Beautiful day in the neighborhood

This is one of my favorite spots in my neighborhood. It's close to a vaguely busy intersection, that lacks a light, and no one in this neighborhood respects any traffic signals.
I convinced the cohabitator to run errands around the neighborhood, which is a mostly ungentrified section of Bedford Stuyvesant, in northwest central Brooklyn. While lacking the amenities of some of the more "established" neighborhoods close by, the Rastafarian influence means that we can buy soy cheese, textured vegetable protein, and hippie stuff a couple blocks from our house (can you tell we're hosting vegans for dinner tonight?). It gets a bit loud, the folks can be very colorful, but I do genuinely like where I live.
Walking on Bedford village street on a Saturday afternoon takes elbows and chutzpah, so taking a photo by my favorite red wall (just down the block from our apartment) was a challenge. We'll figure out a better spot. I didn't realize how much this early March sun would totally bleach out the details of the outfit. Maybe facing south next time.

The pearl snap button shirt with the full skirt makes me feel like a square dancer. Luckily, I loved square dancing when I was in gym class. I'm going to be a very Western themed old lady some day.

Western men's shirt: borrowed from Blokey
Black jersey skirt: American Apparel, from clothing swap
Black slouch moto books: Palladium, $150
Tights: Target, $5
Purple sun glasses: Macy's (ages ago), $35
Grey pleather belt: free from an ebay purchase
Denim trucker jacket, Levis.com, $27

Breaking rules with long skirts

I take guidelines for figure flattery seriously. Like Academichic, Fashion for Nerds, and Already Pretty's great tutorials. I love to learn new things, even now as learning and teaching is my bread and butter. But sometimes I want to bend the rules. Sometimes I just want to fun and hope that I don't look like a bag lady. The Olson twins (almost) single-handedly made unflattering, unconventional, and less shapely layered outfits (with killer shoes) one of the most important trends of the 2000s, so there is definitely an art to non-figure flattery.
Today, in addition to regular at home work, we are going to downtown Brooklyn for errands, and then the Upper East Side for his and her haircuts. This means train time and lots of walking. I know that this outfit would look more flattering with my cognac boots, or if I lopped 3-4 inches off the skirt. But I kind of like the weirdness factor of the combat boots. I also realize that I have stumpified my legs. I think that I am OK with that. The skirt is wool and uber warm and it will keep the cold off my legs (with the leggings) as I walk around uptown, as my jeans and pants drying on a rack.

It's a little monochromatic, but I did this intentionally so I could emphasize the beautiful camel color of the vintage coat. The skirt is actually grey, black, and camel plaid, so I thought it was perfect.

I am also breaking my (self-imposed) rule of trying to be more colorful, but sometimes I just like to be head to toe in neutrals. I still don't really know what exactly qualifies as neutrals (I thought camel was a color. See a great discussion here).

close up of the skirt plaid

Do you ever dress in a way that you know doesn't flatter you, either to have fun or just to try things out?

I'm actually this happy about my new (to me) coat, tailored at the local dry cleaner

Coat: Collecther, $42
Leggings, Target, $5
Boots, Mia, $85
Skirt: Pendleton, vintage, via ebay ($7 including shipping) (the other half of this blazer)
Sweater: Espirt, $30
Knit hat: Brooklyn Industries, $19

Ode to Sal

I love Sally McGraw's Already Pretty website. She's gorgeous, has amazing clothes, and a really healthy approach towards fashion and body confidence. And today, she had a post dedicated to her versatile use of tank dresses, and I wanted to wear this new swap tunic today. I took her advice and I think I made it somewhat more modest with this dress, but it's still quite short (good thing today is not a teaching day).
Yeah, these are my books. I think I have them in my office to impress my students. (It works. Sometimes).


I didn't realize until I looked at the pictures how short this was, but luckily my coat is long. I guess the blog is good for helping me see how my outfits look when not viewed through the mirror. I like the outfit, but I think the belt made a short tunic even shorter. I will go with leggings instead of tights next time.

I tried belting on top of the jacket, and I'm iffy about which one looks better. Over the jacket seems longer.

Belt: thrifted, Beacon's closet, $9
boots: Born, ebay, $95
tights, Target, $5
green dress (under layer), Zara, Beacon's closet, $14
oatmeal tunic sweater, swapped, originally from Jacob (cheap Canadian retailer)

Style risks

This is no Lady Gaga outfit, but when I left the house this morning, I wasn't quite sure of this outfit.
The sweater, which is a size large, was acquired at a recent swap. I like it a lot. It's tunic like, the sleeves are interesting, and the white is really bright. But I haven't figured out how to wear it.
I was rushing around this morning, and I thought this might look OK with pants, but I wasn't quite satisfied. I low-belted it, added a berry scarf, and thought, "Maybe?" and ran out the door.
I have a black blazer in my office in case I decide that I hate it too much to wear when I lecture. Is the black and white too stark? Does it work? Any thoughts would be deeply appreciated.

Pants: Uniqlo (in Korea), about $30
Shoes: Naturalizer, $40
Black button down: Uniqlo, about $30
Belt: GAP (years ago), $25
Scarf: Collecther, (vintage), $12

trading and trending

Blokey never throws anything away (and rarely acquires new clothes), but sometimes his more hole-filled and worn clothes are home or layering pieces only. This includes an older GAP denim shirt (he guesses 2002) with great snap pearl buttons. These are evidently all the rage again in 2010, in boyfriend and fitted styles. I'm trying not to spend and consume more, but how awesome is it when older clothes recycle into current trends, and you can be current without consuming?
His shirt had large elbow holes in the pocket, so when I was in the garment district, I picked up brown suede elbow patches by Dritz (available online if your local notion store doesn't have them). Fella teaches college classes, so the old school elbow patches are a nice touch.
If I had to do it again, I think I would have used iron on patches first on the shirt to make the sleeve more solid, but this works fine for now.

Before: a well worn western demin shirt, with honking elbow holes.

Solution: if you click through, you can see that there are holes already made into the patches, but a sharp needle can pierce it. You can also the holes in the pictures below.

Before I sewed, I used this fray stopper to prevent problems when it's washed. But now I realize that I have no idea how to wash this. Dry clean? Freeze?

The hard part is lining up the patches so they're relative even. I did this by covering up the bigger whole (the right one) the best I could and pinning it. (Three pins, and I ruined 2 other pins trying to pierce the leather/suede). Then I sewed through the holes twice (just a regular stitch, with resulted in something like this the first time around:)

Please excuse the roughness of my graphic.
The second time around, I sewed through the opposite holes, making the stitching complete around the holes.

Then I laid the two sleeves down so they faced either (the hole side on one sleeve faced the patched side) and stuck the unsewn patch on top of the sewn on. I turned the sleeves over so the unsewn sleeve was on the bottom, and the patch on top of the hole, pinned it, and repeated the process. Highly unscientific, but it's even enough.
Fella was pleased with these results. It took me about 1 hour and some change (I watched a few episodes of UK Office, which are now streaming on Hulu, after dinner). But I informed him that since I mended the shirt, we have to share it. He was just relieved that I did not commandeer it entirely.

He looked at me with a wrinkled nose and said, "You look like an Old Navy ad." Maybe an Old Navy ad from 1993?

Edit: I also tried it with a belt. I like this look a lot too, but I think a longer, looser belt wore a bit lower would look best. (At the natural waist looked a bit odd with all the loose fabric).

Business Casual and my Not-So Camera Shy Dog

A few years back my office changed our dress code from Business Casual to just plain casual.  Sometimes it's really nice to not have to think about what to wear in the morning and just throw on a pair of jeans and some tennis shoes, but some folks at my office have taken "casual" way too far.  Like, people are passing off pajamas and track-suits as "work appropriate" too far.  I've heard rumblings that they might reinstate our business casual wardrobe because it's gotten so out of hand.  Secretly, I hope they do.  Then I won't feel so out of place when I wear outfits like the one I wore today.

Weird sweater button gape aside (that I didn't notice until I started uploading these pictures - I should tell my photographer what to look out for), I was feeling pretty good in this today.  Putting together something cute is one of the few things that makes waking up at 5:45 and enduring 3 hours of commuting on my office days almost worthwhile.  But still, I'm glad I only have to do it 3 days a week.

There's so many things about this outfit that I love.  For starters, I didn't pay more than $20 for anything I'm wearing.  The 3/4 sleeve cardigan sweater from Target that looks so much nicer than what I paid, and honestly, nicer than I used to expect from Target.  I love how cute some of their clothes are these days!  I've had this sweater for a while, but never thought about pairing it with a belt.  I added it on a whim this morning, and it's amazing how one simple change can totally alter an ensemble.  As for a necklace, I went with a somewhat large triple strand beaded black necklace to go with the bold pattern and the big black belt.  All in all, I think the outfit came together nicely.

Since Jude, my camera-hog of a dog, tried to sneak into the first picture so I'll dedicate the rest of this post to him.  He's very stylish and put together, as you can see.  He's black and tan - two neutrals that go with everything!  He's wearing a green striped nylon collar by Top Paw (although I came very close to buying him a nice leather collar at Embellish the other day).  Perfect for attaching the leash that he'll nearly rip your arm off with while out strolling around the neighborhood.  He also has lots of bling attached to his collar because, like me, he loves shiny things.  Not only does he always look this cute, he knows it.  And although the vet said he could stand to lose 10 pounds, he's comfortable in his own skin (fur?), no matter what size he is.  I could learn a lot from him.

Polka Dot Cardigan Sweater: Target.com - $20
T-shirt: Old Navy - $7
Belt: NYandCompany.com - $11
Pants: NYandCompany.com - $20
Necklace: NYandCompany.com - $10
Boots: Macys - $75 (but to be fair, they were a gift so I didn't pay more than $20 for them)

Cohabitator's style

My fella is not interested in participating in the world of style blogs, but I think I take a lot of fashion cues from him. When I met him, he had expertly mussed wavy hair, worn in a 70s style shag (no mullet) and he was wearing this Member's Only style blue poly blend, snap front jacket, a well worn vintage cream with red stripes button down shirt, and nice (but not skinny) jeans, with red retro style sneakers (pseudo bowling shoes). I thought to myself, "Who is this attractive stranger who likely spends a lot of time perfecting his look?" Turns out that his hair is the product of trial and error, and his clothes are mostly from his grandfather's closet, as well as some secondhand stuff. When we started dating, I was just beginning to experiment away from the "black t shirt, blue jeans" uniform that I wore through most of graduate school (various Europeans had influenced me along the way).

My partner has a signature retro, 1970s inspired style, which is interesting and ethical in its own way. He is more invested in aesthetics and style than me, but lacks my vanity, and has a stronger anti-consumption ethic. While he doesn't have a lot of clothes, he takes really good care of all the clothes he buys (cold water wash, hang dry, well folded). In contrast, I am really rough on everything: shoes, pants, socks, and sweaters.

This is typical Blokey style. I got him the shirt from ebay (pearl snap button western style shirt, evidently all the rage now), the jeans are older H&M (he can makes "disposal fashion" last forever), and the boots are from the ultra clearance rack at the Brooklyn DSW. He wears clothing that is cut close to the body to emphasize his really long and lean frame.

This is basically the coolest person I know.

Sunday afternoon.
A friend said about this photo, "All that's missing is cigarettes and whiskey."

The guitar is a circa 1975 Fender Stratocaster.