gothic lolita bo peep.

o m g!

this inspiration began with the shoes [jeffrey campbell lydia platforms: $135, nasty gal]. one of the things that i was most excited about prior to moving to japan five years ago was the mythical lolita style that was supposedly prevalent throughout harajuku and beyond. sure enough, on my first weekend venture into harajuku, lolitas lined the sidewalks in clusters. but unfortunately, i wound up perusing a few boutiques catering to this style where i discovered that the outfits were quite pre-packaged.

still, i liked the idea behind the fashion - victorian-inspired outfits of petticoats and full skirts, stockings and bows. i felt as if lolita fashion represented a disregard for the increasing utilitarianism of modern fashion and a love for layers, frills and old-fashioned elegance, which were made contemporary with additions such as platform shoes, cutesy or gothic motifs, lots of black lace and exaggerated accessories, all in celebration of how much reality you can evade through clothing.



for a while, i've felt the desire to incorporate lolita fashion into my own outfits, but this can be difficult as it's quite costume-ish, and the goal is not to don a pre-packaged costume. however, wearing a lace hairbow is probably as far as i've gone thus far...

so, back to the shoes: when i came across those shoes, i immediately thought "lolita". except that they're not totally outrageous, and actually quite on-trend [i see a bit of a miu miu silhouette in those platforms]. and if you think about it, a lot of lolita touches are also totally on-trend right now - bows, lace, petticoats and stockings included. so maybe there is no better time than now to mimic lolita stylings.



i'd wear the shoes with what i imagine as a mixture of "classic" lolita met with "gothic" lolita - feminine blouses in delicate fabrics and soft colors paired with edgy, bold skirts with full cuts and frilly embellishments.

lolita bo peep.

pushbutton oversized white caped shirt: $160, asos; pink ruffle silk shirt: $183, pixie market; cooperative peter pan blouse: $54, urban outfitters; aristocracy top: $38, modcloth.

kera chiffon pants: $95, opening ceremony; tulle academy skirt: $45, nasty gal; tsumori chisato moon dot skirt: $274, la garconne; vintage red chiffon and black lace petticoat skirt: $60, shrinkle on etsy; see by chloe bow flared skirt: $295, net-a-porter; sretsis gold/black skirt: $138, farfetch.

me time.

these days, i have an excessive amount of what i'm going to call "me" time. i used to consider myself one of those people who absolutely values their alone time...the kind of person who would need a break after being around other people for extensive periods of time. however, in a turn of events, i wound up living with my boyfriend for nearly three years. and our home life did not involve staying out of each others' ways - we slept in together, ate meals together, watched movies together and surfed the internet side-by-side. and to my surprise, our "us" time fulfilled my need for "me" time.



but now i find myself 800 miles away from him, and i'm slowly re-orienting myself with what it means to have "me" time with just me. i'd be lying if i said i didn't feel completely lost at times (no one to eat with? no one to talk to at night?). but, for the most part, new york city is kind to those who have an abundance of alone time.



today, i spent the day browsing the many teeny record stores in downtown manhattan. and there was a great feeling of accomplishment when i uncovered my finds all on my own.

i found velocity girl's "copacetic" album! as you may know, i am a big fan of black tambourine, so it's only fitting for me to like velocity girl as well. it's a natural progression from black tambourine, a lot smoother and poppier and definitely the type of music i always end up listening to on repeat in the summer. since i've been listening to velocity girl so much lately, i felt like it was a stroke of luck to come across their first album on colored vinyl. sidenote: also nabbed their second album on cassette....yes, i'm developing an unstoppable fiendness for analog audio...



...because i also couldn't resist this 7", circa 1996, from versus.  i just recently got their album "the stars are insane" and loved it instantly....so this was a no-hesitation buy.

and yes, i have plans to make little mixtapes with all this analog audio and "me" time!



are you familiar with veniero's? it seems like a destination spot for tourists...but man. it's actually quite worth your while. it's great for those who are both indecisive AND gluttonous, because their desserts come in miniature sizes, so you can fill up a small box for around $5-7.

...and then you can proceed to eat it ALL in one sitting, which is exactly what i did (washed down with a few scoops of ben and jerry's!). the chocolate cannoli is quite possibly the best i've ever had. not pictured: cream puff, because i had devoured it before i thought to snap a picture...

so there you have it. "me" time = indie pop and sweets.



too typical?

self-made inspirations, part 1.

when strapped for a career direction, it's sometimes useful to reflect back on how you might have viewed things when you had a more opportunity-filled and idyllic view of the reality that is navigating the career world. before i knew the anxiety-inducing obstacle it is to define and achieve the perfect career path, i simply wanted to be an entrepreneur.



although...i'd prefer not to use the word "entrepreneur", because it conjures up images of wearing a suit and stiffly articulating obsequious business proposals to venture capitalists. no, no, the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that i'm thinking of is nothing like that. it's totally within reach and knows no compromises - you just have to have a vision and a desire to do your own thing. this is a new aspect to my blog that i'd like to undertake in the coming months, where i want to recognize the self-made people who have inspired me. i'll start here with one new and one old.

gary pepper vintage



when i first noticed nicole warne on weardrobe, i was immediately drawn to her well-styled and early 90's-inspired outfits of cropped tops, blazers, lace, minidresses and a feminine color palette. imagine how pleased i was to discover that the blog linked to her weardrobe account was much more than a personal style blog, but a showcase for her vintage store, through which her personal brand is strongly projected - nicole buys, styles, models, photographs and lists everything herself.



gary pepper vintage is less than a year old, but nicole has already worked on a collaboration with solestruck, hosted a bunch of generous giveaways, put some of her own designs into production and is now listing new items by the hundreds. the gary pepper vintage brand is a lifestyle - one that stemmed from a girl who simply stayed true to her own creative vision and let her business grow from there - "the gary pepper girl is a japanese popstar. famous in her own right, admired by all."



pick*y cosmetics



thinking about pick*y cosmetics is like recalling a first. first time driving car, first time cooking a meal, first time feeling completely intrigued by a self-made inspiration. i discovered pick*y cosmetics through an online forum that i used to peruse when i was 14 or 15 (this was 2000/2001. pre-facebook, pre-myspace, even pre-friendster). the online forum was full of progressive-minded girls and actually paved the way for a lot of my own self-development, but i digress. pick*y was the name of the all-natural, homemade cosmetics company run by one of the forum members - i think her name was tasha. tasha formulated, produced, designed and packaged everything herself, in her own home, using few all-natural ingredients.



tasha was an active poster on the forum, so it didn't take long before her products spread virally across the community (an earlier form of social media marketing? maybe.)...and i started obsessively scouring her web site everyday and enviously reading the rave reviews of her products by other forum members. i watched as her business grew, as she re-designed and re-packaged and introduced new products. i remember admiring tasha's alternative, raver-ish style and her bright eye makeup, and then watching as she unleashed a line of brightly-hued eye colors.



i didn't have a credit card or checking account back then, so it took a bit of time and polite begging before my mom (also quite skeptical of online ordering at the time) finally allowed me to make a purchase. i greedily got one of each kind of product on pick*y - two solid perfumes, a shimmery lip gloss, a pot of lip balm, a lotion on a stick, and eye dust...and waited so eagerly for them to arrive. and they were very much worth it - i remember heavenly smells of strawberry, cucumber and grass, all carefully packaged together with a personal touch. i was so proud of my pick*y products - no one else had them. im sad to say, however, that one day, without warning, pick*y was gone. while i considered it a very successful business, we were all much younger back then, and perhaps tasha wanted to move onto other things. there's hardly a trace of pick*y cosmetics on the internet anymore, but i'll always remember how inspired i felt at the thought of how far one person could really carry out an idea.

Ana Hickmann

Ana Lucia Hickmann known us Ana Hickmann, she is beautiful of Brazillian model. Ana was born March 1, 1981 in Santa Cruz do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

tapes and tapes.

back in chicago, i used to listen to records all day. it was fun listening to analog audio, where the medium doesn't allow for shuffling songs or skipping tracks with the touch of a button. i want to get back to the point where i think of music in cohesively produced albums, rather than a slew of random tracks.



unfortunately, i don't have space for a record player in my tiny bedroom...so i've changed my analog preference to cassette. i now have a space-saving portable cassette player (with fm tuner), a simple device which you can still purchase at electronic stores for $8-10. i got mine at the kmart in astor place and painted it over with coats of glitter and modge podge.

shopping for cassettes is fun, like treasure-hunting. in record stores, it seems like cassettes are almost always thrown into unorganized piles underneath alphabetized records and cd's, forcing you to dig and poke around to find the good stuff. a few tips: rainbow music on 8th and 1st has mountains and mountains of rare cassettes that you could probably browse for hours. ear wax records in williamsburg has a few boxes of cassettes as well as some rare ones locked away in a display case. and academy annex has some limited release small label cassettes. and plustapes, a chicago-based record label and distro which i recently discovered at pitchfork festival, deals solely with cassette tapes.



here is the small collection that i have built up over the past few days:



roxy music - avalon (1982)

serge gainsbourg - love on the beat (1984)

cocteau twins - heaven or las vegas (1990)

morrissey - bona drag (1990)

rem - out of time (1991/german takt music release)

the afghan whigs - gentlemen (1993)

kate bush - the red shoes (1993)

week in chicago.

i got back around midnight last night from nearly a week-long visit to chicago, and what a relaxing trip it was! although i lived in chicago for nearly three years, returning there for a visit offered a new experience - one where i felt a nostalgic appreciation for all the things that differentiate chicago from manhattan. so here is my list of things that captured my fondness this week in the midwest.



1. in chicago, even if you are a not-yet-established twentysomething, you can live in a castle with a frontyard and a backyard in a trendy area occupied mostly by the hip and young-spirited.

this is the street that my boyfriend lives on! of course, those are not real castles [although i read somewhere that immigrants to chicago did mimic the architecture of eastern european castles], but multi-unit buildings with beautifully rehabbed apartments that have all the desirable modern amenities as well as preserved vintage fixtures - vinny's apartment has pillars!



2. in chicago, you can also lounge around sipping on beers in your spacious backyard, watching the sun set and wasting time just as you please. and you can fire up the grill if you get hungry. thus leading to a most delicious dinner of savory grilled tofu accompanied by roasted corn, greens and a cold beer.

3. in chicago, you can hear and watch nightlife go by from the platform of the elevated rail system. below, my old 'hood, as seen from the damen blue line platform. amazing for people-watching. if you happen to be there past 1 or 2 am on a weekend, my guess is that the odds of catching someone ralfing it up on the sidewalk are quite high...

see the upper lefthand corner? i lived just around the corner from there, a surprisingly quieter safe haven from the perpetual madness that is the six corners (or 'crotch') of wicker park.



4. in chicago, you can attend large, multi-stage, three-day outdoor music festivals without having to travel to a different state or even outside city limits. such as pitchfork music festival. this was my third and possibly best year!

just as i suspected...yoni wolf from WHY? was greeeeeeat!

and here's my sad little picture of wolf parade. notice a poorly-captured spencer krug on the left side. my hasty point-and-shoot skills do not do their pitchfork set justice!



5. in chicago, i can also wear flip flops without feeling too uncouth or grody. i cannot bring myself to wear flip flops through the grimy, sticky streets of manhattan. in the wide, grass-lined sidewalks of chicago, however, it seems fine! while i don't particularly care for the look of flip flops, i do ultimately enjoy the comfort and freedom they can provide in hot, hot weather...and boy was it hot all week...

here's the pair i sported throughout the weekend - some threadless x havainas flip flops that vinny won from the threadless prize wheel at pitchfork. cute, eh?



6. in chicago, you can get dinner and drunk for $7.50....

on the menu at the boiler room in logan square. oh, alright, maybe this one is a wash because there are many ways to cheaply drink and eat in nyc as well...



7. so, last but not least, in chicago, i get to enjoy brunches with my boyfriend!!!

at cozy corner restaurant and pancake house in logan square.



now it's back to nyc and back to the grind of getting my life together. starting with announcing the winner of the csn stores giveaway: the winner is hannah from heart city vintage! yay! we'll be contacting you shortly.

Ana de la Reguera Sexy Celebrity Photo

Ana de la Reguera Sexy Celebrity Photo

sexy celebrity photo, celebrity stock photos, celebrity stock photos, celebrity stock photography,

giveaway: $50 gift certificate to csn stores.

i'm off to chicago tomorrow! but before i head to laguardia in four hours (because i'm stupidly awake at 5 am), i'm hosting a little giveaway courtesy of csn stores. csn operates over 200 stores that primarily sell home furnishings and housewares, with each store specializing in items ranging from dining room sets to jewelry boxes.

i'm personally a fan of the embossed orange leather bay-berk jewelry box pictured above...reminds me a bit of the vintage samsonite train cases from the 60's. and it would set you back only only a few bills if you enter my giveaway for a $50 gift certificate, which you can use at any of their stores.



you could also use the gift certificate at luxe, csn's shoes and accessories store. did you know that carlos santana has a line of shoes? yes, there you'll find a line called "unity by carlos santana". what? however, i do like the carlos santana 80's pink bow flats that i found. and also a pair of red peeptoe platforms and a nautical drawstring bag.

to enter: all you need to do is leave a comment. you can also tweet/blog/tumbl about the contest for extra entries - just leave additional comments linking to your twitter/blog/tumblr. make sure to leave an email address if you don't have one linked to a blogger account - the email address is essential, because that's how we'll be sending the gift certificate code. [don't worry...i disable and hide comments once the giveaway is over.]



i'll select a winner at random when i get back from chicago (and pitchfork music festival!!!), which means you have until july 19 to enter.





and for now, i'm off to enjoy backyard bbq's and vegan food and goose island beer and the sounds of broken social scene, wolf parade, real estate, cass mccombs and more!

oh yes -  i should also mention the winner of the orient watch giveaway - sandy of zeitgeist. yay! 

times square forever 21 at midnight.

touristy, yes, very touristy.

BUT: go at midnight on a wednesday, when the crowds begin to dissipate a little bit.



also go on one of the hottest, muggiest days of the year and let the cold blast of central a/c draw you in...and navigating the 4-story times square forever 21 (with practically no wait for the 100+ fitting rooms or line to check out!) will be mostly enjoyable.



when i go to forever 21, i like to hunt for items that don't look forever 21 - no thin and scrappy rayon tops or clingy polyester dresses. i guess i'm one of those people that hates forever 21 but keeps crawling back.



this time around, i found a heavy-weight dress with embroidered embellishment, a billowy chiffon top with a drapey cut, pink feather earrings and a scalloped crochet sweater near identical to the one i've been admiring on nasty gal and checked out by 1:30 am and dropped less than $100. not bad, not bad.

figurative fireworks only.

apparently the 4th of july holiday weekend is not staycation time for new yorkers. over the past two days, the city felt eerily abandoned - there was plenty of room to breathe at typically overcrowded weekend spots. i know i complain about crowds quite a bit...but i think i find empty nyc streets a bit more unsettling.



lucky for me, i had a visitor in town. it's kind of fun living in a separate city from a significant other. it's like having a home in two cities...which is certainly one way to have some semblance of a vacation home or timeshare at this point in our lives. and now that i've seen how many new yorkers seem to have multiple homes...i'm glad i do too. sort of.



anyway, i had to drop him off at the airport this evening...so i missed the fireworks over the hudson. but i still had a great weekend!

weekend details: astoria park. bohemian hall. l'arte del gelato. the highline park. love. and much much more.





ps - don't forget to enter the orient watch giveaway. contest ends on thursday.

Victoria's Secret Fall Preview Knitwear

When I get a catalog in the mail, I usually consider it junk mail, so yes, I'll quickly scan through it, of course if it is fashion. I'll then toss it in the garbage with the rest of the annoying articles of useless information. The only thing is sometimes I miss the best designs when I do that. I've listed a few of the latest knitted pieces here from the Victoria's Secret Fall Preview 2010 catalog.

Fall preview Lambswool cable knit corset top - $68 at Victoria's Secret

Acrylic and nylon knotted tunic cover up - on clearance for $49.99. This one isn't a part of the fall preview, but I thought it was cool.

Crocheted cotton zip cardigan - $58