Wearing: Modern Tribe

I’m in Southern California this week… it’s nice to be with family and to soak up the sun… on Sunday I spoke on a panel at the Retail Camp LA conference about business. It always makes me chuckle inside when people ask me to talk about business, but it was a great day with a lot of information for bloggers. I wore this outfit for the day… it seemed to really articulate how I’ve been feeling lately.

Getting into tribal patterns took a series of events for me to get into. I’ve always admired the aesthetic on *other people* thinking I wasn’t hippie enough, old enough, tribal enough… whatever that means. Maybe it was the Proenza Schouler runway show, maybe it was Cynthia Vincent’s chic Aztecan prints. Maybe it was my sister coming back from the reservation with gifts, and her amazing Pendleton bag, which she has always had, but I’d never paid much attention to it.

My sister took me to the Indian Store in Vista, CA… where I picked up my own Pendleton Dopp bag, which by the way, for $48, is quite possibly the best handbag you can buy. She’s had hers for years, the pattern and quality is really substantial. I also picked up some odds and ends, like a couple of bracelets and a choker…but figured out that I could appropriate the tribal aesthetic in my own way, my own post-modern anything goes kind of way.

Well, I’ve always been prone to wearing pencil skirts and button up blouses. In Los Angeles, I found through Style Bite a boutique called Confederacy, where there I found this Bensoni pencil skirt with the most amazing bias cuts, panels and piping I’d ever seen on a pencil skirt. I was in love at first sight…and it was on SALE. Holy moly. That was purchased right away.

Wearing: Pencil Skirt: Bensoni • Blouse: American Apparel • Shoes: Plenty by Tracy Reese • Bag: Pendleton • Necklace: Norwegian Wood • Sunglasses: Albertsons (yep!) •  Bracelets: Indian Store, Tiffany, Market Publique, Debut, Target, Hierloom

For behind the scenes, outfit snippets and more…stop by The Coveted Tumblr!