Not so daily outfit and thoughts.

I dyed my hair black. I did it because I broke up with the Other Boyfriend. (It leaves me with only one boyfriend.)

Last night I went out in a vintage inspired dress of black chiffon over a black slip, nude fishnets, and black t-strap spectators. I did fifties makeup, it’s amazing how glam red lipstick makes you feel.

There’s a sort of devastating emotional honesty to dressing. You pick clothes that express how you’re feeling, who you want to be. That project things about yourself, but they’re tiny details. You focus on the smallest parts of yourself, little facets of a greater person. That fantastic vintage inspired dress says you’re a romantic or a femme fatale. It doesn’t reveal your vulnerability, or the way your heart is breaking. That fantastic string of pearls that you wear with your metal t-shirts says you’re secretly a girly-girl, but it doesn’t tell anyone that you know how to change a tire.

Clothes, then, become the way of painting who we want the world to see us as. It’s one of the reasons I’m so frustrated by the lack of options for a “girl of size” such as myself. I’m a weird inbetweenie, some of the most hideous of the “fat girl” options fit, but mostly I find myself picking over already picked through racks in an attempt to find something that fits that doesn’t project “I’m a fat girl who hates herself and is ashamed of her body” to the world. Because regardless of how I feel, that’s not how I want people to see me.

And so, last night, in the wake of a break up, I put on clothes that said I was fine and makeup that made me look it, and I went out and faced the world. Because that’s how I wanted to be seen.

Daily Outfit and Style Thoughts: 10.19.09

Today’s outfit is “hipster casual pretending to be business Monday.” Grey scoop neck t-shirt, black small-wale corduroys, red satin Converse One-Star ballet slippers. Two black satin headbands, Tiffany key and bejeweled gun-metal angel wing necklaces, and heavy men’s watch.

And of course, the hammered silver ring I never take off that I ordered from One of a Kind in Israel. (Yes mine is the Gam Ze Yaavor ring, which makes a lot of sense if you know me.)

My fingernails are Essie’s “Marshmallow” although it’s taken on a pink tint from my hair, which really irritates me, and I keep thinking there must be a way to prevent that.

I’m wearing BPAL’s Creepy, the original version, which has mellowed nicely into an adult foody scent that isn’t anything like the pre-25 of myself wearing it before that I remember.

So, all this sartorial contemplating is mostly for the benefit of the fact that I have a conference on Friday and Saturday. I’m support staff, which means I need to blend into the background, look professional, and somehow maintain my own personality in my clothes. It feels like a huge challenge.

In part because it’s been a very long time since I’ve really had to do that. The law firm had a dress code, which was pretty easy (if boring) to adhere to. Generally it meant a black skirt and some sort of collared shirt. The university has its own sort of dress-code, for which I am generally vastly overdressed (I prefer dresses to khakis in general).

So…I’m thinking black skirt and funky shoes…

Daily Outfit and Style Thoughts: 09.20.09

Today’s outfit is a quickie. I’m wearing black ballet flats, 3-tone gray and black socks, and a black microfiber dress with a v-neck and a drapey knee length skirt. It would have liked jewelry, but I’m the world’s lazyist fashionista and so I chose an extra ten minutes of sleep over accessorizing, thinking I still had accessories in my bag. This was, of course, accessory fail, since all I had was an arm full of jelly-bracelets. (Trying to come off as a mature office guardian with an arm full of jelly bracelets is so not happening, so I decided no accessories, and I’d just look half finished and try to rock it confidently.)

Over the weekend I got my brows waxed, which led me to today’s contemplation…

Fashion and beauty and such are for me. I might choose an outfit based on where I’m wearing it and what’s appropriate (later this week there will be ruminations on that and my Joan Holloway proportioned bosom…) but everything I wear, and every little beauty ritual I do is ultimately for the purpose of making me feel better. I choose colors and fabrics based on how they feel to the touch and how they’re going to make me feel over the course of the day. Colors are based on how much I want to look at them and how being in them makes me feel as how they look on me.

This is probably a huge part of my reduction in black clothes. Sure it’s a practical color, easy to dress around, but it always makes me feel a little draggy during the day…and a little like I’m trying to hide in the background. It’s interesting (though not entirely unexpected) that I’ve changed so much about a color.

Hopefully later this week there will be a nail polish review. I gave in and acquired Ballet Slippers (Essie’s famous shade) and plan on layering it with Marshmallow, a la Devil Wears Prada to replicate a little fashion moment there.

<3,
Vanille

Daily Outfit and Style Thoughts: 09.18.09

So I’ve been reading a bunch of style books recently, because I’m on an evolution and self-editing kick, and I thought it would be fun to start talking about my clothes and style thoughts.

For reference, I devoured The Little Black Book of Style by Nina Garcia, and am now reading both The One Hundred: A guide to the pieces every stylish woman must own also by her, and Style A to Zoe by Rachel Zoe. I also watch The Rachel Zoe show, Project Runway, Gossip Girl, and Mad Men for style-spiration. (And part of my personal style is the Oxford Comma. I find it ever so charming, even if it is a little extra formal.)

So, with all that said…today’s outfit. It’s a Friday, I work at a university, so I have the privilege of being a bit relaxed. I tend towards a little more conservative during the week, since I am the face of the program for most students (and I’m still young enough to look like one of them. I find it hilarious that I’m 27 and in this college town I still get carded for cigarettes, but that’s a different entry.)

I am wearing dark-wash jeans with a slight boot cut, a lavender t-shirt (with a cute dog and the caption “I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet”) under a black wrap sweater (ballerina style, so a little bit of the shirt sticks out underneath), argyle socks that no one can see, and black sneakers. I’ve accessorized with a cheap pair of penguin earrings from Claire’s (I kind of love Claire’s a little too much for earrings. You can almost always get 2 for 3, or 5 for 4 deals even on the multi-sets, and they’ve always got both cute and seasonal!), and an oversized men’s watch with a 30’s-ish font for the numbers in a bronzed-gunmetal. Oh! And Vera Wang’s Rock Princess perfume, which is rapidly becoming my signature scent!

To me this outfit is comfy while being pulled together enough to keep me out of the ranks of student laze. Friday around here is generally sweat-suits and PJs until class is over, which is when they all break out the Friday-night date-wear. By the time that happens, I’ll be safely ensconced at home with a DVD and dinner, and a paper I need to finish. This outfit, however, will totally see me through that, and it makes me feel cute enough that I’m comfy running all over campus in it without feeling like I have to hide behind a bus when people are looking.

It’s funny that’s I’ve discovered my personal style has really evolved since breaking up with A. I wear a lot more skirts and dresses now, and seem (even before Gossip Girl) to have pulled together a sort of urban preppy look. Imagine Blair Waldorf meets Joan Holloway, with a sprinkling of rock-n-roll glitter. It suits me a lot better, I think, than the struggling to be different goth look I tried to rock in my early twenties. It lets me rock the luxe I crave with the budget I afford, and doesn’t feel nearly as much like I’m trying too hard to be something I’m not.

So…if you feel like sharing, how have your style choices changed over the years? What have you kept (for me it’s the men’s watch, which I rocked long before Nina Garcia told me she thought it was cool) and what have you evolved (learning to love my hourglass figure while disguising the less favorable parts by highlighting the assets)? What do you see yourself still editing? And what’s one thing you’d love to try, but haven’t gotten around to yet?

<3,
Vanille