LOOKs AND STYLE (PART 1)

I remember I saw The Secret of Roan Inish at my grandparents house (oddly appropriate). I never owned it or rewatched it very often but it always stuck with me, probably because it combines all sorts of things that appealed to me then and now. A deep-seated love of seals and such, despite their smell, passed on from a Marine Biologist dad combined with a penchant for darkened fairy tales and kids doing adult things makes it an ideal movie. It's sort of mysterious and great, and it's not one of those movies that plays down to children, assumes they don't understand things--although I'm not sure if it's a children's movie in the first place now that I think of it--and then later doesn't appeal to adults.

Anyway, it's been on the Sundance channel the past few months, and I've rediscovered it. It's still just as lovely as before, only now I am also enamoured with the young heroine's clothes. They have a wonderfully 40s (I think it takes place in the 40s, I'm not to good at that sort of thing) aura, not to mention the sweet little details so often found in clothing for little and young girls. Her outfits are adorable, subdued but colorful patterns layered in youthful nonchalance, which is another nostalgic quality I think so many of us try to recreate and explore.















It's the little high-waisted skirts with blouses and funny embroidered sweaters that I want to copy. I love the hair-bow as well, sort of dilapidated and floppy amidst windy hair. I feel like there are all sorts of little details like this that disappear once we slide into adult clothes, although of course there are those lines and exceptions which attempt to infuse this back into grown-up costumes, but still. It makes me still look forward to fall, for cardigans, and wish for spring which is ever-so far off. 

 

Hello my dears! I am returned from my wonderful weekend spent with friends! I've meant to post something sooner, but days have just been flying by! And I am using so many exclamation points! The weekend was awesome, I sort of can't believe it actually happened and then ended. We went to New York City and did touristy things like running through wax museums and giggling over silly art in MoMa (who wants to take things seriously? Not us, apparently!), as well as frustrating myself with directions (which, honestly, for someone who gets lost in her own city as often as I do, I did very well and deserve a gold star on a cake).







(Pictures shamelessly lifted from my friend's cameras, I need to get myself a nicer one!)

On a more serious note, my car is broken, broken, broken. We put a down payment on a new one last night, but are still shopping around for a few days until that's finalized. It's very difficult being without a car, especially where I live, but the loan payments are going to kill me! Quite honestly I don't make a ton of money, no where near a ton, and these payments are going to curb my spending habits like nothing else! My parents are taking me to NYC again for my birthday on Monday, but after that I've got to be careful! I am slightly, mildly, sort of, kind of, toying with the idea of selling some of my things on ebay for extra monies, but we'll see about that. It is just that I have so many random things that I don't wear, and things I keep picking up from thrift stores, that I ought to do something productive with it!

 

At one point I had set myself down to compose a post singing the praises of penny loafers and peter-pan collars but I have been, as usual, inexcusably distracted. It would only end in nostalgic renderings of my old school-uniforms, which is a tired and true subject, so perhaps later on I will find a way to change the story around so it makes for a more interesting post!

However, I must absent myself for a few days! I will be having two beloved guests this weekend and our schedule is so jam-packed that I am certain I won't be around to post about strange and fusty things. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, the two kindred spirits in question (although they aren't in question, I just like that funny little phrase as much as every writing class has told me to avoid cliches, I collect them like a colloquial pack-rat) have been some of my closest pals for almost eight years and I have never met them. It is a truly epic weekend!

 

When first we met my love and I
took shelter from the rainy sky
Beneath a crispy, gold baguette
which bended as it did get wet.

It bended gently and it drooped
upon our love as there we stooped
and sheltered from the storm above:
a soggy, golden crown of love.

The sun came out, the piece of bread
lay at our feet all limp and dead.
Greater love. Lest we forget
My love and I, the wet baguette.

-Spring Love Poem, Michael Leunig

 

"I've met another man. He's the best man I've ever met. He's bright, handsome and he's crazy about me. And, he's married. There's only one thing; he doesn't like my hat."




The Unbearable Lightness of Being is, as I think I've mentioned before, one of my favorite movies (in a terribly stubborn move, I've honestly never liked the book quite as much, for once!). Though I've never felt particular kinship for Sabina there is no possible way not to be in love with her hat and her penchant for wearing it. I think it's quite possible that 90% of what I wear is in some way a nod to a favorite character sometime. Eventually I will compose a post on this fact, I think.
Also making their debut: jeans! Not just pants, but honest-to-goodness jeans! I wear pants and jeans about once a week, usually when it rains (although that changes when the weather is cool enough to wear tights again), or occasionally to work. I still don't feel exactly right in jeans and pants. The last time I bought any was at least a year ago and before that it was about two years. I've gained a bit of weight since then and have tossed said pairs in the wash several times, so now most of them are just a tad too snug to be totally comfortable.

I think part of my problem with jeans and pants is I never feel dressed enough in them. Most of my tops are t-shirts, and those I try to wear with skirts, so jeans usually end up with blouses in an effort to feel more put-together and feminine. It's also certainly a confidence thing. I feel I can hide more in dresses and skirts--a misleading statement since it is not that I want to blend into the background, but rather disguise those parts of my body I'm not thrilled with.

I digress, and return to hats. This is to be the year of hats, I think, although perhaps it is too soon before fall to tell. Hats are good for me. They require confidence, work, and they feel somewhat literary. I feel like images of writers and authors in my head wear hats when they are doing normal-life things, and a hat is such a useful thing for a character. Oh, the kinds of hats they might wear! And that they could do with it, how they could touch it or wear it, if a hat was lost or stolen, a loved one's hat, not to mention the wonderful work of hat-making. I don't know just yet if it is, but bee-keeping and another fantasy activity, millinery, are combined today.

Hello! I disappeared, so sorry darlings! We went away for the weekend and I only remembered I didn't post to say anything about it until everything was packed away. I was without internet all weekend, though oddly I didn't find I missed it too much, and now I am back and have loads of reading to catch up on the world! It is somewhat nice, I have new material to read at all my favorite places online!

I certainly did my fair share of shopping (I'm trying not to think of how much money I blew through, even though it wasn't too bad) and have already been reconsidering returning some of what I purchased. Among the things are the following two dresses, and a new hat! I am so in love with hats at the moment. I've always liked them but had such a hard time finding ones that didn't make my head look giant and strange that I never much bothered, and now it seems they are everywhere and I have such love for them!





I can't be bothered to wear much else but this at the moment. It's a brand-new purchase but I've worn it two days in a row. It's lovely and airy and keeps me cool while still feeling decent and pretty. I've also been looking for a drop-waist dress such as this one, and now I only want to find more! I've been wearing lots of white and off white lately, and just the other day we drove past a huge field of Queen Ann's Lace. It's such a funny thing, sort of a weed, but so pretty and spindly and strange I can't help but adore it.

These are in my backyard. That mechanical noise is not, in fact, and air conditioner or other machinery, but the scores of cicadas in the trees. I used to collect their shells when I was little, in big strange piles. They're so weird, and you always know when it's going to be hot from their noises.




And this! I have no idea where I will wear it at all, but it was so on sale there was no way I was going to leave it in the store! It's an XS, which I rarely wear, but since it has so much yardage and such I can manage it without any discomfort. I just want to eat it!

It has been ages since I did a Things of Happiness post, I'm afraid I've been slacking on that. I feel as though I've been gone ages and ages when it's only been a few days! And already today has flown by and I cannot account for my time. Keep checking in bunnies, I'll have all sorts of pretty jewels of posts to offer you!

P.S. Also, you may notice, I cut my hair! I cut off about six inches--off with it's head--and I love it. It's not being cooperative and lovely as it was yesterday and the days before, but perhaps things will get better. Eventually I will go a bit shorter, to be properly Margot Tenenbaum and Bonnie Parker.

Shorts are a new thing for me. This year is the first I've worn them since my earlier years of high school, mostly because I have acquired a few pairs who are so adorable I can hardly stand it, let alone leave them sitting in the drawer all summer.


Optical Illusion Shorts! They're just striped really.

These were a gift from my aunt, and they are delicious! I'm not entirely comfortable in them--they're very short and however misleading my pictures may be I do not have small thighs-- but I cannot resist them. Their shortness seems to be quieted by their waist. I feel like they are easier to get away with since they come up so high, but they are still probably the one article of clothing I feel most self conscious in. It's a funny thing, because they're a rather benign, simple pair of shorts. Neon tights and strange funny dresses or wearing every floral patterned thing I can find are small potatoes in my feeling strange in my small city, somehow these shorts are so much more frightening to me!



At least I have my new hat to lean on. I really do want to wear it every day, and seeing as we are approaching the end of summer, wishful thinking really, I need to don it as often as possible!