VITRUVIAN ME

While the whole fashion world is currently commenting on upcoming spring-summer 2012 trends, I again get preoccupied with the same issue – people's constant need to artistically portray a human body and the way these images changed over centuries.  Ever since the antics sculptors and painters searched for the ways to explain the secret of beauty by mathematics and numbers. The last photo reminds me a little bit of Da Vinci's Vitruvian man and makes me think about the rules of proportions men established, and the idea that shape and proportions of human body are nature's most perfect creation.  Vitruvian measures perhaps can be taken for depiction of ideal human proportions. One of them says: the length of the outspread arms is equal to the height of a man. I wanted to know real examples of how much and how often we deviate from these ideal measures. I asked some of my friends for their measures and here are the numbers:

	Height (cm)	Length of the outspread arms (cm)
Helena	175	172,5
Irena	176	180
Urška	168	176
Maja	172	165
Aleš	186	191
Matjaž	184	183
Fonze	180	180

Urska's measures were a little bit odd so we measured her three times, and the numbers are correct, so she’s gifted with long hands. For two days she keeps saying that she's the living proof that man evolved from monkey... Well Fonze, it looks like you're the only one, if nothing else, then by this one measurement, who is suited to be a Vitruvian man.

Nikolina: blouse Miss Selfridge, t-shirt H&M, vest TOPSHOP, pants Stradivarius, skirt and boots ZARA

Photos: Erik Simonič

TOM

So I put on my hat, I put on my new shoes that look more old that any of the shoes I have at home,  and I look at myself and think: »Well, there is quite a lot of elements of Tom Waits look in this outfit«.The washed black color of the pants and the hat and the shoes.

Coincidence? Or just the fact that I adore him and sometimes I unknowingly choose clothes similar to his. Even thouh I don't think that Mr.Waits gives a shi... about fashion. And speaking of this great songwriter, I just put down some quick answers that he gave in an interview that capture his sense of humor whitch I think it's hilarious.

On what occasion do you lie?

TW: Who needs an occasion.

When and where were you happiest?

TW: Ninetheen sixty-three, 1 A.M., washing dishes on a Saturday night in the kitchen of Napoleone Pizza House, 619 National Avenue, National City, California.

What do you regard the lowest depth of misery?

TW: The floor just below that.

What is your most marked characteristic?

TW: My ability to discuss, in depth, a book I've never read.

                                                                       (Tom Waits, The collected interviews)

Urška: blouse, sweater, pants, hat H&M, jacket Pull & Bear, scarf s.Oliver, cardigan by Urška, shoes Amisu.

Photos: Erik Simonič

NEW LANARK

I am fascinated with places that reflect a strong history. New Lanark is a small 18th-century village and became famous as the site of Robert Owen's pioneering social reforms. I was walking beside amazing cotton mill buildings and thought about how people lived and worked in Owen's time.

Owen reduced working time from 17 hours to 10 and children under the age of 10 were not allowed to work in the mill.

"What ideas individuals may attach to the term "Millennium" I know not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.”

Extract from Robert Owen’s "Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark"

New Year’s Day, 1816

Nikolina: skirt H&M, cardigan Promod, shoes TOPSHOP

Photos: Erik Simonič