The Beginning

Today there is no style/fashion/clothing oriented posting. It was laundry day. You do not want to see me on laundry day, I think that would be pushing the title of my blog just a teensy bit.

However, while coming back I was stuck walking behind 3 very slow people. All were wearing head to toe black (how, I have no idea, it was disgusting outside), oxfords, leather man-bags, and smoking.

After passing them, I heard one of them say "oh my god that's brilliant a little trolley" "It's amazing. How......."
They kept discussing the old shopping cart + canvas bag combo in which I cart around my laundry when I'm too lazy to carry it around in a bag. The three trendy trendy boys were very impressed by my old lady shopping cart and I thought - "this is how it starts".

Isn't it? Someone was walking down the street, smoking, lazy, bored, discussing outdated philosophies when suddenly they saw someone wearing a scarf, or a pair of glasses that made them look really smart, or American Apparel, and they adopted it. And then their friends did, and then the people who copy their friends did.

And then they get all angry because the people who copy the people who copy their friends start wearing it and they think that it's become trashy, cliche, and overdone.

** I forgot to add this before. It is somewhat relevant.
I was going through my mom's closet today and I found a pair of AMERICAN APPAREL SLIM SLACKS.
likeomigawdnofreakinwayi'mtotallybuggin **

Reading Material

Please Read This.

It is a very well researched, informative and intelligent post, that is never preachy as such "organic-oriented" articles tend to be. Written by Chloe Van Paris who's link is under "Reference" at this page and I'm sure you can find her in many other places as well. She's a ridonk blogger.

Organic Exchange
She also links that organization. But I am too. I liked it.

Too Hot To Handle.

I can complain all I want but in the end I suppose I'm better off with air conditioning at work.
Not when going to and from. But during, yes. And I guess that's the important time. Or whatever.


Awhile ago I wrote a post about trousers and how I wanted a pair of old-timey wool trousers to trump around in. And on a trip to Value Village, I almost found them. I debated whether or not I should and ended up taking these home, because they were ridiculously cheap and I did this whole "how many times can I cuff this to turn it into something else" dance in the changeroom and it worked enough to add it to my "yes" pile.
I wanted to take them home in the first place because I felt that I needed a test pair. A little dry run with the pants in order to find out how I would wear them.
Maybe not these boots. But I did like the belt and the sweater "open and tucked in" thing.

Dancing with Myself.

This is the reason why So You Think You Can Dance is dangerous:
I turn up itunes and twirl and jete and do silly, badly positioned pirouettes all over my very small apartment that is in no way fit for any dancing whatsoever.
So all that talk yesterday was just ranting because I cleaned out my closet and became really frustrated and overwhelmed with what I have as well as what I see others wear.

Before finding a niche one must check out the others and in doing so one may become a little confused (also known as "wheredoibelongitis", usually found in those ages 13-18, symptoms include diary-writing, moaning, complaining, excessive use of myspace as well as [but not limited to] excessive listening to "emotional rock" a.k.a: "emo rock").

Who Wouldja Do?

Is is more difficult to impress an oldie or a rookie?

In general, it's the rookie. You wear one little funky thing and they're all a twitter, they compliment, almost help you preen yourself, keeping an eye out for what you're wearing. Almost as if they don't want you to ruin your outfit in some kind of vicarious way. It's easy to admire. It's very easy to look at someone else and ask yourself "why can't I...." or "could I....." or whatever. Envy or admiration: we sit on a fence and teeter between the two and it becomes very easy to slide into criticism. Call it our competitive spirit where we can't have and therefore we tell ourselves "oh I never wanted it anyway".

This is the part where we see all of those "do or don't" lists in tabloids and the like. Usually you see the more experimental, unusual outfits being criticized for nothing more than looking different. When there's no point of comparison, how can you compare? How can you say that a swan looks good on a person when you have no other swan to match it up to? It's where the rookie can go wrong. Because we're no longer picking apart what works and what does not, we're just plain shocked and when you're dumbstruck and can't compute you can't be coherent either, can you?

But the oldie, the expert, the wise old man and maid, they seem to have seen it all. Whatever you do, ol' lady Jane's seen it twenty times before and each of those were ten times better than the last. We all crave attention in some way, and I assume that we crave favourable, complimentary attention as opposed to rejection or other forms of negative expression being directed to us, so we seem to want to impress or stand out in from of the oldie's eyes. No matter how many sequins it takes. This can be frustrating. We have what we have, we all own what we own and there's no way you could possibly own exactly what everyone else likes, wants, or is wowed by. If you work with what you own, can it turn into something else? Can the back of your closet be better than the front in terms of testing the patience and eye of the oldie as well as tempting the rookie?
A staple can be boring to some, yet completely magnificent to the same some. The challenge comes in defining (redefining?) how we present it to the same some. The rookie matters because no matter the level they are always the same. The oldest of the old is also the youngest of the young (just like you can either be really late or really early on a trend yet in retrospect no one can tell the difference) and the cycle of the oldest old and the youngest young is unending.

Part II: What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet...and for that name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.

We Trudge On.

Okay, I've tried and re-written this first sentence more times than Joseph Grand (The Plague - good book).
I felt that you've had enough of the Munny/Avocado picture and deserve a little more. But I have little to give ya. I'm not saying that usually my outfits are of a superb-stellar-out-of-this-world calibre but this past week I've been less than sub-par. I just sort of schlep around in whatever it is I find and then come home. I bought a nice dress but have yet to actually wear it. I keep opening my closet and then closing it and getting all angry and frustrated and what not.

I'm in a little clothes-rut.
Observe:To go see Chronicles of Narnia. I'm sitting in a movie theatre occasionally thinking "my shirt is shiny and no one can see". Also: those jeans kept falling down.

And now:
See this I don't think is so bad. Until it got really hot out and then I regretted the tights. Which I keep going back and forth on. On one hand, it's comforting knowing that not a soul can see my pasty, goosebumpy thunder thighs. But on the other: Why would you wear shorts with tights? Doesn't it defeat some kind of purpose behind shorts? Aren't tights something classier that look better with skirts and dresses in order to not look like too much of a hooch while sitting?

I need to find a way to feel better (the rain is not helping at all) so that I have the patience to examine why it is when we feel tired and funky we (read: I) cannot even drag my little legs over to my closet to poke my head on in and see what's in there. A staple maybe? A pre-determined outfit that I just have to reach for on those days where I just can't even compute making any decision, good or bad.
Also: holy crap Yves Saint Laurent died (two days ago now). Small salute from an admirer who spilled cereal when she saw the morning paper.