One of our favourite bloggers, Hannah-Rose from Capture the Castle was in New York recently and she caught up with a friend of hers, freelance stylist, writer and blogger Siri from Ringo, have a banana! Here at Benah we love Siri, because she always leaves such lovely comments on our blog, so we couldn't go past this chance to get Hannah-Rose to have an interview with the super creative and inspiring Siri. We hope you enjoy hearing all about her style, story and take on New York, and if you love delicious dishes, film photos and enviable holidays, check out her blog too!
all photos by Benah
“I feel weird describing myself as a fashion blogger to anyone,” Siri Thorson muses. We’re sitting at the newly opened Toby’s Estate in Williamsburg, New York, mostly so that I can cure my homesickness with Flat Whites and Tim Tams. It is a particularly cold day but, in that classic New York style, the sun is high in the sky and there’s not a cloud in sight. “I don’t think that’s what I am,” Thorson continues. “But the internet has brought me so many good things and so many good friends. I’ll never be able to really hate the internet because it’s brought me so many good things.”
She may not want to describe herself as a fashion blogger but that is undoubtedly one aspect of her multi-faceted creative experience. She’s the face – and talented writer and photographer – behind Ringo, have a banana, one of the growing breed of “lifestyle” blogs, a collection of sites that have moved beyond their original fashion-heavy focus to incorporate a wider variety of topics, from interior design and travel to food, music and film.
“There are a lot of people who are more on my level and just have a blog that serves as a secondary part of their lives – as something that they enjoy,” Thorson says. “That’s the kind of thing I’m more interested in. I don’t really care about the outfit anymore. I’m more interested in the broad view.”
Here’s the broad view about Thorson. Born and raised on the West Coast (“It’s so much more rugged out there, everything is rough and pointy and wild”), she lived in Santa Cruz and San Francisco before finally settling in New York almost five years ago. She works as a freelance stylist, writer and brand consultant, alternating between creative direction for look books and shoots with journalism and copy writing for online stores. And she’s irritatingly, painfully well-dressed – as all good stylists often are – the type of girl who can walk into a high street store and find the only well-tailored, truly chic thing in there, the kind of girl who seems oblivious to the blistering cold. (Today she’s wearing penny loafers and the perfect beige trench coat). Her style is the perfect mix of perennial vintage favourites – Breton tops and cable knit sweaters and tapered trousers – with the studied grunge of contemporary streetwear from of-the-moment designers like Rag & Bone and Isabel Marant.
“I always admire people who can commit to a stylistic lifestyle and live it everyday – especially girls who are really into vintage,” Thorson admits. “There are girls here who only wear vintage clothes… everything [they] own is vintage, every single piece of clothing.” Thorson breaks off, shaking her head. “I could never do that. I need to have a pair of sweatpants.”
Thorson certainly has a stylistic lifestyle of her own, though. Recent work has seen her published in Tourist, a popular web-based magazine that takes a distinctly organic approach to fashion, lifestyle and culture, as well as the styling force behind the new season look book for up-and-coming jewellery label wenevrsleep. Success hasn’t come easy for Thorson, who has notched up several internships during her time in the city. “About three and a half years ago I got an internship with a stylist, randomnly,” Thorson says. “I did nothing! I carried bags and taped receipts to paper for two and a half months. But I got to go on a couple of shoots and got yelled at a few times – in a good way! I learnt a lot of the basic things about styling.” A series of internships and assistant roles followed, until Thorson began freelancing about a year and a half ago.
As a stylist, Thorson’s work has a distinctive aesthetic – dreamy and slightly other-worldly but grounded in the reality of rolled-up sleeves and falling-down-hems. Just like a Sofia Coppola film. Just like her personal style. The same tone filters through into her writing, which is just the right mix of pleasantly rambling conversation and imaginative discourse. “I like writing creatively but it’s painful and I agonist over it the whole time,” Thorson admits. “I put it off and then feel sick throughout the whole process.” But she readily concedes the truth that all writers hold to – that there’s no greater feeling than a completed article. “When I turn in that last draft it’s blissful,” Thorson says, laughing.
What Thorson really wants to do – and with her uncanny knack for saying exactly what she means in the most pared back of ways, what she would be really good at – is brand or copy writing. It’s an emerging market, spurred in part by the boom of online stores requiring copious amounts of product information throughout their site. “It’s like a puzzle when you put it together,” Thorson notes, adding, “I find it really satisfying.” Her ideal job? Writing copy for that dream of an online store, La Garconne. “Just to get those three sentences of product description perfect would be so gratifying. Their copy is so simple and straightforward. You don’t have to work hard to sell their product either because it’s all so amazing!” Thorson laughs. “That would be the dream job right there."
Stay tuned to the blog next month because Siri is going to send us her top 10, all the way from New York City!
Stay tuned to the blog next month because Siri is going to send us her top 10, all the way from New York City!