Blanket Espadrilles

I apologize for my lack of a better image, I tried to put a few together with paint which is hopelessly frustrating. Will get photoshop one day. Anyway, I started seeing some woven multicolor flats like this and wanted to make you guess: which one is most expensive?

Ok game over. Top left is Rocket Dog, $31.50 here, far right is Rachel Rachel Roy, $59, and the bottom is Missoni, similar ones for $311 here (it comes in other prints or whatever). I dig the Rocket Dog ones but also these by Havaianas in conjunction with Missoni ($130). They also don't seem to have the jute sole that I know from experience gets awful as soon as it gets wet. Cue daydream about Brazil....!

Wish List for Spring

I know I talk about having everything I need, and not shopping, and so on, but sometimes there are a few (hopefully versatile) items that I really want! Most of these things would have been practical this winter but probably would get a lot of use in a Chicago spring too.
1. a solid-color maxi skirt

E., from Academichic, wears them really well, and she's the main reason I want one so bad. I actually have like 5 maxi skirts which is WAY too many,  but they're all spangled and patterned and asymmetrical and insane. I hold on to them, honestly, because they garnered compliments in Egypt (they love over-the-top, just like I do) and I refuse to admit that I'll never go back and don't need to hold on to a wardrobe that is perfect for a completely different continent than the one I live on.

Here's a super-blurry picture of one of them. I got this from my cousin who got it in a hippie store in Madison, and I wore the shit out of it in Egypt, tied it as a dress in Dahab, and sometimes wear it and the others in the summer here when I go dancing or just want to be a hippie.

Lauren Moffatt gets it right, even though these aren't solid colors, the high waist looks great and the patterns are subtle. I love her.

Anthropologie, via Academichic, and Nordstrom.

2. knit pencil skirts in dark colors like navy and burgundy
American Apparel was my original vision of what this should be, but I hate them and can't afford them anyway. Etsy is, suprisingly, disappointing, as what I've found so far have low waists and look not that well made. I might have to make this myself at grandmas.

First, American Apparel, and then a cute version from Pretty Birdie by Stephanie Teague on etsy, who is from North Carolina and makes (I think) really chic clothes with natural fabrics and dyes, like hemp, linen, and organic cotton. Unfortunately her pencil skirts are not stretch, though they are really cute, and they're really expensive. One day when I have money, she's exactly the kind of seller I'd give it to.

3. leggings or tights to go with navy skirts
I have a navy dress and a navy skirt, and I think navy looks great with my red hair, but I haven't worn them all winter because of my distaste for black with navy. I have brown tights but I live in Chicago and need something much thicker if I'm going to wear them all day.

4. a fake-leather jacket
Leather is soooo cool but gives me the creeps. I'd like to have a jacket in canvas or something with all the swagger of motorcycle jacket--assymetrical zipper, short waist, big lapels. I'd even take studs.

I'm Too Sexy for my ... Job

Mosey suggested heels and form-fitting clothes, and an attempt at wearing make-up, as a way to look more adult and professional at work. I agree, for the most part. But, my work environment has a few strange requirements. I work with people, (not paper or computers) some of whom come from cultures more conservative than mine, so I feel a need to dress with careful modesty. I have actually been hit on by homeless people waiting to get into a clinic in the building, when I've worn more form-fitting clothing, which made me extremely uncomfortable. (This picture is actually a great example of my kind of failure of biz cas clothing-- technically it's a business-like skirt and a button-down, right? but the shirt is too thin and her hair is all "I just got out of bed" and when you're that tall all skirts look short on you, and it just comes off all wrong.)

I also do a lot of walking around including, some days, being outside and on public transit a lot. Often it is impractical for me to, say, wear boots for my commute and then change into heels, as I'll be running outside a couple times a day. So was wearing the life out of my black winter boots, but it came back to haunt me and they got soaked this morning and I was miserable. So I have a pair of flats I leave in my desk drawer that I can wear when I'm in the office.

And to make matters more awesome, the temperature in the building is insane-- one week we brought a thermometer and one office was 90 degrees. We were dying even with the windows open to the winter winds, and we asked for it to get fixed. Now it is chilly inside, sweater-weather chilly.

Soooo, I have found a few biz-cas outfits that really work for me. Corduroy, black, or khaki pants + striped button-down is one of them. Add a cardigan for chill, roll up the sleeves for the sauna rooms, and button up modestly. I dug a knit blazer out of the bottom of a stack of sweaters and it worked really well on Friday, over a nice-ish drapey top I got at Unique.

And sometimes, yeah, I try to wear makeup. But I don't really have that down, as my makeup routine is much more geared towards going out. At night I wear black eyeliner and mascara (I started wearing makeup on a semi-regular basis in Egypt, actually, where super dramatic eyeliner is The Thing), and sometimes some red lipstick to look retro. I own chapstick, a couple eyeshadows (gold and tan), a reddish lipgloss I recently stole from my cousin, and sparkly "golden sand" eyeliner. I also own concealer, which I do use pretty regularly, and bronzer and blush which I inherited from roommates and never never use. None of this seems particularly appropriate. So I've been going to Sephora after work and thinking about what I could buy that would be more versatile.

picture credits: via This is Glamorous, German model Julia Stegner by Tesh via Fashion Gone Rogue.

Thoughts on Consumerism

Have been thinking a bit about this post on Ill Seen, Ill Said, about how much blogs promote consumerism and promote a lifestyle that few of us have or could afford. I'm a big fan of being honest about my cheap lifestyle, and I know I post some ugly pictures. But, the reason I like reading blogs is because it makes my life richer to see beautiful things, and often, beautiful things cost a lot of money.
I was trying to explain to my mom how I have a whole system in my own head to justify being cheap as better, somehow. It's better to wait, better to learn to make things yourself, better to have original pieces with emotional attachment. It makes you more creative, more grateful, more social (gotta pay back all those friends who help you carry furniture in from the alley!).
That said, here are some pretty things that I can't afford from Beklina, an eco-friendly boutique. First from I. Ronni Kappos, then Gemma Redux with the beautiful lapiz & gold bracelets (this is Amy in Egypt afterall), then Shabd who've I've blogged about before, then Rachel Comey.

More is More!

At first I saw this and thought, ugh. Also, what is with the tiny tiny chair? It freaks me out, like there is a sudden bend in perspective. Then I saw the second image with it's crazy little ship (top left), and the angel on top of the ladder, and had second thoughts. It's kind of horrible, but it's pretty awesome.

I tend to also over-do it. White walls are so boring, and if you have a lot of cool stuff, you might as well display it. There's a lot of people out there who like minimalist interiors and lifestyles, and I guess more power to them and their easy moves, but I cannot count myself among them.
Herve Pierre in his home from The Selby

Summer Dresses

A few nights ago I went to North Pond, a fancy restaurant I'd been wanting to experience for a long time, which has a "dressy" dress code. I had some fun debating what to wear for a hot night, a dressy place, and some walking in grass and possible bus-taking. Turns out we didn't have to take the bus, but that would have almost ruled out heels.

I have a few actually nice dresses, but mostly kinda frumpy shirt-dresses which I absolutely love, or overly-sexy yet too-casual jersey dresses. I have a bridesmaids dress which I guess I could wear, but it has short sleeves and is therefore a little too warm, and a really great vintage lime green & pink paisley dress. I bought it at the Gage Park Unique (best thrift store in Chicago) and it still had tags on it that said 100% silk, but then when I wore it my friends were convinced it was polyester, but it was remarkably cool and breathable, so I think the tags might be right. Anyway I hand washed it and tried to iron it, but I'm bad at ironing, and it still looks super wrinkly. I'm at a loss.

I've also got a pink dress with one strap that was my go-to fancy dress until I suddenly realized it's kinda stained and the sheer polyester chiffon-like layer has somehow shrunk so that when it's on, the top sheer layer is shorter than the underlayer of silk. It's extra-bizarre because when it's on the hanger, the sheer layer is a good couple inches longer than the silk, but then as soon as it gets on me, it shrinks up. I tried to stretch it out by clipping a pants hanger to the bottom and keeping it in the bathroom to relax in the humidity, which did nothing. (I now realize that this was a strange and overly-involved solution, which I continued rather than admitting to myself my unwillingness to learn to iron.) I finally realized I could iron it, which only partially worked and now the length of the sheer layer is uneven. I refuse to admit defeat. I have a picture of this dress from first year of college, but I hesitate to post it because it has two close friends in it, neither of whom have given me permission to put pictures of their 18-year-old dressed up selves on the internet.

I want something like this, by Mina Stone at Steven Alan.Or this, from Calypso St. Barth a long time ago.
Somewhat relatedly, I went to an antique market (it's like a flea market but way classier & more pricey) the other day and they had some Calypso stuff. They had a lot of incredible stuff, almost none of which I could afford. As I was telling my friend afterwards, my price range is: under $10. I did end up buying a great 50s full-skirt floral dress for $5. I have to take it in a little, and after that I'll be ready to take pictures.

Oh, and for North Pond, I ended up wearing a sleeveless navy blue velvet dress from Gap, which I bought at a yard sale in an alley a few weeks while waiting in line for Hot Doug's. I was unsure about velvet in the summer, but there ended up being a huge storm that cooled it down a lot, and it was cold in the restaurant. I also wore yellow heels (also from Unique) and a green floral silk bag (also from Unique) and a white pashmina that my boyfriend bought in Kenya and thought was a men's scarf, which I bet he could pull off but is definitely not the case. And a raincoat.

More Space Prints! Great Clothes Online! Great Blog! Tomorrow's Saturday!

I saw this awesome nebula-print tank top on Academichic. It's from All Saints, and they also have a bikini and one-piece swimsuit in the same print. I just looked around that site, which I had never seen before, and holy moley, I want everything there. Studded biker jacket, plaids, draping, crazy cuts, a gold dress, a fireworks print... I just watched like 5 episodes of Project Runway and everything on this site is super creative and interesting. And I was only looking at their "vintage" section-- the new stuff looks good too. Tomorrow I'm going to blow off reading and work on my sewing projects. Got to finish sewing the roses on my blue top that I started way back in December, at the very least, and tackle a pile of mending/alterations: a vintage dress I bought in Mississippi and love, only it's see-through and kinda frumpy on me, a huge men's striped button-down that's totally threadbare with a rip in the elbow, some old jeans that probably should just become cutoffs, polypropelene leggings that I was obsessed with until I melted them on the space heater (noooo!!!!) and now have big plans to cut up in some exciting way, a huge heavy turquoise circle skirt that I made with grandma but then got caught in a bike gear so it's permanently stained and also has some bizarre bleach spots that I'm going to ruche up in some way inspired by this skirt I posted earlier, something out of these too-small nehru collar kaftan-like things that I bought at Unique, and something out of a Japanese-garden watercolor silk shirt that I bought at Unique even though it is huge and ruffly and hideous, just for the fabric. Whew!

I meant for this post actually to be an endorsement of Academichic. It's three women PhD students somewhere in the Midwest, and I really relate to their concerns with looking professional, staying warm, dealing with bizarre temperature changes, and so on. Also, they're quite creative without being hipsters, showing ideas I hadn't thought of like unbuttoning a shirt and wrapping it with a belt and high-waist skirt (also picture above, wearing a cardigan as a wrap, and love that skirt!), wearing full skirts with blazers, and layering with dresses, something I find very difficult to pull off. They're also smart and quite thoughtful, discussing things like the cultural appropriation of Japanese floral motifs by Anthropologie, or how professional women project those two parts of themselves (professionalism and/or femininity) publicly through clothing. And, they can sew! Some altered clothing and some embellishment projects. This is one of the few realistic-fashion blogs that I find continually interesting. 5 stars!

Galaxy Fashion Quest

I really like pictures of space. (I found this sweet blog full of mostly galaxy photos via d.sharp, which is a blog frequently featuring artsy stuff that I enjoy.) My dad was into astronomy, and we did a lot of telescope-squinting, planet-identifying, and constellation-naming. I remember going to some field in a state park one summer night for an astronomy lesson from a park ranger. I don't remember any of the lesson, but I remember the fireflies in the woods on the edges of the field, the tall grass, and the glow-in-the-dark night sky print on the sweatshirt of another little kid. It was like being in a dome of little jumping dots of light.
Maybe that's why I liked this dress from Mociun so much. It's like a grown-up version of the glow-in-the-dark night sky sweatshirt. I found it from Moseyblog. (whew it took me so long to dig up that link! I kept misspelling Mociun.) Vain and Vapid were also all over it last fall or whatever (it's fine, I know I'm behind). Mociun, based in Brooklyn, has got some cool stuff and is sold all over the internets (Beklina, bird, others) but really I only care about that space print. There's still a shirt left in it, but it's size large and $72, so that's a big TM for me (tough mustard).
This photo is from a remarkable 15-year-old photographer on Flickr, Olivia Bee. I don't know what she was doing to make this cool light effect but I love it, and it reminds me of that starry field.
Finally, everything Shabd is similar in the tie-dye galaxy print way. The website is dope and minimalist and features a picture of a galaxy next to each category of clothing, so it's obvious that the inspiration was the awesomeness of galaxies. I have no memory of where I found out about Shabd, lace & tea, which is a favorite blog for gorgeous pictures and fashion, posted about them in April, but I emailed myself the link back in December. Who cares?

Moral of the story? I want tickets to the Hubble 3D Imax movie, where I will completely die of dorky happiness. It's $21 at the Museum of Science and Industry. That is as much as I spent on a tube of lipstick today. Admittedly, it was very high-quality lipstick from Korres at Sephora, my new favorite place-- they let you try everything on! I got it in Red, I can't resist a simple color name, and it has a minimum of evil stuff to ingest. I tried on like six different red lipsticks, and while Clinique had a nice color that didn't make my teeth look yellow, it was full of evil stuff.

Duo Blog

Stumbled on a cute blog, Duo, with lots of ideas about how to reuse stuff. They have a nice balance between re-purposing ideas that strike me as kinda obvious, like use beer bottles and glass jars as vases and candle holders, and research about sustainable products that you might not think of buying eco-friendly, like eyeglasses and leather shoes.

Also, I love glass jars. They are among my favorite things.

An Education

Jess convinced me to go see An Education with her last night because she claimed the clothes were incredible. They were! This is just a tiny sample! Oh my gosh, the hydrangea dress in the Paris pictures absolutely kills me. There were a lot of great early 60s Parisian high fashion, some late 50s shifts and full skirted dresses, a fabulous gold brocade, and I even liked the rather dowdy English school uniforms and the teachers staid skirt suits and her homework-doing plaid shirts and cardigans. I want those sunglasses and her hairstyle. Must cut shorter bangs.

A suit.

I feel like I need a suit. I like this one from Garance Dore, its kind of seventies, although that might be the color of the (giant & amazing) scarf, or the fact that its a chunky knit, or maybe the vest. Anyway, it would be so useful for work and for interviews and for making people take me seriously and for wearing all the pieces separately.

un-glamorous work clothes

Now that I have an internship where I have to look professional, I have discovered that my usual wardrobe of (jeans + LLbean boots + plaid shirts) or (girly dresses + giant earrings) is not really "business casual." Clothes with holes (the alarming majority) are also out. Which is too bad, because I get lots of compliments on my shabby wardrobe. Therefore I am looking for a nice blazer, some kind of business shoes, and a nice leather bag. Let's begin:
from Les Anti-Modernes. I'm not even going to see where she bought it because I am quite sure I cannot buy it. But it is a "boyfriend blazer" which I don't understand. What does this "boyfriend" label mean? On jeans, it seems to mean: straight, kinda baggy, so ok, I understand that, but on a skinny blazer? I guess it just means "cut straight" not "could be your boyfriend's," unless your boyfriend is really skinny and quite stylish.
Another "boyfriend blazer"! This one is from JCrew, who has lots of nice expensive jackets. Unfortunately, that is the only nice thing about JCrew, who has been disappointing me A LOT lately with their stupid ruffles on everything and ridiculous styling. They used to be pretty, classic clothing but I think they have let the Michelle Obama endorsement get to their heads. I am not even anti-ruffle, I am just anti-Jcrew: ridiculous pricing for clothes made in third world countries, the absurd "we hand-sewed on these sequined flowers onto artisanal tweed from the finest mill in Portugal" prose in the catalog, the unattractive too-many-frilly-accessories styling, half-tucked in shirts, neon ankle socks, and so on and on and on. Rant over.
Ok, next I need some shoes. They have to be warm & look classy, preferably kinda retro. These are from etsy & are about $25 and more or less my size but I won't get them, because that is $25 + shipping for shoes I can't try on. Really I want the shoes that belong to my Policy teacher who I love & who is always super stylish & whose hairdo I try to copy when I go to work (only she has dark curly hair which is the opposite of mine) & who I want to be when I grow up. The other young women at the agency I "work" at also have great brogue-like shoes but they are short and so are used to wearing heels more. That's my problem with shoes-- a two inch heel makes me six feet tall.
Ok, losing steam! This is a boring shopping list anyway, but I need a nice leather bag. Zeb went to Unique (our favorite cheapo thrift store) on Monday while I was in class and I told him to find me a nice leather bag but he returned empty-handed. So since that's about all the effort I'm willing to put into shopping for a bag, I'll just post this one from the first blog I referenced, even though I don't really like it, just to give you an idea of what we're talking about here.

Urban-Outfitters Haters Unite!

I was pretty stoked to find this post by Alyson Graves at Unruly Things about how she is thinking about cutting out excessive spending at big stores like H&M and Urban Outfitters, and to instead think more about purchases and spend at smaller, local retailers and vintage. Then she linked to the longer post by Anabela at Fieldguided. Read the comments, it's pretty interesting to hear the range of incomes and life situations that lead to similar conclusions about consumption. It's been 3 1/2 months since my post about my resolution to not buy new things unless they are responsibly made, and it makes me happy to find that other people are hopping on my "why bother with cheap crap made in sweatshops" bandwagon. Of course, full disclosure: in those 3 1/2 months I have bought absolutely GOBS of crap at Unique. I mean, really unnecessarily large amounts of stuff. I wish I had a camera or picture-taking abilities to share some of the more ridiculous items here; perhaps one day we'll do a tour of my Unique follies. And to be honest, I wouldn't have remembered that I made a "resolution" to stop buying new things unless I'd written a blog post about it-- my income can't really support much consumption no matter how I feel about it. Oops, I forgot! I broke my resolution awhile ago without thinking about it. I did buy a (one) pair of Hanky Panky undies, just to see what the fuss is all about and because they were on sale, and I felt like a high roller buying something from Saks.
Picture unrelated, but it felt in the mood of penny-pinching glamour. They're someone's family in Nebraska, I love it.

Trend Setting

Remember when I was all excited about espadrilles that didn't fit? I was so ahead of the curve! Now Etsy has spotlighted those very blue-and-white striped espadrilles as "this summer's quintessential shoe," and Lucky Magazine has profiled that list of "beach essentials" using the picture I posted earlier. I don't actually like much else in the list, though.

Fortunately, I found even better ones at Boden, as seen above. The heels are a bit too high for me, but they're so cute, and on sale (they're $73, way out of my price range, but still, on sale). I have last year's Boden catalogue in my bathroom for perusing pleasure. Something about the versatile separates and modest cuts strikes me as a little too "old" for me, and yet the bright colors and patterns makes it seem almost too "young" for my mother. But I don't know, maybe Boden can go both ways. They're British. They're kindof like J. Crew used to be before they got so pretentious. And also, they have someone who looks like Kiera Knightley modelling for them.

Sunjar

This is a mason jar fitted out with a solar pane that charges a battery that lights some LED lights with a lovely firefly glow. It's like a jar of summer fireflies without the useless insect death guilt! I want one so bad.

The website I found it at, Daytrip Society, is a store full of cute outdoorsy things based in the Bush-vacation-home town of Kennebunkport, Maine. I found the store via the cute blog Abbey Goes Design Scouting. The "main house" of the Bush compound (!!!):

Summer Shoes

We've had a real Indian Summer in Chicago, but now that it's hot again I want some good sandals again. I started this post at the beginning of summer, but lost steam since I was, you know, wearing boots last night. I actually got the perfect pair of cool, cushy, strappy 70s reddish-leather sandals at Unique awhile ago, but after a week or so of sandal bliss a strap broke. I'll take them to the cobbler, but until then, I'll just be materialistic.

I have way more heels than I will ever wear and a few pairs of flats, but in terms of sandals I have only: some truly ugly turquoise rubber flip-flops with orange print on them, and some too-small red slides that say Hawaii in rainbow print on the white vinyl slide. My great-aunt gave them too me when I was visiting Wisconsin the other weekend and my good sandals broke. I had some worn-out fake suede flip-flops from Walmart that are approximately 1 mm thick on the bottom and wholly inappropriate for walking on concrete, but I lost one of them in the move. Pathetic.

I want:
espedrilles, I guess flat-ish ones, although I so like wedges. Found these on Etsy, although they were too small.
These are also on Etsy, and less cute, but the right size. Do I really need another pair of flats though?
Keds (from their Green collection) or similar simple cotton slip-ons. maybe in eyelet?

Huraches, or other flat sandals with so many straps that they are practically shoes. I found some perfect huraches at Unique but they were way too small. A co-worker has these from Urban Outfitters:and the same store also has these (somewhat boring) huraches, that I would be into if I was into Urban Outfitters. Which I'm not.

I really like flip flops that have a strap in the back. When I was in Egypt I bought some "Jesus sandals" that were great-looking but so flat that they were pretty painful to walk in. The leather soles also made them slippery. These next two are also Urban Outfitters.
Finally, I'd like to retire the plastic flip-flops, and trade them for a comfier, nicer-looking version, maybe Rainbows, that will give my feet some support. Last summer I found some Rainbows at the camp where I was staying with Zeb's family, but I was sure they belonged to someone else so I didn't take them. I found out later that they had been abandoned. Oh well.