RANGS

I have been obsessing about rings lately.  I've been really getting into jewelry (I've started a silversmithing course) and stones (more on that later) and, like with most anything, I find it's vintage jewelry that really revs my engine.  We were in Prague for Easter, where vintage garnets and amber abound.  Though I was peeved to not be on the Euro when I moved to Sweden, it turns out the krona's pretty mighty when up against many other currencies.  Put it up to the Czech crown, however, and that poor little guy doesn't stand a chance.  So not only is Prague pretty darn affordable for just about anyone, if that anyone (er, someone) is paying in SEK shit's on even bigger discount.

This is my haul of rings from a weekend in Prague.  All interesting, most vintage, and all at great prices.  It became the quest of the trip--finding rings, more rings, what about the rings???  In and out of vintage stores--maybe there's some down this street?  Did we already do this shop?  So. Many. Rings.

RINGS!

First up is an Edwardian stunner in 9k gold with violet sapphires most unusually set.  I like how the bottoms of the stones are exposed and look like jagged teeth.  I think it's remarkably modern for the time.  And the color of the stones is so unusual.  I'm not entirely sure they're not some kind of color-change sapphire, because I swear sometimes they are more purple-y, sometimes more grey, sometimes more pink.  Or maybe it's just my crazy rainbow vision.

Next up in another unusual setting.  This time it's a garnet set in silver, probably '60s era.  It's a good stacker.

Speaking of stackers, this is a vintage garnet 14k jam.  The man at the antique store explained that many of the garnets now come from other places, but Bohemia used to be the spot for these stones.  It's hard to see from the photo, but the stones are set with the pointy side up.  

(Corpse hand...)

This is a little gem from the 1920's in 14k.  I love the elongated hand.  The woman told me it's not a diamond but perhaps a white sapphire, but who knows?  I love it either way.

I forgot to photograph this guy on his own, but I couldn't leave without getting a little amber number, too.  This one's a rounded square, set in sterling.

One Outfit, Two Photos

Wore this a while back.  Sheer overdress from Style Nanda store in Seoul, vintage poly polka dot dress that I've had forever and that has survived all closet cuts heretofore, kukui nuts from Hawaii.

And my favorite favorite shoes of the last year (oh, the comfort!  oh, the heels!) from COS.  I'll be honest, I'm a little bummed that COS is coming to the US--and with online sales to boot!  But, oh well.  I can't horde all of the good stuff.  The world deserves COS.

Shoe Love Lately

I have been hard at thought about what to stomp around in this Spring.

I love love love these Comeys, but the idea of twisting an ankle (much less eating shit completely) put me off.

These (also from the inimitable Rachel Comey) could be slightly better due to back strapage and OH THOSE STRIPES.  But I already have a pair from her that are strappy, brown, and clogged.  Also:  potential neck breakage due to wooden platform + cobblestone.

But then... THEN I was able to score a pair of THESE beauts from H&M's Conscious Exclusive collection, which came and went last week and if you weren't around for those few hours that it was actually in store or online you would have had no idea it ever existed because now there is nary a trace.   (CSI: Fashion Exclusives Unit?) So those of us lucky to score a snippet of it had better appreciate.

These mules are made from leather tanned with vegetal dyes from cows raised for their organic meat here in Sweden.  How beautiful is that?  Oh, and they're comfortable and cute as ever.

I also scored the heavily embellished sandals (comfy as all getout, made in Portugal thankyouverymuch) and the leather skirt.  As for the matador jacket, just FYI it took 15 days to produce ONE of them in India and sold for less than it cost (that part I won't tell you).  Pretty incredible.  I love my company.

Har Har

Kitty cleavage.

Hey, you goats!  Cut it out!  

Foodstuffs

These little guys are called nors in Swedish.  My friendly fishmonger told me they're related to salmon, but I think they're actually a type of smelt.  (Is smelt related to salmon?  Hmm.)  We battered them in a spicy potato flour mix, then fried 'em up whole.  You eat the whole thing--heads and all.  They were a crispy fishy delight!

Not to be outdone by my fish guy, my cheese guy also hooks me up with what's fresh and local.  Check out this beautiful buffalo mozzarella from right here in Sweden!  There's a farm full of happy buffalo outside of Uppsala and this is their expensive, er... delicious cheese.  I ain't mad at the buffalo, everything's expensive here in Sweden.  But it was totally worth it.

This here's some carrot cake baked oatmeal.  What a breakfast treat!

And this is a chocolate-almond vegan pie.

I took this shot to quickly answer Byron's text of what's for dinner.  It was sauteed kale, a millet-mushroom-spinach salad, and some tofu.  Yums!

Cochino Should Be Better at Swedish

With her cat ass on the page while I'm trying to study.

Wedging herself into my online lessons.

Making Up

Yellow eyes from NARS, red lips from & Other Stories.

Minty blue eyes from NARS.

Shimmery lime eyes from & Other Stories.

Glutinous Rice

This is what a glutinous rice doughnut looks like after a 15 hours transit from Seoul to Stockholm.

It still tasted delicious.  Thanks to B for bringing one back for me!

Reflections

Wearing lately..

Blurry pic of my planetary necklace from Tatty Devine.  (Accept no imitations.)

Sweats, sequins, and kukui nuts.  

Mirrored earrings from Style Nanda store in Seoul.

Best Portrait

Indonesia--Working

I was in Indonesia to find new fabrics and learn about the capabilities of their suppliers.  I don't really talk about my job so much on here, I usually just tell you where I've gone (and what I've eaten/seen) on these work trips.  But I'll expand a bit more now.  I do fabric r&d for H&M.  This means:  I research and create the fabric trends for my division each season; I travel to our production offices to work with the teams there, meet with suppliers, and select new fabrics for the season; I go to fabric shows and shop to get inspired about materials and make sure my division is updated on the fabric trends; I am constantly analyzing our process to make sure we are developing materials in a strategic and efficient way.  I love that there are many different sides to my job so that some days I'm more in the trend zone and other days I can be more technical or process-oriented.  And to be able to do this for the second largest retailer in the world?  Well, I'm pretty lucky.

Here are a few photos from the supplier side of my visit to Indonesia.

With some of my local colleagues.

Apparently, I've been calling it all wrong... it's "Riset."

Cutie cutie calico mill kitty.

A mill butterfly confirms camouflage is still in.

A Snuffleupagus of sliver...

which usually looks more like this.  This is what becomes your cotton yarn, folks!

So pretty.

Indonesia

We were sitting at a coffee shop in Seoul, checking our emails and getting the web-dates on that Sunday the plane went missing.  And it took everything I had not to freak out about the flight to Jakarta I was due to get on the next day.  Might I remind you of the whacked out thoughts I have every time the plane goes bu-bum-bump, and now you're telling me a plane is missing?  As in GONE?  And it's gone missing in a country just over from the one I'm headed to?  What is going on?!  Is this part of something bigger??  Are more planes just gonna go missing?!?  I feel like I could freak out now just writing about it.  So, back to the coffee shop in Seoul... I managed to talk myself down by considering that the odds of another plane crashing or being hijacked or going missing in any way the very next day were slim-to-none, so MY flight was probably gonna be just fine.  (Thanks for sacrificing yourselves, passengers who were part of this tragedy, so that I may live.)  But that didn't make me feel less terrible about the fact that something had gone down on another flight, even if it wasn't mine.

That said, witness what a trooper I was to adult-up and get on the damn flight to Jakarta the next day. Yay, me.  While we're heaping praise on the nutcase that is me, I can also tell you that I kept it together pretty well *most* of the time I was in Indonesia, too.  I know that there is a big sect of people in that country that doesn't like me as an American, and I know that this same group is pretty skilled with bombs and known for surrepticious attacks in popular places to maximize casualties.  And when the driver quickly assured me that it was thunder making the bombing, er... booming noise on my first morning's drive to the office, it really didn't calm me at all.  And when the craziest storm woke me up at 2 am one night with thunder and lightning such that only happens over islands in remote parts of the ocean/world, I took cover in the bathroom (I am from tornado country in the US) because surely this was gonna kill us all (now it was the heavens bombing us), I didn't feel calm either.  And when I realized that the flight my local colleague had booked me on to fly within Java island was with a carrier not allowed to fly into EU airspace and whose pilots had had issues with meth use, I was pretty calm but I did call the travel department in Stockholm right away to rebook on a less-shady carrier.  But when the flight on the less-shady carrier was swaying and bouncing and bumping over who-knows-what-part of Java, I was white-knuckling the armrests (germs be damned) and talking to myself out loud a little bit because of course the shitty meth pilots were gonna have the fluffiest marshmallow landing while my re-booked flight was the one that would crash because I totally saw that made-for-tv movie and I know how fate/karma/irony/etc works.  But I would be lying if I told you that I didn't lose it (and I mean crying lose it) when I got to the hotel the same local colleague booked for me in a lovely city called Bandung in central Java and I had to walk by a public restroom to get to my 1st floor room, which did not contain a window nor an extra lock and which also had brown pillowcases.  I went downstairs to pay the approximate equivalent of 30 dollars to move to a "deluxe" room, which had a window but now had YELLOW pillowcases.  And that's when I finally lost my shit.

I did like Indonesia and am glad I visited some other parts of Java besides Jakarta, despite the getting there and the accommodations in these places.  Now that I'm through it, I can praise my adventurous spirit and survival instincts.  (Heh.)  Though I'm not ready to be dropped in the jungle or something anytime soon...

And now, the photos!

Nom nom nasi bali, which I ate 2 out of the 5 nights I was in Indonesia.  How about that palm cone?

This is snake fruit, which is totally chic but also totally delicious.  Check the link and you'll see that it is filled with what looks to be large garlic cloves.  It is not too sweet and, come to think of it, might be exactly what I am craving right now.  Yum.

Some random shots outside of Bandung.

Bad iphone shot of brown pillowcases.  I promise you they were way more skeevy in person.

A fancy lady in Bandung showing off her colored Pomeranian puppy.  Colored dogs are totally trending, I know because I saw some in Seoul, too.

Snacks at the rest stop along the route to Bandung.

Speaking of food, the Indonesians have a thing for donuts... but with CHEESE?

Yep. With cheese.

And I spotted these interesting pastries in flavors like "salami brown sauce" and "lady finger beer." Hmmm....

I sneaky shot this guy at the airport in Bandung.  All the dudes were rocking some batik prints there, but this guy really brought the style.  I mean, look at that scarf!  

Gender bending.

1-Minute Portraits

We came across these ink illustrations hanging outside of a coffeeshop in the Bukchon Hanok Village.

And then we saw this:

We found a queue of folks waiting to get their 1-minute portraits done.  After navigating the system (you had to buy a beverage at the coffee shop first and show your receipt in order to have the 1000 won portrait) and pushing and getting pushed through the line of locals waiting to have theirs done, we finally got to sit for ours.

Here is a weirdly reflective shot of Janine getting her portrait done.

Oh, and here are some cute coffee bags that the same artist did:

This was gonna be really great, areyoufeelingme?  Who doesn't love a quickie caricature?  

I'll tell you who doesn't--ME.

And when I say "ME," I refer to the apparently 80-year-old me on the bottom left.  (Thanks for making sure not to miss any facial lines or worry marks, mister.  Note to self:  need a better night cream.)  I chalked it up to having my hair pulled back and, um, to the cruel hand of time.  (Still, the guy's a jerk.)  So I channeled my let-down into excitement to see my colleagues' cute portraits.  But then Karin came out with the weird one at bottom right.  And so we both put our energy into thinking/hoping that Janine's was gonna be GREAT--not only because her hair was down and she's a pretty lady, but also the universe wouldn't throw THREE doggy portraits our way... right?  We're thinking that we paid our 3000 won just like the rest of the Koreans walking out with darling one-of-a-kind artwork so at least one of us was gonna get a nice portrait... until Janine walked out and showed us herself re-imagined as a frightened pauper child.  WH-HUT?  This leaves me with two theories:  (1) This is actually how we looked to a random Korean coffee shop-artist, or (2) That guy's totally racist.  Or maybe maybe maybe it's simply a case of getting what we paid for.

O-U-C-H.