You know what sucks?

In fashion everything is done, every idea is had, been there done that. I'm a huge lover of the history of fashion, right now really into 17th and 19th centuries. Love all the detailing and the pompous accessories and on the other hand the simplicity that laid the bricks for modern menswear of our times.

I love Walter Van Beirendonck. I know that all the ideas are there, used and abused all the time. But I get a silly feeling when I've been planning thing and then I see the same shit on the catwalk.. Hmm.. Then again I could say I didn't steal the idea but just went through my own archives. Which is also true, I've been making protos and these collars now for the past few weeks and also made some shit in 2005.

Walter for 2013, lovely! Made with more tulle then mine in..

...2005. And oh how skinny I was back then.

I have to make a list

I'm huge on making lists about everything. A dear friend of mine told me that when life seems desperate and gloomy one should make a list of the top 3 things wrong or the top 3 things that are dragging you down the most. Just the 3 things and solve them first and the rest will start unravelling at some point. So, I made a list.

Living according to lists, a habit that I learned from my mom, sort of fits me. In a way. The problem is that I should make a list of where all the lists are so I could follow them and cross the stuff that I've done and sorted. At the moment the list is on my computer and I think we all know I'm never far from this little friend. As we speak I've really started working on my list. I had a job interview yesterday and there's another job that's been.. well, there are people who've done all they can to make sure I'd get the job. Time will tell, but the interview yesterday went well, I think. I might need a car if I get the job but that's not a problem. I'm optimistic, I'm hopeful. I'm so fed up with this poverty and never having any money, just my credit cards.

I still want all the nice clothes and things, I want to be snappy and gorgeous. Not just for me but also for my family, that's at the moment a bit conceptual in a way. I have my boyfriend, I have my friends and I have my friends son, now 11 months. There's nothing really wrong with my life, just small things that keep bothering me, like the lack of money. I'm making clothes like a mad man, have some orders and still sort of hovering over the decision should I make a decision about the clothes and all.. It's hard sometimes being all grown up and all.

I'm still looking for the purpose, I have few places I'd be sure to get my stuff into to be sold but must take a break and sit down for a while and figure out really what I want to do.

Laters, now making some more coffee though must go to the shop and get some milk.

I've been to paradise but I've never been to me

I'm 35, recently had to close my shop. Now having an sort of.. in a small town like this, in a small country like this it doesn't really make sense trying to sell people a bit more expensive stuff, mainly local and blah blah. People just don't need that shit. Now, having already said that earlier, I obviously find it disappointing but such is life. Having my bookkeeper trying to fool me out of everything I have and then some is very bad, very very bad. The accountant being a relative of my business partner (oh what a surprise I would've been the only one paying..) is even worse.

But I'm (trying) NOT (to be) bitter, I have to take it as a learning curve. I've been sort of absent from my own life the last few months and it's been driving me crazy. I have a friend in New York who sent me some amazing books (Pattern Magic, vol. 1-3) and I've been insanely inspired by the books. And another thing that I truly love is the history of fashion.

Oldies but goodies; I found these pics from my archives and remembered just how much I.. how happy (in a very dark way) I was back in the days in Helsinki and hoe inspired I was by these pics, also.

So I'm, as we speak, thinking of getting back to basics, doing things that I loved to do and finding the inner Maire again. Maire wasn't a happy girl, no, she was desperate, sad, middle-aged and an alcoholic. But Maire had an innocence and I really liked her.

So I'm trying to create a small collection for the fall. After all that's been going on in my life I would also imagine it might do me some good, letting out all the steam.

YouTube has changed and I can't find the embedding code anymore so the song that's been playing in my head and on my laptop isn't posted here. But I will post the pics that I just love.

Laters,

J

What I want is a better life

So, it's time for me to let out all the bitterness I've been able to build up inside me.

I had a shop, mainly selling Finnish labels, young designers and stuff like that. Oh so many times I heard praises on my actions and the shop; how wonderful it is to have someone brave enough to support Finnish fashion, how this shop is JUST what this town of ours needs. Well, it turned out that it didn't. There was no need for my vision, maybe for the young (broke and fabulous) people who actually did like the labels and the clothes but were just as poor as I am. And having a shop means making money. That didn't happen.

On top of that I was screwed by my bookkeeper. Turns out my books had been.. done in a certain, almost special way of trying to trick me into paying thousands of euros for nothing. And I mean nothing.

Thank God I'm not really bitter. This is my way of letting out steam. And if I was broke when I started this blog then welcome to my life now.

I have no idea what I want to do, say or accomplish with this self pity mumble but it'll come to me.

In the meantime I do believe I could post some shit here that I am currently doing and working on. Mainly Japanese avantgarde pipe music and loads of black and grey clothes.

Laters, the world is really a lovely place.

Peace.  

Crying my mothers tears

It's been more than a year. In that time I closed my shop, had to. I always wanted to have a shop. Well I tried and it didn't work. In the last few months I've been planning a trip to Berlin, having an exhibition and a pop-up shop there. Now it seems it's not possible at the moment. Mainly for financial reasons.

I'm fed up. Fed up with poverty, fed up. I'm 35, it's time for a crisis. I think I missed the boat. Long ago.

I'm loving the japanese patterns or the books that I got from New York. Making stuff, still dreaming.

Laters,

J