majestic montana: film & reading & travel inspiration

happy happy friday, mes chéries!  lately my mind has been wandering far from my new england coastal town, to the rugged american west.  this is quite unusual for me, generally drawn to glamour & luxury & très-civilized, heel-friendly terrain & i attribute my recent wanderlust to the two epic films set in the state of montana starring the most handsome, young brad pitt, legend of the fall & a river runs through it.  both films in which bold action & tragedy demonstrate strong, un-communicated emotion, the gorgeous mountainous scenery & apparently unspoiled paradise reflects the complex characters: simultaneously strong & fragile, majestic & devastating.

i think i am drawn to a river runs through it also because of the poetic & powerful, evocative prose of its author, norman maclean, in the film & the novella on which its based, telling the story of himself & his family in montana in the 1920s.  his words are as rhythmic as the elegant fly-fisherman's casts he describes & the tale begs to be read aloud.   paired with two short stories, that romance of a river runs through it, oh and that poetry, wipe away all the unpleasant details of frontier life, allowing only its profound tale & perfect majesty to shine through, even for the most girly girl.  i would recommend both the book & film versions for this hurricane weekend {p.s. are you prepared?}.  no matter how feminine & squeamish you are, you may find yourself inspired to google outdoors-y montana vacations, too. bon week-end.  xx hillary.

images via pinterest

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autumn inspiration: russian ballet & j.crew

images via {j.crew blog}

combining my loves for j.crew & ballet & an exotic destination was simply not fair.  and this ballet is not avant-garde ballet russe, but classicist, perfection swan lake & romeo + juliet {swoon. now.} how am i possibly supposed to resist the urge to buy everything in the new j.crew catalog, which greeted me upon returning home {along with the new bon appetit, joy!} today was in boston, chatting & long lunch {bin 26 in beacon hill} & frozen yogurt & paper source for new marigold thank-you notes & a petite present {could this day get any better?} with friend & former co-worker & mastermind of halcyon style, so wrapped up in chatter that we failed to notice the east-coast earthquake.

but how striking & delicate these photos are.  for me, the ballet infuses j.crew's new season with elegance & grace & romance, and the st. petersburg location dons an old world exoticism that is simultaneously fresh & clean & open.  i do long to jet off to st. petersburg, for the winter palace & a glimpse into the world of fused european & eastern extravagance.  the photos also make me strangely excited to bring my turtleneck sweaters & leather boots & wool skirts & my perfect belted trench out of storage. perhaps i can translate this russian glamour & suffuse lighting to my very own autumn in new york.  any thoughts on j.crew fall?  xx hillary 

p.s. j.crew used real ballerinas from the st. petersburg ballet for studio models. lucky lucky.  

images via {j.crew blog}

p.p.s. merci beaucoup & enchantée to lots of new readers aujourd'hui!

le week-end: to dissertation or not to dissertation

image via pinterest

does your weekend look anything like this? relaxing in soothing green on a balcony overlooking the aegean coast?  if so, i am jealous.  but i shouldn't complain, today in new england the weather is beautiful beautiful & the beach is beckoning.  how could my supervisor possibly expect me to be dissertation-ing when the summer is perfect? happy weekend.  xx hillary

le week-end: nyc wrap-up

image via {here}

hello mes chéries!  i hope that you had such a lovely summer's weekend.  returning to boston late last night, my few days in nyc were perfectly magical, mostly due to, however brief, reunions with dear friends.  highlights included a morning basking in the grandeur of the frick, breakfast in the park both days, seasonal cuisine at mercer kitchen {and a most delicious cocktail :: thyme-infused vodka and sparkling lemonade}, after dinner drinks at a biergarten in the meatpacking district, and shopping and galleries in soho {chanel + chagall = bliss}.  but perhaps the most memorable stop was at the kimberly hotel's rooftop bar in midtown.  the perfect combination of an outdoor summer space glittering with white lights {and glasses of champagne} surrounded by city skyscrapers, the experience was at once refreshing & trés urban, trumped only by the perfect and delightful, quiet content of best friends, reunited at last.  oh and it's official ... i will be a new yorker in less than a month! eek! summer may be slowly coming to an end, but wonderful things are on the horizon.  xx hillary

p.s. check back later for some posts featuring some design trends i noticed during our shopping excursions ... 

vintage safari: true at first light

images via pinterest

the destination/literature combination for this week is ever so slightly less luxurious than last week's cannes, but in no way less glamorous: 1920s safari.  full of colonial adventure, romance, khaki, big-game hunting, flowing mosquito nets floating over four-poster beds in white tents under vast expanses of star-studded ski, kilimanjaro looming in the background.  teddy roosevelt, english aristocracy, and ernest hemingway.  and i believed all was lost after the second world war..

..luckily, i was mistaken.  a friend, equally enthralled as i by all things of pre-war grandeur, most recently introduced me to cottar's safari service.  founded in 1920 by a family inspired by teddy roosevelt's adventures in east africa, cottar's has continued the classic tradition of the glamorous safari ever since {minus the big-game hunting these days}.  

images via {here}

white tents and brown colonial furniture, persian rugs, flowing mosquito nets and glowing fires, and all of the romance of those old black and whites.  kiera knightly even did a feature for vogue here in 2007, and the 'press page' of the website is absolutement filled with high-profile, endless praise.   

cottar's and its notion of 1920s safari camps brings such novels as out of africa to mind, naturally, but a slightly lesser known tale is that of ernest hemingway in true at first light.  published by one of his sons posthumously, it contains anecdotes of heminway's reign as a safari guide and his time spent there with his fourth wife, hunting and fraternizing with the local tribe, a symbolic struggle with a dangerous lion, laden, of course, with colorful, tragic figures, and his beautifully evoked scenes and subtle romance.  one of his lesser known works, i would recommend it as a most serious hemingway fan, but also as a glimpse into the glamour of an age both past and preserved.  and it may be the next best thing to a proper cottar's safari.

images via pinterest

will true at first light make your summer reading list?  i've just finished age of innocence and am now onto the help to balance out this literary tour de force with something more lighthearted.  what are you reading?

i hope that your weekend is off to the most beautiful start.  although it's still too cool to sunbathe, the sun has finally shone through the london grey.  xx hillary 

p.s. want to channel hemingway/1920s safari style? a charming look for late summer/early autumn:

image via pinterest

enchanted cannes: tender is the night

after a dear friend informed me that she was soon to jetting off to cannes for a five day holiday in the sun, i could not get the glamour of the french riviera off my mind.  my first thought was of one of my very favorite novels, tender is the night, by f. scott fitzgerald.

the famous author's final completed novel, about a an attractive, wealthy couple and their friends, it epitomizes the mindset of the 'lost' generation: american ex-pats in europe during the inter-war years.  filled with parties of opulence and exoticism, and provocative, yet mysterious, tremendously complex characters, and beautifully evoked scenes of the mediterranean coast that are most like hemingway's, infidelity and drama of the idle rich, and an important mix of psychological calm and chaos, all narrated by fitztgerland's near-poetic prose at its height.   

"so green and cool that the leaves and petals were curled with tender damp."

"there was some element of loneliness involved- so easy to be loved- so hard to love."

but cannes is more than this literature: it is old hollywood and films of bardot and grace kelly and the most gorgeous people sipping bellinis on the beach and yachts in sailor-stripped or breezy whites under the most chic umbrella-ed terrace.  

all images via pinterest

happy weekend.  hope yours is filled with romance and rest and, perhaps, a delightful dose of fitzgerald.

xx hillary