Though it's very "I'm just off to the gladiator arena to see if the lion wins this time...then I have an orgy planned later in the day"...and, therefore, not a look that I'd normally go for...I've found myself ogling this "Hail Caesar"-ish little number from Acne for the last 15 minutes. Clearly, I need to watch A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum as soon as possible and get this urge toga away (sorry, couldn't help myself)...

In theory, winter has bid us adieu and spring has entered from stage left...waving a bunch of daffodils and offering chocolate Easter bunnies to one and all. I sound skeptical, I know...but the local weather forecasters are still using snow (albeit flakes rather than flurries) in their conversation...so I am not feeling especially spring-like.

The only upside that I can see to this situation is that...instead of feeling guilty about wasting a perfectly glorious day indoors...I can plan a mini-film festival...and be doubly lazy because the aforementioned m.f.f. comes in a box...like pizza (without the calories but hopefully higher in entertainment value)...for toppings, I can choose from amongst zombies, love, or dark comedies.

Take that, winter-that-won't-go-away!

There's a scene...near to the beginning of the 60's spy classic, Charade...when Audrey Hepburn's character returns to her luxurious Parisian apartment, Vuitton luggage in tow, and discovers that everything is gone. The cupboards are, quite literally, bare...as are the walls, floors, and every other aspect of the interior landscape. Yet there she stands...impeccably dressed amidst the destruction...looking charmingly elegant, if a little confused.

I mention this because I could think of very little else when I gazed at the pictures of Celine's 2011 resort collection. There was the peeling paint...the bare, empty rooms...and the relentlessly chic young woman pacing the parquet.

There was even a prospective, and fittingly distressed, DIY consideration...in the shape of what can only be termed a tea towel bag...at least, by me, as I'm one of the few people who refuses to use a dishwasher and chooses to hand dry my pots and pans instead. The mind (rather inelegantly, I'll admit) boggles at what the original will cost when it appears on the shelves of Barneys or some similar abode...especially given that rather luxe dish towels can usually be found for under ten dollars...

Or...how to waste a perfectly good Saturday...

The Angry Birds iPhone app...

And a young, drunk, Oliver Reed playing a young, drunk, psychopath in Hammer House of Horror's Paranoiac (alongside Janette Scott who, as those of you who are Rocky Horror Picture Show fans will know, fought a "Triffid that spits poison and kills")...

In one of those twists that some people call "fate"...but which really means I spend way too much time surfing around online...I happened across this video featuring Jason Schwartzman and Kirsten Dunst, with a cameo appearance from the skirt I mentioned earlier today (not entirely a surprise as the whole shebang was created for Opening Ceremony and features their Spring/Summer collection).

Directed by Gia Coppola and Tracy Antonopoulos..."Is This Sound Okay?"

"...and I remember one rainy morning in the city of Palermo, the street was ablaze with scarlet umbrellas" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

It's the old, old story...woman has fortune stolen by lover...woman dashes off to Paris where she contemplates suicide...woman decides that if she's going to die her lover is going to be along for the ride...woman spends the time waiting for ex-lover to hit town by shopping (at Dior, Roger Vivier, and Cartier), hanging out with Brit band, and having a decadent (though strangely life-affirming) good time...woman...ah, but that would be telling...

I'm currently indulging a girl crush on Monica Vitti...last week it was Modesty Blaise...this week 'La femme écarlate'...aka 'La donna scarlatta' in Italy...'The Scarlet Lady' in Europe...and 'The Bitch Wants Blood' in the US (there were obviously some translation issues in 1960's America). Now I just need to find the equally confusingly translated 'Dramma della gelosia'...aka 'The Pizza Triangle'.

It's bitterly cold...with the appropriate amount of snow for the run up to Christmas...which means it's perfect weather for sitting inside watching the snow fall outside...and for watching vintage television treats that are so bad they've boomeranged back into the good category.

Shows like...Space 1999...a British sci-fi show from the 70's produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (who were better known for their series' featuring puppets...Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and others of that ilk)...starring Martin Landau and Barbara Bain (whose acting in Space managed to be more wooden than any puppet ever was)...and featuring "moon city uniforms" by Rudi Gernreich (inventor of the first topless swimsuit, the first designer to use vinyl and plastic in clothes, and guest star on the original Batman).

Unfortunately, for vintage clothing fans, the inhabitants of moon city wear outfits that are so asexual and unappealing...we're talking a lot of taupe, belts which give even the most slender cast member a paunch, and flares...that it's easy to forget that Gernreich designed pieces that are still immensely desirable today...like this stripe/dot dress with matching socks that I just came across on Vagabond NYC's site. It's sweet, enduringly modern, cozy...and $1,248...which means I'll be sticking with over-acting in space.

I suppose it's fitting that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the only US venue for the exhibition of Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008 however I have no plans to be in LA before March 1st (when the exhibition moves on) so I feel slightly miffed. If only because I would dearly like to see Edward Steichen's "A Much Screened Lady — Gloria Swanson" in the...um...flesh (so to speak). This one photograph encapsulates why I watch so many "old" movies (and am so vague when it comes to current releases)...though she's not classically beautiful her eyes are mesmerizing...she grabs your attention and won't let go. From now on I feel like I only want to be photographed in black and white...and preferably behind a curtain of lace.

And I love a gift certificate... Or, to be more specific...I love a Sunday afternoon...a glass of white wine...a chicken (bathed in garlic, shallots, rosemary, and olive oil) roasting away in the oven...and a (relatively) blank check at Amazon.com. Thanks to which I will soon be the recipient of enough bad television to make Lucille Ball wince...a 4GB Flash Drive (my practical, "work related" purchase)...and these Thunderbird Boat-soled shoes from Minnetonka Moccasins. As I explained to Mr. Heb, "yes, they are kind of preppy lost in a trailerpark but that's why I want them..." plus, they're a comfortable option for pounding the streets this summer.

If, like me, you liked the illustrations that Prada used in their Spring/Summer collection but thought they worked better as "Art" than clothing you may want to take a look at Trembled Blossoms on Prada’s website. A four-minute illustrated film that brings the nymphs featured on their collection to life. The music by CocoRosie is suitably ethereal yet modern and the nymph’s method for selecting an outfit is so engaging that you wish the same kind of magic were available in your closet (at least I did).

I think we all have a touch of the voyeur in our make-up...else why are reality shows and the sordid magazines at supermarket checkouts which discuss star's cellulite so successful? Not that I'm saying voyeurism is wholly negative, just something to be handled selectively...which is why Britney Spears' latest woes leave me cold...but eavesdropping on a dinner party at Zandra Rhodes' penthouse raises a flicker of interest (especially when presented in a pleasingly surreal style). "Eat Your Chiffon" by photographer/filmmaker Ben Charles Edwards was inspired by Chaper 7 of Alice in Wonderland, i.e. the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, and John Waters' "Eat Your Make-Up", in which a deranged nanny kidnaps young girls and forces them to model themselves to death in front of her boyfriend...surreal enough for you? Part 1 was released today, with parts 2 and 3 hitting the airwaves on the 14th and 21st respectively...appetizer, entrée, and dessert, if you will. Bon appetit!

Last night I had one of the best movie experiences I've partaken in in quite some time...a screening of the 1922 German Expressionist silent film, Nosferatu...accompanied live by the band Tortoise. Put simply, it was wonderful. The music meshed perfectly with the film...it was intense, moody, and added to the sense that the film's participants were inexorably being consumed by darkness.

The only low point was that most of the audience seemed to regard the whole thing as a music show that happened to have a video accompanying it...which is particularly odd since the band were facing the screen, i.e. turned away from the audience. Is this the MTV effect? That the visual element, whatever it is, must be subservient to the music...a case of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Uber Alles?