Tv

If you like The Great Gatsby, Nero Wolfe, or Boardwalk Empire, be sure to try Miss Fisher's Mysteries, a '20s period piece with a female detective. It's quite fun and is streaming on Netflix -- and there are books to read if you prefer, all by Kerry Greenwood. If you enjoy jazz or 1920s music, you'll love their scores: there are THREE soundtracks so far! All on itunes.

To see stills and gifs from the series look at MissFisher'sMurderMysteries, for photos see too MissFisher'sCaps.

Be sure NOT to watch the pilot episode first, which is more 'cute and quirky' than the rest of the 2 seasons of the series. I prefer the other episodes to the first. Miss Fisher is a fun, moving series with a great sensibility and great love stories, as well as a type of modern, Bechdel test passing quality that many people will enjoy. There is a broad spectrum of characters, it's not just flappers only. The quality of 1920s fashion in the show is great and really fun -- the costumes are truly a cut above, quite beautiful.

Japan

This is a great piece, and it is also a good one to start someone on Asian or Japanese art history. It's quite gorgeous--it's 'Maiko Playing Shuttlecock' by  長谷川貞信三代  ie. Sadanobu III Hasegawa [1881-1963]; related artists/schools.

Sweet

One of the best mood lifting things you can do is look at sweet, cute photos or read exquisite, delicate gourmet and culinary blogs. If you've read too much Verlaine [1844-1896] recently, ie. the French symbolist poet, don't overload on nihilistic poetry, relax and take a break.

For food and desserts, with recipes and photographs, the best is definitely BossaCafez--it has such a high level of detail, perfection and delicacy it makes you want to simply move and buy the food each day! Truly gorgeous.

Another truly excellent food and culinary blog is UneGamineDansLaCuisine. The photos are a cut above any other place online, and the writing is beautiful. It's quite poetic and has great ideas for a gourmet or a cook.

Two great cute, relaxing collections of adorable photos are CutestFood and KawaiiOnly, they are both sweet and light.

Convivial

Some easy fun is watching Chuck, the tv show--for Firefly/Serenity browncoats fans, it has Jayne Cobb ie. Adam Baldwin! His performance is truly excellent. I regret not trying this show earlier, I was unaware he was on it.

A funny blog we just discovered is the very funny, fashion-oriented Man Repeller.

For fun, light reading, try the fashion focused Dead Fleurette; it's stopped new posting, but reading back through it is quite enjoyable.

For fashion lovers and sartorialists, try looking through the photos at Chictopia, which is really fun. For people who prefer The Sartorialist to Polyvore, it's the place to be. It's like a more focused version of a fashion-focused Pinterest.

Photos

I love I like I wear for fashion photos, it makes me want to visit a big city just to see the sartorial splendor. It's like being in Florence. For flowers, frogs, crocs, animals, snakes and reptiles check out the inimitable photo blog MonitorKeeper. If you love modern, simple art that's lovely, there's often a lot of it on Curate1k. The watercolors of flowers are beautiful and reminiscent of Impressionism's best facets.

ThreeEyed has great nature photos, they're excellent. Especially the water and the sky. They make you want to go hiking.

Precise, almost geometrical food and interior photos from Montreal are found at MtlGangster. There's almost an essence of Bach within some of them.

Mind

Light reading is something close to my heart. I always recommend the rural French countryside of My French Country Home, which has incredible photos--they truly let you feel like you're there. Another one I always check with is the classic Paris blog from traveler/gourmet David Lebovitz.

A new one I love is Sam is Home, on fashion and lovely photographs of nature/places etc. One I was just reading is A Montrealer Abroad--they were linking to the best Montreal photography instagrams and I was hooked. The best for Montreal is Inayali, there are some excellent street/nature photos there that capture what Montreal is like.

For food photography, be sure go through Myfatguyprobs, who is a gourmet that loves Montreal. It's truly a mecca for food. A few of those photos and you're already planning your next vacation up there! If you're an urban explorer, you'll prefer Jfsavaria.

There are big, colorful city and landscape photos at LiveMontreal, they really show the great scope of the place. They're huge, excellent pieces. If you love flowers and sweet lovely photos, try Montreal360, which has quiet, intimate detail photos. GuillaumeBoily has a neat bike heavy perspective of the city.

And the song of the summer is: Tiesto's "Wasted [Ummet Ozcan Remix]", if you love dance music, edm, fast-paced stuff, this is great.

Exclusive

While we begrudge no one their luxuries, it is always important to understand why things are considered valuable. Ermine for example is dotted with those dark little lines that are so lovely to the eye. In reality, ermine animals' tails were pinned onto cloaks and capes to show how many were used in creating the specific piece of raiment.

It is difficult to step outside of your Western heritage [if it is yours], but if you try, sometimes the idea of  animal tails being tacked onto the capes of royalty for centuries seems quite uncouth. This type of historical origin story is important--we cannot forget the past. Why wedding dresses are white, why Romans wore iron rings, why the hand symbol [hamsa/hand of Fatima or Miriam] and blue eye [nazar/evil protection] symbol are widespread all over the world, especially the Mediterranean and Middle East: all these things are crucial to understanding our present. Sometimes the eye is even put on the palm of the hand symbol.

We can only know a culture if we know its past and where its customs come from.

White

Poiret had an incredible effect on fashion. It still lingers in almost neo-classical drapes of gowns, and one great example is from the old 1919 rare film The Master Man. The look of actress Kathleen Kirkham's wedding dress above is very interesting--a look at how the Victorian styles blended forward into the 1920s. The way the bottom is gathered up almost calls to mind some of Alexander McQueen's India-inspired collections.

It is always strange to remember how the white wedding dress trend began only a few moments ago with Queen Victoria. A woman wore her best dress, that was all; the same for rings. The diamond trend began only a hundred years ago as well. Women in ancient Rome wore a red dress to wed, and women in India still do. It is the same in China, Vietnam and many other countries.

Fashion

Mary Katrantzou has shot up the charts in recent years and has a take on wild color and pattern that even a more old fashioned person can enjoy. We love how she incorporates the Greek key pattern [called 'meander'; Greek: Μαίανδρος) and is someone who's take on strong design is a worthy conversationalist with Alexander McQueen's famous work in the field [his reptile inspired stuff especially].

Her work has been worn by many more eclectic fashion oriented celebrities [Rihanna etc]. It's available at Net-A-Porter. Her 2014 collection is in darker hues, a little more subdued, but just as passionate.

Fashion

We really liked Chinese Lily Zhi's modeling in the Italian magazine Io donna's photos by Thomas Straub from Nov. 2011 and everything currently; they are also at Mode and at HWTF. She always has this Rihanna look about her--basically we'd want her in our posse.

Desi

One of my favorite fashion inspirations and Bollywood [movies from India in Hindi] actresses is Sonam Kapoor from Mumbai--her feature in Femina India was amazing, which you can see here at AFashionistasDiary. I love the photo above with the dark blue coat especially.

She also looked amazing in Rohit Bal's fashion of India's Bridal Fashion week, profiled here at PeachesAndBlush; I love the jeweled offset hairpiece. She has excellent styling, hair and makeup, even makes that nose ring work [often part of ancient and current Indian fashion] and looks especially great in beautiful saris.

Getaway

For the summer, straw-like or raffia bags [that's the palm type above] are always a fun symbol of the heat and the beach--there are some great ones profiled here at CoutureSnob, the little tan circle clutch is cute, and I like the plaid-esque simplicity of the other dark blue tote. I also like the white cloth handles on this small tan tote here.

One neat modernist, almost Philip Glass type pop song is the lovely [pictured above] Leila Adu from New Zealand's songs 'I'm Calling' and  'Dark Joan'. Her music quite reminds me of Björk's, which we are often fond of.

On the go

I love the design and texture of Emm Kuo's big briefcase-like bags along with the rainbow-hued one, and it was neat to read her interview on MyFDB--and she was featured on DedicatedFollower here, where I saw the green one, I think it's stingray. She was also on AnthemWares,  ModernePress, at ShopCondor and had a trunkshow at ModaOperandi. 

At AnthemWares, I also like the forest green Tambour circle/sphere bag by TL-180 and the golden yellow, briefcase-thin snakeskin foldover clutch by Angel Jackson.

Vacation

I like to feature things that stand out, the timeless, the unique with class. In that vein, Raben Saloner recently had some great printed tops and I love the new green snake print scarf. You can buy her stuff at WildSwans and Yoox.

She's featured at ChilternStStudio, at HusetShop, at Sharrock in Australia and on HWTF. I like the light blueish Celia shirt too, and the hand embroidered white kimono jacket/wrap is really pretty..

Ancient Egypt

I love Melody Eshani's Hieroglyphics T-shirt/shirtdress, and these ancient Egyptian painting yoga pants/leggings on etsy. Recall that on the top of their heads, the small white cones are perfume that the ancient Egyptians put on top of their wigs so they would melt slowly in the heat of the day, perfuming their wigs and selves.

Today

I love The Great Gatsby feeling of the Jeffrey Michael Short Feather Dress from London. It's a cute update on flapper, Poiret and Eastern tinged fashion from the 1910s and 1920s.

On the other side of the globe, let's focus on Tarun Tahiliani, the Indian famous designer; here's some of his work on sale. One of the ultimate Indian style blogs is Luxemi [TheLuxeReport]. The picture above is Esha Deol from Bollywood. Her sari is gorgeous.

If you like sites like The Sartorialist, be sure to check out WhatDoIWear, which has tons of looks to page through.

Interesting

Fun reads:
- The LA FIDM fashion and textile museum blog

- If you like TheSartorialist, be sure to look at world fashion at WearAbout, it's incredible to see all the variety in the world, the clothes are gorgeous in Bhutan, India, and Far East.

Interesting designers:

- There's some incredibly creepy, amazing jewelry by EilisainJewelry, like their Triple Crow Claw Ring -- and there's similarly great stuff at the aptly named MacabreGadgets from Kiev. They've got skulls, snakes, eels, tails, raven skulls, an eerie oxen, unicorn, octopi, kraken, shells, coral, crowns, and upyr [Ukrainian, vampires that eat fish] and mavka [Ukrainian, ghosts].

And an creepy skull fighting with an amethyst. The hooded almost cloak-like transform dress by Dzhus from Kiev is also something to look into if you love Hecate, Circe or need to cast something of your own.

- If you love stone, gems and rock, be sure to look at Jade Mellor's jewelry, which is heavy, big and very beautiful; the green jade-ish malachite bangle is for the old fashioned, and the modern stylish people will want the turqouise, teal and dark green Island Strata Double Ring.

Ancient, timeless fashion

One of my favorite new, young designers is Esteban Cortazar, and his very Roman and Greek ancient style dress here at TheOutnet is just gorgeous. His style is reminiscent of the lost ancient technique of making Delphos gowns, like those of 1920's Mariano Fortuny. I'd buy it, but I'd only be hanging it on my wall to admire. There's a little more of his work at TheOutnet here and at Net-A-Porter.

If you like new, young designers, be sure to read NotJustaLabel, where they profile a ton of them.

If you love Indian clothes and the lovely pieces they often feature in Bollywood and Tamil films, be sure to check out Manish Malhotra who has incredible desi clothes. The colors are gorgeous and strong--I really like the teal/turquoise/green sari here.

Rest within travel

Riad El Fenn is somewhere I have to see, it's a beautiful hotel in Morocco's city of Marrakech, featured in both LonnyMagazine and HWTF. I also liked HWTF's look at Marchesa's spring 2013 scarlet and India-inspired collection. You can buy a ton of Marchesa stuff at the famous Net-A-Porter site. In the future, we will focus on traditional Indian wear, which is gorgeous.

My favorite old designers are Marchesa [that's the tumblr, this is Neiman], Christian Lacroix's old work and Alessandro dell'Acqua, who's now calling his designs "No.21"- I love the VestiaireCollective for finding fashion pieces, it's so fun to look through all the beauty.

Travel can be oddly restful, to be in a new place, trying to speak another language or two the best you can. You're free. You can watch the cream of the crop dash by one of the famous outdoor cafes in Madrid as a fan blowing cool water mist rolls past, or you can hike on foot everywhere day after day.

Music with a side of fashion

A great piece is by Jeff Beal from the HBO Rome tv series, the main Egyptian theme, Cleopatra & Caesar. Roman, Greek and Egyptian music are all something we have to imagine, as the ancients had only rudimentary systems of recording music that we can read just barely. Some people have reconstructed what they imagine it all might sound like, which is really neat. I will focus on it in the future.

One more light hearted and summer-y is Widy's Baby Baby and here's the acoustic version which is very cute.

When I saw Peter Som's spring 2013 collection at HWTF here, I knew I had to feature it someday--it's so light and floral and dreamy without being twee or looking too frothy. I like the modern edge it has, which doesn't bleed over into brash or harsh lines. Sometimes people think pairing extremes is a good idea, but it only works when great skill is involved. In this case, the way he incorporates his prints is excellent--and even his pastels are done in a great manner.

The photo is from the great SnobEssentials here, I cropped it to focus on the details. If you love fashion, the site might be a daily check for you, as it is for me. It's a fun read, covering a lot of stuff.