Those Transitional Tones

MARCEL PROUST SAID THAT a change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves. Yesterday we had hail, sun and rain alternating the hours from morning to night, turning the world outside my window into an Armageddon swallowing up the spring. I can't tell whether it's my mood that is most affected, or my manner of dressing. I think it's both.

The boyfriend thinks it's hormones.

With the breezy dresses and open-toed shoes parked in the closet where they continue to spin cobwebs since October, I gaze longingly at Bimba y Lola's spring-summer lookbooks, clad in the label's quirky, colorful femininity. Orange for spring, purple for summer and aqua for high summer.

I miss the reliable warmth of the tropics and being able to wear chiffon all year long.

Bimba y Lola lookbooks primavera, verano and alta verano, www.bimbaylola.com

That Anime Impressionism

THOUGH FAR FROM BEING AN ANIME FANATIC, I am not entirely removed from the culture, having spent many afternoons of my youth watching my own share of those wide-eyed favorites. By heart a lover of classics, I followed Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater series, with the melodramatic Princess Sarah as my daily after-school treat. Other shows I loosely followed include Ranma 1/2, Sailormoon, Daimos, Curious Play, and once I had a baby brother, Dragon Ball. Fun times!

Truth is, back in school at my school, anime was shunned as an interest for dorks and the socially incompetent. As with the many classifications created by the young, who knows why anything is "cool" or "dorky" really?

It was a strange, unfounded stigma to delegate to an animation style beloved the world over by sectors both highbrow and lowbrow, not to mention young and fully grown. Outside of TV series and feature films, anime has been embraced by pop-culture influencers and tastemakers alike, including electronic music duo Daft Punk, who featured in their "One More Time" music video, scenes that eventually formed part of anime film Interstella 5555, as well as Marc Jacobs, who, as creative director of Louis Vuitton, collaborated with artist Takashi Murakami for the Superflat Monogram collection and campaign.

Whatever your impression of the Japanese animation style, there's no shunning Jun Kumaori's artful incorporation of anime elements into impressionist-style scenes. The trailing cat, the humanized teddy bear and the melancholy schoolgirls amidst strokes of shifting light and color. Now how is that for dorks?

Illustration by Jun Kumaori, kumaori.info

That Arpège

"A DESIGN INEVITABLY REFLECTS the artistic motifs stored in one's memory, drawing on those which are the most alive, new and fertile all at the same time." Assouline's Lanvin by Élisabeth Barillé presents Jeanne Lanvin as a traveler and aesthete who gathered immense inspiration for her various motifs. Her office alone was said to have housed "thousands of treasures" ranging from sculptures and jewels to a meticulously catalogued library of clothing and fabric.

But beyond her marvelous material legacy, one encounters Jeanne Lanvin as an adoring mother whose greatest inspiration -that which seemed most alive, new and fertile to her- came from a much closer, more personal source.

Marie-Blanche, Comtesse de Polignac, Marguerite or "Ririte" as she called her, was Jeanne Lanvin's only child, who, from youth, served as her muse. For the little comtesse, the designer made exquisite dresses that rose to so much popularity, society women began not only ordering copies for their daughters but also dresses for themselves.

Beyond clothing, Marie-Blanche continued to inspire other areas of her mother's craft. The arpèges, or scales, she practiced on the piano led to the fashion house's hit scent Arpège, which also features on its bottle, the brand's trademark graphic: Jeanne Lanvin and Marie-Blanche dressing for a ball.

With Mother's Day being celebrated in many countries this week, I send out my heartfelt admiration to mothers everywhere, whose devotion to loving and doting knows no bounds. And to all of us fortunate muses, comtesses, prides, joys, apples of the eye, et al., may we always strive to be beautiful in the ways it matters most. We are, after all, our mothers' best designs.

Lanvin by Èlisabeth Barillé, Assouline Publishing.