Another Pink World

About

Category: fashion

February 23, 2010

no news is good

i'm on a sort of news break at the moment. i got my satellite radio all hooked up again yesterday and as a result didn't listen to NPR during my commute. realized that i like taking news breaks sometimes and they do a lot for my mental outlook. cause you know, the news is pretty much all bad all the time.

many years ago i happened to catch a few episodes of dr. andrew weil's "six weeks to optimum health" and for one of the weeks a news break was the goal. "if something big happens, you'll hear about it," i remember him saying. i still think it's pretty solid advice.

in other, um, news i've started photographing my outfits after work every day because you know what? mirrors lie! i am kind of horrified, and after today feeling a little demoralized. tomorrow i plan to break out my favorite - and what i think is my best looking - cold weather ensemble. we'll see how it stacks up.

no plans to submit said photos to wardrobe remix at this time. they're pretty much for me and me alone to be horrified by. still fascinated by fashion blogs (or, in the parlance of the community, personal style blogs).

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:01 PM | Comments (2)

Category: fashion

February 04, 2010

it's drooling time again...

the fluevog spring 2010 shoes are starting to appear on their web site, so commence to droolin'...

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

July 07, 2009

i don't like the clothes

i am finding myself a few sizes smaller than i was last summer, and the summer before that as well i guess. i didn't plan to arrive here, but here i am, and i need clothes that fit. being good about cleaning out my clutter, i got rid of most of the clothes i had when i was this size in the past.

so i've been shopping, a little, mostly for tops. but i don't like the clothes in stores right now. it's a very odd experience! the tops all seem to be odd shapes that make no visual sense to me.

maybe fall will be more fun.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:59 PM | Comments (2)

Category: fashion

February 01, 2009

Fluevog Lady Grey

le sigh.

i really, really love these. the second they showed up on the fluevog web site i was gasping over them.

they're on sale now, but like everyone else, i sort of feel like i should sit on whatever money i have instead of spending it on stuff i don't really need. and oh, there's that wedding to save up for.

i also know all too well that too high and tiny of a heel means i won't really wear them much.

but oh, man... i do like em.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:39 PM | Comments (1)

Category: fashion

June 18, 2008

Irony.

Shortly after I became engaged, the Fluevog Wedding Programme was discontinued.

I emailed them tonight to confirm, because it just disappeared off the web site. Indeed-- it is no longer.

Since I don't think I want to wear a traditional bridal color anyway, that's probably just as well... it just... kinda smarts.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

April 26, 2008

Extremely anerable Fluevog mary janes for sale

I got these on ebay and they were just barely too short for me to wear.

They're back up on ebay now. Check em out!

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

nice work, what not to wear

this week's participant looks to be about a size 18-ish. the few women they've had on the show in this size range have usually been very frustrated on shopping day one because they send them to stores that don't have their size, then they go to lane bryant on shopping day two.

this time they've sent her places where they actually carry her size, so she's not set up for failure. day one she went to Loehmann's, and day two she went to Lee Lee's Valise.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

April 16, 2008

prediction

this auction for a pair of grand nationals will go up to $600 at the very last minute in an insane snipe war.

it's really disconcerting that there are zero bids on a very nice looking pair of GN boots with only an hour and a half to go on the auction.

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:02 AM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

February 22, 2008

Boobius Maximus

With permission from B. Maximus herself, I am pleased to link to Boobius Maximus

"Welcome to Boobius Maximus-- a page for all the ladies (and gents?) who rock large boobs. The reviews, links, and advice herein are intended to make it easier for you to find and buy large cup-sized bras (DD to K roughly) in standard and small band sizes (28 to 38). There will, however, also be some resources for band sizes 40 and above. These pages are written from the perspective of someone with natural (i.e. not surgically-enhanced) boobs, so the information on this site will be most helpful to others who also have OEM bewbies."

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:25 PM | Comments (1)

Category: fashion

January 13, 2008

fiscal responsibility over shoes

another pair of fluevogs were auctioned today, a pair i was pretty excited about when i first saw the auction. i bid a couple of times but in the end, i allowed myself to be outbid. i think that was a good call.

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

January 12, 2008

the ones that got away

okay, here's a picture of the 'vogs i was so disappointed to lose in a bidding war.

Sigh.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:20 PM | Comments (1)

Category: fashion

October 16, 2007

a plethora of pants!

today i found that i had stored all of my jeans that fit in a new storage location, and then forgot that's where i put them and that i even had them. they were even on nice hangers and perfectly un-wrinkled, ready to wear. sweet! apparently, i'm more organized than i thought i was.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

September 25, 2007

"..Rats!"

That's what the owner of Firefly said to me when I brought a pair of beautiful but painful shoes back to the store just after Christmas last year.

That's what I'm saying after the mail she sent out yesterday.

"Firefly is moving to.... the virtual world. At least for the time being, I'll be selling shoes on my website only."

She's put everything on sale until Sunday, including all of her furnishings.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

August 29, 2007

and on a lighter note, witchy shoes!

it's the time of year when people start putting their witchy fleuvogs up on ebay.

there are two eye-catching auctions right now...

these are in my size, but i am sure they will go for more than i want to spend right now:

these are not even remotely my size, but they are so cool:

but i'm really hoping that someone will post a pair in this family (i lost an auction for a pair of flats in this family, and i still regret it, years later):

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

June 15, 2007

a tiny light shines; vogs on display

i removed mt-blacklist and comments started working, magically, on the new blog.

meanwhile i am proceeding to back up the laptop to dvd which is hampered by the drive being close to full. i've got the cube connected via firewire; it suddenly won't boot after the external hard drive fiasco, but it booted to target disk mode without complaint, disk utility was able to mount the disk but claims it, too is now damaged and can't be fixed. nevertheless, i can drag files to it while it's in target disk mode, which is all i need, just a little place to put a few things while i do the big backup.

:|:

last night m and i went to firefly to check out the vintage fluevog display she has going on. the place was deserted (sigh) and i had a nice chat with the owner about how her business has gone downhill and she's not sure if she'll move or just close up shop altogether.

m and i encouraged her to move to durham and suggested the old macdonald's drug store on 9th street; lots of foot traffic, well-heeled duke students nearby, and the drug store is quite original, with soda fountain, so it would make a very cute boutique. she seemed to perk up a bit at the idea.

there were a few choice examples on display, older 'vogs i'd seen pictures of but had never seen in person. i was sad, though, that she had no lifoffs! otherwise known as "the spacegirl shoes", i have two pairs and an amusing anecdote behind them, which i related to her. so today i brought her a few things to add to the display; the liftoffs, the pointy witchy shoes, and the pink nuns. the pink nuns aren't old enough to be vintage but they were a limited edition and most people would never have seen them. i don't think she had; she flipped out over them. they also add some much-needed color to the display.

oh, and i have been asked more than once recently how many fluevogs i have. i decided to count today, and i will confess for all the internets to hear, that i have twenty pair. i am no carrie bradshaw; i have not spent $20,000 on shoes. not even close.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

May 09, 2007

i'm still allowed to buy shoes

well, the rest of the world is experiencing wildfires, tornadoes, nor'easters, car bombings, health concerns and employment worries, but here at the charming english cottage o'shoes, we're still focused on... well... shoes.

i'm not allowed to buy clothes now, because i'm losing weight. but i'm still allowed to buy shoes.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:55 PM | Comments (3)

Category: fashion

March 16, 2007

My first 'vogs

For the longest time I thought my first pair of Fluevogs were the black Angels I bought back in the '90's, but a current ebay auction leads me to believe that that is not true.

When I was in college (which was well prior to the time in my life when I could afford to buy a pair of new Fluevogs), a friend who was from Boston gave me a pair of very pointy black shoes-- shoes that looked exactly like the shoes above. They had belonged to her sister originally.

I loved those shoes. They were so pointy! So odd! I wore them until one of the heels started falling off, and then i'd keep wearing them and slap the heel back on whenever it came off.

I think a few years ago I gave them to a thrift store, sadly. Now I really wish I'd kept them. I never cottoned on to the fact that they might be Fluevogs-- by the time I received them, any markings inside the shoes had been worn away.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

February 22, 2007

top-down time

i actually clocked some top-down time today, but i'm not sad it'll be cold again tomorrow. i'm not ready for the cold to be over, yet.

and in the "amazing e-bay finds department..."

yes, the ones that supposedly were not made.

apparently, at some point, they were!

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:49 PM | Comments (5)

Category: fashion

January 15, 2007

firefly going out of business

thanks to badger for posting that apparently, firefly is going out of business. everything is on sale and i had noticed that she was posting a lot of stuff to ebay.

well. that sucks.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

December 31, 2006

a plug for Firefly

so the other night m and i took a field trip to raleigh to visit firefly. the manager of the fleuvog store in NYC admonished me to support firefly, and in fact i did walk out with a pair of cute shoes.

which was all great and stuff except that they didn't fit, and after wearing them around the house i knew they had to go back.

i returned them today and the owner of the store was at the counter with an ebay auction up on the computer. i think she actually said, "rats" when she saw which shoes i was returning. i asked if she sold things on ebay and she said, "yeah, like when i'm really desperate for money."

ouch.

firefly is an awesome store, y'all. it's not a discount store, although if you happen to wear size 10 shoes, you might check out the sale rack. but they have things that you can't find and try on anywhere else in our area, really cool things!

she said new stuff would be coming in two to three weeks which happens to be right around my birthday, so we may be having lisa's birthday party at firefly this year :) but don't wait until then to visit the store, if you happen to be in raleigh...

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

December 13, 2006

i have the shoe munchies.

i want shoes the way i want potato chips.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:11 PM | Comments (3)

Category: fashion

December 05, 2006

fluevog competition

I have been to more Fleuvog stores than my friend M, but she has visited the Vancouver store, which is where John Fleuvog is based and is, essentially, Fluevog Mecca. This trumps any advantage I had in the competition I've decided we are having.

She also travels outside of the country a lot more than I do (ie, at all), so she's more likely to make it to the... wait, I thought there was a store in Australia? The web site now makes no mention of it. hmmm.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:06 AM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

March 22, 2006

Astounding Undergarments

I visited a very lonely JC Penney's yesterday. The thing I love about department stores is how old-fashioned they seem. Can you imagine getting your watch fixed at Wal-Mart? Your hair permed at Target? A proper fitting for, ahem, ladies undergarments at a K-Mart?

But places like JC Penney have all of that. Stepping into such a place can seem as if the 60's never happened, particularly in the lingerie department.

Ok: if you're going to be squeamish about it, you can just stop reading here. Yes, I'm going to discuss underwear. But not my underwear. My underwear isn't anywhere near as extraordinary as what I'm about to show you. Oh no.

In the lingerie department lurks a woman who has had passed down to her the Old Knowledge. The lore of those things that make the women in the old movies and TV shows look strangely precise, like a line drawing.

They don't only know how to fit you for one of those conical, put-your-eye-out bras, but for things that might cover almost your entire body.

We'll start simply, with what is called a long-line bra:

They say that the support is supposed to come from below, from the band. This carries that principle to its logical extreme, while simultaneously guaranteeing that the wearer will be unable to breathe unless she possess an hourglass figure.

Rising up to meet the long line is the "Body Briefer":

This extraordinary undergarment is supposed to provide back support, correct posture, and "tummy control".

If that doesn't cover quite enough of you, there is a wide array of body briefers that cover ever-increasing amounts of you:

Now– imagine a North Carolina summer. Imagine wearing such a thing. Imagine wearing a layer of clothing over it as well. Oops, I just passed out from heat exhaustion.

You can see where this is going. Yes, they have girdles:

But I think you didn't see this one coming...

Its purpose is quite the opposite of a girdle.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:49 PM | Comments (5)

Category: fashion

October 06, 2005

it's all clear now.

"It’s a little known fact that when John is drawing Shoes he is really thinking about Cars and when he is drawing/driving Cars, he is really thinking about Shoes." - fluevog promotional literature

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:44 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

August 31, 2005

shoe club

as some of you know, over the years i've collected many pairs of interesting and colorful shoes. a disproportionate number of them are fluevogs; borns are popular, too.

the borns, the converse, they get worn a lot. they're easy to wear. but the really special ones don't often make it out of the closet, and that's just a shame.

since i returned from chicago with three new pairs of fluevogs, i decided that this should change. i've been wearing my awesome shoes almost every day, and my female co-workers have started to notice.

for many, many years my entire work group was comprised of men, except for my manager, and she wasn't really into fashion. things have changed in the last couple of years, and i feel that i'm not awash in a sea of agressively casual fashion any longer. there are women i work with every day who wear things other than jeans. there are even a few men who wear things other than jeans and t-shirts, but not many.

so today, i wore the pink nuns and while i was sitting in the lab co-worker b. walked by and spotted them and said, "and the cool shoes just KEEP ON COMING!!" she grabbed co-worker a. as she passed in the hall and said, "didja see these??" then co-worker l. came out of her office and said, "are you talking about shoes?"

i kind of enjoyed the attention at first but then it started to freak me out a little. i used to be the pink haired girl at the company and i was self-conscious but i loved my pink hair and it was fun for a while. mostly now though i don't want to stand out like that.

but, i'm not going to let my shoes moulder in a closet. i'm going to push through the self-consciousness and keep wearing them.

the first rule of shoe club is, you wear the damn shoes.
the second rule of shoe club is, you WEAR THE DAMN SHOES.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:44 PM | Comments (5)

Category: fashion

August 11, 2005

the origin of the spacegrrl shoes

while at the fleuvog store in chicago, the talkative saleswoman told us about the origin of the spacegrrl shoes.

quite simply, john fluevog did an absolut vodka ad, using the bottle as the heel of a shoe. here's the ad.

i believe she said that the original ad shoe is in a museum in Canada now.

which leads me to another thought-- i've come to regard some of my shoes, mostly the fluevogs, as little works of art. i display them, rather than hiding them away in my closet. i like just looking at them.

not that i want to try and rationalize my purchases, but they are becoming a... collection, aren't they? i was just thinking that some day, some young woman is going to get all of those fluevogs and it'll be the coolest thing ever. well, i hope.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

Category: fashion

June 19, 2005

undue access

moses has figured out how to come in through the plastic at the bottom of the screen door. which means he may soon figure out how to go out that way. oops. accidental kitty door.

i spotted a young man moving across my back yard at a high rate of speed. he came from the woods! there's a spot where the fence at the back of my property was crushed by falling trees in the ice storm. the downed trees are gone, but i never fixed the fence. maybe i should.

:|:

more thoughts on the low cost of entry to BPAL. actually, there's a fairly high cost that i failed to factor in yesterday-- the time and energy it takes to read up on the stuff and understand it well enough to make some selections. also, making the initial set of selections takes a lot of work! and then, if you're like me and sarah (and lots of other BPAL fans), you have to track all the little details somehow. like, in a database or a spreadsheet.

i created my spreadsheet last night. it's tracking 18 different scents, and so far has seven distinct pieces of information about each one. that number will increase when i actually receive something and start to make notes on how i like it, how i'd prefer to use it (on me, as a room scent, linen spray, purely for practical use (such as the one that helps you sleep)... etc) and what kind of mood it evokes. if i were going to be completely insane (ok, i am already) i'd track the dominant notes, so i can see if any trends emerge-- ie, i always hate lemon, or i always love tea.

seriously, i need to get a life or something. although, when you consider that my other options are either cleaning moldy stuff out of my basement, or sanding the van, can you blame me?

Posted by spacegrrl at 01:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

June 18, 2005

sensory overload

i spent a lot of the day researching and ordering BPAL scents. well, and sleeping, and cleaning the kitchen, and watching the R2k webcam.

each imp is so inexpensive that it's possible to try many, many scents... especially knowing that if it doesn't work, you can always swap it or sell it. which, if you'll forgive me for being a bit of a capitalist for a moment, is an absolutely brilliant marketing strategy as compared to good quality commercial perfumes. for instance, a bottle of chanel no. 5 on sephora.com runs about $95. the only way to try before you buy is to go to a department store and use a tester, or maybe try one of the less expensive, more diluted versions (eau de toilette - $42 for 1.2 oz). i'd have to be pretty devoted to go to a department store over and over again to find a commercial scent i liked on me, and then the investment once i had decided would be significant. and then i'd only have one scent... not a huge variety to fit different moods, occasions, times of year... etc.

no, i think creating hundreds of unusual scents, making the cost of entry and the risk involved really low, and playing nice with the thriving online community that supports you is a much better business model.

anyway. so what did i get?

orders from LJ, that should come very quickly:

• VAN VAN - A venerable voodoo blend, used for purification of the spirit and to amplify positive personal power.
• NOCNITSA - Her scent is that of a lightless fir wood, nighttime air, wet forest mosses and upturned earth.
• ARACHNE - A gossamer scent, as light as a spider’s footfall, touched with sighing mists: pallid flowers, dusty woods and soft herbs.
• DREAM FORMULA V: SOMNUS - Named after the Roman God of Sleep. This blend helps bring on deep, restful, natural sleep.
• ULTRAVIOLET - gentle violet and mint
• BLACK ANNIS - Black Annis' perfume is a mixture of damp cave lichen and oak leaf with a hint of vetiver, civet and anise.
• GLASGOW - The rich scent of wild blackberry breezing over gentle rosy heather.

from BPAL, so i won't see these for a couple of months:

• R'LYEH - A hellishly dark aquatic scent, evocative of fathomless oceanic deeps, the mysteries of madness buried under crushing black waters, and the brooding eternal evil that lies beneath the waves.
• NOSFERATU - desiccated herbs and gritty earth brought to life with a swell of robust and sanguineous red wines.
• SHROUD - Dry white sandalwood wrapped in thin woods, soft grasses and the lightest white flowers layered over cajeput and the warm, deep scent of embalming herbs.
• EMBALMING FLUID - A light, pure scent: white musk, green tea, aloe and lemon.
• WHITE RABBIT - Strong black tea and milk with white pepper, ginger, honey and vanilla, spilled over the crisp scent of clean linen.
• SCHEREZADE - Saffron and Middle Eastern spices swirled through sensual red musk.

i'm realizing that, although i am not as adventurous as i think i should be about food, i feel perfectly adventuresome when it comes to scent. i look forward to smelling these things the way i think foodies must look forward to a new and unusual taste.

:|:

in other sensory news, i took a spur of the moment trip out to the farmer's market in raleigh. given sarah and georg's devotion to the place, i thought it might be a good source for more herb plants. indeed! in fact, it's incredible. i could have spent a lot more if i'd wanted to, on things other than herbs that i know my yard needs. maybe next month.

so i bought basil, garlic chives, and an incredibly fragrant rosemary plant, and got them into the ground. during the last week i had also gotten new sprayers to go with a new hose i'd gotten, and what i like to call a "hose house"... a hose reel that is inside a little plastic box. the house house is kind of a pain, mainly because it's a cheap piece of crap, but it's probably still an improvement over not having a reel at all. when i want to move the hose to the front of the house to wash the car, it'll be great.

my thyme, lavender, and mint all seem to be thriving although i'm realizing that soil is a little clay-ey and heavy. were i to be ambitious, i suppose i would dig out that whole bed and work something into the soil to condition it. this year, i am most certainly not ambitious with the garden. i already have a van and a basement to be ambitious with. perhaps in some future year.

the basement, btw, is almost completely dry. must make self either work there or with the van or both tomorrow. must not be completely slack....

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (1)

Category: fashion

May 29, 2005

queen bee is rockin'!

queen bee!

i have a great queen bee handbag and wallet that i get compliments on all the time. i've also found that having a somewhat hip and edgy bag that is mostly silver vinyl is also very useful wardrobe-wise.

well, the bag is starting to wear out a little-- one of the handles is starting to separate from the body. i keep thinking about buying another queen bee bag, but up until now i haven't found the new designs and color combos compelling enough to make the high price tag worth it.

now yes, the prices are high, but hell if i'm going to put $70 into my wardrobe, i'd just as soon that money go to a bunch of creative people making cool bags in portland, especially given that i know that $70 is going to last me many years.

anyway, now they have so many cute things i will have to choose carefully! i looove the silver 45rpm bag but the handle is really too short... i need to be able to put my bag over my shoulder usually.

i could go with the blue stylus trucker bag but that would be a very large bag-- bigger than my silver bag. and i have to admit that i find the record truckette a little awkward looking.

the blue and white cloud clutch is superadorable, though obviously not a day to day bag.

and the list goes on.

oh, one reader of this blog needs the cupcake coin purse. i think she knows who she is!

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:24 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

May 19, 2005

ah, the decadence

well, so i took a look at the budget and decided things were going ok. and then lunch was kinda free, no oncall today, no 1pm meeting... so ah what the hell, i went to old navy and tried on 900 things and took my time and then i bought things at actual full price-- two skirts and a tank top. and then i went over to dsw and i bought those shoes i wanted. not at full price though, because a) nothing at dsw is full price and b) i had a 15% off coupon.

one of the skirts definitely doesn't follow "the rules", but i don't care. i think it looks good and i like it.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:16 PM | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

April 25, 2005

sometimes i think i am, too

"#1 in the #2 business!" --slogan on a truck, this morning on I-40.

to be filed under "who do i think i'm kidding?", i bought those boots. because that's what i thought on my way home today. "who do i think i'm kidding? work them into the budget? i'm going to buy them no matter what."

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

April 14, 2005

daaaaaaaamn

don't ask me why i decided to look at the fluevog site. the list of fluevog's i'd like to own is growing. damn his eyes for designing so many gorgeous shoes.

yeah, i still want these:

hotttt

yeah, i still want these, too

sigh.

classy.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

April 07, 2005

let's discuss shoes, shall we?

what with everyone talking about shoes these days, i feel all inspired.

so this week, i wore a lot of non-hobbit, cute shoes. tomorrow, i think i might wear these never-before photographed shoes. they look very nice with my springtime raincoat, which i might just need tomorrow.

i went up to the attic this evening and pulled down all of my summer shoes. it's like suddenly getting a bunch of new shoes all at once! how i do heart some of those shoes. i had forgotten about the little lavendar ones. i will have to wear those soon.

i also pulled down a lot of clothes that have got to go. i know they probably won't sell so well at the yard sale, but one way or another they are leaving the house this weekend. a lot of things that i think i held on to because i was afraid i'd gain back all the weight i lost. but the thing is, even if i do gain it all back (let's hope not), i will never wear those kind of clothes again (i hope). no vast, shapeless shirts, no high-waisted, tapered jeans. time to let all of that crap go.

there's one category of clothes that i just don't know how to handle. i have a vast array of roswell-related t-shirts. they're incredibly unflattering and mostly downright ugly so i'll never wear them, but i can't quite bear to part with them. i've got a few wxdu and one starlite t-shirt that fall into about the same category. i do have the space in my attic to store them-- but what's the point? oh well. i guess i'll defer the decision to be rid of them.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:47 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

February 25, 2005

HOTTTTT

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: fashion

February 20, 2005

fashion design and costuming

many, many thanks to pinky for blogging about the leigh bowery documentary. i watched it last night.

she does a good job of describing the film and the man, but just to very quickly summarize: he was a performance artist/costume designer who took fashion design to the level of art, and he made his body a living sculpture through his designs.

in the 80's, during the time when he was active in the club scene in london, during the time when the New Romantics were taking clubbing fashion waaaaayyy over the top, i was a dorky teenager catching tantalizing snippets of all this on tv.

we all remember the 80's fashion as displayed in molly ringwald films-- preppy, a little 50's retro but in a really tacky way, lots of pastel colors and big, hairsprayed hair. there was an element of costume to some of this stuff, but only in a very conservative way.

watching this film reminded me of the other 80's fashion... the stuff that is pure costume and artifice. the world where adam ant was almost conservative.

back in those days, i had free access to a lot of fashion magazines, because my stepfather was a cover girl salesman, and the company sent him subscriptions for free so he could keep up with the advertising. we got mademoiselle and glamour pretty regularly. cosmo would appear from time to time; mom didn't really want me reading cosmo because of it's strangely skewed, trashy view of sexuality, but i got my hands on them anyway and just took a lot of that stuff with a grain of salt.

the fashion, though, was of great interest to me. i clipped a lot of photos of looks that i liked and plastered them all over my bedroom. my favorites tended to be loose clothes with a vintage 20's or 30's feel that created a long line with no curves. i was skinny enough back then that i probably could have pulled something like that off had i been able to find the right things at the thrift stores.

i raided gran's 50's clothes from the attic. the clothes were great, but the colors were all wrong for me, and i knew it but wore the clothes anyway. i still have the most awesome of those dresses up in my attic, but i don't know if i'll ever fit back into it.

every night i'd spend a lot of time trying on different outfits. i was always interested in what sort of shape i could create on my body, as well as what sort of mood i could create. the most outrageous outfits were never seen outside of my house; even my family didn't see those, although i had to sneak out into the hall to look at the full-length mirror. we're definitely not talking leigh bowery outrageous, but stuff that would have provoked too much of a reaction in the halls at school.

my senior year of high school, i started to go a little more over the top in what i'd actually wear out of the house. clothing became one of my primary means of self-expression, and of course also of identifying myself culturally. i'd get laughed at in the halls pretty regularly. once i happened to wear one of my more silly outfits on a day when i received an award at a school assembly, and the entire assembly started laughing at me when i walked out on to the floor. unlike leigh bowery, i didn't really enjoy this kind of reaction.

it amazes me, though, that with all of that experimentation, i never really discovered what looks good on me, and i had a completely skewed idea of how i actually looked in clothes. i would think that those excercises in fashion would have raised my self-awareness, but instead they seemed to obliterate it. interestingly, bowery seems to have had this problem as well. in the film they talk about how he would dress during the day, on the street, and how he would wear these terrible wigs and think they looked perfectly natural.

i do still experiment from time to time, though my experiments rarely see the light of day now. i'm too old to be laughed at. i've worn my share of outrageous things in the workplace. but i wonder if i shouldn't explore this side of myself in some other way... pretend i am a couture designer and create my spring 2006 collection out of things from thrift stores and the scrap exchange. and make you all be my models and traipse up and down someone's living room in my creations while our friends get drunk on cosmopolitans.

heh.

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Category: fashion

February 18, 2005

baffling office wear

ok, now for the majority of my career at my current workplace i committed fashion crime after fashion crime. over the years i was like a parade of all the hapless fashion victims that have found their way to WNTW-- all in one person. i will admit it. it was bad.

but i have reformed (or have tried to), and i'm going to take the liberty today of sharing with you something very odd that occured in the fashion life of my office today.

a woman (whom i do not know), very very petite. perfectly groomed, cute short blonde hair and nice makeup. and then...

a t-shirt that was easily a 3X Long. It reached past her knees, and was wide enough that i could have fit in there with her. white, with a design on the front that i didn't catch.

black leggings. skin tight. i think there may have been white socks and an athletic shoe. possibly a tight black shirt under the voluminous t-shirt.

now, people at my workplace do work out-- we have a gym. this could have been workout wear, but workout wear typically does not make its way past the gym locker room.

(with the exception of one man who wears a gray, oversized sweatshirt and baggy, faded-wash jeans to work every day.)

myabe there was a reason. maybe she had a fashion disaster after arriving at work and only had time to change into whatever was in her gym bag, not go home and change. who knows. see? i said it was baffling.

i also think this is a woman who normally dresses very well. given that she apparently works on my hall, i am sure i have run into her in the bathroom. for sure i'll be noticing from here on out what she's wearing.

??????????????????

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Category: fashion

January 16, 2005

dishing on fashion

one of the highlights of the party last night was dishing on people's fashion choices with S. one of the odd things about this party is, it's clear that no one really knows how to dress, which may be distressing for some people, but for others it allows them some freedom to be creative.

our favorite outfit of the night was a young woman who went full-on costume... pink patent leather go-go boots, and a very fake lavendar wig. she looked like she was having a really fantastic time, which helped her carry off her look.

i photographed our favorite dress. it was black, strapless, floor length, and covered with silver spangles. it was an amazing dress; unfortunately, the young woman wearing it didn't quite know how to accessorize it. she wore a spangled headband that resembled a tiara, a gi-normous necklace that covered most of the exposed skin on her chest, and black elbow-length gloves. s. and i agreed that it really needed no accessories-- it was its own accessory.

the worst dress was a very, very odd thing indeed. the woman wearing it was quite tall and slender, and looked to be in her thirties. it was navy blue, some kind of robust cotton, and trimmed everywhere with thick, white seam binding. it was knee length, and the skirt was shaped almost like a square dancing skirt. a crinoline would not have been out of place under it. it was high necked and i believe it had puffed sleeves-- and a giant opening in the back, set off by that same white seam binding. she wore dead white heavy lace stockings and black flats with it. the general effect was as if alice in wonderland had continued to wear the same clothes into adulthood, and attempted sexiness by cutting a large opening in the back of her dress. where one would find such a dress i have no idea. it was not just bad, it was disturbing.

there was a lot of black. s. pointed out just how boring it gets, lots and lots of people in black clothes. the thing about black formal wear is that it needs to really fit, the cut really needs to suit the person, and it needs to look expensive, or at least not cheap... only then does it really work. yes, it can help one look formal, but formality is actually communicated more with cut and fabric. for instance, you could make a satin knee-length dress with a deep vee-neck and no sleeves in any of a number of colors and it will look dressed up.

i didn't get a chance to see a lot of shoes, but the ones i did see were not very inspiring. it's a little odd; i thought many women were really into shoes? most of my female friends are. so where were the shoes?

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Category: fashion

January 13, 2005

looking for new glasses

so joe and i decided to go to southpointey this evening for q shack/apple store/specs. he took a bunch of photos of me in different frames at specs. unfortunately a lot of the photos are not very clear shots of the frames on me, and i may go back and re-shoot some of the favorites, but here is a flickr page devoted to these shots. if anything strikes you as good, leave a comment, mmm-kay? i'll also be visiting 20/20 this weekend so there will be more photos then.

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Category: fashion

comfort shoes

some people eat comfort food (and i am one of them). i also find comfort in shoes. the shoes themselves don't necessarily have to be comfortable (funny how that works).

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Category: fashion

December 31, 2004

beggars and choosers!

lately i've been wanting to add some interesting vintage stuff to my wardrobe. this is difficult and discouraging, because most vintage clothes are too small for me. it's not just a weight issue; my shoulders are usually too wide for the jackets and shirts. this was even the case when i was in high school and was very slim. couple that with the fact that vintage clothes are usually just more difficult to shop for-- they tend to be crammed into racks, in dark stores, with little sensible organization and a poor signal-to-noise ratio-- and i haven't made much of an effort in this direction in many years.

but i was feeling like i'd be up for it this week, and since sarah and i had planned to hang out today, i was hoping she'd be up for a trip down to beggars and choosers in pittsboro, and indeed she was.

i kind of knew they'd renovated recently, but i was amazed at the changes in the store. everything has been cleaned out and organized. the main floor is still a jumble of housewares and furniture (and a kitten!) but it's a bit easier to negotiate. the back room has been fully cleaned out and organized, and is full of patterns (organized in easy to access drawers, by decade), fabric, and a huge assortment of vintage buttons, belt buckles, and other notions. the basement has had most of the junky furniture removed, and is again much easier to negotiate. one long wall is a rack of bargain clothes, and that's where i had the most luck. i also started noticing that her prices are much, much better than they used to be. the bargain clothes are 2 for $5. i found a vintage shirt, coat, blazer, and a 40's era purse for a grand total of $10. the clothes all have some issues, of course, but i think i can work with them. the basic fit of the blazer, in particular, is perfect.

the upper floor is still devoted to clothes and accessories. she has culled the clothing heavily and the signal far outweighs the noise now. the clothes are much less crowded on the racks, and the lighting is better, too, i think. the prices are astounding when you compare them to untidy museum! sarah found two fabulous mod hats, one of which is actually mink, for little more than her similar hat from untidy cost.

(i don't mean to dis on untidy-- y'all know i love that place. their rent on broad street must be astronomical, especially compared to rent in pittsboro. i don't fault them for their prices but it's natural to compare.)

i didn't find anything upstairs but i really did look at everything. i didn't let myself get discouraged. sarah did great, finding the two hats, two pairs of shoes, and some other items from both upstairs and from the basement. (note that the hat you see her in to the right is not one she bought-- i'll let her describe it in her blog though. that's a special hat.)

it was a nice outing and the changes in the store are definitely for the better.

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Category: fashion

December 30, 2004

hoist 'em up there!

so i did do something productive today... although it was also shopping. i'm creative that way. i decided i hate all my bras, i can never find anything that's properly supportive, and "the girls" now need a bit of a hand up.

so, like others before me, off i went to the bra patch!

like xta, i found i did not mind the "ladyhandling", especially since i was expecting it. now interestingly, she fitted me at about the same size as victoria's secret did-- so i guess there's at least one vic secret gal who knows what she's doing to some degree. the funny thing is though that i'm in between sizes-- neither a 38 D nor a 40 C-- which effectively means that i can wear both, or in some cases, neither, depending on the bra.

the woman who fitted me gave me a lot more information, though, than the most helpful vic secret salesgirl ever did for me. she pointed out an area where i need support, where i never really though about needing support before. and of course, she pointed out the one crucial fact that all women need to have pointed out, probably-- that the band needs to be low in the back to give you proper support.

she was helping a group of three women when i came in so i had to wait. another woman came in while i was there-- she had called ahead for something specific. she was very, very tall and fairly well-endowed. the woman took one look at her and said, "honey, you're not a double-d, you're bigger than that. you need to let me fit you." so she waited with me and we chatted a little. she was looking to get the exact thing that xta had originally gotten there years ago-- a strapless bra that would actually provide support for a large bosom. the saleswoman diplomatically suggested that i let her be fitted ahead of me since she was looking for something specific. when it was my turn, the sales woman told me that she'd wound up fitting her to a TRIPLE F! i was floored. that poor woman... how awful to cram yourself into something that's that much too small. but as she said to me while we were waiting, now she knows where to go in the future.

it'll be a while before i know if i'm really pleased with what i got there. two of them are not underwire and are similar in construction to the jeaunique bra that xta describes. they are not really all that pretty (well, kinda... they are lace...) but i put my shirt on over one and i was sold-- it looked great. and i have to admit that the kind of 50's look they have has its own sort of appeal-- i guess this is how bras were constructed back in the day, before the $10 wal-mart underwire came along. you know how women looked in sweaters in the 50's, right? ok, you get why i was sold.

sadly, due to my weird size, which is not quite full-figure and not quite... normal? (for lack of a better word), there weren't many pretty, non-basic bras to choose from. she did show me one that i may go back for-- it's made to be worn under something with a low neckline. it wouldn't be comfortable enough to wear every day, but might be nice for an evening. and now that i've got the basics covered, i may stray into victoria's secret again... shhh, don't tell the bra patch lady though, i think she is probably not a fan :)

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Category: fashion

November 26, 2004

shoe lust

our latest installment in the ongoing series... shoe lust!

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Category: fashion

November 12, 2004

my new favorite shirt!

however, i was very sad to discover today that both of the ok/cancel guys have girlfriends :(

but i still luv my new shirt.

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Category: fashion

November 04, 2004

wardrobe notations

"These shoes hurt my feet. But I love them." - carrie bradshaw, 'sex in the city'

• i need to wear a slip with my black linen skirt. i did not discover this fact until i saw myself in the mirror in the bathroom of the chinese restaurant where i was picking up dinner, after having worn this skirt to work all day. i have of course also worn this skirt many times before. to work. without a slip.

• this increasingly problematic skirt also required being binder clipped at the waist when i remembered halfway through the day that... well, that i need to do this. oop.

• the boots hurt. mostly my ankles actually. but i love them.

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Category: fashion

September 20, 2004

shoes

today at lunch i bought a pair of kenneth cole reaction patent leather flat mary janes. so cute!! i just love black patent, and it seems to be a small trendlet this season.

zappos has these pointy menswear-style brown heels on sale... i think they'd be a really great addition to my shoe wardrobe... except they are kinda similar to another pair i own :( and even on sale, they're damned pricey.

untidy museum has those black lace-up boots that i've wanted forever, on sale. i've always thought they were too 19-year-old-punkrock-goth-girl for me to ever get away with, but seeing them in person made me reconsider. i might go back and try em on, but i'd have to be sure i had at least one skirt i could wear them with before even considering buying...

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Category: fashion

September 19, 2004

new drool

just when things were looking grim... i've found these. i'm just a sucker for a quasi-victorian boot, i guess.

so help me, i am seriously digging on these, too. but what would one wear these with??

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Category: fashion

August 18, 2004

fashion i cannot help but love

there is a part of me that still wants to be the goth babe of the week one day. i check the archives every few months for a dose of modern goth/industrial fashion. really, i prefer the old skool stuff, which you do still occasionally see there, but there's something i love too about the plasticky modern version of goth costuming.

somewhat related-- via elegant gothic lolitas i guess and in general a similar aesthetic and some similar influences, are the kool kids in japan.

on a computer recently i found this here image that i'd stored in a folder called "fashion" and then had forgotten. i guess i've always loved really flowing clothes, or flowing in some places, fitted in others, for the best effect. i have friends who have recently pulled off the pants-under-dress look, and i wish i could, too. i don't think i have the right pants, or the right dress. i'm pretty sure, though, that i have the right shoes. i have the right shoes for just about anything.

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Category: fashion

May 29, 2004

the ones that got away

tonight, mary and christa came over to help me suss out my wardrobe for the roswell trip. it can be a little tricky to look nice in an environment where the uniform is shorts (which i refuse to wear right now) and shapeless VW logo t-shirts (which, although i do own more than i would like to admit to, i also refuse to wear). i can't look too dressed up, and everything has to be practical for driving all day, or running around in the hot desert wind all morning. plus, how do you dress for an alien ball at a zoo, when you also refuse to wear an alien costume? well, we got it all figured out. they even convinced me to wear a pony tail with a pink scarf to further girlify the very cute PODVISION baseball tee that i'll be wearing during the car show.

anyway! of course, there was a shoe component of the whole fashion show thing. and that got me to thinking about the shoes that got away.

i was in high school. i'd grown up with one, maybe two pairs of immensely practical shoes being purchased for me each year. sandals for summer, something with a closed toe for winter. maybe some sneakers. the notion of having additional pairs of shoes was quite novel, but i did occasionally buy myself a really compelling pair with my babysitting money. i remember feeling quite extravagant paying $40 for a pair of heels that i actually still own, and wore constantly in high school.

at this time-- '84? '85? the vintage look was just starting to take hold in NC. the style that would eventually evolve into "shabby chic" was particularly of interest to me.

i spotted the magical shoes in a botique in north hills. as i recall them, they were black ballet slippers with some kind of beaded encrustment on the toes. they were delicate, beautiful, and little bit goth. i think i must have had a look at the price tag and been shocked. i remember that they were out of the question, even though i loved them so much.

obviously, i've never forgotten them. there's a few things like that from that era-- beautiful things that i couldn't afford, and never forgot.

i wonder if those shoes are part of the reason i seem to be drawn to ballet slipper style shoes that are flat and have a rounded toe? they're difficult to wear, yet i have many pairs.

i also gave some thought this evening-- out loud-- as to whether my shoe buying habit could be considered a problem. mary said, "don't ask me". christa declined to comment. my hunger for cute shoes seems to grow with every pair i buy.

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Category: fashion

May 26, 2004

wardrobe facets

so i went walking with mary and christa monday, then mary again yesterday. the first day, mary commented on the fact that i was wearing just my normal clothes and not workout clothes.

it made me think about the fact that, although my wardrobe has improved a lot over the last year or so-- for those who didn't really know me before, i wore a lot of boy's t-shirts and jeans before i lost weight-- i haven't entirely made up for the fact that i bought almost no clothes for several years.

i have plenty of stuff to wear to work, and out with friends and shopping and stuff. i can use leftover clothes from before for working on the house, lawn, or car. but it never occured to me to buy clothes to exercise or do active things in. i guess this is because my exercise is mostly just walking and yoga, and those things don't seem to need special clothes. well, for yoga i do wear leggings and a tank top. but i had those already, oddly.

my shoe wardrobe, stunning though it now is, also does not really encompass physical activity very well.

i've got some dressy clothes... i wish i had more opportunity to wear them, actually. i have this one beautiful silk dress that i've never worn. most people wouldn't guess this about me (i think), but i have always loved to dress up, ever since i was a little girl.

i wonder what other facets of my wardrobe i've neglected without realizing it? i guess it's hard to pretty much start from scratch.

i did have the happy and unique experience of attending my brothers' high school graduation and party last year, and had the perfect thing to wear without having to go shopping. i even got compliments from my mom and my aunt joan, both total clothes horses.

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Category: fashion

May 25, 2004

random shoe lust

i've actually been lusting after these 'vogs for quite some time. they're couture vogs so they're quite expensive.

this is the first time i've seen these, though, and i'm quite lusting after them as well.

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Category: fashion

April 05, 2004

ow. ow. ow. ow.

my new shoes, though very charming, and very inexpensive, are quite painful :(

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Category: fashion

April 01, 2004

pliers in purse mean boots on feet

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Category: fashion

March 26, 2004

shoe desire!

oh, my! also, i want my foot to be airbrushed like that all the time.

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Category: fashion

March 23, 2004

it's like this rule. i get drunk when i'm oncall.

if i'm oncall, you can bet there will be some social situation that involves drinking. i brought my laptop with me last night, though, so i didn't have to worry about driving home should i need to fix something.

xa and i went to mary's to analyze her shoe wardrobe.

as i explained to mary recently, she is "micro view" and i am "macro view". we can look at a row of five pairs of shoes, all of which look essentially identical to me. i can see the differences, but they're not important to me. but to mary, the differences are crucial. one shoe is a little more dressy, or a little better for walking around a city all day, or... whatever. and to me, they're all basically black mules of similar design.

but she realizes that she doesn't have room for all the shoes she has... so we were pretty successful in getting her to see redundancy, or shoes that were simply not flattering or too worn to hang on to. in the end, she'd accumulated a big laundry basket full of shoes to get rid of.

i'm up next. i'm a little scared; i've continually culled my old shoes as i've bought new ones. christa has already said she'd never ask me to give up my fluevogs, but i think there's one pair they're going to want me to get rid of. maybe two. and right now, there's almost no redundancy or dead weight in my shoes (that i am seeing), so i don't think i'm going to want to get rid of anything.

maybe they'll just help me see what needs to be added. yea, right!

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Category: fashion

March 02, 2004

ode to vogs - day seven - the spacegrrl shoes

as promised, i've saved the best for last. these are the third or fourth pair of 'vogs i bought.

i honestly had no clue how high these were going to be. it had been years since i'd worn-- or bought-- heels.

i had no idea how amazing they'd be, either.

i originally wanted them in gray. well, silver. of course. the way fluevog's mailorder works is, your order goes to the closest store and they handle it. the boston store called me to say they didn't have them; they'd call the NYC store. NYC called me to say they didn't have them, either, but they'd call more stores.

the next call i got was from john fluevog himself. he said they'd never actually made that color, and apologized. i told him i'd take them in blue, instead.

it's a bit difficult to tell from photos-- this was a surprise to me when they arrived-- the heel is made from translucent blue lucite.

walking in them is a bit odd, but entirely possible. surprisingly possible. i don't like to wear them often, however, because i don't want the soles to be worn. i've never worn them outside, except one time in roswell. i figure if any ground is going to touch them, it's appropriate that it be roswell ground.

to me, they are little works of art. hopefully one day i'll have a good way to display them, up on a wall, with a little light behind them so you can see through the heels. i love looking at them.

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Category: fashion

March 01, 2004

ode to vogs - day six - the boots

i went to seattle in the fall of 2003 for a conference. happily, the conference was mere blocks away from the seattle fluevog store. of course, i went there the very first day.

oh, what a time i went through with these boots! they had to be stretched. i decided to get the store in seattle to stretch them for me. weeks upon weeks passed. i got a postcard from the girl at the store to say that it was taking longer than expected. finally, they arrived.

they didn't fit. they'd been stretched out of all recognition. christa said they made my legs look deformed.

i sent them back and told them to send me an unstretched pair. to their credit, they were amazingly cool about it. i doubt they could have sold those crazy stretched out boots.

i took them to a cobbler. in the end, i'm not sure they were really stretched much at all. i finally took them home and found that, with pliers, i could get the dang things zipped up ok.

they're fun as hell to wear. they almost seem too sexy for work, but aren't, quite. people comment on them all the time. they make me feel like i own the fucking world when i wear them.

i thought they'd be good to wear on a date. i'd have the guy at my feet in these things. but sadly i've not been on a date since i got them. oh well!

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Category: fashion

February 29, 2004

ode to vogs - day five

i bought these about a year ago. the colors were wacky, but i felt sure that with some work, i could find a way to wear them. they come in black, but i decided i had too many black shoes, and wanted some shoes with color.

i finally did find an outfit they looked good with, but it wasn't until october. what i didn't realize all summer is that these are fall and winter shoes-- they are just too heavy and dark to work with summer clothes!

i was actually still somewhat entrenched in daily boy-wear at the time i got these, but a transformation occured rapidly after that-- my weight loss reached a point where i needed to start shopping for clothes, which quickly became a frequent occupation. suddenly, i could fit into clothes i actually wanted to wear-- and some of those fluevogs that had seemed hopelessly out of place in my wardrobe became quite useful.

these have a rounded toe, which is not popular right now, but i think it's adorable, and makes one's feet look small and cute. they're also very stable, but will hurt my feet if i stand up in them for very long.

in fact, i liked this style so much that i bought another pair of fluevogs in the fall of 2003 that are in the same family. we'll get to those next...

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Category: fashion

February 28, 2004

ode to vogs - day four - the witchy shoes

well, i've skipped over a pair, chronologically, but that's because i have to save those for last.

as you can see here, though, i was getting a lot bolder.

style? check. lots of it. there's a part of me that's never let go of wanting to be a goth girl. not goth like it is now, but like it was then. a lot more Wednesday Addams-- a lot less blue and orange fake dreadlocks. and if these aren't wednesday addams shoes, well, then i don't know what are. i think it's also worth noting that they are quite pointy! yes, i actually had pointy shoes before everyone was going on about pointy shoes. not that i wore them much-- still don't, actually, as they are still slightly outrageous and a bit too large.

heel? oh, my, yes.

girly? actually, very girly. not in a cute flowers kind of way, of course. but no doubt, these are girl shoes-- very sleek, very feminine. nothing butch about 'em.

that goth girl lurking inside has also been eyeing these for some time, too, but they're too much. i'm pretty sure i could never get away with them.

miss mary mack, mack, mack
all dressed in black, black, black
with silver buttons, buttons, buttons
all down her back, back, back....

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Category: fashion

February 27, 2004

ode to vogs - day three

guest entry today from christa...

"lisa says these 'vogs didn't play a big part in her shoe development, but they made a huge impact on mine. in fact, i loved her pair so much, i got a pair of my own!

i'd never owned a pair of open-toed sandals before (my dad had a weird phobia about toes that he passed on to me), so this was a risky purchase in that regard. but also -- check out the big honkin' metal ring! the warning bell in my head kept ringing "risky risky risky!!"

still, i love them so much. i've had them for at least 5 years; they've been the most sturdy pair of shoes i've ever bought."

clunky though they may be, i think these did represent moving more toward the girly end of the spectrum, for me. and, as with all fluevogs, they have style to spare, and oddly seem to transcend trends (although i often think of fluevogs as quite trendy!)

mine are too big, i did manage to wear them all one summer, but have had to give them up since. i can't quite manage to part with them, though.

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Category: fashion

February 26, 2004

ode to vogs - day two

My home DSL line appears to have gone down so in fear that it may be weather-related and I may not be able to simply reset it, I'm going to go ahead and post today's set of vogs.

I decided to try granny boots for my second pair of 'vogs. This was quite adventurous for me at the time. And again, the whole idea of "girly" had not quite sunk in.

I actually do still wear these, especially on snowy days; the color is an unusual warm gray, and they're quite practical and more trim than this photo (which exaggerates) makes them seem.

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Category: fashion

February 25, 2004

ode to vogs - day one

each day for about a week, i'll feature one pair of my fluevogs. why? because i love them so!

This was my first pair. They are quite beat up now; i wore them almost every day for several years. They are a testament to How I Used To Dress Like A Boy. Not very girly, eh?

I can't really remember how I found out about 'vogs. Now, whenever I go to a major city, I try to make it to a Fleuvog store. Although you can mailorder them, the sizes are wonky sometimes and trying them on is a safer bet. Happlily now we have a store in Durham that carries them-- the untidy museum.

I remember when I first got these, they seemed too hip and trendy for me to get away with wearing them-- like, who was I kidding? With those swirls on the sides.

My perspective is quite different now.

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Category: fashion

February 10, 2004

women's clothes sizing

ok, xa and i hit upon a baffling subject today-- the distinction between juniors, misses, and women's sizes in clothing.

here's my understanding:

• the distinction between misses and women's is one of size, not of proportion. in misses, the clothes are cut for wide hips just as women's are, but a size 18 misses is smaller than a size 18 womens. (I do know that 18 and 20 exists in both realms, having shopped in both realms in the last couple of years.)

• the distinction between juniors and misses is not only one of size (and i don't know if the sizes overlap as they do in misses/womens), but also one of cut-- juniors are cut for girls who have not yet developed curves and have flat hips, etc.

• plus sizes are a different animal entirely, and are usually just 1x, 2x, etc. they seem to be cut more to drape than to fit. horrible.

but now that i write this out, it doesn't entirely make sense. xa says misses is cut for flatter hips than women's is. and that does make more logical sense.

however, i suspect that logic actually has little to do with all of this, and the fact that most women seem to find this subject confusing is not an accident.

so do any of you readers have more of a clue than we do? i did some halfhearted googles for an explanation of this and didn't get anywhere.

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Category: fashion

February 01, 2004

personal services

several years ago, i helped design the structure and labelling for the large collection of links housed on the top page of our corporate intranet.

as many of you already know, sas does a lot to keep employees happy-- and to keep them from leaving campus. we've got on-site health care, a gym and swimming pool, day care, and a host of what we eventually decided to call "personal services". massage therapists, a hair salon, dry cleaning pickup, etc. we balked at the label "personal services", because it seemed to have some weird implications. but it was the only thing that fit, so we used it.

recently, i've availed myself of some personal services, something that i don't do as much as i should. i went to the dentist, and had plenty of time to meditate on what might make someone want to become a dental hygenist. (i still can't quite figure that one out.) and my friend shayne took me to get a pedicure, as part of my birthday present.

this is the first time i've ever had a pedicure. i've never been to a nail salon for anything before, actually. this was one of the many places where there's that airbrushed woman in the window (you know the one-- i can't remember the artist's name) and rows of manicure tables visible from outside.

the pedicure, if you've never had one, goes like this: you sit in a big chair with a little foot-sized jacuzzi at the base of it. your feet soak in warm, blue-tinted water, which i guess is a nice way to make sure they're good and clean before the staff have to handle them. it also feels really nice, although it is a little weird.

after a lot of soaking, the pedicurist proceeds to do an amazingly large number of things to your feet, involving a lot of lotion, oil, and abrasive pads. she'll remove callouses, too-- and that's the bit that gets me. surely that has got to be a sucky thing to do, even on the cleanest and prettiest of feet. i mean-- now that's a personal service.

anyway, after your feet-- and legs-- have been smoothed and massaged and properly mousturized, there's a nice bit of nail polish to finish it off. and you're left with the lovliest feet you've ever had.

it's all quite baffling to me. manicures i can understand. i would probably enjoy giving people manicures, as long as their hands were reasonably clean. i understand the desire to neaten, tidy, and beautify. but scraping things off of people-- be it plaque or dead skin-- man, that just gives me the wiggins. i'm glad as hell that there are people who are willing to do it. and i think they are just built differently, mentally, from me. or maybe with the proper motivation-- say, a total lack of other job skills and a need to provide for myself and others-- it just wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things. but the me of right here and now just doesn't get it.

my feet look pretty, though.

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Category: fashion

December 24, 2003

fashion oddities

sarah found another great hat

unfortunately, it only looks good from the back-- somehow this one doesn't look good from the front. we thought it looked very 2001.

when i was in a department store last week, i spotted racks and racks of sweaters with initials embroidered. like what laverne from laverne and shirley used to wear.

also spotted recently-- santa drives a bmw. how is this fashion related? well, santa also apparently wears a fur coat. eeewwwww.

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Category: fashion

December 22, 2003

untidy museum

late yesterday afternoon, sarah asked me to meet her at the untidy museum on broad street, and help her decide whether to buy a dress.

sylvia joined us as well.

i was quite pleased to discover that they're opening a coffee shop in the space adjacent. because the sidewalk in front of the store had just been painted, one of the staff led us through the future coffeeshop to get to the store. i took a moment to discuss coffeeshop design with him; he seemed interested in what i thought. i told him that it really needed good lighting. it's a vast space, with no ceiling, and flourescents. unfortunately, i came away with the impression that he plans to use the existing flourescents and just try to tone them down by shutting off a few and painting some of them.

i realized later that they really need some lighting at human-head-level or even below, to create the illusion that the ceiling is not so high and vast, and to give the space intimacy. and it really needs to be soft and incandescent.

but you never know, i'll be very interested to see what they come up with. he said it would be all vintage furniture, and i think the word "cozy" came out of his mouth, which is all to the good.

i was also very, very pleased to find that the untidy museum now sells fluevogs! in fact, they had this shoe which i'd spotted a couple of months ago, and immediately thought was perfect for sarah. she thought so too and tried it on in the store, but she doesn't normally wear heels so i don't know that we'll be seeing in her in them. they looked pretty damn amazing though.

we also both fingered these. the heels are shaped like hearts if you look at them upside-down. right-side-up, the heels actually look a bit like a cloven hoof, which is cool.

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Category: fashion

December 04, 2003

new shoes

it may be dreary outside, but i got some new shoes today and baby, they are ORANGE! yes, i finally decided to buy those crazy orange Born's today.

i love them! here they are in all thier orange glory. Even the soles are cool.

i'm a little nervous since orange in not a color i can wear near my face, and most of the colors that look good with orange also are not my best colors, so putting together an outfit with which orange shoes won't look weird might be difficult, but i've been drawn to these things at least five times on five different visits to the shoe warehouse, so that's usually a sign for me that they're a good buy.

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Category: fashion

December 03, 2003

cruel clothes

it's really very easy to slip back into the old, bad habits. i've gained enough weight back that some of my pants are pretty uncomfortable to wear, and i will wear the same comfortable pants over and over with the the same plain sweater, if i'm not careful. i'll happily wear all-monochrome outfits of charcoal gray and almost-black, with no pattern or detail.

(there was a whole thing in "Harriet the Spy" about how Harriet would wear the same clothes every day if someone didn't make her wear different clothes.)

but i do have all of these beautiful clothes and shoes now, and it's a shame not to wear them. so sometimes i pick something that needs wearing and i'll make a point to wear it.

well, i looked nice today, but between the weight, and various other fun things like bloating and irritability, my clothes were very cruel to me. my pants were too tight, and my very cute shoes were painful to walk in.

the boots really ought to be worn, but i think tomorrow i'll give myself a break.

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Category: fashion

November 26, 2003

why i carry a pointed nail file

you'd think the reason i carry a pointed, metal nail file in my purse is because i want to be able to file down snags on my nails whenever they occur, but you'd be wrong.

• nancy drew. she opened a lot of locks with a similar nail file. i was a big nancy drew fan when i was a kid.

• jamie buchman. (the helen hunt character in "mad about you".) they did an entire episode on jamie and her sister lisa's purses, and the effects when the two accidentally picked up each other's purse. by the end of the day, jamie, normally the most organized, pulled-together woman in NYC, is a misreable wreck. On the other hand, lisa discovers everything she needs in jamie's purse to look well-groomed for a job interview, resulting in her being employed for the first time in her life. a swanky little zippered nail grooming kit is featured as an item in jamie's purse. i've been looking for one ever since; the nail file is my stop-gap solution.

• buffy. buffy defends herself against her mother's evil new boyfriend, "ted" (played by the late, great john ritter), with a very pointy little metal nail file. the wounds inflicted by the file reveal a shocking secret about ted, which i won't spoil for you here.

that's why i carry a pointed nail file in my purse. i want to be more like nancy, jamie, and buffy.

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Category: fashion

November 13, 2003

lancome liz

so i had this experience on tuesday which, at the time, i characterized as being overwhelming, but in the context of abruptly changing managers it kinda pales.

recently christa decided that, if she was gonna fix up her wardrobe, she should also fix up her face. so she went to the lancome counter and got a "make-under" (ie, a makeover that doesn't look she's wearing any makeup).

well, i've never done anything like that, so i thought i'd give it a try. so on tuesday i went with christa, mary, and sarah to the lancome counter and we met lancome liz. it was quite the party.

i have to say that i've never seen my face look like that. it looked good, but just very different from what i'm used to. i have pretty strongly held ideas about what colors are right for me, for instance, and liz didn't stick with my little internal rule set at all.

i guess appearance is strongly tied to identity-- at least for me it is-- so to have your appearance changed by someone else is somewhat disconcerting.

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Category: fashion

November 12, 2003

my boots are a cruel mistress

first day wearing the boots to work. they're still tight enough that they're a bit uncomfortable, especially, oddly, around the ankles-- but it wasn't torture. i did bring my pliers just in case i needed to take them off and get them back on during the day.

i did get a sort of compliment, though not on the boots specificially.

i go out to garner every so often to fill up with biodiesel. the women who work at this gas station are not generally the most fashionable people i've met, and in fact sometimes i feel as i've driven 20 minutes and magically wound up in some rural county deep in eastern NC.

so anyway, i went out there today, and when i walked up to the register, the woman working blurted out, "Where do you get them kinda clothes ??" we had a whole conversation about how she used to wear stevie nicks skirts (my term, but she agreed with it wholeheartedly) (and btw, i would not characterize my skirt as a stevie nicks skirt, but whatever), but now she can't find them anymore, clearly much to her chagrin.

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Category: fashion

November 08, 2003

blindingly white

what is the current obession with tooth-whitening products? there's been an explosion of whitening commercials on tv lately.

i feel strongly that i'm going to draw a personal line in the sand on this one. my teeth do not need to be blindingly white.

if everyone else would kindly please do the same, i think we'll all be quite happy looking at each others' nice, normally-colored teeth.

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Category: fashion

November 05, 2003

what i look like with tons of makeup on

1/5 of the readership of this blog asked to see this picture. i got bored recently and decided to see what i'd look like with tons of makeup on. somehow in the picture, it doesn't look like so much-- but trust me. if you saw me like this in person, you'd be shocked.

oh, and i decided to get my bangs off my face, too.

please excuse the utterly pretentious, "i'm so serious" expression. i just can't pull off much of a smile if i don't have someone there making me laugh or something.

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Category: fashion

November 04, 2003

boot update

(a quick recap of the Boot Saga can be found in the "read more" section for those who are not up to date)

i've had the boots back from the cobbler since saturday. they didn't seem to have been stretched much when i got them; i still couldn't zip them, even with effort. but i was tired of waiting; the cobbler had had them for about two weeks.

that evening i made a discovery-- i could zip them, if i used pliers to help! how perfect-- tools and fashion, working in unison!

so i've been wearing them in the evenings and i'm happy to report that as of this evening, i can zip them both without the help of the pliers, and they are fitting pretty nicely. i think they will mold a little more to my calves but i could wear them now with a skirt and they'd look fine.

so it turns out the best way to stretch boots is on your own legs, if you can just get the dang things zipped up a couple of times.

now i need to go skirt shopping!

MORE...

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