Leapfrogging Spring.

This isn't an outfit from today, or even from anytime in the past few days. According to my camera, it's from April 11th--the day that I went for a walk and for 3 bug bites in ten minutes, when it suddenly hit eighty degrees without warning. In the interest of trying to post more regularly, and since I hadn't shared this then, here it is now! It's been a summery-kind of warm here, out of nowhere, and some people are actually complaining that it's too warm!

This is a dress that I saw, and even though I knew I wouldn't be wearing it for ages, I bought it on-the-spot. Dotted swiss! Puffy sleeves! Weird little linen details! I had been thinking of it as my Snow White dress, although I don't know why, until I realized it was exactly the sort of thing that really reminded me of the movie in yesterday's post.





But I'm pleased. I'm reliving summer memories from back in the day and relishing the familiar feelings of summer that I don't really know how to articulate. There's something about how the way the windows are open, the way the room is really messy, the way sunscreen smells that all combines to something really specific but also general.





These flowers have long-since died, but that's alright, because there are finally some outside anyway.



I'm really excited for night-time in summer. I think it might just be that I'm nostalgically remembering summers in high school as being a certain way, but I always get excited for it.

Outfit details:
Dress: J. Crew
Headband: J. Crew circa 2009
Shoes: J. Crew
(Oh jeez, I didn't mean for that to happen! Entire outfits from one place, oh dear)
Flowers: Ranunculus

Spring Inspiration: Bright Star

Uh, I'm not sure how to explain this. This is a long-ass post, and I'm holding myself back. I had a good two pages of my feelings on Keats and his poems and letters before I realized that I ought to get to the dress as soon as possible, and save the rest for my thesis.

When I first heard of Bright Star (alternate title: A Girl Sitting at a Window with Her Cat), I was dubious. I have that very particular feeling, that sense of snobbish ownership, about Keats and his works. It's really hard to fight the rising aggression that surfaces whenever a quotation is out-of-place, so strangely transplanted in an alien context (my only other real qualm is something many period movies are guilty of. When a woman moves from one room to the next carrying her embroidery with her, but not bringing any extra thread or scissors. Irritated!). But that's a silly attitude to have--movies about real people aren't really about them at all, and besides all that, it's just one little image, one rendering of a version of a story about a person who existed. Not to mention (but I'm going to mention it anyway) that anyone who says this is a movie about Keats is surely missing every point ever pointed. It's a movie about Fanny, and after decades and ages of scholarship maligning her, I think this is a nice reprieve. I love that the movie parallels Keats and writing, with Fanny and sewing, making her a poet in her own sense.

But besides all of that, the movie is a gorgeous watch. It has become a site of my primary spring inspiration this year--all dotted swiss, strange collars, light cotton blouses, pastels, stripes in pale colors, and triple-strap flats. I especially love that we see Fanny wearing the same items over and over in different ways. The sea-green over-dress she wears pops up in springy scenes with a blouse in the same shade, and later she wears it over a cotton tunic lounging around the bed in hot weather. One of my favorite details is that both Fanny and her sister have dresses in matching fabrics--because of course, you wouldn't just buy enough to make one dress, but enough to get several items out of it. I think my favorite is the light brown and cream striped dress that pops up a few times (under a pink striped jacket--not shown--with white blouses both frilly and plain).

I also love the men's dress in this, although my interest there is mostly limited to Samuel Brawne, following around the background with his tall straw hat and light-colored spring suit (my favorite though, must be the striped jacket he wears in the kitchen and in the fields catching butterflies).

And of course, I can't resist a movie with a girl and a cat.

(Since I am incapable of controlling myself, I tried to use smaller versions of the stills to save you from too much extra scrolling and giant images!)

In the end, if I can just dress like this for spring, and even summer, it will be a good year.

Sad Clones in Sweaters.

(The location, serving in my pretending-brain as the pier in Never Let Me Go, Swamplandia!, and The Dead Marshes)

In October, I posted about Never Let Me Go and wanting to dress like the movie. Thankfully, this look (which I dubbed 'Sad Clones in Sweaters') of raggedy, piled-on clothing in mushy drab colors fit in really well with what the weather was doing all winter long. Of course, it's not really spring yet, somehow, and I'm donning the same thing for a few more days until the season decides that it's far too late into the year to be doing this sort of cold and moldy rain.

The upside of this, is that I can still dress like a Sad Clone and run around pier-esque areas reminiscent of various countrysides in movies.



And reenact movie posters.





This is only one version of the Sad Clone. I had lots of time this winter to come up with many, most involving the lumpiest most wonderfully hideous ill-shaped sweaters possible. I didn't wear one today, since it wasn't actually all that cold when not standing on a dock in the middle of the water and wind. I normally don't include the scarf pictured, it's a bit too full and healthy looking, but I didn't want to look like a total ruffian dragging a tatty scarf around Target.



It's also a bit of a shame that my hair isn't long and blowing around, but at least I have the blunt bangs.



I'm still getting that phantom hair thing a lot. It's not that I really took off all that much, length-wise only 4 or 5 inches, but it's enough that I still get that missing-the-step feeling when I go to control the stuff blowing about in the breeze (I still haven't gotten the hang of how to deal with bangs when it's windy).

I do suppose this is probably my last occasion to make my Sad Clone outfit post before next autumn. I'm dubiously eyeballing the weather reports for the next week, but there is no way we could steer into May without having warmth as a regular thing. If it doesn't happen soon, I might have to start dressing like it is, even if my legs and toes freeze.

Outfit details:
Jacket: Thrifted
Dress: J. Crew
Tights: No idea.
Boots: Hunter, zappos
Scarf: Mom's :)

As usual, John took my pictures.

Iphone Adventures.

In lieu of a real living-and-breathing post, here are a whole bunch of silly pictures from my phone. If you follow my capslock escapades on twitter, you've probably seen them at one point or another (several of them also find their way into facebook).


My first soft-serve ice cream of the season (I always get chocolate with rainbow sprinkles. Always).


Attempting to dress myself. When the warm days are few and far between, I get anxious that I am potentially wasting the chance to wear something awesome. I think, if I remember correctly, I didn't end up in any of these items.


This is one of my favorite items we make at the bakery where I work--a Savarina.


Pictorial evidence of a habit. In office supply stores I like to write this message on the pen-tester pads. I also type it in empty word documents on the computers.


Flowers, which are now dried on my windowsill.


Easter friends, little demented looking chicks.


Two twin cat friends on my walk home from work.


An inside page of the Marilyn Monroe book, I quite liked this one, but the whole thing had really lovely and strange pages and pages of pictures of paper like this one.


My tote and packaging from fieldguided!


Shorter, darker hair, rummaging through the Easter merchandise in Target.


A favorite movie, awkwardly vignetted.


Today, short hair.


Today's diet.

And so there goes April.

(for those interested, I do use an app for these--it's 'pudding' and I can't read any of it, but I like that it hides my skin flaws and makes life look dreamy.)