she was a long cool woman in a black dress

when i picked up the latest issue of vogue at the newsstand, i was a bit startled by its super svelte heft. of course, unsubstantially-sized january mags are certainly standard fare, but something about this particular issue felt particularly flimsy between my fingers. in the end, though, it turns out that the next decade's first installment of vogue is the glossy equivalent of my personal candy crack, welch's fruit snacks - quick and sweet, but actually nutritious and worth revisiting.

still, despite all the reveling in the past and anticipating future fashions, it was a brief m.i.a. feature, tucked away towards the tail end of the magazine, that stopped me in my tracks. i've been a fan of miss arulpragasam's early nineties fly girl-meets-tribal acid trip vibe for what feels like forever, but year after year of wild style can easily lose its edge, and i hadn't thought about her in a sartorial sense for quite some time. now she's absolutely killing it with this sexy, subdued style, a perfect older sister to her former look that's cleverly described as "iranian-american princess/sade."

when i recovered my lost jewelry back in october, i did a gleeful reassessment of my pieces and found that gold made up the vast majority of the collection. still, i've always opted to wear no more than two golden baubles at once, so as not to veer into gaudy territory. now, i have a distinct urge to pile on as much as possible, forcing the boundaries of poor taste to mingle with a bold, unapologetic sort of elegance that straddles the late seventies and early eighties, reminiscent of tina chow and a young anjelica huston. and the best part is that everyone from topshop to tom binns loves to tinker around with gold, making this an incredibly simple look to emulate. in some cases, it seems that all that glitters really is gold.

[via tfs, topshop, eddie borgo, tom binns, google]