images via Style.com

I'm really enchanted with Giles Deacon's pre-fall presentation. Held in a Florence porcelain factory and accented by a metal soundtrack, the whole thing was a fantastically complicated equation. Kind of like:

Julian Schnabel plate paintings x a "Hoarders" episode + raver wigs

Though he is rehashing some spring trends here (electric tangerine, trench-style tops, nude dresses) I think he more than earns a pass for finding a way to inject them with some of his apocalyptic gloom-and-doom and British quirk.

Deacon once described his dresses as "a bit 'We're on, we're out, we mean business.'" And, underneath the industrial Stephen Jones headpieces, excess hair, and chaos, the pieces themselves are classic Deacon. Tough, straightforward and darkly sexy.

images via Style.com

image via The Icon

I hope she didn't use an alcohol-based hairspray.

An exhibition of Hugh Kretschmer's photography--which I find really striking and hilarious--is opening tomorrow night at the Clark|Oshin Gallery on Wilshire.

There's something equally amusing and off-putting about his work that makes me think of filmmakers like Michel Gondry and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I've never liked Dali's brand of surrealism--too serious--which is why I think I gravitate to Kretschmer's childlike-yet-macabre imagination.

In short, go look.

images via Massamo Gammacurta

These delicate lollipops--in their pretty, crystalline hues, with their tiny, imperfect bubbles--are beautiful strictly on a surface level.

But I also love the cheeky comment artist Massamo Gammacurta made by casting them in the shape of designer labels' logos. Sugar is the medium--a product with no real nutritional value that is usually eaten quickly and greedily. Contrast that to the argument for luxury goods: that they're highly valuable, special treasures that should last a lifetime and, because of that, are worth their exorbitant price tags.

Let's be real. Don't designer duds feel more akin to a guilty sugar rush than a wise investment these days?

image via HELMO

Betes de Mode is a collection of 13 photographs, melding portraits of people and animals, that was recently created by HELMO for Galleries Lafayette in Paris. My favorite image is this one: an overlay of wolf on woman that makes the animal somewhat resemble a very fabulous hat.

This photograph was an excellent reminder, for me, that there is a clear reason why wolves are both the animal of choice when it comes to airbrushed T-shirts at county fairs and cunning villains in fairy tales.