WHAT I REALLY REALLY WANT: July 2010

30 July 2010

Mad Men Contest Entry

Today has been an exciting day, I finally had a photo accepted for AMC's Mad Men casting call contest!
Not only that, but since 8 am today I've received 580 votes with the help of all of my friends and family that have been so wonderful with pushing everyone they know to vote as well.
I appreciate you! You guys got me from page 135 this morning with no votes all the way to 580 votes and into the top 10 "most popular" pages of all the contestants.

Granted it will be A LOT harder from here on out to move up, since some of the very top people have close to 20,000 votes (and they're some of the weirdest photos!) but that's alright, I just want to try.

Above is the photo I cropped down to the permitted size and entered into the contest.

VOTE VOTE VOTE LIKE IT'S GOIN' OUT OF STYLE HERE

You can vote everyday, and as I learned this afternoon you can vote more than once if you have multiple browsers on your computer, and you can also vote on your phone. PHEW that's a lot of voting.

I love you guys and thanks again for all your (very fast) support.

Xo Rah

(Photo: Bill Sitzmann of Minorwhite Studios)

29 July 2010

Miles Aldridge for the Win

Motivation, Vogue Italia-style. Enjoy!

Of course this is my favorite.

I'm just going to pretend that they were inspired by The Mynabirds' cake fight in "Let the Record Go". It's obvious, right? Miles Aldridge is totally channeling Laura Burhenn.

Xo Rah

(Photos: All photos by Miles Aldridge for Vogue Italia)

28 July 2010

PINK DRESS

These are part two of my photo shoot with with Bill Sitzmann from this spring. Part one, "White Dress" is here.

The whole suitcase situation is loosely inspired by this promotional photo from one of my favorite movies, Crybaby. Traci Lords' character, Wanda is totally the best thing about that whole movie and I am completely inspired by every aspect of her look. The tiny bangs all curled up on her forehead while the rest of her hair remains long, fluffy and curled, the attitude, the bold red lips, the leather jacket over the dress...GAHHHH it just slays me!

This photo (above) is the one they used in Omaha Magazine for my style feature. All photos were (of course) taken by Bill Sitzmann of Minorwhite Studios.

I guess I should say a little something about what I was wearing. The most amazing dress in the world is vintage, sheer socks with blue polka dots are from Anthropologie (I bought 4 pairs, favorite socks in the world!), and the silver glittered open toe pumps are Christian Louboutin. They're also the shoes I wore to my wedding this past October.

Were you missing the fake snow from part one? Here we go...

The best (above) of all the snow pictures, I think.

Feel the burrrrrrrn!

Snow was all up in my eyes again so although it's not the most flattering photo, I wanted to show you close up of my jewelry. I think I was wearing like four necklaces. Jewelry was a combination of vintage and Forever 21.

What's that sitting by my arm? Do you see it? The little yellow bag...

IT'S CRACK! Or some other drug, I don't know. None of us were entirely sure, but I think it really sealed the deal to make these last shots my favorite. During the shoot, Colin Conces (also of Minorwhite) stepped on it by accident (after my hair stylist Darcy Covert found it on a mound of dirt and bravely picked it up) and got it all over his shoes. I think he ended up throwing the shoes away or at least had to scrub them down in fear that his dogs would somehow ingest the crack.

Seriously the most ridiculous thing to ever happen to me on a photo shoot. I guess that's what you get when you tell your photographer that you want to shoot in front of one of the most run down strips of (mostly) abandoned housing in Omaha. Omahans, do you recognize it? It's off Leavenworth Street.

Thanks so much again to the Minorwhite guys for shooting me, I'm really looking forward to our shoot next week, for which we ordered 350 freeze dried honeybees.

That's all I'll say, you'll just have to check back for more BUZZ on the bees.

Xo Rah

21 July 2010

IN GOD WE TRUST

Let me tell you about one of my favorite stores in the universe, In God We Trust NYC. When I was in New York this past spring I was running my husband and buddies Lindsey and Dustin all around looking for all of these stores that I shop at online.

I wanted to go to Oak.

I wanted to go to Opening Ceremony.

I wanted to go to Pixie Market.

I (of course) wanted to go to Topshop.

You get the point, I wanted to go to the real stores!

In God We Trust "Horse Bit Socks", $25

But as the story many times goes, the online store ends up being much more amazing than the real thing. During this manic day, we happened to walk by a store with a little flag that said "In God We Trust" on it. I peeked in, cute salesgirls...ok lookin' good so far. I start to scan the front window and see these little beauties on a mannequin, fittingly named, "Horse Bit Socks" (pictured above). Lindsey and I both bought them and disgustingly, I wore them for like two weeks straight. So many ladies asked where they could get them, and there you go (go for it and order me the red ones for my finder's fee!).

Back to my love affair for this store, sadly, everyone wanted to move on and I have so many regrets about things I didn't buy (they had the perfect high-waisted, military green, perfectly fitting shorts that for some reason, I hesitated on).

However, I checked out their small online store when I returned and they have a couple of jewelry items that I really liked when I was there, such as...

In God We Trust "Best Fuckin' Friends Necklace" in sterling silver, $200

and...

In God We Trust "Sweet Nothings Necklace", $40

The "Sweet Nothings Necklace" comes with 22 slightly vulgar optional sweet nothings, such as, "Crazy Sexy Cool" (my personal fav, Oooh on the TLC tip!), "Sweet Tits" (this one is calling my friend Laura's name), "Balls to the Wall", "Eat a Dick", "Let's Make Out" and some that frankly, I just can't name. You can see all the wonderful options here.

So next time you're in NYC or near it, take a cab to In God We Trust. I hope you'll love it like I do.

While we're at it, what are your favorite NYC boutiques?

Xo Rah

P.S. Siiiiiiike (is that still cool to say?)! Not really over, here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip, enjoy!

19 July 2010

WHITE DRESS

These are part one of a shoot I did for Omaha Magazine in Spring of this year. Photos were taken by my dear friend Bill Sitzmann of Minorwhite Studios in Omaha. The purpose of the shoot/story was to give a little bit of info about me and to showcase my personal style. They ended up using this photo in their layout, but I wanted to show everyone the rest of the pictures because I love how they turned out.

In this set of photos, I am wearing a vintage dress loaned to me for the shoot by my friend Anna, whom I've written about before. The sash I'm wearing is also hers, and it's made from an old cummerbund (isn't that great? I've started buying them when I see them so I can make more). Floral printed tights are from Urban Outfitters in Omaha. The Gloves are vintage from Second Chance Antiques in Omaha (RIP yellow gloves, sacrificed in the cake fight for the Mynabirds video). Shoes are from Von Maur in Omaha and are Betsey Johnson. My giant Amy Winehouse-inspired hive (we totally took it to another level, beat that Amy!) was done by Darcy Covert of ~~Omaha~~ Chicago (as of this week). Always the control freak, I did my own makeup and all other props are my own.

See that teacup? My original plan was to tie it in my hair and to balance it on my head, like I was trying to balance a book. But living in Nebraska you always have to have a backup plan. It was windy that day, and my hair already emitted enough personality on it's own (really though, it was just a wee bit smaller than Marge Simpson's! Darcy shoved an entire wig in there!) so we decided that I would just throw fake snow out of it.

One of the best things about working with Bill is that he doesn't always want everything to be pretty. He always has me making the most awful, wicked witch-like faces possible.

I love this one (above). Enlarge and check out my address.

Did I mention it was windy? Oh I did? Well, did I mention that fake snow BURNS LIKE HELL when it hits your eyes?

Real tears! I'm trying to hold my eyes open here after globs of fake snow just blew into my eye. My head kind of looks over sized here...very Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland-esque, no?

So much fun. Thanks to Omaha Magazine and Bill Sitzmann of Minorwhite Studios for featuring me.

Stay tuned for part two of this shoot later this week!

Xo Rah

12 July 2010

LET THE RECORD GO

The Mynabirds - Let The Record Go from Saddle Creek on Vimeo.

This spring I had a chance to participate in a music video with some of my loveliest friends for The Mynabirds, which is Laura Burhenn's new band (formerly of Georgie James). "What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood" is the title of the Mynabird's first record, available now on Saddle Creek. It was so much fun to participate, I mean really, isn't it every girl's dream to smash cake in the faces of their friends?

The whole process and styling of the video was amazing, we filmed for almost a whole day but everything was edited down to about two minutes to fit with the video's song, "Let the Record Go". This song is one of, if not my favorite song on this record. Laura's voice is so beautiful it's almost haunting.
Most of the clothing for this video was vintage and it was all our own. I showed up that morning with two giant bags and a suitcase full of clothing, shoes and accessories (gloves, furs and almost ALL of my jewelry) and the rest of the girls did the same. Hair was done by Jessica Brown of Halo Studios in Omaha. In the end a few gloves and things were sacrificed due to the nature of the video (HELLO, CAKE FIGHT) but it was so worth it.

Here are some additional photos taken by Anna, Laura and Jess between filming, enjoy!