarajia’s blog, The Lovage.

If you love Tarajia, you may also like Tamara Lowe, Alexandria Hilfiger and Elisa Lempicka.

Tavi Gevinson

Ramona_Canino — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:02:46 +0000

Fashion gives one the ability to feel like someone else or to internalize all the things one really loves so that they can feel exactly themselves, Tavi says. Unfortunately, to be so unapologetically original and unconcerned with being beautiful, in the hyper-sexualized world of junior high school, is typically met with fearful disdain by one’s peers. This marginalization was at least the case for Tavi, at age 13, when she first found her voice and a large following of those also disenfranchised by conformity, looking to Tavi for her bold freedom and self expression on her blog, Stylerookie. While being taunted for wearing a curtain to school, Tavi found dressing to be magical, as she layered patterns and bows, with an acute sense of color, texture, and a passion for the sophisticated, artful designs of Rei Kawakubo. But after having the guts, imagination and intelligence to rise above the riff raff of mediocrity on the internet, Tavi faced a similar magnitude of exclusion by fashion’s reigning Queen Bee, Anna Wintour, when she earned the invitation to sit front row at fashion week. Dissappointed by the pretension that burst her fashion fantasy bubble, but not disheartened, Tavi now looks to mentors like performance artist Miranda July, who are interested in listening to and learning from every individual and who do not write anyone off based on superficial judgements.

Today, Tavi is 15 years old, and is as disinterested as ever in competing with fashion’s “popular kids.” Instead, she has found her own ranks as the editor and founder of Rookie Magazine, a media platform for teenage girls. While the lingering model of fashion magazines emphasizes chic as “sexy,” as in Disney’s manufacturing of pop stars like Miley Cyrus, Tavi is all about enlightening her viewers to those like comedian and author, David Sedaris, who admires Japanese designers for removing sex from clothing. While “oddball” is in and everyone is now dressing in cute, granny, vintage dresses, Tavi is not afraid to admit that she wants to be pretty at this age, but does so in the most original and unconventional sense. Her LA “tacky outfit,” as she calls it, reminds her of the psychics and pastels in the City of Angels, and is comprised of an off white cotton skirt from her childhood dress-up box, a vintage bright colored 60′s printed top, gold D & G platforms, and a crown that is made out of little houses that she got from a joke store. Tavi’s notoriety for pushing the boundaries, no matter the norm, has made her “that girl” to many, but she is all too knowing and grounded to think that “that girl” really exists. Whoever your “that girl” is for you, “she” has another girl that she looks up to too, Tavi points out.

Passionate about connecting to the world through her possessions, Tavi says that for everything that she wears, there are a million different associations and cultural influences. Her “perfect” black, Wednesday Addams vintage dress is worn with cobweb wool tights by her favorite designer, Rodarte, and a headband of pink flowers that makes Tavi think of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Her most coveted witch-hearted Meadham Kerchhoff sweater is taken from her favorite Hole album art and is worn with a thrifted cheerleading skirt that reminds her of the 50′s references in John Waters’ movies and is accentuated by her black lipstick, which Tavi wears to explore a different side of her attractiveness. Tavi’s acute perceptions can be seen in how she aesthetically catalogues her things, including everything in her packed-full room, which alludes to ideas like the creepiness of Disney, the fantasy of Lux Lisbon in The Virgin Suicides, and her nostalgia for when fashion was still magical to her, as represented in the Lula magazines on her shelves.

Seeing the world through Tavi’s unusually attuned vision is refreshing and illuminating, whether she is pointing out her shock after confronting the sullen faces in the front row at NYFW or her honesty about sitting at home on a friday night eating a box of Triscuits and watching a movie. The way in which Tavi has organized her vision of the world through her blog, outfits, enviornment and diaries might best be presented as a movie, she claims. Stay tuned, today’s black sheep of the fashion establishment will be the next generation’s Woody Allen. Power to the people (and the internet).

If you love Tavi, you may also like Lori Goldstein, Annakim Violette and Ally McCormack.

Addictions: Shoes

Ramona_Canino — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:00:05 +0000

Carrie Bradshaw and her comrades may have fostered the idea that shoes are a girls best friend, but actually shoes are just as important, if not a more, as an accessory for men. Indeed, while menswear on the whole tends to be simpler than women’s, shoes can serve as an integral way for men to express their personal style. Wingtips, boat shoes, moccasins, sneakers, and the list goes on and on, the adage that you can judge a man by how he adorns his feet can oftentimes ring very true. In this edition of StyleLikeU “Addictions” Jace shows his enviable and diverse collection of footwear, walks us through why each pair is important and proves once and for all that having a fanatic shoe obsession is certainly not a hobby reserved for females. Watch more to the left.

You can find Jace’s blog here.

Wandie Kabule

Ramona_Canino — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:30:33 +0000

I’m a secret admirer of the classics, and wish I could look as striking as Wandie does in Marc Jacobs’s understated take on a sweatshirt-as-sweater, vintage Sonia Rykiel trousers and Bally loafers. It would take her extraordinary and exotic good looks to make “clean” so memorable– but how Wandie embodies her frocks and her life has as much to do with being an outsider early on (and learning, quickly, how to be her own person) as it does her bone structure. Born in Zambia only to find herself in Orange County at six years old was a huge culture shock, starting with packaged Lunchables and leading up to finding herself two years ahead of her peers in education – and, thus, two years behind the rest of the kids in her class in age. “Elementary school taught me how to deal with people and how to be my own person. It was hard being teased for being who you are, and for where you are from.”

Comfortable in herself — tailored but not uptight — in an American Apparel tanktop and Opening Ceremony trousers, Wandie finds being alone, even while traveling, a luxury. Autonomy is a constant theme in her life. She produced an independent feature film in the past year that was inspired by the work of British director Mike Leigh and his method of creating characters and a story from the ground up. Wandie’s mom, a great source of strength for her, brought individual fruit cups made up of watermelon, kiwi, and pomegranate to everyone on the set on the first day of filming. Behind her oversized Karen Walker sunglasses and glamorous, very “LA” vintage sundress, Wandie feels that breaking down every day helps her when she’s under extreme stress. Either that, or a trip to Laguna Beach and one of her favorite shops– The African Hut.

If you love Wandie, you may also like Nadia, Sophie Assa and Wamuhu Waweru.

Cindy Ko

Ramona_Canino — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:37:02 +0000

I’m a sucker for the “alternative” loafer, and zeroed in on Cindy’s sheepskin-detailed specimens like a hawk. Though she loves the freedom of expression in fashion that the internet has given birth to — no matter how out there — she has a talent for precision when it comes to her own elegant articulation. With perfect NARS heatwave lipstick, hair swept back, and a black and beige striped sweater under a shaggy, tobacco-brown Stella McCartney jacket, American Apparel shiny leggings and Zara pumps that perfectly mimic ones made for four times the price, she is classy with a level of authenticity that is captivating.

This morning I noticed a tweet that said something like, “We would never leave the celebrities naked on the red carpet,” and I winced at the idea that we have gotten to a point in our culture that they would be helpless dressing themselves and looking good. Cindy could walk down the red carpet in her Topshop white-crocheted shift and her favorite Saludo espadrilles and steal the show, let alone in her black hourglass dress with metallic ballet flats (and not an ounce of bling). Treasure what you have, she feels, and never caught up in what everybody has. That attitude makes you want everything she has on.

If you love Cindy, you may also like Tamara Lowe, Andrea Mary Marshall and Jesse Kamm.

Nadia & Hassan

Ramona_Canino — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:43:21 +0000

I got to live my Pride And Prejudice fantasy looking out over the romantic, moody English countryside while riding the train from London to shoot Nadia and Hassan in the quintessentially quaint town of Staffordshire, where they were raised. Evident in their indigenous shawls, mixed with their shared love of classic menswear, and of the local castle as a spot for afternoon tea (there, my daydream of living in the past continued), the siblings share a passion for the finer details – but with a definite modern originality in dressing. Nadia is inspired by “theories and moods,” like “the personality of America in the ’90s” evidenced by her favorite frumpy dress – she calls it an “old lady’s dress” and the chunkiest grunge platform boots with an Persian lamb hat; Hassan’s commitment to “content” over what he refers to as “look-at-me flamboyance” is revealed by his gray leather blazer (that’s as far out as he goes with leather, ever) with his consistent staples– the formality of a white shirt and the twist of a “cheap” tie knotted around the collar like a scarf.

The two in live in a way that is refreshingly traditional and yet distinctly modern, much like the quaint countryside to which they retreat from their urban lives. Preferring Dostoevsky and the spoken word to Facebook and Twitter, Hassan wears his Dad’s khakis with a unique touch; he rolls up the hem to fine-tune the proportion with a chambray shirt cut up into a vest worn over a t-shirt. Nadia is interested in esoterica; books like The Poetics of Space, films like Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant and taking photos with film as opposed to digital. She makes kitschy corduroy overalls with a Mickey Mouse belt and sweaters recovered from her childhood seem 21st century. Few can tuck socks into trousers with handmade brogues and possess both a serious stature while remaining hip like Hassan, or exude both a sultry and edgy glamour in a calf-length dirndl skirt with a chopped-off man’s shirt like Nadia.

If you love Nadia & Hassan, you may also like Tat Vateishvili, Freddie Leiba and Desiree Neman.

Coury Combs

Ramona_Canino — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:14:53 +0000

If Polyanna grew up and Barbie was chic, it would be Coury. With platinum locks and pink lips, Bobby Darren and Sandra Dee films from a ’60s utopia in the background and Gene Kelly in Singin’ In the Rain on infinite replay, Coury blogs about style in head-to-toe classic confections that sometimes inspire baked goods, like her oversized, rainbow-colored ring that prompted a batch of multicolor-dyed coconut cookies. Red loafers and a giant deer’s-head cocktail ring are the perfect “off” balance for a vintage champagne-colored chiffon dress, as are a pair of crimson Hasbeens booties and a powder-blue hat to a beige floral frock. “It’s important to have fun and enjoy everything you do, even if you’re just going to the dog park or the post office,” Coury feels. And buying milk is more uplifting in a ruffled trench of short-sleeved 1940s coat like Coury’s, you, too, might dance instead of walk.

If you love Coury, you may also like Ashley Shaw, Lizzie Brandt and Marina Munoz.

Margaux Lonnberg

Ramona_Canino — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 20:06:00 +0000

One of Margaux’s favorite tattoos reads: To create is to destroy. She finds alluring the idea that, in the end, you eventually destroy all of the things you create. Margaux has parents who are part Danish, Swiss, Czech, and French and spent almost as much of her childhood in Paris as she did in Morocco. Margaux says she is “very European,” but wants nothing more than to live in California. In characteristic denim cut-offs, leather jackets, loose t-shirts, boy’s shoes and no makeup, Margaux feels she has little in common with the typical “French girls” and “fashion people” who follow the latest magazines like a Bible. Despite feeling the need for a chignon to off-set an Mes Demoiselles hippie dress, her hair is a beach-y, tousled, beautiful mess,and “Naked If I Want To” by Cat Power is one of her go-to songs.

It’s always the ones who say they don’t want to pretend to be original who are. Margaux is part of the generation who grew up on Sex and the City and an obsession with Louboutins, but she feels of the status symbol shoes, “Je ne pas de tu.” Instead of kitschy plastic or diamond jewelry, she has a wrist of earthy gemstone bracelets and wears a long t-shirt dress with army boots or a hoodie and jeans with the effortless, edgy quality of a Stones girl. Adverse to “Upper East Side” culture, the aesthetics of a Jim Jarmusch film and the iconic lifestyle of the West Coast skateboarding community, chronicled in Lords of Dogtown, are more Margaux’s speed. Growing up with a rock n’ roll Mom and an art dealer Dad, pushing boundaries is in her comfort zone. Margaux is turning her renegade voice towards making music of her own, and she hopes to travel and see “everything in this world… I am always unsatisfied, I always want things bigger, bigger, bigger. It’s not good,” Margaux excitedly laments.

If you love Margaux, you may also like Krystal Simpson, Annakim Violette and Kenyon Phillips.

Matthew Zorpas

Ramona_Canino — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 18:08:02 +0000

In a crowded field of PRs who will happily cash your checks and take you nowhere, Matthew Zorpas walks the walk just as well as he talks the talk. “I see myself as the light on the painting,” he says of his almost religious commitment to wearing the clothing of only the cutting-edge rookie designers that he supports when he gets photographed everywhere for his impeccable street style. Noticeable yet distinguished in a contemporary interpretation of a white ruffled shirt and black high-waisted pant with suspenders, he is a new brand of PR – or maybe he hearkens back to the older model, when PR stood for “public relations”, not “pretentious relations”. For every giant like McQueen or Westwood there are dozens of young designers every bit as promising and talented as those established creators were when they were starting out. The next generation, Matthew feels, is hidden away in the dark, and he’s made it his mission and passion to shine some light on them. “ Like all great ideas, he never thought about it as a business, but a passion. “I thought, ‘Well I have this access, and these people don’t get any press.”

Matthew grew up in Cyprus, where he struggled with how conservative it was in terms of “sexual orientation, religion, fashion, work .. everything in Cyprus gives you identity. There are many boxes.” If he wore anything there like what that he wears in London, a city that has deemed him one of its best-dressed, he would be on the first page of the Cyprus newspaper – as a freak. And, despite the fact that he wears things like his Marios Alexander white shirt with bells, on him it is very toned down with Brick Lane vintage wing tips and jeans. Like the never-ending tension between the Greeks and the Turks, the hypocrisy and exclusivity is insidious. They say, ‘Love your brother, love your enemy as a brother. The weekend after, they’re praying for the soldiers to go and fight.” The morning Matthew was discharged from the army he got himself on the first plane to London.

In London, Matthew feels happily removed from the warring nationalities that he grew up with and that could never connect to each other. Instead, he revels in how the many nationalities, religions, backgrounds and mentalities thrive together. In the city that has accepted him, Matthew is able to help the plight of the new crop of fashion underdogs who you would never see if you opened up a magazine, only Versace and Dior. “At the end of the day,” he says, “I’m going to bed with a smile on my face. It doesn’t matter if I can’t pay my rent next month.”

The tattoo on Matthew’s arm reads, “Quis custodiet ipso custodes?”, a Latin saying meaning “Who will guard the guardsmen,” he explains. He had it done just before entering the army. It is every bit as apt, Matthew thinks, for journalists as it is for soldiers. “We are watching out for all these people. Who will watch us? … You can have a Parisian nose and a front-row seat, a Hermes bag and massive Louboutins,” he says, “But an attitude will always make you ugly. We don’t need attitude in fashion.”

If you love Matthew, you may also like Houman Farahmand, Galia Loupan and Miranda Levitt.