Fashion: Sales

There is money to be saved. Money for the wedding, money for birthdays, money for groceries and bills and rent. There is no money for clothes even though I buy them anyway.

I have never enjoyed sales. The racks are messy, they're always in the back of the store, the thing you want is never in your size and when I do buy sale items sometimes I buy it just because it's on sale and then later it sits, taking up precious room in my closet. Sales frustrate me, they push me to make a decision now, because who knows if the sale ends tomorrow or if the item will still be there in 5 minutes. I used to really hate sales.

But now I live with Mr. Fiscal Responsibility and a towering list of things I need to do and pay for, and now suddenly sales are my dearest, most whored-out friend. I haven't really gone shopping since I moved to Seattle from San Francisco, became earthshatteringly (one word) poor, and then spent the money I did have quitting my job there and moving back to San Francisco. Until this years Nordstrom Sale and then once I started I just couldn't stop.

So first I bought the jacket because the jacket was just so effing cool and I love jackets and the nordstrom catalog with their fancy pictures of beautiful people just got me. But I didn't get it in white because... I spill... I got in turquoise. I think it works.

*Sorry about the dirty mirror. bummer about that.

And then, because I was all about risk taking (why not) I got the shoes. THE shoes. The shoes I've been mentioning? Were so cool? Too cool for me?

They are also incredibly, ridiculously comfortable and, surprisingly, keep my feet nice and warm on chilly San Francisco nights. These are the shoes that had me running to buy skinny jeans, yet another sale purchase during all of this hullabaloo. I also bought a pair of running pants because I can't seem to ever quite purchase enough of those.

After raiding Nordstrom I went on to Anthropologie, one of the best sale stores ever. Their sales are huge, constant, and rotate every month? I'm not entirely sure, but I know it's at least a few times a season. There I bought this shirt, because I am a slave to ruffles:

And these sandals, because I have honeymoon visions, visions of comfortable, yet stylish feet, visions of skirt wearing days somewhere in my future:

And this giant yellow flower, because it's a giant yellow flower:

Here's the thing: I have had an awakening and I honestly don't understand why anyone would buy anything not on sale in any scenario (quicky weddings and funerals aside). I know there are certain items, as a shopper, as a clothes-horse, that we feel we absolutely cannot live without right this very moment. Except you can, and you probably should. Almost everything goes on sale, even the highest designer brands, and what I'm saying is, you can have everything you want at a reduced price. I'm a girl on a budget, but even if I wasn't, sales just make sense. I bought all of this for two-hundred-something-dollars (definitely under $300.00). Two pairs of shoes, one shirt, one pair of pants, one jacket, and one pair of running pants. Yes there are cheaper places to buy, but quality over quantity is a whole other post. Sales, my friends, go forth and shop.

*Note: Watch out for places like Jcrew that do these big sale events but then don't let you return anything if it doesn't fit. I don't like shopping at stores that make me feel like a theif, a pauper, or make me suffer for wanting to try things on that are only online but then don't let me return them if they don't fit. Amen? Amen.

Fashion: The Skinny

So I saw some shoes in the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale catalog. Not just any shoes, but the coolest shoes I had seen in forever, and I even had the guts to want to buy them. The problem? These shoes required a certain kind of pant due to their amazing ankle cuff. The type of pant they required?
 Skinny Jeans.

Or Skinny Pants. Or any leg covering - not tights - that had the word skinny some how associated with them. The type of pants I have runrunrun away from ever since I saw a glimpse of them on some skinny girls amazing body. Because in my world, I have a butt and some thighs to match. And I just thought.... pants with tight ankles are doing me NO favors. But the shoes people! The shoes! And they were on sale! So I just had to try. I went to twitter first. Where I always go for fashion advice.

And then guess who replied! None other than mightygirl herself. She suggested Express or the Limited. And when I went to Express.com and guess what? They TOO were having a sale! Just on jeans! 30% off! And so I did. I bought two and had them rushed so I could do a little try on and return if they didn't work. Meanwhile the amazing! shoes! were on their way! from nordstrom! And suddenly I think I've gone over my quota for exclammation points today. Hm.

So here I am. an actual owner of the skinny jean.

Here is the lowdown on the skinny. If you aren't skinny, go with something that has stretch. Something that borders on tights but isn't actually the jean tights I look upon with skepticism and fear. This pair is actually amazingly comfortable and, unlike the second pair I purchased, I can actually pull them up past mid-thigh. They don't cut in, meaning there is no muffin top to be found, and they don't actually make my butt look any bigger than it is. Plus they were about 1/3 of the price I usually spend on jeans. They do scrunch up a bit at my ankle, which is fine for a casual look, but doesn't completely function with the amazing-cuffed-shoe situation. Right now I roll them to get them to sit flush, but I'm still working on it. Pictures and discussion of said cuffed shoe will have to go into another daring shoe post, I'm still working on how to rock the look. But in the meantime lets just marvel at the fact that I actually bought a pair of these:

Pink socks and all.

Lust List 2: The Perfect Bag

Everywhere I look I see amazing clutches, briefcases, travel bags and purses. I don't need them, I wish I did, I want them. I wish I could justify owning every single one of these. But I can't, so instead I post them here. Maybe you can justify it? I'll cheer you on. And then when it arrives at your front door can I hold it? Just once? Please?

That man just became 10x sexier holding that deliciously leather briefcase. It also comes in green and I want it from Jenny N. out of Austin, TX. Hot.

I wish I was this cool. Bright, happy, patterned day clutch cool. It would also be helpful to have those legs. I'm just sayin. This designer is aptly named Proud Mary and this clutch is only $60.00! Hooray!

Holy jeebus this is my favorite find - from Trakatan. In my imaginary life, this is the quintessential travel bag. Big enough to fit a jacket, an umbrella, maps, money, passport, and still have room to fit any shopping finds while away from the hostel. And! it's so deep - how the hell are you going to get pick-pocketed? Dude would have to shove his whole forearm in their just to sift around. Amazingly fabulous.

And last, but not least, one of the greatest everyday bags I've ever seen, another total score by Trakatan. You've got to go look at the pictures on the site for this because it can be worn in so many different ways. Plus I love the little flap closure. Grocery shopping, walking through the park, or snatched off the table on your way to dinner, it works. It can be a city style backpack or an over the shoulder bag. And the clean lines, industrial edge, and fine leather make it perfect for any situation. Lustlustlustlust.

Lust List: 1

We all do it. The online wishing, the bored at work dreaming. The online window shopping. If I had random extra money I would buy myself lots of random, beautiful, interesting, fashionable things. Instead of just dreaming about these items and then silently crying that I can't buy them for myself, I'm going to share them here. And then maybe you can buy them for me. ha! kidding! you can buy them for yourself and then I will envy you and stare at your new items, found here, with such longing that it will become awkward and we will no longer be friends... ahem... On to the list.

How amazing would this be after a crabby day at work? Or when you're sick? Screw the kids, I want one. Thanks Crywolf!

Because everyone needs more creepy in the kitchen and KRASZNAI Ceramics knows exactly how to do it. And as Maris pointed out: "if only it made little cakey arms and legs too!" We'll just have to settle on ceramic ones.

Oh man. I love my hair things, and how sweet would one or two of these by Sleepictures be pinning back my unruly mane? I like to keep adorableness (ness?) both hip and chic - these clips are just the thing.

Go check out these great designers! Buy gifts for people or for yourself! Everyone loves presents - including me. 

Fashion: Embellished Wedges

I have a graduation to attend this weekend! My best friend, Maris Jean Jager is graduating from law school and I am more than honored to attend. I'll be writing about that day once it happens, but for now let's talk about what I'm going to wear.

Last year for my graduation from grad school I bought two dresses. There were a lot of events and I figured, who needs less dresses? Not me. I'm always on the search for wearable dresses that don't need an occasion to be taken off the hanger. But so far, I seem to only have the guts to wear things on very special occasions. Hopefully, one day, I can write a post about my amazing everyday dress find, but for now this post is about the clothes I have now.

So I bought two dresses last year and only wore one. The other one sat in my closet because it lacked some very important things. 1) a short enough shrug to make it "church" appropriate. Short enough because the waist on this dress is a little high. Kathleen - another bestie - got me a black one for my birthday, and instructed me on where to find other colors. So I ran to Nordstrom, a holy holy place, and got a cream one. I also needed 2) a pair of shoes. Ones that looked enough like sandals to match the bright and airy nature of the dress, but that were high enough to change the way my legs looked. The way the dress is cut, my legs end up looking fat and squat. Oh the glory of lift! (In so many areas)


Thank god for the Nordstrom women's and children sale. Also for gift cards. A pair of amazing brown wedges by Franco Sarto, originally about $80.00 are now mine for about $50.00 and just in time.


I am generally afraid of big embellishments on most clothes. I'm a weeny about accessories and I like solid prints (not actually a print at all), understated elegance, yatta yatta - the truth is I feel lost with loud clothes (unless it has to do with my hair and then BIGGER BRIGHTER MORE FLOWERS!). But I feel like these shoes do it right. The wedge gives me lift without killing my feet, the stones and bedazzlement make me feel like a grown up, like I'm not running around in shoes bought at the teenage section of any department store.


By god, I think I may just be a lady after all. (After you ignore my just out of bed hair and the remnant of long forgotten toe nail polish, that is. Oh my, there's still work to be done.)

Fashion: Glasses

I used to have amazing pink and brown ralph lauren glasses that cost me about $400 because - hell0 - glasses are shoes for your face! And then i lost them. I think maybe they fell off my shirt in an airport, but regardless of how or why, they have vamoosed. I thought maybe I would find them when I moved, but no such luck.

I finally accepted that I needed new glasses, I brought this knowledge into my heart and swallowed it. Except I had two problems. 1) No money and 2) i do not remember my prescription (from right before I turned 23). So Kamel and I went to Costco where you can have both your eye exam and get new glasses for about $200.00 give or take a fancy lens or two.

Needless to say I was pretty apprehensive about the glasses selection at the local Costco. These new glasses were going to (hopefully) be something I would wear for years. I didn't want some crappy wire frame. I wanted them to be *ahem* cute.

After the trauma of having my pupils dilated (ew, does anyone like that feeling?) I spent way too much time going from lighted glass case to lighted glass case, going back and forth between hiding behind my sunglasses and trying to find the best women's frame for my face. But it was like hitting my head against a wall.


Do I want gross colors and crazy prints? Or ultra girly all pink and gaggy?


There was more leopard print and heart cutouts than I have ever witnessed in a Claire's Accessories or in a cougar bar.

I was feeling myself start to settle and hated it.

Until Kamel suggested I try the men's section. "No!" I said, "They're going to be too big!" It was a shock to me that buying glasses is not at all like buying shoes. They fit the glasses to your head after you pick them out. Very much unlike my boot dilemma where if the shoe don't fit, too bad for you. So yes, if you have a fat head or lopsided ears, the glasses people will help you! They will work many moons of magic. But in my case, the amazing Converse frames I picked out needed no adjusting. They were perfect.


Understated with just a touch, a subtle touch, of flare.


And I think the touch of masculinity plays off nicely to my usual girly fluff. I like ribbons and silk and poofy sleeves and ruffles. I can't help it, I've been floofy since I was an infant, but these are sturdy and simple, like all my accessories.


Plus they have these tiny engraved stars on each temple, a Converse must, which remind me of my favorite tennis shoes which are now on their second replacement after I literally wore holes into the first pair from years and years of use.

Fashion: Boots

I have been searching and searching and dreaming and dreaming about boots that fit for years. I finally got the nerve to try them on (because the truth is what if I liked them? A good pair are hundreds of dollars!) when I got a stable job way back in September of 2008. I tired out the poor nordstrom man, demanding box after box brought out to me, just to realize I couldn't pull them up, zip them closed or fasten them around my fat calves. The boots I could slide on, the boots the nordstrom man said were for larger calved people, didn't have that "I just threw these on over a pair of jeans and ran out the door" look. They were supposed to be a little gapped around the leg, so you could either where those cute knee high socks that would poke out the top a little and a skirt, or slide them comfortably over skinny jeans, but on me the gap did not exist and they just made me look stupid. So I gave up.

Until I was looking at Mightygirl and what is this, the third post I've mentioned her? I should just be her best friend already and shut up about it. But anyways - I was reading this post and I thought why don't I have adorable grey boots to be the finishing touch to my wardrobe? I live in San Francisco, I should have walking boots too! So then I posted some tweets:


I was hoping to get some encouragement from the internet world but it failed me.


But I was bored at work and on a mission so I headed to Zappos where I figured every boot under the sun would be available. And low and behold:


And plus, I received encouragement. All I really needed was a little nudge and those boots were purchased - in two sizes.


Zappos is amazing and expedited my shipping for free because they love me. They do. and when they arrived I ran to try them on because, internet, this was the day of reckoning, the day I would have to convince myself to buy skinny jeans because what else was going to fit inside my amazing new slouchy boots? The kind of boots that finish any outfit, in grey, because that's not black or brown and that's the color the lady on Mightygirl was wearing and she looked amazing and so will I!


Except not really because I couldn't get the boot over the meaty-bits of my calf and I could already feel the circulation being cut off the harder I yanked and pulled until they got stuck.




There was no way I was sneaking anything between me and that soft, beautiful leather. They looked stupid and felt worse. On a happy note I have a year to return them to zappos for a full refund, so all is not lost. Except for my boot hopes and dreams. I'm still accepting recommendations on full figured calf friendly boots, but I need links and letters of reference. Until then I'll stick to flats and my collection of tennis shoes.

Fashion: Makeup Or Not

It's Friday and I'm bored at work so what am I doing? Surfing the blogosphere, that's what. And once again Mightygirl is inspiring me to think beyond my usual existance, and re-evaluate my lifescope with this post. I generally love her packing light blogs because who doesn't like hearing tips on wrinkle free clothes that will look good in all of those vacation pictures. I take more pictures on vacation than anywhere else and I'm always looking wrinkled and schleppy. Mightygirl has definitely given me tips on how to keep my facebook albums looking sharp, is all I'm saying.

But when I saw her latest packing post on makeup and toiletries I had a serious what the fuck moment. I know that I am not the most makeup-y person I know. I'm probably one of the least makeup-y persons I know. Maris and Claire out rank me in that arena by a good leap ... maybe even a bound. But I'm not makeup ignoramous. For proof of this I bring you a photo of me from December - probably wearing the most makeup I've ever worn ever:



I know how to make it work. The smudging and stuff, the morning after beauty. I can apply lipstick. But I do probably 3 times a year? MAYBE. So when I read this post and was all "woah! that's a long list, I'm lucky if I remember my toothbrush on vacation!" I thought - there has to be comments with my exact sentiment, right? There had to be people out there just as blown away by the amount of beauty products listed in that post. I'll give it to her, she is really really put together, but who needs a nose hair clipper or a nail kit on any vacation ever? Aren't there things you take care of before you go? So I checked the comments, read through them all, and did not find one person who thought maybe the list was a little excessive. Instead the comments were all "great tips! I'll add that to my list!" Whhaa? Really? Why? And then of course I couldn't help but feel a little left out.



Because I want to be put together too! I want bleed free lipstick! (do i?) And I want perfect hair and well manicured nails! I want people to be like "wow, she is flawless and she doesn't even try!" And I do. Except I don't want to just SEEM like I don't try, I really want to not try. I want my wake up to out the door time frame (with a shower) to be no more than 45 min and that includes a blowdry. I don't want to spend an hour getting ready in a hotel room when I could be running around seeing and doing lots of things (life list things?). I would prefer to have decent hair and wrinkle free clothes and nothing stuck in my teeth while I'm posing in front of Aztec Pyramids, but I don't think I care about removing my makeup before I go to sleep or making sure I have baby wipes on hand for sticky situations (those things are great for everything I hear), but does that make me a complete tomboy doof? For some reason I'm still feeling left out of the girl club and kind of like I need to get my act together. And I'm feeling pretty annoyed by how a list of beauty products is giving me this knee-jerk reaction. Where are the girls who like buying shoes and purses but also don't care about walking out of the house with mascara on? I need a middle ground.

Fashion: Rain Boots

In a way I have always envied/scoffed at the rain boot. Sometimes they look stupid but then other times they look really cute and beyond that they keep your flats and your jeans DRY when it's pouring down rain. Last time I lived in Seattle I had to greatly limit the shoes I wore to work or out and about because my feet always got wet and my jeans always got wet and then they were wet the WHOLE DAY and I hate hate hated it. So this time around, the first thing on my to-do list was buy boots.

But then I forgot.

So a few weekends ago when it was down pouring for two days I was cursing myself for not having my boots. It really sounded more like this, "Uggghhh!! CLAIIIRREEE!! I should have bought booooooooooots!!" In the whiniest voice possible. Attractive. So on that sunday Claire and I trekked out to target where I had done my online research and found out they had BILLIONS of boots in different styles and shapes all for around $24.99. So of course I was like Uber Excited right? I'm pretty sure there was an "I'm going to Tar-get to get me some Boo-oots" dance, but it cannot be confirmed. Anyhoos - we get to target and I beeline to the shoes section and there are - get this - NO BOOTS TO BE FOUND. When I ask a sales person to point me in the right direction she says "oh we already have our next season stuff in, and we aren't carrying them anymore."

So let me get this straight... Target believes that in seattle the season for rain boots is..... SUMMER?! Am I in the twilight zone? Has the world turned upside down? Topsy Turvey? I am both incredibly annoyed and disappointed. What the eff, Target. Way to let a girl down. So we drove home bootless and I jumped right back on my computer to order them online, aggravated that I couldn't have immediate gratification AND that I have to now pay for shipping. But I wasn't kidding about the selection. Check out THESE BEAUTIES at Target.com. I know right? So I ordered a pair that Claire pronounced had a design that was "Freakin poetry on a boot." Basically - just emo enough. And the next time it even DRIZZLED outside I was racing to my closet just to put them on and go run outside for 5 minutes.


They work marvelously.

Fashion: Jewelery

Oh my gosh! One of my favorite jewelery designers (Corky) has some new stuff up at Supermarket! My favorite at the moment is this adorable little monster necklace for $25.00.


Awww. I want. :) Go check out more of his collection here: http://supermarkethq.com/designer/60/products and support the artist directly!! :)

Fashion: A-Symmetry

It's always on my mind and I forgot to tell you about my latest small designer purchase! I had been lusting after a new jacket for seattle. Something bright! and happy! to combat the grey and dreary and to ironically accompany my Rain Cloud Necklace.And then I stumbled across Little House on my beloved Supermarket and it was love at first sight. Sigh. But I wasn't sure if the coat would really fit me... buttons down the front, or in this case A-line are sometimes tricky because I tend to be a little busty. But you know what's the best about supermarket?? You can talk directly to the designers and ask there opinions. In this case she told me to send her my measurements and she would custom a coat for no additional cost. LIKE WOAH.And it turned out fabulous. Check it out:




I'm all about supporting independent artists so go check out her stuff if you like what you see. YAY RED!!