Friday, June 16, 2017

Mori Music Find: Jean Ritchie


Today's mori music find, Jean Ritchie, is a bit more vintage than usual. Jean Ritchie was an American-Appalachian folk singer who passed away in 2015, but her music is timeless. She sang all kinds of folk music, both American and English, and played many different instruments, such as the Appalachian mountain dulcimer which she is the most famous for, and the acoustic guitar. She also wrote some of her own works, such as the lovely song "Black Waters" which talks about about mountain top removal in the Appalachian mountains. I highly recommend her album "Mountain Hearth and Home" (which can be found on spotify to stream) that contains some of her best recordings.


Have you heard of Jean Ritchie? If so, how did you like her music? If not, I hope you enjoy!


Thursday, June 15, 2017

Mori Adventures: Searching for a Ghost Town

Today I have a bit of a different post for you all. I wanted to share about a recent adventure that I had with my mom. As part of a completion of the 101 things in 1001 days challenge, I wanted to try and visit a ghost town. However, the nearest "wild west" type of ghost town is way too far for me to visit in one day, so I had to settle for the ghost town equivalent in my area.


Most ghost towns anywhere near my area are small towns of a few buildings that were abandoned in the early 1900s for various reasons. But, sadly, most of these towns have had all of their buildings leveled. So when I found out that there was supposedly a ghost town in my state that had a few buildings left, as well as being still officially on the map, I decided I had to visit. So, my mom and I took a road trip to see if we could find the town.

We drove around for about 3 hours, got lost a couple times (and had to backtrack to areas where we had any service to get GPS), but eventually we reached an area in the actual middle of nowhere where the town was supposed to be. Unfortunately it had been leveled at some point, which was disappointing, but we decided to get out and look at the sight where it had been. I'm glad we did, because we were actually able to find outlines of where the buildings had previously stood. And although the area was very overgrown with trees, we were also able to find bits of an elaborate 1920s fence, the remnants of the railroad that had once traveled through the town, and piles debris from where they had knocked down the buildings and left the rubble. There were bits of shingles, old pipes, and other things like that. It was a bit eerie, but also very interesting to see where an entire town had once stood.


The concrete in this picture was the outline of where a building once stood. You could even see some bits of sidewalk left in front of it.




These were the piles of rubble left over. In one pile there were even some bits of cloth and an old toy.

Even though there weren't any buildings left, it made for a fun road trip with some lovely scenery along the way, and it was a bit of a scavenger hunt. It was also great to spend some time with my mom. Besides, it's always fun to try new things, even if they don't work out quite how you planned.


Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Mori Music Find: Gabrielle Aplin



Today's Mori Music Find is Gabrielle Aplin. She is an English singer-songwriter who gained notoriety through her youtube covers, and later started to publish her own music. A friend of mine introduced me to her music a while back, and I love the soft, relaxing feel of her work. Also, her voice is quite unique, and lovely to listen to!




Have you heard of Gabrielle Aplin? If so, how did you like her music? If not, I hope you enjoy!


Monday, June 12, 2017

Mori Kei and Minimalism: A Moderate Approach to Fashion



Mori kei fashion and minimalism seems like exact opposites, I know. I've had so many people ask me how you can possibly combine the two. In fact, there are some who don't think it's possible. However, I believe that it is possible, and I'd like to propose to you just how to do it. I'm splitting this up into two options, which I'm calling the moderate approach, and the capsule wardrobe approach. This post will focus on the moderate approach, and in another post I'll take a look at the caspule wardrobe option.

So, first, let's tackle the elephant in the room. Mori kei fashion takes a lot of clothing to pull off. It's a lot of layers, and a lot of clothing to own. Even if you wear a casual mori kei style all of the time, you will still have more clothing than the average person. So no matter what you end up deciding to do with your clothing, as someone who wears mori kei you will always have more clothes than the average minimalist. There's no way around it. So please, don't feel like you can't call yourself a minimalist because you have more clothes than other people think you should have. If you love mori kei, and you love your clothing, then you shouldn't feel bad about that. But, despite the fact that you will likely always have more clothing than others, I still believe you can have a more minimal amount of clothing where you only have pieces you wear often and truly love. That's why I'm calling this the moderate approach. It's by no means an extreme option where you cull over 3/4 of your clothing, but it is a way to trim down what you own by deciding what is really worth keeping.

With this approach it isn't about having as little as possible, like with the capsule wardrobe approach (which I will talk about later), but rather to have only what you use and love. To make this possible, I have come up with a few points to guide you when deciding what clothes you should keep, and what kinds of things you should get rid of.

First, don't keep extra pieces. If you have two beige sweaters that serve almost the exact same purpose, get rid of one and keep the one you like the most.

Second, don't keep items that you can only work into a few coords. If the piece isn't versatile, and you can only wear it with that one specific dress, then get rid of it.

Third, keep a color scheme for your closet. By having a set color scheme, you're less likely to buy that one pink sweater that doesn't match anything you wear, and ends up sitting in the back of your closet and never worn.

Fourth, know what you do and don't wear often, and know which pieces you know how to layer with. If you have a dress that you feel is an awkward length, or a skirt that doesn't layer well with anything, or a shirt that looks good on a hanger but makes you feel uncomfortable, then get rid of these things. Keep only the clothes you are able to layer with and feel good wearing, and get rid of the rest.

Fifth, remember that mori coords don't really need 100 layers, and that you can function with less. It's very possible to create mori coords with 4 or 5 layers, all of which can be re-used for more than one coordinate. You can use the same underskirt, or sweater, or dress, for dozens of different coords. And you'll often find that most of your base pieces are useful for the majority of your outfits. You can check my pinterest board for some inspiration for mori coords that work with less pieces, and pieces that are more versatile. But, just quickly, here are a few coord ideas that work with less pieces, and versatile options.


This coord is for the winter season, and still manages to have only 5 layers. All of the pieces are neutral, and could be used again in other coordinates easily.


This coord use 4 pieces only, and again is all neutral items that could easily be used again.


There are 4 visible layers again here, but still a lovely mori silhouette.


This coord manages to use only 3 layers, and still look perfectly mori!


This coord uses a piece with lots of detail, in order to create a mori coord with only 2 layers. Definitely a more extreme example, and harder to achieve. But by no means impossible.

Source

This coord has only 4 layers, but uses accessories to create a more complete look.

I hope that I've given you some ideas on how to have a somewhat minimalist approach to mori kei fashion. I'll admit that this is an area I still struggle with connecting to minimalism myself sometimes, and I'm still learning. Let me know if you have any tips or advice related to how you've connected mori kei and minimalism in your life! I'd love to hear your ideas. Until next time, my deers!


Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Instagram Spotlight: _cinnamontea_ + daughter_of_the_woods

I have another instagram spotlight for you all today! This time I'm looking at _cinamontea_ and daughter_of_the_woods.

To start off, I'd like to introduce my smaller user first, _cinnomontea_. Along with having a lovely instagram feed, she is also a lovely person overall. Her posts are a mix of pastel and mori kei inspired photos, and have a dreamy, soft, ethereal feel. I've followed her instagram for quite a while, and it never fails to inspire!

A post shared by 🌸 Laurie 🌸 (@_cinnamontea_) on


A post shared by 🌸 Laurie 🌸 (@_cinnamontea_) on

A post shared by 🌸 Laurie 🌸 (@_cinnamontea_) on

A post shared by 🌸 Laurie 🌸 (@_cinnamontea_) on


The next user I'd like to showcase is a larger user, daughter_of_the_woods. Her feed is full of beautiful nature photos and quaint rustic cottages. In addition to having a instagram, she also has a blog you can follow.


A post shared by ↟ M i c h e l l e ↟ (@daughter_of_the_woods) on



A post shared by ↟ M i c h e l l e ↟ (@daughter_of_the_woods) on

I hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures I've shared here from these lovely accounts, and I hope you've found someone new here to fill your feed with lovely mori things!



Friday, June 2, 2017

Mori Music Find: Misc

Hello everyone! Today's music post is a bit different. Instead of focusing on one artist, I chose to include a handful of songs from various places that all have a mori sound to them. I hope you enjoy all of them, and find a few new songs that you haven't heard of before. Happy listening!

Down Today by Jonathan Coulton (Live Version)



Follow On (Cover) by Broken Lens Productions



Animal Crossing, Rainy Day (Harp Cover) by Samantha Ballard



Rainbow Love Letter 虹色ラブレター by Isayama Mutsumi 諫山実生


Take Us to Lithuania by YeYe (Live)



La Jument de Michao by Nolwenn Leroy