3

California Winter

 

Most of my life I lived in California. I had no idea what it meant when people said, “The weather is so beautiful here!” I always just rolled my eyes and said, “Okaaaayy.” It wasn’t until living in New York where it’s hardly ever “perfect.” The freezing winters the smoldering summers, the hurricanes. When I took my first breath off the airplane, I knew it was perfect here.

That said, I do miss the winter bundling. Not that I ever want to be cold again, but you know the beautiful wool coats, the leather boots, the cashmere sweaters. The hats and gloves. I just loved all that. I just did not love NEEDING to wear it. Anyway, so after a rainy few weeks, the sun came out and while it’s December, it could very well be April or May outside. So I dress up my blazer over my t-shirt with a wool scarf. It’s a nod to winter, even if it is a California winter.

Also.. in other unrelated news. I LOVE HIGH WAISTED JEANS. That’s all I wear now. In fact, yesterday I wore a pair of mid-rise jeans and they damn near felt like they were going to fall off, even though they were also giving me muffin top. High waisted jeans give me a better shape than the most brutal pair of Spanx, and they’re 10 times more comfortable. I got this pair of jeans at Sandro, and my god, worth every penny.

Wearing: Blazer: Joie • T-Shirt & Scarf: H&M • Jeans: Sandro • Boots: Rachel Comey • Bag: Maiyet • Sunglasses: Prada

Photo by Lissa Jokinen

5

Winter Whites

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It has been my life long dream to wear a white pant suit. Life. Long. I’m not kidding! My whole life! Having Olivia Pope’s wardrobe would be a dream come true for me, but alas, it’s not something I could REALLY do. Or can I?

The one thing I love to do for the holidays is wear winter whites. Usually to parties, or special occasions, I’ll layer on the various shades of white. Unlike summer whites, where it usually entails a white summer dress and that’s about it, a lot can be done with winter’s version. Mixtures of tones like ivory, cream, light beige and the palest greys mixed in with brilliant white along with the velvets, knits, silks and denims you’ll find around during the winter months.

I’m taking advantage of the availability of white jeans this season. I found the PERFECT pair of jeans for me this year, Citizens of Humanity makes this Rocket Crop jean, which actually hits exactly at my ankle. The rise is ten inches so there is absolutely no muffin top. Also, they fit perfectly around my calves, which for some reason, I have a hard time finding jeans that fit snugly around my legs. So… these jeans paired with a cream cashmere sweater and a pair of white d’orsay pumps, is the perfect holiday attire.

Wearing: Jeans: Citizens of Humanity • Sweater: Madewell • Shoes: Vince Camuto

Photo by Lissa Jokinen

7

Samesies

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So, I know the lore is that a lot of fashion bloggers rely on their boyfriends/husbands to take photos of them. I found that it doesn’t work in my relationship with my SO. I rely on my friends for this, especially blogger friends. One of my favorite blogging friends, is Kristen, aka, Stylenik, who we meet and snap photos of each other, have coffee/donuts/etc. and hang out. It always makes for a nice afternoon!

Well, I was going to talk about a whole other thing about the outfit I wore yesterday, about how I have this Edgy Preppy thing going as a recurring theme in my life. But as Kristen came to my house, rang the doorbell and I opened the door, one thing became apparent.

We were both wearing a fisherman’s sweater with leather pants.

Now, I’ve written about this thing before. People hanging out together and getting on the same wavelength sartorially speaking. Though I’d have to say it doesn’t really happen to me as much since I went back to working from home. But I still have my regular peeps I like to meet with, so I don’t become a weirdo recluse.

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Anyway, so our friendships. They have more influence on our style choices than we think.

 

Wearing: Trench: Everlane • Fishermans Sweater: Joie • Faux leather pants: Aritzia • Loafers: Zara • Bag: Proenza Schouler 

Photo by Kristen Philipkoski

6

90′s Revisited & Revised

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Here I am awkwardly standing on the street.

Anyway… it’s funny how when I hear kids talking about the 90′s it’s not really how I remember it. I don’t remember thinking it was all that cool when it was happening. I do remember thinking everything was so bland. It makes me realizing how my mother must have felt when I was harassing her about the 70′s, asking if everyone loved Led Zepplin and also went to Studio 54… and how curious I was when my mom rolled her eyes.

There were a few thinks I loved in the 90′s for real.  Doc Martens, combat boots, plaid and tying my sweaters around my waist. I also wore a lot of dresses, mostly from thrift stores (they had vintage back then, and it was dirt cheap). Actually taking looks from the 90′s and appropriating them to my wardrobe today is kind of silly. I bought a floral slip dress at Old Navy and I kind of feel ridiculous wearing it. An Equipment silk shirtdress though? I feel more sophisticated with. I picked this one up at Nordstrom Rack in orange buffalo check, paired with a cashmere sweater tied around my waist and a pair of lace up booties (not combat, but in that ilk) it does reminisce of how I used to dress. Ok, I wasn’t sophisticated enough to wear cashmere and silk, but now I’ve grown up, at least a little.

Wearing: Blazer : H&M • Dress: Equipment • Cardigan: Club Monaco • Boots: Sam Edelman • Bag: Proenza Schouler

Photo by Lissa Jokinen

4

Fashion Hack: The Denim Swing Coat

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It’s been a while since I’ve done some repurposing of my clothes. Back when Rocky and I were living off of 250€ a month, I really didn’t have enough money to splurge on clothes, so most of the time I’d buy from the 1€ bin at the Frankfurt Flea Market and change things up. To be honest, I don’t miss being so strapped for cash, but I DO miss trying things out with clothes.

About a year ago I fell in love with a Miu Miu denim coat Rihanna wore, if you follow me on Eat, Sleep, Denim you might have caught that I regularly talk about being obsessed with it.

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So anyway, as much as I would love to just go out and buy THAT SAME EXACT JACKET. That’s just above my pay grade. I’ve been keeping my eye out for alternatives and nothing quite worked. So I did what anyone would do and looked on Etsy for vintage pieces that kind of go along those lines and found an old Orvis denim duster coat:

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(This is the coat before I cut it up)

I loved it, but as someone who stands at 5’3″ the length was a bit much, and I really didn’t wear it. The coat was so big it swallowed me whole. So enter the fashion hack. Initially I was going to go to the tailor to have it taken in and shortened. But since I’ve been playing around with the frayed hem trend, I decided to go and just cut the coat to the length I liked and fray the heck out of the hems.

The result being the top photo… and hey, I wore it three times already, so I’d call this fashion hack a success!

Wearing: Coat: Orvis (hacked) • Top: Aritzia • Jeans: AYR (gift) • Shoes: Nine West

Top Photo by Lissa Jokinen

7

Pierrot Halloween Costume, Mostly Homemade

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Earlier this week I spoke about what I was going to be for Halloween. Pierrot, the 17th century clown, but obviously, modernized.

I’m hosting a carnival themed Halloween party for toddlers, so of course I wanted to have a comfortable, yet fun costume to wear for the day. So after looking through all the images of clowns on Pinterest, I nailed down the clown look from items (mostly) in my wardrobe. A white dress from H&M, my Jeffrey Campbell cut out booties and polka-dot socks were already in my closet. The clown hat I made from felt, fabric stiffener, pom-poms, a headband and hot glue. The collar was a $10 tutu with ball fringe hot glued on. And the dress, I just used safety pins to attach the black pom-poms. The costume was surprisingly sturdy as I pedaled through town on my bike to get it photographed by my friend Liisa (you should check out her SF Looks blog, it’s great).

Anyway! This is what I’ll be! I’m deciding on doing the hair and makeup depending on how much time I have tomorrow!

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Happy Halloween!

Photos by Lissa Jokinen

7

Taye Diggs Followed Me On Twitter

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On Sunday I was working on this Halloween party, and my phone made that beeping sound. I looked over and saw, “@tayediggs is following you on Twitter.”

Taye Diggs? As in that super hunky actor with a killer smile? No! It could not possibly be. Must be one of those parody accounts. Although, a parody Taye Diggs account would be hilarious. You know, like a “confessions of a hot guy” or an “it’s so hard being so sexy” type thing.

I’m not a celebrity stalker. I barely know who’s famous. I know enough to not feel left out of a conversation, but not enough to be the expert in celebrity affairs. I don’t really have any “celebrity crushes” except maybe if you count that one time I found Daniel Day Lewis in Gangs of New York to be oddly attractive. The mustache (back in 2000, handlebar mustaches were not a hipster thing… yet) the greasy hair, the one eye. I still don’t understand what that crush was all about.

When I saw that the @tayediggs account was indeed that of THE Taye Diggs, I squealed like a teenage girl.

When I saw that the @tayediggs account was indeed that of THE Taye Diggs, I squealed like a teenage girl. Of course I texted my friends who I would think would be most likely to also squeal like teenage girls about the Taye Diggs situation. We laughed. We though it was cool, or funny. Then I went on with my day.

Then, one of the ladies who I texted about the following, forwarded an email, “Taye Diggs is Following You On Twitter.”

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Taye Diggs followed her too! Oh my goodness! Was he just going through a massive following day?

On Monday, ANOTHER friend posted on Facebook:

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My teenage squealing subsided as reality set in.

I’m actually not so special. Here I was thinking that somehow Mr. Diggs found my raving about microwave burritos and other non sequitur  charming enough to follow me. But that is not the case.

“He followed so many people so quickly—thousands and thousands per day—that it started to feel less like a follow and more like a deranged chase.”

Back in April of this year, Diggs did a massive following of random people on his Twitter account. According to Gawker, “He followed so many people so quickly—thousands and thousands per day—that it started to feel less like a follow and more like a deranged chase. He followed a volunteer fire department. He followed a youth soccer camp. He followed the maker of a wine ice cream.”

Embarrassed by this, he confessed his actions were due to a social media consultant advising him to “build up his Twitter presence” utilizing this strategy. What he probably did not know was that this strategy that was used aggressively by online marketers in 2008. Since then, the follow-for-follow tactics had led to Twitter suspended accounts that followed and unfollowed too many people in a short amount of time.

I’m not a Twitter expert. An “early adopter” sure, but generally I just reserve Tweeting for when I find my own thoughts amusing. Sometimes that’s a lot, and sometimes, not so much. But I’m pretty sure that Mr. Diggs needs to find a new Social Media consultant.

Or maybe he just needs to heed my advice about focusing on that “hot guy” archetype and woo us on line as he does with his killer smile on screen.

And if you like, you can help him out and follow him on Twitter here.