Excuse Me, Your Tastes Are Showing...

 

I have this urge to counteract the sweetness of my clothes with my pins and doodads. I don't know why this is a worry, looking too sweet or girly: I've seen actual sweet-looking girls cross the street to avoid running into me. Either way, doodads are very important in my life. Some constants are the little skull charm around my neck, which was part of a brooch I found at thrift store - the hinged jaw really works! I wear it with a sterling silver heart charm I found at a flea market that says TEXAS on the front (for my bf), both strung up on a 14k gold chain. I never, ever take it off. The sunglasses pin never leaves my moto jacket, and the naked-lady mudflap pin is a new addition. Got it for a dollar from a street vendor in SF. It reminds me of this old Culture Clash sketch I saw when I was little, about some Mexican day laborers trying to sue their employer for 20 dollars "and a pair of naked-lady mudflaps." Strange how random stuff like that stays with you. I move this pin around a lot, I love the way it looks with pretty vintage blouses....

 

Vintage Escada spectator brogues. I've had them resoled once already. I cannot stress enough the importance of investing in the care and keeping of shoes, especially those special thrift store finds that are irreplaceable. I've seen too many a good shoe go down in it's prime. It feels weird to spend $20-30 on some shoes that you originally spent $10 on, but they will look like new and last forever, just like you wanted. Go now, you fool! Buy your shoes some love!

I'm on sabbatical from makeup, and it feels so good. Ironically enough, my skin greatly improved once I pried myself away from all the goops and spackles I was using. Black soap has a lot to do with it, too. I recommend this terrifying poop-looking stuff to everyone. Doodads, shoe repair, poop soap...life is pretty good.

Waiting

Lake Merritt, Echo Park / 2011

Sleep

my bedroom, Oakland CA / 2011

"There actually is a St. Hubbins...he's the Patron Saint of Quality Footwear"

I have this...thing, for novelty socks.

There's store place called The Sock Market in San Francisco (I think there's one in LA too, but it's out in Universal City) that I will actually brave the terrifying crowds of Fisherman's Wharf in order to patronize. It's wall-to-wall socks with insane designs and motifs that sometimes have no business being on socks. For this reason, I love it. I pretty much wear my crazy socks exclusively with my Doc Marten service shoes, like somehow it takse them down a few notches? I don't know. I got a lot of looks and comments, and some really nice compliments on my Virgen de Guadalupe socks today.

I wore my pious footwear with a vintage dress and Marc Jacobs jacket.

Here's a slightly better picture, strategically cropped beacause I was in the middle of a sentence and it looked like I was making a really strange (albeit accurate) impression of Robert DeNiro. I have got to get more comfortable in front of the camera. I wish I was one of those stoic, willowy girls with a blog name like "Foxes and Cameras" or "The Fashionable Library" who can just sort of peek into the lens half smiling, with half-shrugged shoulders, somehow looking totally natural.
I'm kidding, I don't wish that...often.

Anyway, going along with the pious theme, here's another favorite pair from the SF Sock Market.

Patterns of Intention

Alameda, CA / 2011

I Don't Like Confrontation

Alameda, CA / 2011

I Can Haz Time to Make Myslef Pretty

I wanted to commemorate today, this day, as the day I finally dressed myself for school. The first week or so is always hectic, and I end up wearing whatever is on the floor closest to my bed. Sometimes, the results are serendipity - like when I throw on a motorcycle jacket over my bedclothes and convince myself it's an outfit.

Still sleepy from waking up 10 minutes early to dress

 Remember Proenza Schouler for Target? I loved this shirt more than anything else. I should have bought several, seeing as I'm already preemptively rue-ing the day it finally falls apart.

I've taken to just tying my shirts now. Tucking them in makes me pull and fidget with the hem all day. It also masks a multitude of fit problems. Worn with this delicate lace vintage skirt and nerd-alert loafers from the Silverlake Farmers Market.

I'm off on a mission to find a bottle of Mexican coke. Wish me luck.

Sun Spots

Alameda, CA / 2011

Brow Beat

Alameda, CA / 2011

Oot and Aboot

Hey now! Doesn't this look like an outfit post? I think so! One thing I've learned about fashion blogs (other than the fact that despite their-self proclaimed disposition of heralding a new democracy in fashion, most are capable of making you feel just as crappy about yourself as any of those ladymags they're supposed to be liberating you from) is that most outfits that "work" in "real life," outfits that make nice strangers give you compliments and petty strangers give you dagger eyes don't actually translate into "good" "street style" "photos." This is what I wore to have dinner with my mom and wander around Walden Books in Oakland. I couldn't get myself to put something crazier on just for a better picture (there's probably plenty of that for later, anyhow). Let's have a close up of the shoes, which are all that matter here.

I purchased these bastard things on sale at ASOS, a terrible demon-harpy, cyber-warehouse of an online clothing clothing store that lures you in with promises of free shipping, with no minimum purchase. They are surprisingly sturdy and comfortable for being so high. I was able to walk around all night not looking like a newborn colt trying to find it's footing.

This is me reading a style book from the 80s titled Clotheswise: Successful Dressing for Your Lifestyle. For belonging to an ephemera-driven genre like "style books," the message has aged pretty well. Instead of dated pictures and fuck-all references to Audrey Hepburn, there is broad, practical advice on choosing clothes to accommodate the life you actually lead, instead of the life your ego-centric consumerist spending habits would have you aspire to lead. The first chapter is called "The Costume Party is Over."

...

I change my mind, this book is a bummer.