Living in LA, there is a certain inspo that seeps in. That 1960s, 1970's musician - poet- hippie part of Laurel Canyon adjacency you understand. There is the Joni Mitchell 'California I'm coming home' and the Jim Morrison Caves you hike to meets LA Woman, that Joan Didion inspired kind of LA imagery where cloudy June Gloom & understated sweatshirt dressing meets a vintage Stingray Corvette. You don't have to be a musician to know these LA influences, if you are here long enough, you just understand them.

 

 

This soulful inspo is a part of LA lore, but also, there something else... LA inspiration has so much to do with a cosmic feeling. The big, wide sky and the shape of the sun moving across it, something about the quality of the golden light in the late afternoon. That is LA.

 

 

I feel older quite often lately. I know you aren't supposed to say that out loud. I am a nostalgic person. I lean into all of these references and memories and inspirations that have stuck onto me, maybe forever.  Lately, sometimes... no one knows what I am talking about. I think during this particular photoshoot, I said, act like the cover of the Doors Album, that famous Lion shot of Jim Morrison with his arms out.. but of course, most people just didn't know. Just another silly thing I might be saying....but all of it, it does come from a feeling.

 

 

Something else I love about LA, something I find resonate in this series of photos, is they personify a 'go with the flow' kind of energy, the photos give that. A laid back kind of chill that I hope still emanates from me. I used to or want to still be this feeling. I have always been this, but as things grow and unfold, and deepen, ultimately, they become less chill.

I can feel my breaths getting a little shorter, or stopping. Sometimes I am not breathing anymore. Sometimes people still say to me, you are so calm and relaxed.. and I think to myself, ok good... they still think that, phew.. ha ha, because I worry I lose that a bit.. with the rising tides. My chill becomes a little more intense with the pressures of a bigger and bigger company.

 

 

You know..I was a Yoga teacher for stints in-between my Corporate Fashion years and my "Mom and Pop Barney's Brands" Fashion years. 10 years of my life I spent deeply intertwined in Yoga and Yoga philosophy, Ayurveda and basically all things focused on long deep breathing. I didn't care for the posing part, I was deeply entrenched in the mental chill part. It was a tool to cure me from my corporate fashion retail past which caused me a great deal of actual Autoimmune health issues (I was a fashion designer who couldn't stand to be a fashion designer, so I became a yoga teacher.. all very LA sounding.. no?)

But I think it truly shaped me and sadly I'm so far from it all now. There was a saying that always stuck. Calle Vattam Calle Cittum, and that meant, "So the breath, goes the mind". That soothed me. Deep, long breaths mean a long stable mind. And vice versa. 

 

 

I'm less hippie that I was back when. I'm less boheme than I was. I've got a little bit of that canyon longing and chill lingering lighting up in me. It might just be the breeze of summer. I'm starting to pine for a big ranchy mid century in the hills. With summer encroaching, I'm wanting to wear billowy loose pants and undone draped shirts.

 

xx Jamie