pop gold

Two days in a row, while driving to work, I hear ABBA’s ‘Take a Chance on me’ and Corey Hart’s ‘Sunglasses at Night’. Oh morning radio, endlessly and repetively mining the past for pop gold. I’m not complaining.

This top is all the best of the 80s, none of the drek

(source: dirylittlestylewhore)
I'm fairly certain this is Mischa Barton. Boy am I quite pleasantly surprised at how she's channeling some 70s-era Jane Birkin in this outift, with some puffy pom poms thrown in for a slice of whimsy. Not much of an actress, but boy can she pull off this wild mix of prep and a hint of rock and roll. She's come a long way from little old Orange County (what do you mean, "It wasn't real"?)

cruel cruel summer

Not quite cruel, but definitely busy summer has kept me away from the more interesting parts of the internet, including my much-treasured bloglovin' list and this here sad corner of the internet.

I've been seeing lots of red lately. No sun burns or even lobster fests, just lots of vintage finds which come in various shades of a bullfighter's cape. Most of the items below are available in the etsy store.



clockwise from top left:
1. Kindergarten cardigan with adorable apple buttons. Skirt is from my closet of awkward yet amazing items, and though it's a wee bit too short and a wee bit too tight, I'm no Goldilocks and am hanging onto it until I find a way to make it work.

2. Embroidered silk blouse. Was my mothers, though I don't believe she ever wore it as she has about five different versions of this blouse in a bag at the back of her closet. I'm of the camp that Asians in chinoiserie is too much of a good thing; the stylistic references are too close to reality. There are many exceptions, to be sure, but I haven't found many that work for me.

3. A shirt for summer adventuring. For crawling under chain link fences, running to the top floor of multiple-story public parking lots, creek hopping, lake-swimming, bicycle riding and picnics. Try not to drop your slushie on it.

4. Puff puff poof! Puff sleeve dress. The original owner of this dress was likely 10 times more amazing than any Chris DeBurgh dream object.

WANT

Spied this clutch amidst a mess of other things* on WWW and I think I'm a little bit in love. But not enough to crack open my wallet; this is just a fashion crush. Have spent a few dollars in celebration of the end of the school year, but the rest I'm stuffing underneath my mattress in anticipation of some incredible summer adventures abroad. Apologies for my internet absence. Very soon after my last exam I jumped into a new and exciting summer job. A dream position! It dovetails with my academic areas of interest and works with the little jaunt to another half of the world planned for mid-June. So much to look forward to!

* I love Who What Wear, I really do. But I find it difficult to click through and then scroll up and down for info on the pictures. Little miss lazypants over here needs my info up front and center stage!

two faced girl

I'm fairly certain this Alexander Wang dress is what the comic book villain Two Face would wear if he were female. And had an extra $575 dollars laying around. But wait a minute, aren't super villains also usually super wealthy? Who knows, what with the economy these days. Their stock portfolios of evil have probably taken a nosedive.

it's a good life if you don't weaken

When I bought this skirt, half my heart was ready to post it on etsy, while the other, more optimistic and squishy part of my heart, was thinking perhaps I could somehow manage to pull it off. After walking about the house in it a bit, doing a few lunges, seeing how ye olde oversized calves looked in them while wearing flats, I realized that I would likely feel a mite bit self conscious slinking about town in it and would want to hide around corners/behind tall desks. It's one of those items of clothing that announces itself constantly when you wear it. Not something I normally turn my nose up at, but I've spent the school year in nondescript jeans and cardigans- heading back out into the fashion light should be a slow, easing process, not a mad dash to blindness.

Sorry for the long absence. Still wandering about in a fog of exams and worry.

there's something about chloe

one dress, three ways. It looks like a different outfit from each angle.
Dress her up, dress her down, she still manages to look fabulous inhabiting each realm. One thing I've always liked about c. sevigny's style is that while it is slightly wild, it is still measured and mature. Edited. So good at paring down, rather than be a tornado of bangles, chains, rips and scarves. For those that love extremes I suppose she's not quite edgy, as she does float towards the main currents as she gets older, but she still has this casual flair that I'm quite captured by.


Oh look it is the personification of springtime.

lily and swallow

Birds and thoughts of spring are definitely on my brain. I'm very much so looking forward to receiving this from lula boutique. It is both easy on the eyes and wallet; the perfect fashion storm. I already own the below necklace from the same spot. Subtle enough for almost all occasions.

spring: under the influence

Refinery 29 talks to some adorable fash bloggers about what their closets will be bursting with this spring. I cannot believe it's officially spring! Looking forward to walks in the park and curbside slushies. The outdoors keeps beckoning and distracting me from work. Once I hack through this jungle of exams and essays it will be summer, and the world will tilt back to its rightful place.

ack.

ack. I am so so poor at keeping up to date with things. Lately it's as if I've been chased by a mob of angry obligations- busy busy busy. Today I wore a suit for the first time ever.

I've rediscovered tumblr, the perfect spot for space cadets and attention-poor folk like me. Launched a new project today that combines my etsy store and my long dormant creative writing tinkering. Still dusty, but thrashing awake.

Please add me if you're on tumblr. I'm friendly folk.

new old things I'm excited to find good homes for

As I get older (shhh...), I always love to ask new people I meet two questions. 1) What was your first job? and 2) What did you wear to prom? These were especially useful questions when I wasn't living in Canada and making friends that I didn't know in High School/Uni. These people came to me as full-formed 20somethings, and I always wondered- what happened before?

Most people are now well out of their first jobs. When I was slogging my way through the working world, I would often meet successful and powerful people who told me their first jobs were at tiny grocery marts or mowing lawns. Everyone starts somewhere, and it's inspiring to see what leaps, bounds, and meanderings led a person to where they are now.

The prom question also offered me a weird and often amusing glimpse into the past. 20something stark-black-outfit-wearing fashionistas would tell me about their baby blue Cinderella prom dresses. People would sigh and get misty-eyed, or cringe and instinctively go and burn their photo albums.

This is exactly what I wore to prom seven years ago (a modern re-creation). A purple dress from Holt Renfrew that was twice as much as I wanted to spend on a dress. I told my parents I would wear it again, and to keep the entire budget down clopped about in $25 clearance Anne Klein heels (pictured) and did not get my hair done.

Flash-forward seven years and true to my promise to my parents, I am once again swanning about in this gown. Once again, to a school 'formal'. Yes, it only took almost a decade to "wear it again", but I am getting more use out of it. It looks a bit awkward and bunchy in this photo (smoothed out a bit in reality), but I hiked it up a bit and dropped one of the shoulders. In my tradition of wearing obscenely cheap shoes, I am wearing $8 shoes purchased from a Shanghai market.

What will you wear to prom? What did you wear to prom? Do you still love it? Oh, nostalgia!

p.s- I'm still dating the same fella I went to prom with. Well I suppose some things never change.

just one of those days

Just had one of those blerg days where even trying on a whimsical sequined bird sweater didn't cheer me up. Summer is simultaneously too close and much too far away.

spring is upon us, follow my only song

source: loveology
sure, pictures, why don't you just slay me with your feather-light beauty and brilliant softnesses.

Around these parts, spring is drifting slowly around the corner. Lately, rain instead of snow. I'm looking forward to the sort of comforting sparseness that summer brings.

In winter, I huddle indoors and pack around me worldly possessions. When the outside is so white and blank, the insides need to be lively and warm- almost womb-like. But in summer, I can shed a bit of the padding of 'things' and 'stuff'. When everything outside my window is bursting with life and inviting, I can rid the insides of a lot of clutter. White walls need not look so bleak. An entirely new and stripped down aesthetic can adhere.

Today was: baseball game and friend times. Tonight is: basement office assignment-writing, about-summer-stressing, daylight savings

bag o' wonder, basket of dreams

The best seven dollars I ever spent. A soft vintage metal bag from Value Village. In the winter, freakishly cool to the touch. If it's in my lap for a while, it grows deliciously warm.

Good For: starting conversations with strangers ("wow is that chain mail?), amazing and alarming friends (who pet and poke and mush it in their hands), being the temporary home for wallet, keys and mobile whilst slung across body against hips or dangling off one shoulder, being reminiscent of the eighties, the middle ages, and nothing in between, holding apples.

What can't this bag do. Perhaps one day it will stop a bullet for me.

blazer-thon at the blazer corral

There's a regular blazer-thon going down at the blazer corral a.k.a. some vintage shrunken blazers up for sale in my little home on etsy.

off to see the wizard of law

shirt dress:H&M
leggings & scarf: Shanghai market
white bag: H&M
Had an appointment with a professor today so I tried to dress a little more respectably than I usually do. Not that professors don't appreciate over-sized wolf t-shirts and skinny jeans. Just that I look half my age when I wear sneakers.

and all the hate will turn to love

(knightcat via TFS)
When Alexa Chung first sauntered onto the scene I thought she was the bees knees. But upon closer inspection, I started to think she was a little too artfully disheveled and a mite inconsistent. But darned if she isn't near-perfect in this picture. Not too constructed, not too haphazard; the goldilocks of looks!


(styleandthecity)
If I went to Paris I could probably just send a postcard home of this girl and everyone would know where I went. Wouldn't even need the Eiffel tower in the background. Just one achingly cool and nonchalant girl with an effortless scarf and unexpected purse.*

* as in, not a buttery black leather slouch purse nestled in the crook of her arm. I mean, those I love, but there's something so sharp about the shape (a little too big) and colour of her purse.

hoot hoot! have a drink

These lovely owls came home with me from my latest thrifting session at VV last week. They're coasters, but I'm going to split them up and refashion them as a) a large button b) wall mount c) uh, coaster.

Interesting story behind the origin of these flightless birds. I had seen them at VV last week, picked them up, but ended up returning them to their shelf before I headed to the checkout. I'm deeply afraid of over-consumption and my room has been feeling cramped lately. After some thought, I stopped by a few days later to see if they were still there. Happily, they were! But, during my first run there were four, and now there are only three. Someone bought one coaster. Not that I can blame them- they're adorable. But they belong together! (yes, I'm splitting them up but they'll still be part of the same home).

totally tubular

When the kind marketing folk at Matchstick offered to send me some samples of L'Oreal's Double Extend Beauty Tube mascara, I was faced with one of the easiest decisions I've ever had to make. Does the pope like tall elaborate hats? Yes!

The entire world of cosmetics has befuddled me for quite some time. There are only three necessaries in my beauty arsenal: Cover Girl CG Smoothers, Shu Uemera Eyelash Curler (legendary, I need not go on), and mascara (rotates between Maybelline Colossal and whatever I feel like stealing from my sister). Sometimes I'll dab on some blush (*rummage about in bathroom cabinet to find label- aha!- Tarte), but aside from those items, my little island of beauty products and expertise is quite limited. Had they offered to send concealer or bronzer, I would have had to politely decline. I have as much experience with those items as I have with unicorns.

But in the corner occupied by mascara, I've got a swinging chance and a steady amount of experience. I've been trying to plump up my lashes since my mid-teens. Alas, the same genetic heritage that has blessed me with hyper-metabolism and wrinkle-free skin has also cursed me with myopia and stick-straight stubby eyelashes!

The premise of the mascara is simple. First, you put on a layer of white goo (highly scientific term recently invented by myself) that moisturizes the crap out of your lashes and readies it for the next step. Then you wiggle on some of the black mascara, which forms tubes around your lashes for lengthening wonder.

I debuted the new lashes on Feb. 14. I figured I had already spent 400% more time than I usually do readying for my date- might as well tack on a few extra minutes to take pictures.

As you can see from the before and after picture, the Beauty Tubes fought the good fight, but in the end they were battered down by the overwhelming need for my eyelashes to be lazy and basically lie down. During the 'white' moisturizing stage, all the good curl that the Shu Uemera curler effected slowly became undone, and by the time I frantically applied the second step, they were already wilting pathetically. I was able to boost them up a bit by re-curling, which I generally try not to do after I've put on mascara; they tend to just jolt upright in a very unnatural fashion.

Despite the failure of my puny lashes to stand up, the mascara actually did lengthen (if not curl) my lashes to the max. And for lazy lasses like myself, it was very simple to remove. All I did was lightly scrub with water, and it flaked off without making me look like a raccoon/Taylor Momsen.

I was also sent an extra Double Extend Beauty Tube. The ziploc bag that normally holds my meager collection of make-up has reached its breaking point. So, if you are a gal or guy with lashes with natural curl (p.s. I hate you), feel free to leave a comment, and prepare yourself for some lash-lengthening madness. I will choose someone next week to send a wee packet of tube-y goodness.

happy VD

chloe s.(source)
Happy day of cinnamon hearts and loaded expectations! I will be spending this evening at the boy's house. We're not much for the outdoors, and by outdoors I mean sparkly date-night prix-fixe menus overflowing with smoochy couples; a high-end noah's ark. Tonight we are hermits hunkering down for a night of peppermint hot cocoa, elaborate snacks, and a dvd or two.

so zooey

marmalade eyes!
(source)

bohemian rhapsody

For a Saturday night house birthday party/dance-off.

I get antsy when I wear light and wispy clothes like this top. They don't necessarily fit with my personality (which is not necessarily prickly or sharp-edged, but certainly not cloud-like and sun-speckled). I picked it out from a Shanghai market for $7 way back when. The dreamy cotton, layers of necklaces and growing-out perm scream 'bohemian princess', and combine just a little too neatly into a 70s motif. I certainly didn't want to look costume-y, or as if I fell out of some absurd flower patch.

My solution was to balance it with an ancient (10+ years) pyramid stud belt that likely found its genesis in some bin in Claire's accessories. It has survived my teenage faux-punk and raver phase, many-a pair of flared pants, and other assorted indignities. Its reappearance in my wardrobe after many years of closet banishment just reinforces the foundation of my packrat mantra:

Never. Throw. Anything.Away.

It will come back to you, like a fashion boomerang, and you will smartly piece it together with something in a creative fashion. I wonder what else in my closet I can bring back up to the majors. Fleece bags? Over-sized Mossimo shirts? The possibilities are endless (and embarrassing).

dress steps for the clumsy

ONE-THREE Make dinner date with school friends at fancy Italian restaurant for Winterlicious, pop into dress, imagine self as Peter Pan, prepare to dash out the door.
FOUR: Drop electric toothbrush down the front of dress (edit: with toothpaste on it! blast!), wash, blowdry, curse the heavens.

looking so crazy in love

Feverishly in love with photos from THE NEVERENDING STORY

springsteen in overtime

I will be spending this evening in front of the television watching hulking multi-millionaires in tights run after an egg-shaped ball. Not normally my cup of tea but I've been told there will be elaborate snacks on offer, which appeals to me greatly. I spent a large portion of last night on the dance floor shaking my tail and possibly throwing out my back; I am excited to loaf about in front of the television for a bit.

More my cup of tea: old school Bruce Springsteen. Especially pre-Born in the USA lanky and bearded Springsteen. Simplicity- well-fitting jeans and a t-shirt- seems to be lost in the world of men's fashion these days, awash in boot cut jeans, square-toe shoes and tribal-symbol button-up shirts.
Look for him at the half-time show. The years have beat down on him, and he has been sporting a spotty goatee and earrings lately, but his music still breaks my heart in the best possible ways. I would sell all my worldly possessions to go back in time to 1975 and be at this concert.


Recommended Listening: I'm on Fire, Backstreets, Jungleland, Streets of Fire, Janey Don't You Lose Heart, Bobby Jean, Badlands, Growin' Up, The River, Dancing in the Dark, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Sad Eyes, Waiting on a Sunny Day, and everything. Also, Sexton Blake's sadsack cover of Hungry Heart.

Matt Dillon in Francis Ford Coppola's 'Rumble Fish' (based on the book by S.E Hinton) also has the sharp yet slouchy cool I admire in a fellow.