begging you to sit for a portrait on the wall

i've always been a bit on the shy side - in fact, it took some time before i even felt comfortable talking about my true opinions on american apparel on this blog. that said, i feel lucky to be able to delve into anecdotes of a more personal nature with you all and receive such positive feedback.. a huge thank you to everyone who left such kind comments on my last post.

this week was kind of a mess, which in fact means, i was kind of a mess. a ton of schoolwork, extracurriculars weighing down on me, and the incessant search for a summer job or internship - essentially, the life of a college student - left me with two to five hours of sleep a night, ridiculously bad hair days, and a general lack of luster. it was all i could do to look forward to the weekend, which for all intents and purposes is here (i finally managed to create a schedule with no class on fridays)! it promises to be a good one, with my parents coming into town, a ton of events going on, and all the time in the world to catch up on sleep. on the horizon of one great weekend, i thought i'd regale you with a tale of another, which began last friday with an early morning session of super mario brothers..

9:56 am: i'd gone to visit my boyfriend the night before with the intention to pig out and watch wall-e. i accomplished the first task, but passed out before even beginning the second. the next morning, i wake to the sounds of cameron heading out to japanese class, briefly pitying him for having class before realizing i i'm all alone with not much to do.

10:07 am: i'm brushing my teeth in cameron's bathroom when i hear the front door open. i foresee an awkward interaction in the near future. i know that josh, cameron's roommate and my good friend has just come in, but i don't know how to present myself without startling him. seeing no way to avoid this fact, i walk out and quietly stand directly behind him as he fiddles with the television.

10:09 am: he turns around, and is overjoyed instead of startled. we embrace and catch up.

10:15 am: i need to go back home and give dylan his breakfast, but he's convinced me to stick around for some super mario. i instant message my roommate to take over breakfast duty.

10:30 am: i don't mean to brag, but for someone who hasn't played this game in years, i am pretty amazing, if i say so myself. josh mentions he needs new sneakers, and i suggest a shopping trip. we both have afternoon meetings, but figure we can be quick about it.

11:16 am: we hit bodega. i've heard all about this place, and i know that there's a sneaker store somewhere behind this corner store facade, but i'm stumped once we arrive. we're motioned towards the back of the store, and once we step through the ingeniously concealed sliding door, we geek out for a minute or two before getting down to business.

11:40 am: it's down to a relatively conservative black and blue pair of nikes and/or a comparably priced pair of black, highlighter pink, and neon green ones. i lean towards the latter, but warn that several people find my fashion advice outlandish at times. i wander off to gaze at their vintage sunglasses collection - gaudy delights from the likes of gucci and givenchy, circa 1978. throw in some two finger rings and a vintage de la soul "buddy" lp, and i'm in heaven.

12:00 pm: the highlighter kicks are chosen. i love josh. off to newbury in the bitter, bitter wind.

12:20 pm: i stop into rugby ralph lauren on a whim. i'm having something of a preppy moment these days, and i'm curious to see what their offerings are. this place looks like a finals club on speed. i half expect to discover a passed out debauched debutante behind the fitting room curtain. that said, with some searching, i find a few great pieces, miraculously devoid of numbers, shields, emblems, and crests. i spy a simple striped cap-sleeve dress, and make josh promise he won't let me buy anything.

12:42 pm: american apparel. josh considers maroon cords, while i try on their floppy hats. no dice.

1:11 pm: we reach my intended destination, madewell. someone on campus must be working as a madewell ambassador, because there's promotional material in everyone's doordrops, and since i've never been to the one in soho, i'm curious. upon entering, the bright young things working the floor introduce themselves and explain a little bit about the store. it's only been three days since the grand opening, and the airy feel of the store paired with the smell of fresh paint is intoxicating. bottom line, it feels like summer in here and i'm sold - hook, line, and sinker.

1:23 pm: their jeans are fantastic, but they're having this amazing event called denim after dark in march where every pair of jeans is twenty-five dollars off, with free hemming and custom embroidery (consider this your invitation). i wonder what a girl my age would get embroidered on jeans, and move on to the t-shirts.

1:27: i'm in the fitting room. these tees are gloooooorious. i'll take two.

1:34 pm: fifteen percent student discount? why, thank you.

1:37 pm: it's been lovely, but it's time to go home. josh and i are on newbury when a funny thing occurs - i'm being magnetically drawn back towards rugby. damnit.

1:42 pm: i'm in the fitting room. this store's decor is so obnoxious that i actually love it. it's like gossip girl - based on something realistic, but taken to a delightfully ridiculous extreme. god, this dress is fantastic.

1:54 pm: fifteen percent student discount? why, thank you. seriously, let's go home now.

and as the cherry on top of all these warm, fuzzy, retail feelings, i was lucky enough to meet up with martini of beyond boston chic later that day and talk about blogging, pets, the difficulties of keeping up with email, and scandinavian style! a truly lovely day, indeed.

cinderella, she seems so easy

freshmen. today, the word smacks of painfully earnest naivete and awakens a big sister-like tenderness in an older, wiser me, but once upon a time, i was one of them: a single eager face in a sea of one thousand six hundred eighty-four. i was as bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and utterly bewildered as the rest of them, but i still found it hard to relate to my classmates. for starters, i refused to use that infernal crimson lanyard to keep my keys handy. not only did it look ridiculous, i'd somehow missed the event where the rest of the class had received theirs...or had i lost it? i couldn't quite keep my room (or life) in order, either. these days, i'm wary of the overzealous first-year who aggressively forges awkward relationships with professors and teaching assistants, speaking up way too often in class despite the knowing smirks from their upperclassmen peers. i was not one of those freshmen.

aside from french and writing, i skipped class habitually. at first, i slept in for the novelty of it, later because the work i'd missed seemed too daunting to tackle. i avoided experimenting with the college party scene, instead pairing up with my boyfriend and becoming a hardcore homebody. stranded in unfamiliar territory with anxiety getting worse by the day, i literally stuck to what i knew, applying for a library job during my first week on campus to replace the one i'd had in high school. soon after getting hired, i rushed into work one evening, a couple of minutes late and too green to know that it wasn't a big deal. on my first day, i'd accidentally erased the contents of a vhs cassette, feigned illness, and went home mortified, so i made sure to bring substantial reading material with me - anything to avoid contact with my co-workers. that night, as i hurried past the swinging door to throw my belongings down and take a seat at the desk, someone commented, "nice coat." i wore an h&m trench, cream with oversized black plaid print, and i did feel a little bit like audrey hepburn when i cinched it tightly at the waist. "nice coat."

i knew the voice, albeit throaty and gruff, didn't belong to a man, but i instinctively turned to verify my suspicion. i'm positive my face registered visible surprise at what i saw: a rumpled blonde, well over six feet tall, peering at me through dark-rimmed glasses. she was slender but sturdy, with prominent features that gave her an almost goofy, birdlike appearance. still, i was taken in, downright intimidated by her presence.

"thank you," i managed to stutter, totally disoriented by the compliment. there was something inherently unattainable about her, and while i knew my coat was nice, it seemed odd that this woman would deign to grace it with her approval. she wore a white tee and jeans, the shirt's fit destroyed and hanging awkwardly on her lean frame. it was a shirt that seemed to have been yanked up over someone's head - perhaps a boyfriend's - many a time, the neck's shape lost long ago. paired with a men's vest and boots, everything about her was effortless. "yeah.. yeah," she said, looking me over more thoroughly. "great coat. great coat."

she left and i didn't see her for a while, until the new semester shuffled schedules around, suddenly throwing us together for a weekly work shift. by then, i was a little more grown up, a bit less awestruck. in fact, i'd grown downright cynical. i regularly fought with my parents, trying to convince them to let me transferr or at least take some time off from school. i'd only marginally improved my class attendance. on the other hand, my casual acquaintance with thea had hardly lost its luster. she had the leather jackets, the well-worn jeans and vintage pieces, of course, and when she took smoke breaks out in front of the library, she obviously struck a mean pose, but she had something to back up the aesthetics. she was a truly brassy broad, always equipped with one shocking story or another.

she came from somewhere out west, and i remember innocently wondering how someone so interesting could come from such a boring state. she was technically married to a man she rarely saw or spoke to, a rash decision she hadn't yet gotten around to fixing. she'd once stayed with a lesbian couple who hired her to model jewelry and unintentionally caused a severe rift in their relationship. she was mostly upset that she didn't get properly paid for the job. she'd worked on movie sets and traveled the world, once fudging a bit of jewish ancestry to take a birthright trip to israel. she'd attended a naked party in new york and gotten her picture taken by a famous photographer, using a strategically placed fanny pack. it wasn't the idea of a free spirit that blew my mind, but rather one blowing about the hallowed halls of american academia, slipping right past the squares and beating them at their own game. most astonishing of all, she'd left harvard! - gotten fed up with all of it and left - but decided to come back and finish her time there. it wasn't a teary-eyed case of seeing the light and basking in the glow of the ivory tower. she often griped about how she couldn't wait to graduate and i loved her for it.

and then she did. we weren't terribly close, but i knew that i couldn't exactly wrap her in a bear hug and tell her how much she'd inspired me. it wouldn't have thrown her off - weirder things had happened to her, i'm sure - but it wasn't quite her style, and i didn't want to encroach on that. still, i felt grateful to her for being frank, for never being aware of just how awesome she always, always looked, for having the dopiest laugh ever, for not being afraid to say that she habitually made outlandish excuses to get out of turning in assignments on time. she was forthcoming with advice, and even when she wasn't dishing it out, i always felt like i'd learned a lot just by being in her presence. she made me realize that even if i was never cornered my professor and asked him to dinner in the hopes of receiving a glowing recommendation letter somewhere down the line, this didn't make me an outsider in the student body. it just meant that i was the exception to the general rule. after getting to know thea, i realized that there's a lot of fun to be found in the exception.

when they reminisce over you, my god

"well, i've got a wonderful idea. we'll spend the day doing things we've never done before. we'll take turns."

-holly golightly

with each passing year, it becomes clearer to me that a significant portion of my ongoing sartorial saga is the realization of several fashion-related flights of fancy i entertained as a child. the ability to wear all those things my mother once deemed too tacky, inappropriate, or grown-up for me - high heels! crop tops! mismatched prints! - injects my daily fashion grind with a bit of whimsy that i simply adore. don't be surprised if i try out cameo chokers soon. that said, i have no intention of resembling a walking time capsule buried at bronson alcott high school circa 1995, so i take precautions to tweak the pieces a bit, hopefully achieving a understated retro-quirky wit.

my fashion throwback of late has been the tied-up buton-down. once upon a time, a navel on display signified the epitome of sexiness to me, but a shirt tied just so seemed the perfect way to do it, as if you weren't trying too hard, but just happened to be awesome. it seems like the early 90s were chock-full of them before they experienced a high-profile revival in '98 via britney spears. these days, i'm in no real rush to show off my bellybutton. i usually pair my crop tops with something high-waisted, and i make sure to tie my shirts low enough to only show a bit of skin at most. any ideas on what my next retro project should be?

p.s.: and in keeping with the theme of things i've never done before, i'm now writing for the arts board of the crimson! the pieces should come out on a weekly basis, so keep an eye out for me attempting to tie fashion commentary into movie reviews, book reviews, album reviews..

four am, we ran a miracle mile

note to self: never publicize your own rare spurt of responsibility, because you will inevitably experience a complete one-eighty and have to eat your words. maybe it's the melange of reference points and inspiration i cited in the last post, but my mind is positively reeling from all the directions it's being pulled in. i tried to take a mental health day but couldn't find anyone to take my shift at work, so i'm patiently waiting for friday. in a concerted effort to avoid schoolwork, i've been reading tarantula, which kind of captures my mental chaos perfectly.

i'd like to say there was a meaningful inspiration behind this outfit, but i just did my laundry for maybe the first time in a month, and this morning i just stuck my hand into the mountain of garments and wore the first thing i pulled out. in retrospect, it feels a bit.. streamlined cowgirl? oh, and it was a bad face day to boot.  oh boy - i'll have to get back to you when i've gotten my life together.

how to sell a contradiction

first off, i want to thank all of the sartorial sherlocks who were kind enough to help me out in my search for the glasses in the post below. all of your suggestions have been a great help, and of course, i'll update if and when i find a similar pair.

this past week, i surprised myself with just how responsible i could be. while the blog took a bit of a backseat, i found myself actually completing all of my readings for class, picking up extra hours at work, tending to life's odds and ends which usually fall by the wayside, and refraining from frivolous purchases. still, this last feat wasn't accomplished for lack of desire. i've been affected by an acute hankering for consumption lately, and probably the only thing that kept me from emptying my bank account on some bauble or other was the fact that i've simply grown tired of harvard square's offerings: urban outfitters, the gap, a vintage store, american apparel, and a few other boutiques. a solid line-up, but after shopping in the same spots for two and a half years, i'm bored. i'm in desperate need of items that i won't see twenty girls on campus wearing minutes after i've bought them. oh, and speaking of desperation, i'm also in desperate need of the springtime, punxsutawney phil be damned. on that note, let's plan ahead, shall we?

it seems like everyone i know has gone to africa in the past year, and i'm jealous. the serengeti sunset is nowhere on my horizon, but who says i can't channel a little tribal flair into my wardrobe summer, even if i am only exploring the concrete jungle? i'm thinking bold, chunky jewelry stacked and layered to excess, paired with neons, neutrals, and every pattern under the sun. it's definitely a bit of a hodgepodge, but the minimalist in me is looking for a vacation, and my love for pop cultural history is drawing me to that weird 1980's moment when 'ethnic' suddenly equaled chic. throw in the most obnoxious sunnies i can find and a couple of hats, and i'm good to go.

p.s.: oh, and speaking of ethnicities and all that, can we talk for a minute about this feedjit gadget that is now at the bottom right corner of the page? not only am i completely obsessed with it, i'm so tickled at the far-flung places pandora's closet visitors are coming from: ireland, china, singapore, spain, bulgaria, malaysia, croatia, new jersey?! now that i know you're all stopping by, what say we get a nice international comment thread going, ay?

edit: oh hello, lover.

slam, bam, and who really gives a damn

every now and then (read: all the time) i find myself on a vigorous hunt for some obscure garment or accessory: a well-worn leather shoulder bag in cream and tan hues, a scalloped piece a la chloe spring'09, or a simple but striking piece of jewelry that doesn't break the bank. if i succeed in my search, i proudly broadcast my retail prowess to the world via this blog, crowing over the latest addition to pandora's closet. if i don't fare as well, there's no harm and no foul, since i'm the only one who has to suffer the lack of said item in my life. but now, i'm including you all in the thrill of the hunt, thus inviting you to share partially in the subsequent joy or sorrow if i can snag what it is i'm looking for.

i'm a huge biggie fan, so i was standing in line opening weekend to see notorious, cold weather be damned. at the start of the movie, they depict biggie as a boy, portrayed by his young son and doppelganger, and i found myself hoping that the film would linger on that stage of his life, partly because the boy was simply adorable, but also because the glasses he wears are the optical equivalent of my calling. i need them in my life. i've been looking high and low for a similar style, but to no avail. i know you all are experts in the fashion field. help? any leads would be much appreciated.

p.s.: this must win some kind of award for the most notorious b.i.g.-related posts on a fashion blog.

humor me and tell me lies

once upon a time, i expressed surprise at the realization that despite my history of avoiding frills and ruffles, i'd suddenly developed an affinity for menswear. since then, i've certainly embraced my masculine side via tons of loose tees, rumpled button-downs with rolled up sleeves, bulky jackets, and even a pair or two of men's jeans, prone to being paired with heels, cuffs rolled haphazardly.

in new york this past weekend, i set out with the intention of refraining from excessive shopping and succeeded for the most part, but as i unpacked today i was tickled to realize that nearly everything i purchased was meant to be worn by a man. see below for more evidence.

on day one, we were headed downtown to pound some east village pavement when i suggested we stop off at the j. crew sample sale for sophie, who has an interview with an investment firm coming up soon. after waiting on line and dealing with an extremely grumpy doorman, we made it upstairs to the sale. i've never gotten anything from j. crew in my life, but that's not to say i don't enjoy perusing the prim and simple pieces in their catalog from time to time. i set about scanning the room for a deal. the women's pieces were pretty, but a strict policy against trying on garments left me wary of dropping my nonrefundable dollars on a lemony sundress. wandering over to the other side of the room, i found a veritable promised land of beautiful knits and cashmeres in comfortably large men's sizes and knew i had found what i was looking for. it also didn't hurt that fifty bucks became twenty-five at the cashier.

day two: picture it - williamsburg, brooklyn. a windy afternoon. the five of us are strolling along bedford, and i've got my eye out for interesting boutiques while everyone else is dying for a place to sit down with a hot drink. i drag them into jumelle and buffalo exchange before arriving at houndstooth. i remember i'd been there with taylor about a year or two ago, but at the time, i probably left once i'd realized the store only contained menswear. this time, i dutifully scour the racks, reminding myself that i don't need an eighty dollar flannel, no matter how soft to the touch it is. i score on the coat rack with this wool number from the fifties: it's incredibly warm and has a perfect slouchy fit. the friendly salesperson with the fantastic fedora comments on my j.crew sweater, and i spread the sample sale love, passing him the address.

day three: sarah is heading out in mere hours, and we haven't decided on what to get her as a going-away gift. she's been waiting for us in union square for over an hour, and we're frantically brainstorming on the r train. we decide to give her little bits of the usa to hold on to while in a foreign land, via apple pies from mcdonald's and an obama tee. we rush to the urban outfitters near dylan's candy bar and do a quick assessment. as usual, it's the men's section that has what we're looking for, and i try to convince my companions that a medium or small will look just lovely on sarah, though my attention is diverted by an icy blue delight. a vintage poster for one of my favorite movies, the endless summer, is hanging nonchalantly on the broad shoulders of a mannequin, and i know i have to make it mine. i send my friends up to pay for sarah's tee, while i attack the pile in search of a small. at the cashier, someone compliments my new jacket, and i attempt to perpetuate my good shopping karma by giving her houndstooth's business card.

day four: we're catching a six o' clock bus, so i suggest a lazy museum tour, forgetting that a bunch of museums are closed on mondays. we continue down fifth and begin a museum tour of a different sort, taking in the superb craftsmanship of designers both stateside and abroad at bergdorf, bendel, and the like. the people-watching opportunities are also prime, as women in atrocious furs with bandaged noses snatch up jimmy choos and louboutins with blood-red talons. i make my routine book purchase at bendel's, and float back down to reality at zara. surprisingly, nothing in the men's section moves me, but this vest offers a feminine take on a men's classic piece, and i'm sold. on the way home later, i reflect on the weekend's buys and make a mental note to check up on the men's fashion week collections.