s-h-i-t

So I recently watched Grey Gardens, a documentary by the Maysles brothers about Big Edie Ewing Bouvier Beale, aunt of Jackie Kennedy, and her daughter, Little Edie Bouvier Beale. In 1975, Albert and David Maysles visited them in their large but rather lonely house (called Grey Gardens) and had the pleasure of seeing them dance, sing (or at least try to remember the words to their favorite songs), eat birthday cake, feed house critters, take care of their cats, and fight over almost everything. When my dad got the movie out of the library and wanted me to watch it, I honestly thought it would be rather boring.I was very, very wrong.
Grey Gardens is one of those movies where you just wish you could travel back in time and be at 3 West End Avenue in Georgica Pond of East Hampton, New York.Big Edie's love and care for her animals is interesting in contrast to her dry sense of humor she shows for Little Edie. Little Edie is very ambitious and free-spirited. Quite a s-t-a-u-n-c-h character.

Little Edie wants to go live in New York City and experience the glamorous party life, but feels obligated to stay at home and take care of her mother in Grey Gardens. Though she isn't exactly at the peak of her youth, her style is unique and fresh (not to mention her legs, which even around the age of 57 were gorgeous) The shawls she wears around her head are "for combat", and her dressing got her a spread in Vogue a little after the documentary came out and if you find the pictures online, please tell me!Both women are a little (well, a lot) insane, but their affection for each other and outlooks on life are greatly inspiring, even more so than Big Edie's glasses and Little Edie's swimsuits.A frequent argument amongst the Edies were about Little Edie's love life. She always wanted different things from what her upper-class family and mother thought she needed. She speaks of a man from years before that she knew she should've married but her chance with him was blown, apparently at fault of her mother. However, years after the documentary came out, she phoned up one of the Maysles brothers to tell him that it was him she loved ever since they met but that she just never knew it. With different feelings, he politely changes the subject onto how everyone he speaks to simply adores her (he even said one woman he'd spoken with had watched the movie 200 times, which will be me in 5 years). No doubt that he was telling the truth, the relationship between these two icons have touched the lives of loads of people.Big Edie and Little Edie are both dead now, Grey Gardens was sold to a former newspaper editor, and surely the raccoons who gnawed at their wall yet they left food for are dead as well, but the Bouvier Beales are far from being forgotten.
if you're interested, a little edie-inspired editorial.

because one only PRETENDS to write scripts, you can't actually do it though

What I wore today, with this picture from Susie Bubble stuck in my mind. I am quite idiotic to have realized just today that the easiest way to DIY a cage dress is to cut squares out of something you already have, not, um, staple strips of fabric together, NOT THAT I EVER TRIED THAT OR ANYTHING...read: it did not work.
Anyways, I'm still finishing doing it with this skirt and am about to start with a peach colored plainly hanging dress.
top: mom's in the 80's. scarf: ? both skirts: childhood closet. tights: aa. I know I overwear them.

Oh, the hair? Ah, the hair. I've been saying for so long I'm going to trim my bangs, so yesterday morning I just grabbed a pair of scissors and was stupid enough to cut a straight line across my forehead. I now have front bangs, but I quite like them. I just need to even them out and cut the rest of my hair, and I think I'll try for a sloppy bowl YSL-ish thang or something. Lesson of the day: do not trust me with scissors.my hair and my dad, who in this picture reminds me of that arthur episode where it shows his digestive system and he's a huge stomach.

Also, I saw A Streetcar Named Desire last night.
Me: That was way too deep and intense. I need to now watch something shallow and meaningless and with cheesy and/or terrible acting.
F: Like The Emperor's New Groove.
Me: Yeah, or we could see High School Musical 3. It would be kind of hard getting past all the 8 year old fangirls though...eh, I'll just stomp on them.
F: Sure, except they're all taller than you.
And who am I to argue about that? We ended up just staying at home and making fun of the Seventeen issue with Ashley Tisdale on it, anyways. Did you know she lives right next door to Vanessa Hudgens, and that the JoBroz, Milez, Hillzary Duffz, and Zacz live down the street? I laugh hysterically. Then today I had a fight with Drew over the symbolism of Streetcar and the chinese paper lantern. THE BARE LIGHTBULB IS BLANCHE, DREW.Coming home today and seeing a note on the counter, "BLANCHE CALLED" and a picture in The New Yorker of Marlin Brando as Stanley 50 years ago was kind of freakish. Try, A Streetcar That Stalks You? Oh, Tavi, you and your jokes and grandma haircut and obnoxious third person Dominique/Elmo way of speaking! You're too much, dahling.

I'll stop.
I'll be busy tonight and tomorrow, being a theater nerd and overeating, but I'll leave you with an outfit I wore the other night...

Mmm, interesting location (which some of you may be familiar with, HI CONOR). But you do what you can to get an outfit picture. I quite like the old-lookingness* of the Stalls sign. The best part is that a girl walked in to use one as we were taking this picture. I beat you all at Most Awkward Blog Picture Taking Moment.

The shirt I bought at a record and vintage clothes shop in Saratoga, the tights are my sister's, and the belt is from Goodwill. I'm wearing the shirt backwards so it's black and white, but the front of the shirt is so fantastically 80's ugly with the colors and font and country singer girl with a curly Don't Tell Her It's Me (awesome bad movie) mullet. Not really my favorite outfit because I feel like I've taken TOO much inspiration from street style sites with it, meaning it's kind of too simple for my taste and not in the mysterious cool margiela way. But, that'll do pig, that'll do.

And a picture that Isabel already posted but I love and have printed out and taped to my wall (true story):Kurt Cobain and a cat. A dancing cat. And our Rodarte buddy here looks like he's in a distracted trance. Epic.

*it's too early for me to be allowed to talk

drawing moses makes you hardcore

While I love being able to know what inspired someone's outfit and how they put the pieces together, I think you sometimes get the most truthful interpretation of someone's look before you know what influenced it. You may look at an outfit, but only see the 60's reference after reading it was intended. That's why I often don't mind not being able to understand foreign fashion magazines or websites-letting the outfits speak for themselves is the most interesting to me.I sound totally incoherent, but then again, today was a half day of school. INTELLIGENT AND SUCCESSFUL SUCKAAAAS. I wore shiny gold AA leggings (pants on me, they're rather slouchy) to conferences. You see why teachers love me? (Read: they do not.)
Anyways, as for interpreting an outfit without knowing what inspired it, I'd like you guys to guess what I was going for with this outfit. Tell me!
I also wore my pink necklace with this, but it snapped in the hall and beads exploded into oblivion everywhere. I then slipped on them, fell on my face, and ended up lying down in the hall cracking up at my stupidity.
Me? Loser? Of course not.
I made the headband thing myself, the tights are my sister's, the brooch was a gift, the top used to be my grandma's, and the pink dress worn underneath was my cousin's when she was a baby. For the record, the baby dress is all bunched up underneath. I am not abnormally tiny.
Actually...
I'm not that abnormally tiny.
Also, would you guys be interested in a post on How to Wear Shiny Leggings Without Looking Like a Ho? I'd like to do it but only act like a condescending twit when asked :)
Pictures of the 30's dresses! I also have a 20's outfit from today to show you all tomorrow.
Last night I was looking at Fashion Rocks and having a Kurt Cobain Rodarte hernia, now I'm looking at golden oldies again?
Fashion ADD, my friends.

This one below is a very long, droopy velvet cloak. It hangs beautifully and the button is swell (I'm starting to talk old, too). I think I'll shorten it.

These are the sleeves of two different dresses. One has sheer black slit-ish stripes, and the sleeves are pretty poofy. They remind me of princess sleeves, always a plus for days when I feel high-maintenance. The second one is the sheer cutout of one of those pillar-looking Roman (Greek?) things. We learned about them last year but I forget what they're called (proof that what we learn in school is forgotten in two months time).

This pretty little number below is a coat whose fabric is uneven at the bottom (purposefully), and whose half collar drapes around and is sealed with a cute little button. Silk, I believe. The lining is gorgeous, I should've gotten a picture of that as well.

Back and front collars of one of the dresses:

The bottoms of the pirncess sleeves curve and have buttons:


I'm not sure which dress this label is from, but it looks so nice.
Macy's can add as much red star stuff as they want to State Street, but Marshall Fields, you will be in my Chicagoan heart forever.

It was hard getting good pictures of the dresses, but you'll definitely be seeing them again. What do you suggest I do? Some are tearing a bit, but I'll try my best to cut and sew and hem and shorten and fix and whatnot. Though I cannot sew for my life and haven't a fraction of enough patience to learn how.

I'm going to vintage dress ruiners hell for sure.

i'm a cherry ghost



Susie, duh.


^I am obsessed with this Swedish chick. I want to kidnap her. She is gorgeous beyond belief and delightfully quirky and takes better photographs than Karl (I'll admit his clothes are fine, but I find his photography rather bland)

Inspiring photos.

Also, tonight my mom's friend stopped by to give me a bunch of old dresses that used to belong to one of her family members. The dresses go as far back as the 20's and 30's! I'll post pictures soon. Some are falling apart and they're all a tad big on me, as you can imagine, but I'm free to do whatever I want with them. However, I do not trust myself with a needle and thread. I'm scared I'll ruin them if I try doing anything. Like, touch them and they dissolve into dust. I'm jinxed when it comes to sewing.

and p.s., Urban Audrey is a wonderfully inspiring blog. Not only her own outfits and photography, but the photos she herself posts are saved in a file on my computer *stalker*
*For those of you who care, I'm not advertising Urban Audrey and she didn't ask me to do this. I'm recommending a blog I love, as people do with their link lists. I'm also crediting her for the first two pictures.
I would never ask for blog advertising and neither did Urban Audrey, because if you're blogging just for popularity you're not blogging for the right reasons. If you're reading someone's blog just because they read yours, you're not reading for the right reasons. Blog because you want to, read and comment someone else's because you like their content. Though it depends on what you consider the "right reasons"-blogging is only a competition if you make it. And who wants to make it that? Not creative, not fun. Just shallow.

3 things getting me through the night



(image 1, image 2)
Today I wore patchwork shorts.
Not that kind, silly!
I bought them a little while ago for my wife (who's healthy now, yay!), but well, I just couldn't help myself and wore them today...God, I know. I'm so ashamed of myself. I just feel terrible. I haven't been able to eat, or sleep...actually, I haven't gotten the chance to sleep since I wore them, and I actually have eaten...but I still feel absotively posilutely awful. Ask anyone, I was in a bad and solemn mood all day, except for when I was dancing and jumping around at lunch, but other than that...I KNOW, OKAY? But it wasn't my fault! I was enticed! There they were, in the corner of my room, neatly folded, fresh out of the dryer, and I couldn't find anything to wear. So, I put on my Mozart shirt, red headband, watches, gray I-feel-like-a-business-man socks, Tao-ish boots, pulled on the shorts and headed out the door. (I grabbed my backpack and lunch too, obviously, but for the sake of dramatic effect we'll pretend not.)

In my defense, you've been wearing my potential studded hooker leggings, too. Call it even? Yay! God I love our superficial relationship.
Anyways, these photos really don't do Shawty here any justice. If I wasn't a generous individual I would keep them for myself, they are just too rad. Since they're big on me it's like a polka dot/tribal/paisley/floral pre-Yohji-draped skirt. Mmm. You have my approval, demode ones. Karl moment.
I'd like to experiment more with accesories here. More jewelry and possibly a belt.You guys seemed to like my venetian mask, so I thought I would show you my Jamaican and New Orleans ones, too. The Jamaican and venetian ones are both gifts from Stephanie's sister since she's cultured and travels abroad and buys me masks to play with at home while I watch Family Guy and Friends since I never go on any world traveling adventures. The Mardi Gras one is my sister's, as is my new room that my pictures are in, but she could not take either to college. HI HAG.^^We're the best of friends.

I wore two watches, courtesy of Sophie (and ate breadsticks!)

magic

Remember all my inspiration I posted yesterday? Behold.
It was mainly the collage that inspired this outfit that I wore to school yesterday, but the editorials (Coco, specifically) were too insane in the membrane not to post. Picnik has way too many awesome effects to choose from and it was hard narrowing it down to these, but there are more on my Flickr, along with detail shots.

My nose is very prominently clown-like, but it works quite well here.The mask is a gift from Venice, the gloves and top hat were found in the family dress up box, the dress was bought at a theater that was getting rid of costumes, the tights are from american apparel, and the scarf is my mom's.
Tonight I'm spending time catching up on my guitar playing. It's strange, because I never thought I would stop, but when I began taking an interest in fashion I became addicted and sort of blocked everything else out. I probably shouldn't say this here, but I'm far more passionate about music than fashion. It's weird that I spend so much more time on my blog, though.

Now allow me to overwhelm you with inspiration. When I got dressed this morning I had these in mind, but you'll see pictures tomorrow. I want to edit them and make em look good and carnival-ish. Now you know where I got my header from, too.