Black Lace.

Oops! Not sure what happened there. October is hard, I wait all year for it and then it's gone, taking all the leaves with it. I've got all manner of excuses for not posting so much (okay, at all) mostly centered around the weather (it's rained so often I'm a little weirded out by the presence of the sun today), but mostly a general discomfort with how to dress. I've been relying on a few outfits that happened early in the fall and rotating them rather than coming up with something new.

Either way, now that it's November I'm determined to get myself more into a routine, and in recent days I've been feeling a little bit more like wearing something besides that same chambray dress over and over. 

In particular I have this one slip that's bordering on a dress that I've been thinking about a lot. It's probably the season, but I don't want to be terribly typical about wearing it (so this isn't a post where the slip in question is featured anyway). It was something I tried on at one of my favorite vintage shops here, but left behind because I already had a pile of treasures to take home. When it was still hanging there a few weeks later, I knew there was no possible way for it not to come home with me. 

via Vanessa Jackman// Valentino Spring 2013 RTW

After that, I keep seeing black lace everywhere. I like it in a less witchy way, even though my eye really wants to stick it with some plummy lipstick and go for it, so I'm thinking maybe it'll go nicely with shiny things, cropped fur jackets, or something with a ladylike collar.

Alberta Ferretti Fall 2013// Anna Rubik on Stokholm Street Style

Proenza Schouler Fall 2010// Erdem Resort 2012

Eventually the dress will make it out into the world, but for now I'm just going to hang it around on my walls and stare at it until I figure out when and how to wear it!

Summer Cling.

I'm still reveling in summer imagery, trolling pinterest and tumblr for outfit inspiration and images that recall the sort of feeling of the season. Like, if I could sum it up in pictures, I'd have it all sorted out and I could start looking forward to fall instead of dreading saying goodbye to summer.

 Karla's Closet// it is beauty that captures on flickr

Suddenly everyone has got autumn on their breath. The idea of fall is planted; suddenly nights are cooler and the days aren't even that bad now that the heat is golden. But for once in my life I'm digging in my heels and trying my hardest to believe it's still full-fledged summer. How could it be the end of August already? I can't believe a month ago is already a month ago, because wasn't it only just June?

Edith Miller striped essentials// dinner for me a tristan on flickr

I know I should be preparing for fall with sweaters on the brain, planning the first few outfits for the days when it's cool enough to wear tights, dreaming of apple orchards and leaves and tentatively sipping hot chocolate while wearing corduroy blazers but all I want now is soft serve and hamburgers, high-waisted denim, the burn of chlorine, sweaty necks, and the bliss of green leaves.

Andrew Bush//

Cucumber Mint Lemonade

But then I've always been pretty sentimental about summer. 

wild youth// Lana del Rey

Eventually I'll get there, I'm just as much a sucker for a good crunchable leaf turned orange, not to mention cider donuts, as I am for driving with the windows down and eating popsicles. It's only right now that the trade doesn't seem even. Maybe if the last winter didn't seem so long, and if I didn't miss green growing things so much in winter, I'd feel a little less clingy about summer.

untitled on flickr// Esther from the Sticks

There's just still too much to do at this point for summer to be over! And I mean, it isn't really. We're always fooled by September, trickster that it is, into thinking things are going to be crisp and neat, when really it's the one that will turn on you almost more than any other month.

Everyday Costume.

Lately I've been thinking that it's a shame I'm not more outgoing or gifted in the vein of performing and acting, because most of the time I'd really like to wear some sort of costume and pretend all day. I'm just shy of twenty-five so full-out costume dressing doesn't really click these days, although that hasn't stopped me from trying at least a little bit. My habits of dress usually coincide with a movie or book I've seen or read and if you've seen my last post I'm sure you can guess the sorts of things I've been trying to channel as far as the costume for the day goes. I've been forgoing my usual eyeliner (partly because my allergies were so bad that I was starting to despise applying any makeup at all) and keeping my mascara to a minimum. Despite my penchant for lace and old oddities of dress, I don't really have much that would work when it comes to 19thc. corsets and calico dresses. I've also been sorely lamenting my chopped hair, wondering why I ever did such a thing, and trying my very best to will the stuff to grow faster.

In the meantime though, I'm making do. I had a white dress I snagged on sale at Anthropologie last year, but had hardly worn. The thing about white dresses is they always seem like a crisp, cool idea at the time, and then I hardly wear them.. For a while a few years ago I couldn't get enough of the things, but that was mostly paired with tights and strange boots, rather than in summer. I have a little pile of white dresses that I bought on impulse, thinking that yes, they are white, but I can always dye them (this is also my justification for buying vintage that is stained so much I'm unsure if I could actually get it out). Assuming I ever get around to that task. My need for at least one Jane Eyre inspired outfit was enough to push me to try such a thing, and so I started with this dress:


Consequently you cannot see it very clearly because it is white. Helpful.

I don't generally like shirt-dresses. In theory I think they're lovely, and then I put one on and can't stand it, so they hardly get worn. But something about the lines of this dress reminded me of the costumes in the movie. Originally I had visions of a mint-green thing, with a little lace jacket (I have procured on from Forever21, which is not in this post, but it was originally planned to be) that I imagined I might dye with tea, and a pair of triple strap flats ordered from golden ponies (I've ordered them, and they're on their way but not here yet). As it turns out, the color green I wanted has been discontinued. I didn't really trust myself to adjust the shades of green in the store, and anyway my favorite dress in the aforementioned film is a very pale blueish grey. After a first dye, using less than a quarter of what the dye instructions called for, I had a dress in a pleasing shade of light blue. I was thrilled with it, but in my heart it was not the color I wanted. It was a little more Alice in Wonderland blue rather than faded dress grey blue. I opted to try a grey dye over the blue for a short amount of time. The resulting color was exactly what I had hoped for.

After that I threw some snaps on the collar to close it up the shirt-ness of it, and after adding a little lace collar and some ribbon, I was quite pleased at my vaguely Eyre-esque outfit to be worn traipsing to historic sites and wandering grounds.




Olana, a place I remembered visiting when I was a kid, so we headed back!



I have a small collection of lace cuffs that I buy for no reason. I love the idea of them, how period they look, how delicate and strange they are. A lot of them are on their own and appalling cheap because they are missing mates or stained, so I've started wearing one by itself as a kind of bracelet. For the purposes of this costumed outfit I wore it alone, but I've been enjoying it layered with some shiny bracelets for more regular days.





I'm trying my best with my hair! I used to be able to do so much with it when it was long, all these romantic hairstyles! Now I'm limited, and this length doesn't hold curl very well, but I'm making do until I get some lengthy locks again.

Dress: Anthropologie, altered
Collar: Vintage, thrifted
Cuff: Vintage, antiqued
Shoes: Urban Outfitters
(For reference, I used RIT liquid dye in Evening blue for the first dye, and used RIT pearl grey in powder form for the second dye)

Pictures taken by John M.

Summer Inspiration: The Talented Mr. Ripley

I should clarify that at the moment my inspiration as far as The Talented Mr. Ripley is concerned has been usurped by the most recent production of Jane Eyre, which I loved to a point of obsession and have hence seen it three times in theaters (my current illness--which has kept me from posting outfits since an outfit is not made of ancient t-shirts and leggings--not interfering with viewings). I suppose I'll post about that eventually, but until then I thought I had better post about this, which I have been meaning to do for about two years.

When Ripley came out, I was hoovering somewhere around thirteen-years-old. In the throes of a Titanic obsession (it happened) I was thoroughly put-out and unsure of why exactly my mother forbade me to see The Talented Mr. Ripley. Years went by, far into the age when I could finally see it, before I did watch it about 5 years ago. I quickly realized why I wasn't allowed to watch it earlier.

In the summers that followed though, I've been increasingly captivated by Marge Sherwood's wardrobe for summer. Gwyneth Paltrow, always at her best when she is playing some kind of waspy character, suddenly makes me think that this late 50s garb is the best idea for summer. High-waisted circle skirts, little knotted white blouses with cheeky bikini tops underneath. And her hair, somehow perfectly coiffed without being too done, the tiniest wisp of eyeliner and the occasional lipstick for her latter points in the film, almost always dictate what I want to wear in summer.

























I tend to prefer her outfits in the summer scenes of course, although the two coats she wears are so glorious that I couldn't resist throwing them in. The thing about this movie is that it makes me think that going all the way into the late-50s sort of look is going to work wonderfully (another one, Sylvia, makes me think this) and then I end up looking a bit fusty and prim rather than fresh. I suppose it's one of Gwyneth's lucky bits, that she can pull it off without seeming old.

For myself then, I'll just pile up on loose summer blouses and cotton skirts.

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.