Fall Fashion Fumbles

Leaning towards masochistic tendencies, at least on the sartorial editorial spectrum, there are a few online magazines that I continue to read despite frequent and flagrant disappointment with their content. Typically, my frustration stems from outlandish curatorial selections for wardrobe staples, couched as must-haves for the everywoman, which then include pieces that are either impractical, unattractive, or foolishly expensive, or all of the above. A week or so ago, I clicked my way through a feature that was guilty on all three counts, promoting the purported fall trends, my teeth clenched. Like a crashing train, I had to find my way to the inevitable end, though, my sensibilities were not calmed. While disgustedly entertained, I was not convinced nor swayed; I am proudly still a master of my own consumer power.

Ludicrous though it may be, the "boyfriend" moniker to describe denim that is even mildly loose is here to stay. Personally, I would love to meet the presumably straight boyfriend, since these styles are exclusively marketed, if not designed, for women, who would wear these in public; having attended sufficient gender studies lectures to know, I am, of course, excluding females who would prefer to self-identify as heterosexual men, a certainly not significant demographic. Pathetic attempts at jokes aside, what is with these joke pants? High-waisted and dual-tone. I may be growing close minded and even more cynical in my advancing age, but these would definitely only look decent on a thin, thin model, like the faceless lass who dons them here. 

I really can only foresee a pair of floral culottes in my future when, or more optimistically if, I glide down that not terribly steep slope to the realm of senility, a few decades from now when my neurons decide to strike. Again, a prime example of tailoring that typically only flatters the thin and tall, a rare and often vapid species of female. Harnessing the look of hilarious cartoon icon Peggy Hill is not in my fall trend plan.

Menswear-inspired pieces, when properly tailored, are definitely a safe bet and an enduring classic. A shapeless vest shift dress, however, falls more than a bit flat.

(images taken from Refinery29)

Sunday Fun Day, Jets Edition

Though certainly an avid sports fan, professional football has never been my obsession; still, I snatched at the opportunity to attend a Jets game this past Sunday. While no dedicated fan to the sport, I appreciate nearly any live event in which drinking during the day, or during mass transportation, is both acceptable and expected. Stadium architecture always fascinates me as well, a synergy of modern sleek steel and a more primordial sense of Lek mating grounds. There is a collective cultural archetype and nostalgia that I always imbibe in big stadiums, these contemporary colesseums. The same sentiment that binge-watching Friday Night Lights induces, being a patch in some large quilt of diverse but cohesive Americana. 

Three ladies, dutifully dressed in various shades of green, mine the most neon and the least symbolic of the actual team colors, we were surrounded by loyalists, mostly men, shouting, sometimes angry and exasperated, often proud and full of joy. Occasionally, they would offer to us their few cents on the matter, a referee call or a foolish play. When the Jets won, very narrowly, with an ugly but effective field goal kick that sort of lobbed the ball pathetically through the air, we received high-fives and a face full of cheers. A win, combined with some cheap domestic beer and a deliciously expensive hotdog slathered in ketchup, left me sated.

Game Changer

Last week, a few of my lady colleagues and I were discussing the sometimes laughable, often times loathsome fashion of bridesmaid dresses, hovering not exactly over but in the vicinity of the water cooler. One of my colleagues was lamenting a particular dress she had just discovered she would be obliged to wear, something backless, which sounds promising, until the pragmatic and very real prospect of under garments entered the equation. The equivalent of the deepest and most disgusting depths of hell for women with even mildly ample bosoms, complicated draping and cuts that ultimately require odd suction cup bras, while beautiful on the hanger or some wraith model, incite fear. And anxiety. And my colleague did not hesitate to give it a proper name: that monoboob thing. Or, depending on the remedy that is sought, that sagging thing. That uncomfortable contraption thing.

"You should try a leotard, for a backless dress with straps like that." I spoke these words clearly, calmly, confidently, without fear, a woman assured of her strategy, a woman who has refused to paste gelatinous underwear to her chest. I smiled, watching the epiphany occurring in her mind just before my eyes, those neural cogs slowly turning, away from exasperation to utter relief and joy. 

(image taken from Little Plastic Horses)

Shine On You Crazy Rhinestone

Leveraging my acute problem solving skills and occasionally devious wardrobe machinations, I am more than adroit at seamlessly integrating marginally inappropriate or wild pieces into my daily office garb. This feat was more impressive when the enforced and prescribed dress code was the ever infuriating but easily manipulated business casual at my former employer. Now, where the edict is casual and the masses have the freedom to run amok, at least sartorially, wearing the bold, the outlandish, the daring, has slightly less appeal. Not entirely, but slightly. Thankfully, there are always limits to be pushed and boundaries to flaunt wantonly. Unfortunately, sapped of creative energy of late, I have not been the individual pushing or flaunting. All work, substantially less play; these dated and trite adages are grounded in very real truths.

So, in my soporific sartorial slump, one of the more bold, outlandish, daring moments has been these tailored shorts, emblazoned with a tessellating graphic of squares. Comprised of chevrons and smaller squares in neon salmon and deep royal blue, collectively they create an illusion of diamonds. Like diamond, each component seems precisely and geometrically bonded, held together in a perfect structure by the noble laws of organic chemistry. A tad shorter than what I would likely swing during my days confined to a business moniker, for a hot summer in the city, paired with a plain and modest cream top, they were ideal.

Like so many other of my earrings, particularly those discovered and collected in more recent years, I was drawn to these bodacious bronze leaves for their unique sculptural elements. To a more numb or tedious eye, this pair hardly resembles earrings at all; they hang stiffly, yet they exude a wonderful movement in the curvature of the metal and in the great sparkle of the false stone when light strikes. 

Consider the Cream Cheese

Feast or famine has, for some significant but unquantifiable time, been a sort of personal mantra, philosophically and physically. Go hard, or go home. All or nothing. Moderation, temperance, have never much been my thing. Appropriately, and inconveniently, I am tormented by a residual late afternoon headache, a consequence of such an approach to life.

Like other days of the week, weekends revolve around food and drink; location, atmosphere, company. Early afternoon on a Saturday, there are two typical scenarios in the dining algorithm: a sit-down, formal brunch affair, or, a fresh bagel, slathered in cream cheese. I am, usually, equally sated by either or, aside from that one critical, aptly chosen detail. The deluge of dairy smear that nearly strangles. This is where I practice constraint. Procedural, or perhaps ritual, each bagel, each time, I separate the halves, scrape away the excesses of delicious fat, paint with my portion until, to my satisfaction, the layer of flavor is even and not too much, careful on those moments when jalapeno or chive seem particularly alluring to not ignore those all too critical chunks.

Tomboys and Barbie Pink

Knees scuffed, hair a perpetual knot of entropy, I was more the basic and beloved tomboy archetype than the fairy princess as a young girl. Though my afternoons were more likely spent playing with dump trucks, plowing through brown dirt and terrorizing the local pill bugs, rather than pilfering lipstick from my mother, practicing my pucker, I was not immune to the Barbie doll phenomenon. Even when spending an afternoon building a huge dream home for my Barbie and her various friends, leveraging bizarre ornaments and chachkas invariably housed in my and my friends' basements, this did not segue into painting our nails and lips. Generally, it led to romping around outside, looking for toads. Countless plastic bodies, immobile and contorted, lay piled in large cardboard boxes in my basement, amid a flood of neon shoes and evening dresses. Despite the frenzy of their storage, something more akin to a guerrilla war zone, I loved these dolls. And, to be fair, was more gentle with them as I grew older, a sort of strange tension, where the realization of their superficiality as toys enhances, yet the association of their doll bodies with approaching feminine development also strengthens. They grew more fake, yet I treated them more like actual miniature people.

As I would assume is fairly common, my tomboy tendencies were fostered and encouraged by my father. To this day, he adheres to a natural over artificial approach when it comes to grooming. The one time in early adolescence when I did paint my nails with a friend, furtively, in some atrocious algal green and yellow, surely ended in some disapproving comment, though, what exactly I do not remember. Which is probably a good thing, at least for my own sanity. So, unlike many of the girls my age, in my circumstance, I did not actually own a bottle of nail polish until my junior year of high school. An added flair before my junior prom dance, the shade was a deep ruby wine, a more glittered and cheerful blood, and it matched my dress. Raven Red by Revlon, a loose nod to Edgar Allen Poe. With this as my seminal precedent, for years after, the only shade I wore was this, rarely, slowly emptying the bottle.

Eventually, probably around the time that whatever remark about my unattractive forest moss green nails was forgotten, I branched out, to other variations in the dark red family. Cherry Crush. Revlon Red. Frankly Scarlet. At the start of the summer, taunted by the austere lust of the cosmetics aisle of the pharmacy, I stared at the rows. In my chromatic comfort zone, I owned them all. Each one. Hastily, I grabbed some blindingly fuchsia tint and ran to the register. Did not look back.

First remorse, then neglect. Earlier this week, I finally cracked open the bright pink, slicked it on. Immediately, my nails adopt a plastic sheen. Curved keratin becomes that iconic tiny plastic pump of my childhood, and I remember the frustration when, inevitably, one would disappear into the abyss of the play room.

(image taken from Ron's Rescued Treasures)

Cheap Metal

After years spent rummaging through the random drawers and scratched plastic cases of various antique and thrift stores, I have grown accustomed to cheap, low prices for bold costume jewelry. Now, with such a vehement resurgence of classic costume aesthetics of earlier decades by numerous popular commercial fashion franchises, most notably J. Crew, I am shocked at the prices so many seem willing to pay, but more so am disappointed at how prevalent some of my favorite, once unique pieces now appear. Such is the cyclic nature of trends. So little remains original.

To wax a bit more philosophical on the subject, I suppose, with that price, comes an assurance of timeliness, popularity, consumer-tested appeal. A sort of playground, schoolyard approval. With pawing through a pile of knotted fake metals and neon plastics, there comes a certain risk; an adventure. There is choice. With that, both successes and failures.

I found both of these necklaces, one a simple paved road chain, one a cluster of gilded leaves, at the same dumpy antique odds and ends shop in Ithaca, squirreled away in a dingy mall between an old, used book store and a new age children's toy shop. They were purchased on separate occasions, and typically have been worn alone, but the other day, while donning a simple chambray blouse, paired them together. Coincidentally, the light, almost sunlight white gold of each metal nearly matches, allowing the clash of texture and shape to come to the foreground of the coupling. With such a plain, soft, and androgynous outfit, the pile of metal added a hard feminine edge.