Shareen Mitchell of Shareen Vintage sat down with us this month to share some thoughts on fashion, style, and her upcoming reality T.V. show. Shareen has done the thrifting for you, filling her NY + LA based stores with thousands of perfectly updated vintage dresses. The woman wants you feeling good.

Read our former Shareen post here, and tell her we sent you.

]]> http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/launderette-films-shareen-vintage/feed 1 http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/screening-room-%e2%80%93-15ft-of-pure-white-snow http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/screening-room-%e2%80%93-15ft-of-pure-white-snow#comments Sat, 03 Jul 2010 07:07:07 +0000 Keith http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/?p=2829 [See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Some may know John Hillcoat as the director of the movie The Road, (I missed that one in the theaters, no hard feelings John, it’s in my queue). For me he’s always been the Brit behind Nick Cave’s video for “15ft of Pure White Snow.”

We find ourselves in a cold war. Eastern block decay threatening a stand off with desaturated film and shimmering guitars. Between Green-Corduroy-Suit’s moves (yes, it’s Jarvis Cocker), and the companies combined choice in footwear, this is one communist party we want to join.

Sex in a bottle. Shawn Kim, directs this video for Autolux’s grinding “Turnstile Blues.” The multiple monitors are wonderful. Each screen a canvas of its own. The blackness too, as it fades in and out, keeping time, holding place as nothing. Autolux makes a beautiful ruckus. One that should be listened to so loud, things shake on your desk.

The new album Transit Transit is scheduled for release later this year, and they open for Thom Yorke in Santa Barbara this weekend.

We took the funicular to the top of Fløyen mountain today and it reminded me of this video. We’re on Kings of Convenience home turf here in Bergen, and this video gives you a tasty taste of how beautiful it is. François Nemeta takes stop motion photos a step further, tiling and collaging them into moving still lifes.

For springtime-inspired trains and footage, see Failure. Its got bicycles at the end and everything. (!!!)

Ironically, sound plays a larger role in this video than in most. Directors Si & Ad allow Fionn Regan’s song to dip and mask in each environment, each location becoming part of his performance. “Be Good Or Be Gone” becomes intimate and personal as we travel with it about town, in weather and crowds, and through Fionn’s unwavering delivery.

Another white room and another fantastic haircut. Brett Vapnek directs this Cat Power video for “Cross Bones Style”. It’s a song that gets stuck in your craw. It taunts you, and makes you listen to it on repeat for days on end. We love her dancing, we love her skates, and you can imagine we’d be rather partial to that red dress.

For more, look into Chan Marshall’s beautifully mannered, quiet cameo in the film My Blueberry Nights.

J. Crew’s always known the value of romance.

Say what you will (*fits like box), they’ve got the best catalogs in the business. Foreign lands, well-dressed, uniquely handsome-looking people, it’s always Land Cruisers & calm digging with them. In this dreamy visit to Prague, the directing duo of Tom and Coliena, really make the aesthetic sing. Slender cars in the rain, vibrant colors giving loaded glances… Launderette loves a good montage. We also love formal wear and balloons.

This song alone is such a haunting perfect classic. Tim Broad’s slow, all white direction in its video seems to understand the simplicity that is working. The soothing nonchalance of the band, the stand up-leather pants drummer with that bitchin’ Jonny Greenwood haircut. Often heard and seen around the Launderette office, Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” makes a beautiful drone. Probably a good candidate for the next mixtape.

]]> http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/screening-room-just-like-honey/feed 2 http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/in-defense-of-earnestness http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/in-defense-of-earnestness#comments Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:00:15 +0000 Kaahl http://www.dresslaunderette.com/blog/?p=1224

A twelve-minute computer-animated tour of post-modern architectural specimens (real and imagined), set to a heroic, Hans Zimmer-esque soundtrack… frankly, it sounds like a bad idea. But Alex Roman pulls it off.  It is a testament to what this type of animation does best; shine and stone and metal, but what I appreciate most is the risk in making something straight-forward and earnest.

Roman (pseudonym for Jose Selva) uses technology to make something familiar, better.  Something in which everything is CG and quite entertaining.  Record something, write something, cook something. Get that first version behind you, critics–especially the pesky inner-critic–be damned.

Its always apparent when a little more thought and effort went into something.

Here, director Dougal Wilson creates a quiet, slightly surreal work, full of mood and grace for a British communications company. Often employing long single takes and synchronized choreography Wilson earns your attention and your time through the amount of both he has put into the details of each film.

There is so much potential in the short format of a commercial. The limitation of 30 seconds forcing a unique storytelling possibility so rarely taken advantage of and used well. Those that do however; become something of value on their own, and last in your memory beyond only brand or pitch.