Clothes shopping Spree

This is basically shit I want:

Princess Leia's Hoth boots. Thankfully not available in my size.

This tshirt, by a long-lost relative?

A sweater to wear over it.

And an amazing coin purse from my PR fave Diana Eng.

Dress. Dress.

Sunglasses.


Etsy and food sprees upcoming.

Indiana Icons of the 21st Century

Indiana was formerly famous for producing Kurt Vonnegut, David Letterman, and *shudder* Dan Quayle. These guys aren't as famous, but I love them both. Especially since both Hoosiers hail from the opposite side of the culture wars from Quayle. One is the Sartorialist. The other is the creator and producer of Glee, Ryan Murphy.

Umbrellas

I waited a long time to find this third umbrella. And then I spent forever trying to find these very very very old links. I especially like this Victorian postcard depicting life before widely available, affordable, and legal birth control.

Dress yourself

I want this dress.
Mostly because of this show.

Links

Where the Wild Things Are trailer via kottke
Fifi Lapin and LeSportSac together
Cootie catchers and other fortune tellers
Chic Chicago
GQ's slideshow of the 50 most stylish men also via kottke

Dress Season

It's almost dress season. Dress. Dress. Dress. Dress. Dress.

Snapshot: Listening, Watching, Reading, Wearing, Wanting

The nogoodforme blog always does this feature, which is my favorite.

Listening:Fresh Air (from February 2008); Tegan and Sarah.
Watching: Blazing Saddles, Bladerunner, 30 Rock, American Teen, Rachel Getting Married.
Reading: Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations; either Coraline or 13 Clocks; The Bell Jar.
Wearing: new socks, a white button down Stephan gave me for Xmas; jeans his mom gave me a few Xmas-es ago; boots.
Wanting: these shoes, a basil plant.

Awesome Stuff I Loved in 2008

Websites that are bad for me: Facebook and Jezebel. Jezebel inspired this post.

Hard Liquor. In particular free shots won at trivia night at the Bucktown Pub and Bailey's during cards at R's.

Politics. Obama 08. Indiana goes blue. Minus Prop 8. Minus Blago scandals. Minus Bush's last minute policy bullshit.

Stephan's invented old-timey slang. We heard the term "jukie" in a song by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks and decided a Jukie was a music hipster. Then Stephan invented other categories of hipster: a Nick (nickelodeon) is a movie hipster; a Nick at Nite is a horror movie hipster; and a picture boxer is a television hipster. I am proud to be a picture boxer.

Green beans. The year before it was broccoli; 2008 was green beans.

Children's Book Club: highlights include Watership Down and Howl's Moving Castle. Book club has also helped me rediscover the Chicago Public Library.

Sewing class at the Needle Shop.

Pants that were not jeans: cords, my striped guys, yellow chinos, and Bitten canvas pants.



What's going to be awesome in 2009:
*More sewing classes at the Needle Shop and more book club.
*Horses. The birds/deer of the future. Vintage horse buttons on ebay would be a good start. See above.
*Trips to San Diego, Springfield IL, and Chapel Hill NC.
*The revival of cloth napkins. My roommate did this in college, and hence I did. Now I have some pretty new ones, and I'm reviving the tradition.
*Inauguration.

December post

I am procrastinating, and I also wanted to get in one post in December. Shoes I don't need:
Those JCrew slippers:


Boots:


Elf shoes:


And some fancy guys:

Plaid

So, I'm obviously not the only one who is coveting plaid right now. In fact, I stole this Dorthea Lange image from Nothing Elegant, who inspired this post. Forme-foryou also is loving it. Other plaid guys are from here and here. None of them beat my favorite jacket though, pictured at top, or this Dorothea Lange lady or even Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. I don't need any jackets/coats, but maybe I'll indulge in a plaid top or dress sometime soon.

Fairy Tale Outfits

I really like this challenge over at Creature Comforts. Set 1 here and set 2 here. I'm always impressed how much work goes into a single post over Creature Comforts.

Tilden Menken-Katz

It's been a while since I just posted Mad Men pictures for no reason. This week's episode was amazing. I'm really enjoying the Peggy story line this season, and her and Don's interactions this week were transcendent. The two weeks before that were pretty amazing too, though I'm still conflicted about the two moments of violence. I'm not sure if this discomfort is due to how the show handled them, or based mostly on fan reaction. On a more light-hearted note, Rachel Menken Katz's dress is awesome, the only Tilden I know is this Jewish if not more so, and Colin Hanks is incredibly endearing as the Jesuit priest. (Holla Roswell!) Images care of the MM blog and What's Alan Watching.

Pleating

I'm a huge fan of pleating, in its many forms, in fashion at the moment. Here are some of my favorites, from here, here, here, and here.

Michael Kors

My favorite of the Michael Kors show. Not that these are inspired by Mad Men and Alfred Hitchcock or anything.

For Rachel

Fashion Tip #4

Leia Look-alike

I was searching for old Hollywood tobacco cards on ebay and ran across this one of Myrna Loy and Reginald Denny. Myrna Loy has Princess Leia's hot-cross-bun hairdo!

Top 5 Best Dressed Characters

One of my favorite podcasts-- Filmspotting --has this gimmick each week where they pick a theme and choose their top 5 movies based on that theme. I had the idea that I should do a television version of their top 5's, where appropriate. Recently, in honor of Sex in the City, they did their top 5 best-dressed characters. So here are my top 5 best-dressed tv characters, both male and female, in honor of Sex and the City.

The Ladies:
1. Rachel Menken in Mad Men. I've posted about Betty Draper's clothing twice already, so I'm not sure how much more I can say about her other than that her clothing is gorgeous. But I haven't talked about Rachel Menken's clothes. She matches Betty's budget, unlike Peggy, and modesty, unlike Joan. But Rachel Menkin has the female executive look going, matching all the men in suits I list down below. I don't always love the hats, but the suits, gloves, etc, are all amazing.
2. Lilly in How I Met Your Mother. So admittedly my love of Lilly's clothes is slightly narcissistic since she has worn two shirts I own.
3. Veronica in Veronica Mars. Mmm, this is narcissistic again. Veronica Mars owned my green Lucky hoodie.
4. Alma in Deadwood. You just can't beat corsets and hoop skirts.
5. the models on Project Runway. Not much explanation needed here.

The Men:
1. the boys from Stella. Crisp NY suits.
2. Kramer in Seinfeld. Hipster before there was hipster.
3. Don Draper in Mad Men. Crisp 1960 suits.
4. Jin in Lost. Jin pulls off island chic the best of the boys, in my opinion. Lots of button-downs, and his hair doesn't scare me.
5. Fox Mulder in the X-Files. Crisp FBI suits. Unlike Scully, perfection from the get-go.