Grad School: NYC, Chicago, and the Future

I'm feeling rather melancholy this Sunday morning as I'm thinking about the homework I should be doing if I could be bothered to drag myself the 5 feet out of bed to where my radio book is sitting on the floor. That final is all that stands between me and graduation. Graduation. Again.

The 17^th grade is to be my last year of school. I love learning and always will, but I'm ready for Real Life now. One full year of information-packed graduate school was enough to fill my brain with things I didn't know I desperately needed to learn. Still, it's going to feel weird to have no papers to write, no tests to study for. I'm 22 years old. School has been all I've ever known.

I'm generally a quiet person who is extremely attached to my closest friends. Moving 4 states away to a place where I know nobody has been a huge test for me. In many ways it worked, in some ways it didn't. I did the whole internship in NYC like everybody else and I'm still not sure if I'd call it a success or not. Mostly, I'm disappointed in myself that I was mentally and physically unable to keep commuting the whole time, and switched to telecommuting halfway through.

I didn't see much of New York City. I've said it before, being very grounded in the landlocked Midwest made me prideful about where I come from, so I had a horrible outlook on NYC from the start. I interned there and that was it. I didn't go to Central Park, I only came within a far sight of the State of Liberty, and I never made it to the Ground Zero Memorial (which is what I'm most upset about. I wanted to see that. Every American should.). But honestly... I don't really care about the place. I wasn't happy there. NYC has the most opportunities in the magazine industry. That's where I should be working if I want to go far in my field. But it's not what I want. I want my real friends back and my family and the place I feel familiar and most comfortable with. And that's Chicago.

I've had this city-country-suburban struggle my entire life. I live in the burbs but am close enough to Chicago to go there whenever I want, and half my family lives 3 hours away in small town farmland Wisconsin, where I've spent a lot of time every school break. I'm as at home at the Metropolitan Opera House as I am drinking a beer around a bonfire while listening to a Sunday NASCAR race. And that's really confusing, but I like it that way. I'm not willing to give up my city or country side, and my suburban location makes that possible.

This is the last picture I took in NYC, out the window of my hostel on 14^th Street. It was an unusually warm day and all the trees were beginning to bud and flower. This is how I'm preferring to remember the city. Maybe I'll get back there one day, maybe not.

VPA Spring Fashion Show at SU

Next week starts my class week of classes (ever. EVER!), thus I'm at school on a Saturday to do work. I came here so I would be less distracted. Obviously, I'm blogging. Dang.

I went to the senior VPA spring fashion show the other day (reporting for thenewshouse.com, I'll link up once it gets published), and was pretty surprised by the 35 student collections. I expected big, frilly dresses but actually saw some interesting pieces and a fair amount of tailoring. I sat at the end of the catwalk with the press section and felt like a twerp with my digital camera in a sea of huge DSLRs. I really need to learn how to use a legit camera, since I'll be running the street fashion blog for the Post & Courier in Charleston, SC in about 3 weeks.

But anyway, here are the less blurry pictures that I took of the looks that I liked and my less formal comments. For something more substantial, see... (here. once it's published :):

This collection by Amanda Rhoads was pretty riske in comparison to the others. Niiiiiiice! Glad someone did something different. She did some crazy awesome stuff with weaving and unconventional materials. And yes. That is a whip in the background. 

A fabulous collection by Annie Petersen, in which all the clothes were black. Props to her for sending her models down the runway barefoot! Loved her textured collection.

The sleeves on this top by Emily Barnes blew my mind. I didn't even notice that the sleeves were rolled up until she pulled them down. Great performance element.

Erin Marie Hedderman's collection looked Alice in Wonderland inspired to me (she even used "Heads Will Roll" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs as her music). I loved the tight corsets, they looked great from the back since all we saw was skin between the laces. Love!

The look second from the left was fabulously accessorized with that cute round travel box. And I think the middle model was the only one in the whole show to wear tall boots. Collection by Hollis L'Estrange Daniels.

I wish I had great pics for every look in this collection. Joshua Eder-Hart is an amazing tailor and craftsman and it totally showed. He had a huge variety of pieces. The program said that he won competitions for best costumes at Cons. That made me love him more. 

This collection by Lauren Nicole Kessler was super mod and chic. Great lengths on the skirts and skinny belts with round sunglasses. A very well-put together collection overall. And how fierce is the model second from the left? Git it gurl.

Maxi Britt Roberts must be a professional already as her collection was pretty spot on. She used bouquets of lavender a la Ashish Spring 2012, perfectly placed hats, and a western theme that was echoed in the music. I think it was a Johnny Cash remix? Not totally sure, but it fit wonderfully. There's a bright future for this girl for sure.

I also liked Peter Joshua Borsky's collection because he showed a variety of looks. The colors looked nice together and I loved that he used all brown oxfords instead of heels. It's an entirely wearable collection.

I loved this look from Talia Hermesh. That front white piece swayed when the model walked, really great movement.

Wei Chang Chen's collection was so cute and girly. If pastel-neutral is a color category, that's what I would use to describe it. 

And that's it for the relatively focused pics I have. Everything is way worse than these even. Shame, that. 

Vera Wang Fall 2012

As many of you might know, I am a web intern at Bridal Guide Magazine. Bridal Fashion Week in NYC is now over and the press kits full of high-res new collection photos are beginning to flood my inbox. Which is fabulous! One of my current projects at BG is creating our gown gallery, which features the new fall collections from designers. One of the first galleries I was assigned to create was for Vera Wang, THE goddess divine of all things bridal. Yes, I drooled. And yes, my finger might have slipped and the whole gallery somehow ended up on my flash drive. How unusual!

Vera Wang's fall collection is completely in shades of red, from that bright color you paint your toenails in summer to a deep maroon, nearly purple. And the amount of texture these gowns have is amazing. I just had to share because, well, you'll see why.

You can view the rest of the collection here! And you can check out my awesome CMS skillz.

Tapas

Hey y'all. This post really isn't about anything... blog was just lacking in Real Pictures Of Me at the moment, so here are a few. I hung out with some fellow grad student ladies at a tapas bar in Syracuse. I'm still incapable of taking pictures indoors that aren't grainy and out of focus. Forever confused about my camera. :[

I've been dying to wear this black sheer over-dress thing since I got it. I would have loved to wear it with my black strapless romper underneath, but it was 40 degrees and raining. Womp. So I wore my trusty t-shirt dress (technically from the pj section) and grey tights. Also black lace-up ledges that didn't make it into the photo.

A Favorite Photographer: yyellowbird

Today I'm going to introduce you to my favorite photographer on Flickr, Carri Ann Wayman, known as yyellowbird. I was introduced to her work a few years ago by my roommate who went to the same high school as her. She's from Rockford, Illinois, which is an hour away from where I live.

Her schtick is abandoned buildings. Well, abandoned anything. I love looking at decaying places because there's something so sad and nostalgic about them. It makes you wonder about the people who used to live there... what kind of life they had... why they left...

The majority of her settings are rural middle-America type places.

I wrote on her tumblr saying that her photos in locations with wallpaper like this remind me of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins. She said that she always thinks of that story, too. :]

There's also something very lost-wandering-lolita about her style. She dresses very "childish," I guess you could say. Knee socks and little dresses and skirts. I love her clothes!

This one always reminds me of The Wizard of Oz. I'm pretty sure she has been called self-indulgent by some people because she is almost always her own model in her photos. What's wrong with that? Her photos are so personal and so emotional, and abandoned house searching is her hobby. She road trips all over the country shooting these pictures. It only makes sense that she'd be her own model. It's her story.

Please visit her Flickr! I can spend hours clicking through her photos.