Trending For Pre-Fall: Diaphanous Details

Look at me! I know how to use a thesaurus! 

Hopefully, dear readers, you recall the last time I talked about sheer clothing, back in January. Wait, what?! January? Gee, time's fun when you're having flies! I hate when these trends overlap each season, because what am I to say? It's been three months (if you count from the spring/summer season to pre-fall). Nothing has changed. Well, a few things have changed. Overall, women are beginning to dress more demurely: hemlines are lowering, necklines are rising...just how I like it. I'm a Puritan, remember? Transparent fabric-wise, this means fewer nip-slips and more peek-a-boo arms. Mmm. Tasteful. 

Everyone loves a sheer top nowadays. Lots of people have decided to wear them so that everyone can see their undergarments through the fabric, and I can't say I approve. Maybe it's because part of my brain is indisputably wired similarly to that of an elderly woman, but something about the roots of the word "undergarment" leads me to believe they're not supposed to be entirely visible. Hint hint males who insist upon flashing their boxers to the entire world and subsequently waddle in lieu of walking hint hint. 

Take some tips from the pre-fall collections, because heaven knows our society needs a little cleaning up.  We're looking for ladies, not tramps. 

[Photos via style.com.]

Armed and ready: 

                               Alberta Ferretti                                                           Alexander Wang

          

         

                            T by Alexander Wang                                                Alexander McQueen

          

                                Alice + Olivia                                                            3.1 Phillip Lim 

          

                                Alberta Ferretti                                                       T by Alexander Wang

          

I see London, I see France: 

                               Alberta Ferretti                                                         Alexander McQueen

          

3.1 Phillip Lim

On an unrelated note, I just re-read part of a post I did on my first day of high school. Instead of getting all nostalgic, I was kind of repulsed at (I like to use the verb "repugged"--variant spelling is "repugg'd--which is the verb form of repugnant) how long my hair was, how different my style is, and how much better my writing has gotten, if I do say so myself. But to play my own devil's advocate (but why?) I was painfully unsophisticated for the longest time. 

I've been running around for several days interning at Lyn Devon, so the speed at which my mind is moving at the moment is directly proportional to the amount of work I'm doing during the day. So that means very slow. That's why I haven't given much fashion advice regarding these trends. I'm counting on Fashion Week to get those juices flowing and gears turning again. As of right now, I'm planning on attending seven shows, but that number is apt to change. I'll keep ya posted. 

In other news, three of my favorite people are in a commercial about a thing I love: Darren Criss, Karlie Kloss, and Arizona Muse are all in an ad about Fashion's Night Out. I'm more than in love. 

Have a jolly week! And kiddies, enjoy summer while you can. School is...gulp...creeping up on us. 

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Trending For Pre-Fall: Not Turquoise, Not Lapis...Cerulean

The title of this post is a reference to what is possibly my favorite monologue of all time. If I were auditioning for something, I would use that. Screw Shakespeare (luh dat bitch)! If you're like, "What is happening. What is cerulean. It sounds like crustacean. And isn't lapis the French word for 'rabbit?'" then you need to do two things: 1) leave  2) go watch The Devil Wears Prada. 

If you've been reading this blog since last summer, you may remember when I saw this film last and had slight epiphanic reactions to it. This masterpiece, the epitome of cinematic genius (IMDb has no idea what they're talking about, it deserves more than 6.7 stars), is relevant today for more than one reason. First of all, today's trend is about--you guessed it!--blue. Secondly, since I started my internship at Lyn Devon on Monday, I've felt a lot like Andy and Emily; running all around the city delivering garments and picking up items from the warehouse and doing odd jobs here and there...it's madness. Maybe you've heard this before and scoffed, but you better believe it now because I am telling you fo' rill: interns are the hardest working ones there. I'm serious. We're the ones that do inventory and move stock from venue to venue and make sure our clients have their clothing in a timely and organized fashion for free. Essentially, it's slave labor. But educational slave labor. 

Now for the trendy stuff. Blue is slowly trickling back into the fashion world multitudinously (see the blue mascara at Stella McCartney), but it's been gathering steam with every new season. Whatever shade it is, blue is going to look good on you 96.5453% (note: that statistic is entirely false) of the time. When you're a toddler, blue is usually associated with boys, and pink with girls. The gender barriers are falling down--although the foundations are still there--and lines are being crossed that were left untouched for years. Men wearing pink, women wearing blue...the latter is not such a shocker, but let's pretend. 

How does one wear blue? See for yourself. 

Photos via style.com.

Turquoise: 

                              Alberta Ferretti                                                                DSquared²

          

                               Narciso Rodriguez                                            Philosophy di Alberta Ferretti 

          

Lapis: 

                               Emporio Armani                                                    T by Alexander Wang

          

   
                            T by Alexander Wang                                                         Acne

          

Cerulean: 

                                 Issey Miyake                                                         Opening Ceremony

          

Issey Miyake

If you're one of those "I don't wear color" crackheads (jokes, jokes), blue is the perfect gateway drug pigment. Start with dark hues in the navy and lapis family and slowly work your way up to more vibrant shades such as cerulean, cobalt, and turquoise. Or if you'd like to work your way down from white, jump on the pastel bandwagon and begin by incorporating sky, powder, and baby blues into your wardrobe. 

I am dead tired and can't feel my feet, but I'm being immersed in fashion, which is absolutely wonderful. I'm a dreadfully fast learner when it comes to menial tasks (yet painfully slow when it comes to historical facts), so I'll be a pro when I do my next internship, whatever that may be. Come at me. I'm ready.

P.S. Bird is the word, so spread it! ...As in spread the word about this site if you feel so inclined. A surprising amount of my readers came from my personal Facebook account, and now that that's gone, I need your help, my lovelies, to tell people to come and enjoy the fruits of my endless labor. 

The weekend is soon, school is soon, Fashion Week is soon. I can't tell if I'm excited or terrified of all three or not. 

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Don't Try This At Home

Months and months and months ago, I found myself staring at Alix Bancourt's feet. Several times. It's not because I have a foot fetish. It's because she was wearing her Charlotte Olympia Kitty Flats and wanted the whole world to know about it (with good reason). The first time I saw them, I thought they were the cutest darn things I'd ever seen. "How very Alix," I thought. Then I saw my homegurl Alexa Chung wearing the same cat slip-ons with a Valentino dress in the Jardins des Tuileries during Paris Fashion Week sometime last year. And then again. And then another time. And once more. The same way you'll sometimes hear a word and think, "Huh, that's interesting," and then it shows up everywhere, I was suddenly seeing these kitten shoes in a million places. They piqued my interest. I began to do some research. 

Left: Alexa Chung...Right: Alix Bancourt's feet. Three times. In various settings. 

I found out who had designed them and started searching them up on the trusty interwebz. For some idiotic reason, I assumed they would be no more than one hundred dollars--maybe fifty if I was lucky. Try four hundred sixty five British pounds. Gr8. Even though I kind of hate cats, these flats were too adorable to ignore. "I'm a crafty gal," I mumbled deviously. "I can figure something out." So I did. 

I located the one pair of flats in my possession, which happened to be some flimsy little shoes I'd picked up at Payless in sixth grade for a school play but had grown to love. This is where the doing-it-yourself comes in, and what you should not in fact do yourself unless you have a solid three-consecutive-day block of time to spend embroidering a pair of shoes. So really, you're not doing anything at all. Just looking. 

The before. 

The after.

Here, kitty kitty! 

Since these shoes were black-and-white and the Charlotte Olympias were not, I had to whip out my black fabric paint from the trenches of my art supplies. Note: this was not as difficult as I made it sound. Paint paint paint, dry dry dry... Hop forward a few months and see me embroidering these little guys while watching television on my computer (this was a rare occasion), whimpering in pain as my clammy hands attempted to shove a hand sewing needle through tough fabric. I made minimal progress in the grand scheme of things. Due to the intense pain I was feeling in my finger tips, work on these puppies kitties halted for quite some time. At the beginning of this month, I brought them along with me on my various northeastern travels and plopped down with them one night while watching the Olympics. In a matter of hours, they were basically done. I just added some finishing touches to them yesterday, at which point I deemed them acceptable to post on this here website.

They look much scarier from this angle. 

Try to ignore the multitude of glaring imperfections. 

I kind of wish cats had eyebrows because then these would look less bald. 

This photograph instantly calls to mind that episode of Spongebob where he and Patrick create Doodlebob, who creeps into their houses in the middle of the night to erase their bodies. 

Remind me to never make anything with eyes ever again. 

Attempt to make a pair of kitten flats by all means. Don't try this at home, kiddies, if: 

1. Your black flats are not made of something sew-able (those patent leather Steve Madden ones that everyone had a few years ago simply will not work) 

2. You have never embroidered or hand sewn before 

3. You are impatient 

4. You don't have a lot of time to dedicate to this project and/or care if it takes you several months to complete in the event that you will spread everything out over time 

5. You don't have a darning needle 

Now I'm ready for Fashion Week. #pleasehelpmeI'mnotready 

Since today is my first day on the job, I can finally reveal my secret. For these next two weeks, I will be interning with the fashion designer Lyn Devon. I have nothing to report thus far since I actually wrote this the night before my first day, but I can just feel that this is going to be the best ten days of my life.

Have a peachy week, friends!

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Trending For Pre-Fall: Tomato Soup

Red is hands-down, without any question or doubt, my favorite color in the rainbow. There's a certain shade of it that makes me want to cry, that's how beautiful it is. My grandma has some red lobelias growing in her garden, and they are the perfect hue. I was at her house last week when I saw them and I stared at them for a good ten minutes, not enjoying looking at the color any less as more time passed. I LOVE RED! YAY! 

For some reason, people are silly and are afraid of wearing red. If you're going to be afraid of anything, be scared of seven (seven ate nine, duh), or the impending fate of our country/environment/universe. Not a primary color. Especially not one as gorgeous as red. Another reason why I love this color is possibly because it has so many synonyms, and I LOVE SYNONYMS! YAY! Crimson, vermillion, scarlet, ruby, cherry, oxblood, cardinal, rose...would the color red be as sweet if we called it by any other name? Yes.

If you're one of those silly people out there (for shame!), I'll lend you a helping hand and give you some tips on how to ease your way into it. Start off wearing darker reds, such as crimson, oxblood, and bordeaux. Maybe get a pair of brick-red pants. Or if you're looking for a different kind of statement, try some red lipstick. We all remember that the redcoats are coming as well, right? 

On the other hand, if you're a red veteran, go crazy. Red on red on red on red. Or red on anything else. (Horse on horse?) This season, the red-and-black combo is quite popular. See for yourself. 

Photos via style.com.

Red on red on red on red: 

                                     DKNY                                                                 Alexander Wang

          

Malandrino

Red on black: 

                                    DKNY                                                                            Acne

          

                            Alexander McQueen                                                            Chanel

          

                                  Malandrino                                                                 Michael Kors

          

Red on anything else: 

                                       DVF                                                                      DSquared²

          

                              Oscar de la Renta                                                         3.1 Phillip Lim
          

Beautiful things in life that are red: Elmo, Dorothy's glittery slippers, red lipstick, roses, tomatoes, blood (objectively, the color of it is quite stunning)...the list could go on and on. Gotta love red. Got to. That's an order. 

Has anyone been keeping up with Project Runway? I haven't seen past the first episode. Does this make me a bad person, or is it not a good season? Help!

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Trending For Pre-Fall: Pumpkins and Citrus Fruits and Loraxes

Let's play a little game, shall we? I'll ask a question and you'll guess the answer. What do pumpkins, citrus fruits, and Loraxes have in common? 

I'm impatient, so I'll just answer for you. It's orange. 

Familiar topic? I think yes. Snaps for orange for staying relevant for a year. 

I wish there was more to write, but not much has changed since the last two times I wrote about it. It's still true that orange is much more versatile than you think and that the only barrier people face on the road to rocking the shiz out of it is wearing the correct shade of it. A few lil' tippies on selecting the proper hue for you skin tone can be found in the following sentences. Note: I am literally copying and pasting what I wrote last time, because paraphrasing yourself is quite pathetic and somewhat of a waste of time since it's not plagiarism. 

If you have fair skin, brighter oranges look best (see Balenciaga and T by Alexander Wang). If you have yellow-ish skin, I suggest wearing an orange with more of a yellow undertone than a red undertone (see Issey Miyake and Alice + Olivia). If you have dark skin, you can probably pull off most shades of orange, but the more the vibrant they are, the more flattering (see Issey Miyake). I admit that a lot of those designers didn't quite correlate with what I was saying about colors, but for the sake of preserving good sentence structure and what I remember being an obnoxiously generous use of the thesaurus, I shan't rephrase myself. Think of it as refresher course of sorts. ...On the appropriate uses of a secondary color. 

Even though the color hasn't changed and neither have its rules, the styles and garments are, of course, different. Take a look-see for yourself and look/see what I'm talking about. I conveniently sorted them into categories of pumpkins, citrus fruits, and Loraxes. The joke's on you--pumpkins and Loraxes are the same shade. 

Photos via style.com.

Pumpkins:

                                  Alice + Olivia                                                             Issey Miyake

          

Citrus fruits: 

                                   Balenciaga                                                         T by Alexander Wang

          

                            T by Alexander Wang                                                       Balenciaga

               

                                  Balenciaga                                                         T by Alexander Wang

          

Loraxes:

        

                                 Issey Miyake                                                             Issey Miyake

          

More outerwear, more leather, fewer dresses, fewer matching accessories. Tweaks, not changes. Seasonal shifts, if you will. 

I'm having that the-summer-is-almost-over-holy-f**k moment persisting feeling of panic; the one that worries me that I will not get anything done before school starts and that I am wasting time when I am sleeping. 

I just wrote two full paragraphs that I then deleted. Now I am left with one extremely long sentence, spliced only by a semicolon. In order to conserve my sanity, I'll quite trying to write anything meaningful and sleep (yes, sleep! It's not always a waste of time) because for some reason I always start blogging past midnight. 

In other news, I'm really feeling the Beat Generation right now. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William S. Boroughs...all great stuff. I just added a few poetry and letter anthologies to my to-buy-and-subsequently-read list. I wonder if this will somehow translate to fashion in any way? 

Be kind to yourself. (Quotin' Allen Ginsberg up in hurr)

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