witty title possibly involving woodland creatures

So… You may start to notice a trend in my posts—that is, that I seem to be in the woods an awful lot. Allow me to explain… As you guys know/can probably tell from the questionable quality of my photos, I take all my own pictures by using the self-timer setting on my D-40. (And I don’t have a tripod, which is why most of them are from a really low vantage point slash are skewed at silly angles.) But when I was at home and photographing, I’d just go out somewhere in my fairly private yard and prop up the Nikon on a lawn chair or some such faux-tripod apparatus. And then I’d usually take anywhere from 20 to 50 photos of an outfit to make sure I got at least some good shots worthy of public viewing (at least by my lowly standards). HOWEVER, here in Botetourt (What? Read this) I can’t really do that… And I refuse to submit myself to the humiliation/awkwardness of letting some one else take pictures for me or generally let anyone be present while I take pictures. So, long story short, I go out in the woods behind my dorm at odd hours of the day and take pictures.  HEYO. Who’s a creep? This girl.

Random daily digression going off on the tangent of being a creep: love this song.

ANYWAYS, funny story: so these photos are a couple days old, from my first woodland excursion… While I was out there on the “fit trail,” kind of sketchily off the beaten path and posing for a picture, a girl from my dorm walks by and of course I FREAK OUT. So I’m all like “I SWEAR I HAVE A FASHION BLOG I DON’T JUST TAKE MY OWN PICTURE WELL I DO BUT IT’S FOR THE BLOG SO THAT’S ALMOST SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE--PLEASE DON’T JUDGE ME—I’M BLOGGING” and she’s just like, “Umm… what?” because she hadn’t even noticed I had a camera. Sigh. And then I had to slowly reiterate my lame blogging excuse. But basically I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m a creep. Which would be an apt assumption.

 

Also, this is that oxford shirt I’ve been wearing all weekend that I very poorly showcased yesterday in my last post.

What a sketch. The good news: not all college kids are like this… it’s just me.

dress – AE via Goodwill

shirt – Goodwill

bag – vintage

shoes – Bensimon

necklaces – vintage

shades – BOTETOURT!!

thanks for nothing, you useless reptile.

Last night I went to “Screen on the Green,” a free showing of the movie How to Train Your Dragon on the sunken gardens at W&M. It was the perfect outing for a hot August evening. The lawn was literally covered with students and beach towels and popcorn and pillows—and the movie was adorable! Throughout the film the guys all noted that it was “such a girl movie” because every somewhat poignant moment was filled with a cacophony of female sighs: awwwwwwww.

This is the outfit I wore—100% Goodwill! I got both the shirt and the dress on the trip I told you about in my last post from this weekend. I literally haven’t taken this blue oxford shirt off for three days!! This photo doesn’t do it justice (which is sad because this was one of my favorite outfits in a while…sigh). I’m sort of obsessed with the shirt though. It might be partly because I can’t seem to find my acid wash chambray shirt from the GAP (here)… But it’s actually a great piece in its own right. It feels preppy with a bit of a I’m-a-jaded-college-student slash I-stole-this-from-my-boyfriend’s-closet edge. If that makes any sense.

Also check out this nail polish color. It’s blue-something (that’s not the real name) by L’Oreal.

GOTTA RUN! More later.

BOT-A-WHAT? BOT-A-TOT!

In the words of one great Asher Roth, “I LOVE COLLEGE.” It’s such a freshman thing to say, I know. But God, I am a freshman! And I am relishing every minute of it.

I’m pretty much all settled in now; orientation ended and last Wednesday we started classes. This semester I’m taking it easy (WHAT?!) and taking only four classes: GenChem, 3D Foundations, Psych 103, and French Cross-Cultural Perspectives. On Friday I only have one fifty minute class! Smirk. I’m sorry high schoolers; your life blows.

I’m living in a freshman complex on campus called Botetourt (pronounced Bot-a-tot), and, as you can see, I have the glasses to prove it. In fact, these glasses are exclusively for Orientation Aides or OAs, which are upperclassmen who volunteer to guide newbie freshman through their first week at W&M. How did I get them then, you ask? Well. At first I campaigned really really hard, trying to get our OA Austin to give me his since he let it slip that he had two pairs. I appealed to every possible angle—moral, guilt-tripping, bribery, etc. Then, since that was unsuccessful, I stole them. But then I had to give them back. But then, because I’m just so goshdarn persuasive—or cute, one or the other—I finally won the seemingly soulless Austin over. And now they are mine, and I rep them with pride.

Also today I took a trip over to the local Goodwill with one of my roomies and another friend from my hall. I ended up actually getting a ton of stuff—two dresses, some awesome cowboy booties, and two shirts—all for under twenty bucks. This shirt is one of my prizes… It’s not the kind of thing I normally wear, but I really like it. Plus, what are rules if they can’t be broken. Rules exist to be broken. Anyways, it’s that sort of butterfly fit that I’m really digging right now and its kind of sheer, which compensates for the un-sexiness of the fit.

(I feel like I to qualify that… basically, I operate under the philosophy that every outfit should have some amount of sexiness/youngness/general attractiveness, which of course varies according to the occasion for which you are dressing. But in general terms, you never want to look like a grandpa, even if grandpa sweaters are in vogue. You also never want to look like a slut, obviously. So for each conservative piece/part of an outfit, add in a less conservative piece. It’s all about balance. Rule of thumb: If you look like Ke$ha, you’ve gone too far. If you look like Mr. Rogers, you’ve gone too far. Balance, balance, balance.)

 

I like this picture… you can’t see crap in terms of outfit details, but bear with me. Something about the contrast of the light on the arm and the shadows of the blinds on the desk drew me in.

 

Also, I promised you good news! Well here it is: I got an email from Miss Casey Lewis of teenfashionista.blogspot.com saying that I’d been featured in an article on back to school style on Gurl.com! Check it out!

Top – Goodwill

Pants – Madewell

Bag - Madewell

why is it called convocation

 

HI BABES. I’m about to run over to convocation in like 15 minutes so this is going to be a super short post.

This is an old outfit from before I left for W&M, obviously. I paired my mum’s skirt that I specifically remember picking out for her when I was like six at some random department store in Wellesley that no longer exists… Anyways, I decided to mix it up and wear it like a dress.

GOTTA RUN! I have exciting news later!! :)

skirt - “vintage”

belt – thrifted

shoes – Bensimon

necklace – Madewell

bag – vintage

glasses – vintage

pin - vintage

Williamsburg State of Mind

 

What up dawgss. Sorry for the lack of posting, but I’m currently swamped by orientation at W&M. More fash’ later when stuffs slow down.

GO TRIBE.

would it be impractical for me to go hiking in heels and leather? how about silk?

Still hiking.

And that connects to the rest of post because… it doesn’t. Ha. But anyways, this is the dress I wore to church last Sunday. Maybe you guys remember from my prom dress blogging craze that I almost bought a similar dress, this dress by Nicole Miller. It was made of the most amazing fabric that hugged and flattered perfectly… I loved it, but it was overshadowed by the Madalay beauty I ended up with. However, when I stumbled across this Nicole Miller number on Ideeli.com (for like 50% off!!), I just HAD to have it. At church, a friend asked me if the skirt was made from leather? I don’t quite get the leather thing, but I do understand the confusion… the fabric is so bamboozling! Usually, stretchy + shiny = trashy. But here it looks sophisticated and expensive. And the cut-out in the back? I love it I love it I love it. I wish I could wear this all the time. I wish I were wearing this right now… Damn you, hiking gods, for inventing such an unstylish institution.

Anyways, back to the dress. Cue swoon.

Also, as far as this shoot goes, it started out normal… and then went whack. But you already knew I was crazy.

And this is where it gets weird…

wtf?

Told you.

“Screw it.”

dress – Nicole Miller

shoes – Enzo Angiolini

hot mess, day two

You have to understand that both my Mum and my Aunt Pam read my blog almost, well, almost religiously. And trust me I’m not flattering myself here. So you remember how in my last post, I began with a vaguely shocking rodent revelation? Well. On two separate occasions today, when my aunt and Mum were doing their daily blog reading rituals, both of them read that first sentence and then yelled out, “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS?” And twice I had to sigh and say, “Keep reading.”

So today I have no such announcements. And anyways, we’ve moved on from Joysey. This afternoon we arrived in Williamsburg! And first thing tomorrow I get to claim my bunk (or lack thereof, hopefully). And then I leave on a three day pre-orientation hiking trip. Jesus God.

On a completely unrelated note, I’m super proud of how un-hot-mess my hair is after a full day of driving… I washed it this morning and then kept it in the classic “messy bun” all day and when I took it down this afternoon my normally stick-straight hair was bouncy and wavy. Perfect hair and no work? I’m all about that. To get your own loose waves all day, try washing your hair at night and then sleeping with it in a bun. In the morning, you’ll be beachy fabulous.

at the hotel, motel, holiday inn

Greetings from Edison, NJ, home of the world’s largest guinea pig, weighing in at 27.4 pounds! Not really, I made that up! As far as I can tell, Jersey’s only defining characteristics are the smell and the Shore. I’m here in a hotel on day one of my epic journey to the enchanted forest of higher education a.k.a. William and Mary a.k.a. the ‘burg.

After being in an overly AC-ed car all day, well, my face/hair is a hot mess. I do, however, like my outfit today so I am bringing it to you ala the retro-style blogger “mirror shot.” And of course I have the end-all and be-all of hydration glued to my fingertips: Coke Zero.

Have I showed you guys this ring before? I got it for three bucks at the annual 4th of July flea market in Needham. This picture’s kind of fuzzy but it’s supposed to be like a mask… However, Seemo insists that it’s a dead baby while my cousin (who is oh so very witty) keeps asking what if it speaks to me. (Dead Baby: Why did you kill meeee? Why is my head so liiittttle????)

shirt – Madewell sale rack (10 bucks!)

skirt – altered vintage dress from Saver’s

bag – gifted from India

shoes – UO

scarf – DIY (details to come!)

belated congrats to…

ANJALI!

I used a random number generator and you won the giveaway! I apologize for being a useless lump and taking a week to let you know. But hey, let’s get back to the bit where you got a free necklace made by yours truly.

Email me and we’ll sort out the minor details like where in tarnation I’m going to be sending off this necklace to. Rhiannon.ecsedy@gmail.com. HIT ME UP, GURLLL.

And for the rest of you who sadly didn’t win, I promise there will be more giveaways! Maybe when we hit 50 followers, then there will be another one. Or if I just feel like it tomorrow. Ya know. As Caridee of ANTM once said, “I GOT SPON-TA-NU-ITY, BITCHES!”

And me, I been a long time gone

MY SOMEWHAT EMBARRASSING BUT NONETHELESS ALL-CONSUMING OBSESSION OF THE MOMENT:  The Dixie Chicks.

I’ve had their third CD, “Home,” on repeat in the car, in my room, in my mental playlist… ceaselessly for probably the last 48 hours. Tiring for my family, I’m sure, but quite enjoyable for me. WOULD THE REAL SLIM SHADY PLEASE STAND UP? KTHANX  MARSHALL you can sit down now, but leave a comment if you also shamelessly heart the Dixie Chicks. YA MON.

(Good Lord, someone sedate me. Am I even making cohesive sentences here? I think I just spoke Jamaican. Yes, I know they speak English. I think I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese. You know, I think when I grow up I’ll write stuff like A Clockwork Orange or Vardaman or Dewey Dell'’s part of As I Lay Dying or Eliot’s “The Wasteland” that people can barely even understand because I’ve invented my own vernacular and am just generally loopy and make references so esoteric that it just sounds like my brain has been addled by extreme drug use.)

On the flip side… Inspired by the song Long Time Gone, I put together this denim jacket/prairie skirt combo, a sort of bohemian country-western look. The skirt is a relic left over from the good ole days of shopping at Delia’s; I found it smothered in the back of my closet yesterday. (That’s the perk of the odious job of packing for college—I’ve unearthed so many old treasures!)

Which reminds me that a couple posts ago I promised I’d keep an eye out for easy ways to incorporate inexpensive clothing or clothing from previous years of adolescence (bought at places like Delia’s) into modern, sophisticated looks (read that post here). This is another example of fulfilling that ideal… Excepting the skirt, because I don’t remember what it cost (I bought it in eight grade, what do you want), nothing I’m wearing cost more than $30. The tank is a plain white Target staple, while the denim jacket was a $15 sale rack bargain at Madewell. The belt was thrifted for something like fifty cents, and the necklaces (seen here also) are vintage gifts from Claire. The earrings are random vintage and the sunnies are vintage courtesy of my mother. As for the wedges, as you know (I wear them a lot, yeah yeah yeah), they are CV for Target, and cost only $29.99.

In other news, my new phone came today! It’s a Droid X, and even though I can barely clack out a text message on this space age machine, I’m kind of in love with it. I keep telling Aseem about the HD pictures it takes, but he, being a teensy bit of a party pooper, says that photos are measured in pixels, not HD. Pshaw. I CAN TAKE HD PHOTOS! Perhaps this will unveil new horizons of on-the-go blogging?

  

Oh, and one last thing: I thought it would be really cool the other day to put a bangle on my upper arm… You may also wish to try this out. HOWEVER. Do not, as I did, overlook the fact that it will at some point be necessary for you to remove said bangle. Unless you are skeletally skinny, and actually probably more so if you are, it will be painful if the bangle does not fit over your elbow. As you can see from this photo, mine HURT LIKE HELL COMING OFF. It was like the time I got my knee stuck between the spindles on the metal railing at the ICA and my art teachers had to whip out their sunscreen and caress my thigh with it to reduce the friction while my entire class took photos. It was like that, including the lovely bruises but minus the sunscreen and the would-be-inappropriate touching. So make sure the bangle is big enough. Pirates, ye be warned.

Can he SAY that?

This is the outfit I wore yesterday to a casual thank you dinner for our Student Council Advisor—we shall call him Jimmy. We took the T into Government Center where we met the Jimster and ate at Dick’s Last Resort. I’d never been to Dick’s before, and my comrades failed to mention one important signature detail about the restaurant and the temperament of their staff… I nearly started crying when our male waiter, clad in bedazzled pink sunglasses, chucked a bib at my face—which I obviously failed to catch—and yelled, “NICE HANDS, FEET!” I was further horrified when a buff man straight out of Jersey Shore—I didn’t see his abs but he could well have been related to The Situation—began slamming his palm on the table adjacent to ours screaming, “GET OFF YOUR DAMN PHONE! HI, MA!—NOW GET THE HELL OFF THE PHONE.” It was only after I went into cardiac arrest that my friends told me… It’s called “Dick’s” for a reason.

A thriving restaurant built on the shtick that their waiters will verbally abuse you, place large condom-shaped paper hats on your head, and label you in sharpie with such terms of endearment as “Hung like a hamster” or “Future stripper” (mine) or “Fire crotch.” Hmm. Because we told them it was Jimmy’s birthday, he received an even more aesthetically offensive hat adorned with five or six balloons and tagged with the epithet “LICK ME… It’s my birthday!” Apparently the restaurant attracts a clientele of a certain… personality? because the middle-aged woman next to us, upon seeing Jimmy’s crown, asked, “Really? Can I?” to which one of our party responded, “Sorry, he’s married.” The woman however, was undeterred; she retorted, “So am I!”

Despite my unending repetitions of the phrase “They’re so offensive!” and the fact that my “thank you” got a snide chuckle from the waiter, it was actually kind of fun. On a related note, I think I might need to relax?

My outfit for this very stressful dinner (at least the chicken fingers didn’t disappoint) was kind of a mish-mosh… Even though I said I wouldn’t wear my two newest finds from my recent Newbury trip together, I couldn’t wait, and I caved. That said, I really like the end result just as much as I love all the pieces individually. (The sweater for example… I have never seen such an interestingly constructed garment. It’s all loopy and drapey—yes, those are the technical terms—and it has pockets and scarf parts and and and yum yum yum. And the UO T-strap maryjanes are so precious! They are like saddle shoes, but cuter.) Opinions?

 

sweater – AllSaints 50% off SALE

tank – Target

jeans –  Madewell skinny lows in Atlantic wash

B&N tote – vintage

sunnies – AE

earrings – gifted from India

kicks– Kimchi Blue available at UO

DIY: the t-shirt skirt

Image from UO catalog, June 2010From left to right: Cooperative printed skirt $38 at Urban Outfitters, Jersey Pocket skirt $30 at American Apparel, Cooperative Solid Pull-On Skirt $38 at UO 

Several months ago, when this whole trend of simple, high-waisted, elastic-cinched jersey skirts began, I almost bought one. I really wanted one… and why not? They’re fun, comfy, and easy to style. But for whatever reason, I didn’t give in to temptation (more like, I didn’t have forty bucks to spend). So I improvised. (Warning: there is sewing involved in this improvisation.)

THE FINISHED PRODUCT:

THE PLAN OF ACTION:

• I bought a particularly soft old tee (TIP: the bigger the tee, the more it will ruffle—a smaller one will fit tighter like mine) from the bin at the Garment District (read my tips for shopping the GD here) and cut off the sleeves and the shoulders—I cut straight across from the bottom of the each arm to the other.
• Then I measured a piece of elastic (about 1" wide) to circle my natural waist (that’s the thinnest part, above the hips and below the ribs).
• I folded in the top of the skirt (about 2”) and then sewed all the way around about 1.5” from the top, leaving a narrow opening to insert the elastic.
• I used a safety pin to thread the elastic through the loop I had just created, and then I stitched the ends of the elastic together and closed the opening.
• BONUS: I cut down the seam of the sleeves to open them up and sewed them on—with some slack—to create pockets. I put mine about an inch below the elastic to sit right on my hips, but you can make them lower if you like the look of the AA version.

GOOD LUCK.

P.S. I’m tired now so I’m not going to choose a winner yet, but YES, the giveaway has ended and one of you SHALL BE ANNOUNCED THE WINNER.  I’ll let you know… EVENTUALLY. (Probably tomorrow.)

I'm on your side! I hate Godzilla! I hate him too! I hate him! He destroys cities! *Please*! This isn't your fault. I'll get you some pants.

And yet every once in a while I feel the need to much on something. New necklace. Great movie.