Something a little different today. Trawling through my inspiration folder, I began to realize how very many fashion shoots (or at least the ones I love and archive) feature furry little props (or big and scaly ones, too...). Considering, from my detailed perusal of countless America's Next Top Model episodes, I understand that animals are the most difficult models to work with, this kind of surprised me. Although I wouldn't be surprised either if many of these creatures were super imposed during post-production. Anyway, so here we go, a small selection of beastly images, whose provenance I'm afraid I cannot determine due to shoddy image-saving practices -- copyright issues don't extend to my desktop wallpaper, you understand. Click to enlarge!

The perfect aerial sea view can inspire many things on a Monday morning... dreams of the cool, blue waves kissing the tips of your toes. The romance of cruising the high seas (pirate-cum-lover optional). The sheer freedom and undiscovered wonders of our world, which is larger than you'd think. Or maybe just a crepe Valentino, with a waterfall-loose silhouette that bubbles across your body with just a little glint of sparkle in the corner, where the sun would hit the sea. Or, if you're feeling particularly witty, they could inspire the Monday "blues". But then you're probably too much in your head.

I've been parking in the same parking lot for almost three years, and it wasn't until I got a camera that I noticed how ab-fab these walls are... a product of leaky pipes, cheap paint and vehicle scrapes and burns (the carpark is TEENSY) that brings to  mind visions of acid wash... of course, giving you denim would be too easy...

How can you not be inspired by the graduated oranges and yellows of this super-Photoshopped sunset, viewed from the rooftop of IFC? The minute my fingers dragged the slider to the highest saturation and contrast levels, I immediately set out to find the perfect ombre representation. And who would've thought it would come from cache? My mom used to work in the cache shop in Boston's Copley Place, and she always complained that the people were stuck-up and snobbish, which is funny, because cache ain't exactly Henri Bendel. I would've liked to see either more floatiness or more counter-intuitive structure -- to the point of Gareth Pugh-ishness, even -- but the colour is so dramatic that I really don't care. 

Since we got a new camera, we've been going about town taking random snapshots. As I've been going about retouching them, I've been feeding the online window-shopping addiction again, which has resulted in some interesting cross-pollination in terms of colour inspiration.
I love these Charlotte Olympia platform lace-ups, but alas, I try not to spend five gazillion dollars on shoes, so instead, I got the ones below them from Shoe Shop on Stanley Street in Central.