Constant Comment

Yesterday, Coco made a list of the things she is thankful for. What a great way to remind yourself of how good you've got it, even if you're in the midst of a mess or just having a difficult day. My life has been disaster free, and my days are only difficult if I make them so. That is, I've got a horrible habit of putting a negative spin on everything. I've got a critical eye that's always criticizing, and a nasty train of thought that always ends up at the worst case scenario. I'm working on it, I promise.

I was especially reminded of how critical I can be, how critical all of us can be, by the explosion of dialogue over at What I Wore. It looks like Ms. Schroeder has since turned her comments off, but yesterday afternoon there were almost 200! Craziness. I'm not a big blog commenter in general, but I follow her blog and this whole situation got me thinking about fashion and blogging and I decided, against my better judgment, to leave my two cents. A snippet of my comment, which probably went unnoticed, but that I hoped would counter or at least balance out the many irrational displays of contempt between Ms. Schroeder and her commenters:

I think we all want to be in this together, but I also think that criticism is a huge part of fashion, as it is of other art forms, because it helps move us all forward. I think we want to believe that fashion has no rules, but we've all got our own set of them, and can usually call someone else out for breaking one of them.

When I was thinking about what to write, I also wanted to find a way to mention that so many of us really internalize our personal style, and so criticism of it, constructive or not, usually feels like someone just stabbed us in the gut. And on the other side of it, when we see someone who's wearing something we wouldn't wear, we react with such disgust and shock you'd think some creeper just showed us their privates!

I think as fashion bloggers, we should save our criticism of other bloggers for drinks with our friends and keep it off the record. And if we want to critique designers and professional stylists, we should be sure to read religiously and take cues from Cathy Horyn of the New York Times. Criticism is essential to fashion, but it must also be thoughtful, respectful, and justified.

PRISM London

Impulsively chose square black frames that slide down my nose last spring. Sort of timeless, definitely designed for men, make my nose look wider than it is. I can’t remember what I saw in them and I’ve lately spent a lot of time fantasizing about new ones. The perfection of Prisms makes me so restless I want to do things like quit my job, move to New York (with or without employment, who cares!), and most of all, buy a pair of New York’s (or Rio’s, can’t pick!) in clear, exchange rate and all!

Halloween Schmalloween.

I spent most of Saturday searching for the shortest, highest-waisted shorts, cheapest fishnet tights and retro-est top to complete my pin-up girl costume, all the while stressing about what I was going to do with my hair--pin curls, tedious, out of the question. I found the shorts at Forever 21 as well as the top and a two-pack of fishnets for under $4. Halloween schmalloween.

My most beloved purchase of the day was unexpected and arguably unnecessary, but nonetheless beloved. Standing in line at Sephora with false eyelashes in hand, I looked to my right to find a display of roll-on perfumes. Kenzo's Flower caught my eye first, only because I was immediately reminded of Kenzo's Tokyo worn by J, selected by me now two years ago. Tokyo is sweet, with strong pine undertones, and it's such a good scent for him, a mountain-man at heart. Flower was also sweet, a little musky, and quickly forgotten as I looked to the bottom row and spotted Fracas by Robert Piguet: gardenia, musk, rose. It's been my mother's scent for as long as I can remember, and she's even got a lovely little story about how she discovered it working at a cosmetics shop in Cambridge in the 70s. It's very clean and sharp, in the same way that black tights with black pumps are clean and sharp, in the same way that red lipstick, the right shade worn with the right complexion, can be clean and sharp, surprising and simple and just always fashionable. So there you have it, that's Fracas, and the velvet pocket the roll-on came in was almost too much.



So, yes, Halloween schmalloween: Plans were made with girlfriends to go to J's work party as a troop of pin-ups. Sadly, girlfriends were accosted by some malicious young residents of the Northside on Friday night--both were okay, amen, but too shaken to participate in Saturday's debauchery. I decided to stick with the pin-up plan. Moments before we were to leave for the party, with J on my couch as a last minute Waldo becoming too engrossed in MTV's My Super Psycho Sweet Sixteen, the zipper busted on my final-sale Forever 21 shorts (surpise, surprise!) so French Maid it was. I was able to put the fishnets to use, as well as the top-hat headband and chiffon and lace apron I bought a few weeks ago in the early stages of costume planning. Also put to use my American Apparel scoop-back dress in black, which so far has only made it out of my closet for costume parties oh and once for a show at the Brillobox this summer. The party was fun, but mostly I stood beside Waldo, sipped on Frozen Brains and munched on Peanut Butter Eyeballs while the Yankees-Phillies game was on in the background.

Excited like Jessie Spano

I'm really excited about the following things: sheer black tights with brown shoes, such as a flat oxford or boot; black cuffed pants or jeans with black socks and black shoes; black lace-up boots that go above the cuff of the pants; black cuffed pants with black socks and brown shoes; red lips with muted colors such as taupe and gray.

Case In Point:


From The Sartorialist.

Polyvore

many little deaths by katsty featuring Zimmermann

Mennonites

Grandmother, Edna Benner Styer, died yesterday, April 15, 2009, at 5:15PM.

I do not know what this means yet. I have many memories of holidays at my grandparents' house on Cowpath Road, Hatfield, PA. I noticed recently that I inherited her cowlick at the front of her hairline, above her left eye. She gave my father the palest skin, and he, in turn, gave it to me. I have been disconnected from her for most of my life, as my parents moved to Indiana, then Massachusetts, from Pennsylvania, before I was born, and raised me and my brother there. She always sent birthday packages with chocolate covered pretzels and Landis treats, I did not send enough Thank You cards. I keep thinking that this is simply how life works, it ends. Hers did not end unexpectedly.

I do not know what this means yet.

Secret Life

I am incorrigibly nostalgic. The worst of it is that regardless of the finality of a relationship, or the time that passes between the end of it and the present, I always long to return to it, to have it again. I am nostalgic regardless of quality; no matter that during it I was miserable, constantly convinced of the wrongness between us. Those I want again were the most urgent, and also the most tenuous. The only way we knew to communicate properly was to stop using our voices and use our mouths and hands instead. And then of course, the things at which we were not good, understanding, agreeing, and laughing, were almost entirely forgotten.

Listen
by Charles Simic

Everything about you,
my life, is both
make-believe and real.
We are like a couple
working the night shift
in a bomb factory.

Come quietly, one says
to the other
as he takes her by the hand
and leads her
to the rooftop
overlooking the city.

At this hour, if one listens
long and hard,
one can hear a fire engine
in the distance,
but not the cries for help.

just the silence
growing deeper
at the sight of a small child
leaping out of a window
with its nightclothes on fire.