I love fashion. I have since the moment my mother bought me my first fur hat when I was 16. And lied to my father about it.
Tavi Gevinson started blogging when she was 11 (WHAT?) and was invited to New York Fashion Week when she was only 13. (YOU'RE KILLING ME LARRY) She was partly the inspiration for a Rodarte clothing line for Target and if you know Rodarte, those sisters know fashion. In September 2010 Gevinson was named a "Vogueista" by Vogue Italia. I'm guessing that's a pretty good deal when you're 14 years old. At 14 I appeared in my 9th grade talent show, where I wrote, starred in and directed a skit based entirely around toilet paper.
Vogue Italia did not attend.
Tavi was clearly born in the wrong decade as she regularly channels Brigitte Bardot from the 50's and hippies from the 60's, like in this picture above.
She's got a website for teenagers, named Rookie, after her blog, Style Rookie. Some days she deconstructs movies like The Virgin Suicides or Bye Bye Birdie on her blog via photos and her massive collection of odd items and clothing, carefully curated from thrift stores. There are often special appearances from her incredibly artistic friends like Petra, who took this picture.
One day this year I sent Tavi some pictures of pillowcases from the designer Oleg Cassini, who famously dressed Jacqueline Kennedy while she was in the White House. The linens belong to my mother but I hijacked them after my parents divorced. The cotton is so soft it makes me weep for when quality was king, not profit. They're from the 1960's and have colors in them you don't see on sheets these days. I was surprised to hear back from Tavi, a lovely, polite email thanking me for thinking of her and sending along the photos.
Those blues and oranges pull at the strings of my artistic heart. And brown!! When it was called brown!! And not chocolate.
I miss brown.
