Manolo Blahnik BB Fabric Watercolor Pump here, Charles by Charles David 'Pact' Pump here
Spring has sprung! (Well, at least for the Fashion World it has. In fact, the Fall 2013 shows officially start this weeeeeeeeek, so basically the year is already almost over...) And if there's one thing that Spring has always meant, since the beginning of time, it's flowers—or rather, florals.
The latest iteration of this much-loved perennial Spring trend is the digital watercolor print. Pixelated floral patterns were popping up all over the runway last Fall for the debut of the Spring lines, and lucky for us, now they're popping up in all of our favorite department stores. This pair of Manolos will run you about a month's rent—JUST KIDDING THEY'RE ONLY $650 BEFORE TAX—buuuuuut Charles David has our (my) back with this equally awesome pair for about 100 bucks. SOLD. (Literally, sold. I bought these last week.)
For more eye-peeling watercolor floral gorgeousness, munch on the complete lookbook for the Calla Spring '13 Ready-to-Wear Collection. BE INSPIRED.
In keeping with my (I told you it was tiresome!) habit of mixing prints, recently I’ve taken it to the next level by experimenting with monochromatic print mixing a la this.
The key to mixing prints, monochromatic or otherwise, is staying within the same color palette, or at the very least, picking prints that have 2 or 3 colors/tones in common, and going from there. This is usually a slam-dunk for not looking boring but also not looking crazy. And lately, because of all of the black and white monochromadness (how many different ways can I make a semi-formed play on the word “monochromatic”? got 2 in my pocket already!), it’s been the penguin [<-insert any other typically black and white thing here—penguin was the first thing I thought of] color palette that I’ve been drawn to.
The pairing of the bold, geometric checkerboard pattern of that nine-dollar sweater from Forever21 (gasp) with the more intricate, ornately scrolling mirrored motif of the skirt, works because the combination is playing with the proportion and scale of the prints, while staying within the same black/white/grey color family. I also love the contrast between the two equally bold, but very different kinds of patterns (scroll-y vs. square-y). And those metallic silver pumps make me squeal.
Go, henceforth and get your...um...monochrogaga(?) on. (3 in my pocket and counting..)
Photos by the lovely and talented Rose Garrett
Sport meets sandal meets soccer ball meets tuxedo. (Here)
Shut up shut up shut up I can't handle these. (Here)
More perforated black and white leather and you KNOW these are comfortable. (Here)
Sooooo over the years, (read: millions of hours spent hunched over my laptop mumbling things like, "Oh gawd. BIG TIME into these pants...big time into these pants...” (click-click-click, coffee-gulp, click-click-click) to myself) I have amassed around a thousand wish lists/perpetually filled shopping bags on about a thousand different e-commerce fashion sites, each filled with about a thousand things that I want/need/crave/like to think about (these numbers are pretty accurate).
I am steadfast in my maintenance and upkeep of these lists, periodically purging the stale or already purchased or “meh, I’m tired of looking at this” items out back into internet oblivion from whence they came in order to keep things fresh and relevant and OBVIOUSLY NOT CRAZY. As I mentioned previously, black and white is everywhere this Spring, and my shoe appetite has been no exception. These three lovelies have managed to make their way to the tippy top of my lists lately, and all that remains to be seen is which pair I will purchase first, muahahahaha!
(Whatever I can’t afford those Jimmy Choos—NEITHER CAN YOU—but I love looking at them and pretending I’m going to get them.)
Thanks largely in part to the Marc Jacobs S/S '13 show, the crispy Spring trend of monochromatic stripes, grid patterns, geometric pattern play, and black and white color blocking that has all of us swooning is providing endless amounts of outfit inspiration.
Lately I've been obsessing over checkerboard prints and black and white everything. The trend has been cropping up everywhere over the last few months (LIKE MY CLOSET), from Zara to Tibi to Proenza Schouler, and I can barely contain my hair-pulling-out euphoria. (If there’s one thing I've always had in my closet more than anything else, it’s black and white striped shirts...like, a stupid amount of them.) And aside from my (I'll admit sometimes tiresome) obsession with mixing prints, I love the idea of playing with print proportion—like a larger open grid pattern with a classic houndstooth on a smaller scale. That, and this fuchsia windowpane blouse I scored for next to nothing over the holidays makes my eyes bleed it's so gorgeous.
Photos by the lovely and talented Rose Garrett
And I should know because I am rarely on time. I’ll chock my johnny-come-lately-style foray into fashion blogging up to that. I’m not sure, but I think I might be breaking some tacit and hallowed fashion blogging rules—I don't know what these are—in that I’m 26-soon-to-be-27 (this is apparently too old to start anything... Kill me.), I haven’t been blogging for years, or actually even days for that matter, I don’t think I know any other bloggers (although I am an avid follower of this lady, this lady, this lady aaaaaand this lady), I don’t have a personal street style photographer in my posse—or a posse, I probably exceed the height limit by a good 6 inches, and my hair sometimes looks like tumbleweeds.
But living a rather unapologetic existence as a fashion devotee and style enthusiast—the unfamous kind—sort of makes me qualified, right? Eh. Regardless, over the years, the depth and breadth and form of that devotion has manifested itself differently, (i.e. 10-year-old me was obsessed with Hush Puppies and Wet Seal. Wait, can you say “manifested” on a Fashion Blog? Or “Wet Seal” for that matter?! Two more rules most likely broken...) and I suppose this venture is yet another permutation in my expression of that devotion.
Mostly, I just want to make an outfit diary and have a place where I can write about leather skirts ad nauseum and say things like “SQUEEEEEEE POLKA DOT PANTZZZZ!!!” and have it be OK. And anyway, saying, “It’ll look great on my résumé” means you can write off just about any retarded thing you do.
At least I’m here. Better late, I say.
