French Haircuts, Circus Girls.

Dear Anthropologie,

Yeah. You win. For a while there it was touch-and-go. I loved you because I always had, despite the fact that so does everyone else, because you had clever things to bait me like green vintage typewriters in your stores and nice packaging and a general sense of whimsy that beckons my silly little heart. But between the last catalog, with the haircut I can never really pull off, and this little bit of circus imagery, you've locked me in.

Wistfully yours,
Kater.

p.s. If you feel so inclined, it would be nice if I could afford your bits and bobs without feeling guilty for handing over my pennies.

You Smell (In a Good Way).

Perfume is a problem. It smells, and a lot of it gives me a headache (ages ago a rather nice sales-woman at a counter somewhere suggested I might have an allergy to 'white amber', whatever that is, and I don't know how true that could be). Despite this, I am fascinated by it. I love hemming and hawing over the little bottles. I'm fascinated by solid perfume, and the more cute, whimsical, or twee and charming the container the more smitten with something I am (although if it doesn't smell good there is no saving a delectable bottle).

I tried Vera Wang's Princess for a while, but I think it's just a tad too sweet for me. My mother wears Chanel No. 22, which is not easy to find (especially since we do not have a Nordstrom here, which I heard carried it) although she has been making do with all kinds of versions of it ordered via ebay. I once had a strange green vial of perfume that was supposed to smell like tea (it did not, but it smelled good anyway) but once it was used up that was it.

These days I'm yet another wear-er of Coco Mademoiselle. I'm not sick of it, it doesn't give me a headache, and sometimes when people smell me I get compliments. It's not too sweet, which I like, and it has the kind of iconic what-have-you lurking behind it that makes me feel like a grown up. Like when you finally figure out what your haircut is (I have yet to do this).

This has become slightly tangential. The point is I have grabbed another perfume that I can't stop loving all day. I picked it up because I liked the product's packaging (I don't care. I do judge books by their cover, I like packaging and prints and lettering and all of that) and the little moisturizers, tiny bottles and pastels. Plus, testers! Testers are really gross because everyone touches them, and I am sure they fomites of the highest degree but I love smelling and smoothing.

I bought the smallest bottle of Lollia's Wish because it had bees on it.



Alright, the bees were not the only reason. I love things in miniature (especially tiny farm animals, but small dice or elephants or impossible small containers are also delightful), and it smelled just divine. Sweet, certainly, but not overly so and sort of spicy. I keep smelling it all day, at random moments on my hand or wrist, or in my hair (on my scarf) and being thrilled by it. I recommend it (I also don't mean for so many of my recent posts to be focusing on products, but you know. Sharing the four-one-one of favorite cosmetic items is nice, and helpful, and I like stuff).

Apparently they are carried at Anthropologie, a store which my humble little city does not have (much to my dismay/disappointment/heartbreak), but they're being carried in a funny little boutique type place in a shopping center in my area. I will eventually have to go back to get the larger size, instead of the miniature one even if the tiny little bottle endears itself to me.

Little Red.

I have very strong feelings about the color red. To be general--I don't like it. I am fond of it in food (strawberries, raspberries, spaghetti sauce, ketchup, candy) and lipstick (occasionally I find it acceptable to add a red accessory, such as a bow or the tiniest of patterns). In general I cannot wear red in large doses, dresses, blouses, etc. I try but it just feels so wrong! Also, I don't mind other things that are red, like couches (if they are velvet), walls, or the covers of books.



This is why it's really kind of funny that I have piles and piles and piles of red lipstick. Especially since I don't wear it all that often--I tend to eat it off my lips--but I can't stop buying it.



I mentioned last week, or whenever that was, that I'm trying to wear red lipstick more often. I am rarely happy with my eye makeup and so have reduced that regime back to concealer, a paint pot, and mascara. A few years ago I bought MAC's Russian Red because I read about it somewhere, and I wore it occasionally when I wanted to make a splash or just felt like it (I really like applying lipstick. Sometimes I put piles of it on at night before I wash my face and walk around looking totally insane in floral PJs and red lipstick).

I really like MAC's matter lipsticks. They stay in place with minimal liner, don't end up smudging to high heaven, have great saturated colors, and don't over-dry my lips. This week I went and snagged myself some Ruby Woo because I wanted to feel really awkward walking up to the slick salesperson and saying the name (or not), and because I'd heard good things about it. I like it. It's like a cartoon red, a scary splash. I have tiny lips so I feel a bit self conscious about it sometimes, like there is too much fleshy face, but I've decided it doesn't matter.

However, I'm relatively low maintenance with makeup. If you can't apply it with your fingers, mascara aside, I could care less. Because of this, I'm a dedicated lover of Stila's convertible color in Poppy--I'm wearing it two posts down in the picture with the mustard sweater--even if it doesn't give the same stark look of a stick. I like it though, it's got that pressed-on, edge-fading look that's kind of romantic and debauched.

I have a tenuous relationship with red. On the one hand, I can't stand it. It needs so much attention. On the other, it's kind of right sometimes. And despite my grumblings towards it, my dastardly glasses are red.

Cinematic Fashion: Part One.

In the list of things that dictate--or at least lead in the general direction--my sense of dress, the literary clearly sits in one of the top spots. To proclaim that movies also influence this is terribly basic--I fear it couldn't be any more obvious, I mean, honestly. Everyone is inspired by movies, and I'm afraid I haven't got anything more useful to toss into the discussion on the matter. It hardly seems worthwhile to note that we're all inflected by it, that Mad Men makes certain kinds of vintage just that much more trendy and all that sort of thing. Because I mean, really, who cares?

That said, I'm still going to post about it. I guess because it's not so much inspiration I'm interested in at the moment as a kind of blatant desire to dress up in a secret costume. You know, the kind if inspiration that reminds one of the childhood and adolescent obsessions--as in, I actually won't wear XY or Z kind of make up because so-and-so in such-and-such doesn't or wouldn't (my goodness, I hate the tone of this post, but one must get back into the swing of things somehow).

Clever Nettle made a post about this back in the day, and I have to admit that from the moment I saw the movie I had many of the same fashionable fixations. First, I think it's safe to say that I'm almost totally obsessed with Inglourious Basterds. I know, lots of people liked this movie, but seriously. I think it's probably one of te best things to happen in a number of years. It made me sad, because I felt upon leaving the theater that I spend an awful lot of time watching movies that are okay, that are clever in one way or another be it a few funny moments or some prettiness that manages to seduce the magpie in me, but very rarely does an exceptionally well written and then, after all of that, well made movie come our way. It has everything, and not in the way that The Princess Bride has everything. It also had the unprecedented advantage of allowing me to be lost in the world of the film while not depressing me upon its end (what I mean here is that some movies, many in fact, make me quite sad because life is not like those movies--Marie Antoinette oddly was one of these, because it made me so sad that my world was not swathed in ridiculous pastel and insane hairdos and all of that. It is not even always so much an effect of story as it is images).

I get away from my point. Despite all the fantastic manifestations of storytelling, a pretentious statement if I ever heard one, I love nothing more than Melanie Laurent's costumes as Shoshanna Dreyfus. Little pleated cropped pants, fitted sweaters with that embroidered blouse, belts, hats, trench coats, red lipstick only sometimes! So terribly functional and feminine. I suppose it might be one of the things that triggered my intense ache for a more tomboy, masculine, bookish and tailored kind of style. I even just love the little way she pins her hair back and up!







I've been trying to keep my eye out for vintage pieces that fit the bill, and thankfully this cropped trouser look is popping up in a few places I also noted a few of these funny over-all type things from some vintage sellers, although they do tend to be pricey. If I ever feel like venturing out into the frozen wilderness that is my neighborhood, I suppose I'll be combing the trouser sections of both the men's and women's sections of local thrift stores.





I suppose the bottom line is that even as a grown-up (shudder), I cannot help but mimic my favorite movies, dress with what I have to best emulate and dress up as my favorite characters even if my own wardrobe items match in no recognizable way. I suppose it's a habit I'll never abandon completely, which is really alright anyway.

Stringing Together Everydays.

In the interest of not falling behind to the point where it gets awkward, I am apologetically posting something hardly thought through and in no way conceptualized! Between the end-of-semester, various holidays, whipping up a Christmas card overnight, and crashing my car (everything's fine!) twice, it's been a busy few weeks.



Not to mention I still find that I'm struggling with getting dressed these days. I think that particular sentence gives a hilarious image to mind--someone, in this case me, sitting on the edge of a bed struggling to put on a sock only to unceremoniously and over-dramatically toss it aside to fling oneself upon the pillows in a fit of agitation. I'm trying to do all sorts of things! Wear pants, find blouses that aren't too-too you-know-what, be nonchalant about my hair! Also, wear lipstick.



Oh dear readers! Please accept my apologies, I am in this funk of wanting to loll around, and it is so so cold! I will persever to pull myself out of it, documenting outfits and whatnot as they are worthy!

<3

Things of Happiness: Girls with Cats.

What is it with pictures of girls and cats?


Please click here for links and credit!

It seems like there are a lot of them. I have tons of them in my flickr favorites! Not that there is anything wrong with boys and cats, but you know--I'm a girl, so I feel more of an affection there. It's a thing though, girls and cats. There is something there.

Kittens kittens everywhere
Kittens chewing on my hair
Kittens climbing up my jeans
Kittens hanging from the screens
There's a kitten on each shoulder
Will they do this when they're older?

Kittens fighting on the chairs
Kittens tumbling down the stairs
There's a kitten on my head
There's a kitten in the bread!
There's a kitten in my shoe
I don't believe we just have two!

-Helen Reese

Wintery.

I know this is being really over dramatic, but this is how I feel about last night and this morning's weather:



(I feel I should also say that I often, throughout my days, say that statement in a manner attempting to sound like Bernard Hill up there, but as of yet no one has gotten my rather obtuse reference.)

At this point most of the snow on the roads and sidewalks has melted, but it's only a matter of time before we're all waist-deep in the stuff. I was at least a little bit excited for it--a statement I'm sure I'll regret in a short while--and even ran a little bit in the snow as I dragged a shovel behind me to dig the car out.

I was also incredibly excited to wear my new ridiculous hat. It's probably the warmest thing ever, and I've learned that having a warm head makes standing in the cold bearable for infinitely longer than with cold ears and blowing hair, but mostly I love it for it's Dr. Zhivago-esque quality. The downside is it is totally enormous to a ridiculous degree, and if I am not careful I look like an electrocuted version of Garth Algar.



At the moment I'm quite happy to dress up for the weather, although I'm already frustrated with the feeling of pants-tucked-into-boots, but we shall see how long this lasts! I'm wearing my fancy coat, a Christmas present from my grandmother last year, because my two other coats are missing buttons (I eternally pull of buttons; I don't know what the deal is). It makes me feel very bright though, and mildly ridiculous with my huge hat, but somehow I feel alright about that anyway. I bought some real live winter boots today (wellies are lovely, but no matter what they lock the cold into my toes) and hopefully I will be releasing them into their natural habitat successfully in the coming months.

Stressful Dressings.

The leaves fell off the trees and I lost all interest in getting dressed. My hair is uncooperative, except right before bed, and I am uneasy and nonplussed at most of my wardrobe. I suppose it is because this change in weather (that drab, sad period after there are no leaves and it is cold but snow has yet to grace us with its presence) coincides with terribly busy work schedules and Really Scary School Things (term papers and thesis proposals).

On the other hand, something about the kinds of clothes I so adored a year ago doesn't appeal to me so much these days. I'm cannot lie: I'm way into pants (even though the above picture is evidence of something else) and blouses and slightly uniform-ish, boyfriend-y, bookish things. And, you know, that effortless French thing with the pants and the neat-o jackets and shoes and all that on the women popping up on street-style blogs. It's always kind of scared me because I figured it involved a lot of natural ability to put things that are kind of slouchy but tailored together with a body type that doesn't necessarily border on the curvy, but it's what my inspiration folder is full of these days.

I still want to wear the ruffle blouses, and lord knows I get my grubby little hands on plenty of them, but I also want to wear cuffed jeans or a men's gingham shirt, and perhaps ignore the skirt for a while. I don't know if I can deal with prim these days, even though I still love it.


Teen Vogue, via The Fashion Spot


APC Winter 09

Some days though, like today, I just toss on an old dress and a sweater and call it a day. I need a pair of flat oxfords. I found the perfect ones at Macy's, glorious things they were, so amazing that I could have cried. Then they sold out. They aren't even on the website anymore, and I pity myself. In the meantime I will have to pretend with some Bass penny loafers (once I exchange them for the correct size).

Photographs and White Dresses

We can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don't know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don't care that we don't.
-Dylan Thomas


Édouard Boubat


Burberry Prorsum

Appled Days.

I bought a giant bag of apples at the co-op this week, and have been munching on them constantly. I like when they are small and fit in your pocket without appearing bizarrely bulbous. Food has been a kind of accessory lately--it seems my pockets are always filled with some kind of candy or snack that gives me something to do when standing about in the in-betweens (while also satiating my sweet-tooth, or serving as a neat-o snack between meals). Somehow I felt it was appropriate to eat an apple while wearing a white dress: Snow White-ish, if you will.


(A week and a half later, all the leaves are gone from the trees.)

As I'm sure you noticed--or maybe not, but you know--I've momentarily fallen back into an old uniform. White dress + black tights + cardigan = The Kater Uniform. These shoes are so high that I've scarcely worn them since I bought them last year, but I do love them to little bits. I've fallen out of practice for heel-walking since neither of my jobs really facilitate the wearing of heels, and it becomes harder and harder to be comfortable in them. For the first time in ages, I feel unsteady on them, oddly limited, and as though my uncoordinated abilities are magnified to the highest extent. A few home-heel-walking sessions are in order and must be penciled in these days (even if the impending doom of winter weather threatens to kill any semblance of civilized footwear).

Uniforms are weird things. I've posted about it before--way back when--and I don't mean the kind of uniform one would wear to school. The default, fool-proof outfit, is a weird thing. For a few weeks (although my scant posting doesn't offer much proof of the statement which is to follow) I've been wearing jeans and pants far more often than skirts or dresses! I'm not certain what this does to my reputation for it certainly makes it much more difficult for anyone to recognize me. A friend only weeks go described me to someone who was bound to see me at work as 'The girl who always wears dresses,' a rather inaccurate categorization these days since I've hardly bothered. I'm challenged by jeans, and pants. It sort of feels like making an outfit around them is much more difficult than with a dress. It involves more than one piece for one, but then when I wear an outfit that I consider successful that involves pants I feel a smug sense of pride.

I've also got to take back everything I ever thought that was horrid about distressed jeans. I'm not going to run around in anything shredded to within an inch of it's life--I don't think I'm edgy enough for that kind of thing-- but a little knee hole in the Wayne & Garth spirit seems oddly alright and fun. Except when it is very cold and the air goes inside your knee hole, and you are very uncomfortable.

Either way, these days I'm a little bit more alright with a bit more tarnish and decay encroaching on the world of primness.

(Also, on a separate note: I'm so sorry to everyone who has tagged me for memes and the like in the past few weeks months. I'm afraid I tend to just not have the time to fill them out, and I also forget and lose track very easily. I'm sorry a million times, and I truly appreciate it <33333)