white boxes - ibiki

First came Old Gold, then came Héritage/Inheritance, and now one revamp later I stumbled upon the opening festivities of ibiki.  More objects have been brought into the fold, including a very awesome sparkly Maison Martin Margiela snow globe-why not?  The store has maintained its clothing selection of mostly neutral colours, classic shapes and covetable pieces. There is an anonymity to the clothing as nothing screams its brand.  In a similar vein there are also many white boxes: long ones, big ones, small ones and triangle wedge ones.  Clean and label free, ahh...

MMM x H&M just landed

It is safe to say that there was much anticipation for the Maison Martin Margiela collaboration for H&M after early views of the collection were released. Last night at the media/industry preview a controlled chaos took hold of the flagship store as shoppers staked their claim.

 Crowd view from above!

Frothy cocktails and a staff member wears a Margiela apron.

After the initial rush of the crowd I got to lean back and enjoy a tasty canapé or two and watch those who scored a large haul exit with arms full of the logoed white on white shopping bags.  As for yours truly, I picked up the silver candy wrapper clutch and hightailed it to the cinema to watch two and a half hours of Daniel Craig wearing Tom Ford suits (nerd out here and here).

MMM x H&M

With almost twenty designer collaborations under their belt H&M got everyone all excited back in 2004 with their first guest designer Karl Lagerfeld.  Many other mass market retailers have gone collab cray cray, increasing the interest in the luxury market and bringing forth many covetable and affordable pieces to your wardrobe or your home (Target x Neiman Marcus is coming up for those watching).  The downside of this are the hoarders who line up, clean up and sell on eBay for way more than the items' worth, thus defeating the purpose.
Ok, now that I got that out of my system...

Dropping on November 15th is the mysterious house of  Maison Martin Margiela collaboration with H&M.  The collection consists of approximately 104 items of apparel and accessories for men and women of off-kilter proportions. (And I do mean this in a good way).

While I was browsing the press site, I had an accessory surprise moment: I got a kick out of these metallic candy wrapper clutches.  I visualized them the size of a wallet or an standard issue envelope clutch and thought that that was awesome in of itself.  But wait! There's more to it...

Extra baggy pants aside-look at the size of that clutch! It's HUGE! How can you ever be cranky carrying that thing around? Sign me up!

Matryoshka Dolls

Tis the season for gift-giving guides online, in magazines and beyond. What to get for your mom, your dad, your super cool BFF, your babysitter, the hostess gifts, your dog, the woodsman etc.  These are all usually conveniently attached to links for where to buy-should you be online shopping.
I'd like to give my version of this guidance trend, with another trend in design, the matryoshka doll.

I saw these dolls at my friend Andrew's place, his girlfriend's sister had picked up this lovely set of nesting dolls in Russia. Apparently these get updated when a new president comes along.  In case you weren't sure, from left to right is: Putin, Yeltsin, Gorbachev, Stalin and Lenin.  There's an Animal Farm reference here somewhere....

But on with the gift giving!
How about some art? Society6 has more images than you can sift through! A quick search of "nesting dolls"gave plenty of options.

My personal pick is Ariel Wilson's Haida Nesting dolls.  Native to British Columbia and Alaska, the Haida's imagery was popularly depicted with the use of Nike shoes by artist Brian Jungen.

This is the DrinkUP Babushka bedside carafe-her head becomes the drinking cup!  While I gave you a UK based link, I just saw this little lady at Zone (among with many other Matryoshka related items.)

For those who want a luxurious yet unobtrusive set of dolls, might I suggest the Maison Martin Margiela Russian Nesting Doll Set?

But at the end of the day, the real gift I'd like to suggest is right here.

Happy holidays!