Chicago Slutwalk 2012

Is this an update?! IT IS!!

Two weekends ago I attended Chicago's SlutWalk with a friend and covered it for my ChicagoNow blog. (Read that post here). I had planned on putting up a photo gallery of the great outfits worn by fellow attendees but I decided against it for... reasons.

Unfortunately yet not unexpectedly, I received a bunch of comments of the post telling me how women shouldn't "provoke" men by dressing in a revealing fashion and that they should "protect" themselves by dressing conservatively.

I'm not the type to release my fury on readers and respond with my disagreement. Basically, they missed the point. I'm just talking about CLOTHES as freedom of expression. Of course a heterosexual man will stare at a women dressed in a short skirt and a bustier, as one commented pointed out. Sure, you can look if you want. But raping someone because of their short skirt is not ok. It's clothes, not a banner that says violate me without permission. Clothes are not to blame, the rapist is. (duh.) It's ridiculous to me that we should have to edit ourselves to keep men off us. Rape is their wrong move, not ours.

Anyway, I decided to photodump my gallery of outfits here instead because I would undoubtedly have a slew of commentors saying how terrible it is that people are dressing in this way. What do I have to say to that? GTFO. These people are rad and wicked brave for dressing this way.

 

...more after the break!

DIY Necklace for ChicagoNow

Hey! Want some proof that I really have been blogging and not just skiving off posting here? Visit my latest post for Chicago Fashion and Flair for instructions to make a klanky metal necklace. This metal hunk was once a purse handle, now it's 2 necklaces.

See? Ch-Check it out! I'm not supposed to re-post blogs in different locations... so if you could just head over to that site, it would be greatly appreciated. :]

 

An Explanation of Absence

If you haven't noticed, I've been a bit absent on this blog as of late... and I have a real reason! I've started blogging for ChicagoNow. My posts are going to be mainly street fashion in the city alongside original DIYs that I create. So obviously, they don't like me posting DIYs in two places and their site claims priority. So. If you miss my blog, by all means, visit my other blog, Chicago Fashion & Flair, here:

http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-fashion-flair

I have 3 new DIYs queued up, so make sure to check them out! See, here's me hard at work on one of them...

I hope you'll check the site out and support other Chicago bloggers!

Outfit & Redheads

I celebrated my one day off (and my bff's birthday) by hanging out on the near northside for food and drinks. We had originally planned on going to JBar, but the entire place was closed for a private party until 10pm... so lame! Instead, we walked around and found a fancy restaurant for dinner and surprise red velvet cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery. We also happened across a piano bar called "The Redhead," so naturally it was fate for my ginger biffle.

I've been waiting to wear this leather vest since I acquired it from a friend's closet and this day was the perfect opportunity. It's kind of an awkward length for a vest as it's pretty long. My love of fashion juxtaposition pictured this hardcore biker vest with a frilly, girly vest and childish Mary Jane shoes. The only complaint I have with the vest is that the two lapels are also really long, therefor they keep flopping over (as you can see in the first picture). This calls for either strong double stick tape or my trusty bottle of superglue.

leather vest: ASOS

dress: H&M

hand harness: diy

mary janes: Urban Outfitters

bag: F21

This Picture...

I love tumblr as my aggregator of runway news and giving me some inspiring personal style shots at the same time. I don't know if this is just someone's picture they snapped for their flickr or for a lookbook or what. But at this moment, this is everything I love about fashion.

I haven't done a close reading of a photo here... or maybe at all. And I'm going to do one now that explains what I'm loving about this photo. Let's start at the top:

Hair: Bleached and dyed. But not “bleached” in the typical California blond way. I know from reading other blogs that this color of hair is particularly hard to achieve and therefor, pretty rare. You see a rainbow of dipdye at the moment. Solid grey/white dye is different. I like it.

Makeup: I wonder if this is airbrushed or photoshopped because her skin is flawless. No blush, just big lashes and a blended smoky eye. Black lipstick contrasts the whiteness of the photo. Usually black lipstick can stick out drastically but even compared to the photo's tone, I think it fits perfectly and isn't nearly as shocking as it generally is.

Clothes: My favorite part, big surprise! This one top describes my wardrobe in general. Lacey and girly and a bit of punky hardcore. Her top is as feminine as can be in a cream color with a lace neckline and a preppy collar. And then she studded the pocket and part of the collar with pyramid studs reminiscent of a punk rock belt that I had in my first few years of high school. It has that whole "hard yet soft" connotation that so many designers try to portray in their clothes. Fashion juxtaposition is so beautiful to me.

Tone: Minimalistic. Plain white, but it speaks volumes. She's not smiling or putting on a “model” face either, but just looking. This photo made me want to dive for my box of vanilla meringues and arrange them neatly on an antique silver platter.

Does that make sense?

Skulls

Sweet gothy goodness. I came across this picture on Masha Sedgwick's blog that floored me. 

I was scrolling through her latest post and just went “ooooo.” My eye instantly went to the anchor with the skull, of course.

Luckily there's a business card smack in the center of the photo so I scurried off to the website and spent about a half hour looking through picture of skulls and pendants. The site is originally German so unfortunately, I don't know much about the company or what materials they use. Their products range from gothy skull deco...

...to smaller and cheekier skull pendents. 

My personal favorite? These two intricately carved bone-colored skulls, especially the sugar skull style on the left.

Visit the store: Chapter 365

Charleston: Street Style

The three weeks I spent in Charleston were abnormally cool, or so I'm told. The people there dress so colorfully (hardly any black!) and seaside chic. It was refreshing to be in a place where summer lives year round and people are more experienced for dressing for the heat and humidity. I noticed the usual Charleston staples: straw summer hats and seersucker suits, but I also saw brave souls sweating in cowboy boots and sporting brightly patterned shorts. Here are a few of my street style photos I snapped during my coverage of the Spoleto Festival. 

DIY Pearl Drop Necklace

I've been a terrible blogger lately. Sorry. I've got a summer job at the Joffrey Ballet and I get to live in the Loop. Summertime Chi is amazing!

But anyway, here's one of the last DIYs I made in Syracuse with supplies I picked up from Toho Shoji in Manhattan. These little spherical caged pearl beads were an impulse buy because they're too cool looking not to buy... most of my necklaces are pendents so I stepped a little outside my box here to create something different.

Because I was running short on chain, I decided to use ribbon to secure the necklace in the back. I attached 2 large jump rings to the end of the chain I had left for the actual necklace chain. I used 9 dangling chains with a bead attached at each end and staggered the length of each by 2 or 3 links. The curve of the necklace will create a more noticeable difference when you're wearing it. Also make sure to attach each segment the same distance apart; I think I separated mine by 5 links.

Simply fold your ribbon over the ending jump rings and crazy glue the ends. Crazy glue is a crafter's staple, I use it for absolutely everything!

Here's what it looks like on. Fance, right!?

90s Inspo...TOO SOON

I haven't ranted about fashion things for a while now because nothing has completely blown me away or inspired a rant. Until now.

90s fashion.

I noticed this picture on A Beautiful Mess, which is one of my favorite blogs, and they described the photo shoot as 90s inspired? Uh... what?

I'm sure everyone in the fashion world has been noticing all the studs, purple dyed hair, and upside down crosses that are trending. That which people call “grunge” (I've ranted about it before: here). I'm all for it. It's modified grunge per say, “neo-grunge” as I've heard it called. But what has been irking me lately is that this return to grunge style has been beginning to return a lot of other fashion collections to the 90s. Or at least, they say that the 90s are their inspiration.

I need to drop a TOO SOON here. Yes, I am one of those kids who grew up in the 90s who misses the cartoons, the Disney channel original movies, and eating Flinstones Push-pops at the park. I am learning to accept that the 90s weren't actually ten years ago.  

The 90s I remember are Spice Girls and Clueless. These are the 90s clothes that we saw in mass media. They were loud and tacky and we loved them. There was also the opposite side of bubblegum pop-culture: Nirvana (if we're talking grunge).

And these styles are kind of coming back. Fashion looks back most of the time. Designers are inspired by Marie Antionette, Victorian architecture, their homelands, etc. Fashion is beginning to evolve by repeating itself. And that's okay... but looking back at the 90s seems TOO SOON to me. Honestly, if they keep looking back to an era that is within the last 20 years, what are they going to look back to next? Last year?  

Just imagine... a collection next year inspired by last year's take on 90s fashion. Not ok. We need more innovation. Remember Zenon: Girl of the 21^st Century? That was the future to 90s kids. (American Apparel has taken that route so far... tight spandex.) We should all be wearing our hair in pigtails on top of our heads, stretchy chrome boots, and fabrics should be entirely synthetic-based by now. 

Moral of the story is... let's look towards the future and not to the past.

Back to the Chi

I'm back! I have finished with Spoleto coverage in Charleston and can officially say that I have my Master's degree. Want to read a few articles I wrote for the paper? My costume feature is here and my story about the Young Artists series is here.

 

Press Party south of Broad St!

I got a week to "relax" and tomorrow I'm moving to downtown Chicago for 5 weeks. I'll be working as a chaperone for the summer intensive programs at the Joffrey Ballet. I get to live on State Street (but in a dorm, as I'll be supervising 15 year olds) and I'm really excited to experience downtown living while working for a major arts organization. I hope it leads to good things!

Walking around by the Battery, new silk Indian wrap dress!

Now that I'm not in school anymore (!), I hope to get back on track with blogging, stay tuned!

Charleston Update

Hey y'all. I'm getting into the swing of things in Charleston, but am still finding some time between shows and shooting pictures to do some walking around and hanging out. I basically love walking around because the city is SO beautiful and full of history. I'd love to do a huge photodump for the place... maybe once I'm back home.

Today, I saw some ballroom dance and went to a one-women play. I wasn't terribly impressed by either, but I'm not a huge theatre person and the venue for the style of dance wasn't in their favor. I'm excited to see more of the College of Charleston's young artist series tomorrow, which I wrote about the other day (read here). I know a bit about 2 of the piano players, one of whom is extremely young and talented. So that'll be amazing.

Here's a picture of my new bright dress:

 

And because it matched my dress so perfectly, giant macaroon!!

 

If you would like to read my biggest feature article that printed, you can find that HERE. It's about dance costumes, specifically for Alvin Ailey and The Radio Show by Abraham.In.Motion. I even got the skybar on the front page! And in other news... I have an interview with the Joffrey Ballet on Friday for being a summer chaperone... oh yeeeah.

Beard and Mustache Competition

See, I knew I'd neglect this while I'm churning out photos and stories in Charleston. I just got back from watching Alvin Ailey perform (which was amazing), and I'm taking time out to photodump these pictures because they're too rad NOT to be seen. The possible best use of my press pass ever came last night when I attended a beard and mustache competition at Music Farm.

Best. Photo opp. Ever. No one denied me a photo, but the lighting was terrible, so the photos are mostly out of focus. But these guys were the friendliest people ever, and I only wish I didn't look like a lame journalist while they looked super badass (I can picture what I'd want to wear: my black pinupy romper and that sheer overdress, yeah? It's in the Chicago closet, boohoo.). Anyway, here are some of the most fabulous beards of the evening.


WELCOME TO THE SOUTH!!!! (more after the break)

DIY: Bleach Splatter Tank

I'm sneaking in one last DIY before I leave for Charleston tomorrow (!). I always end up with a pile of Hanes beaters that my brother doesn't want, so I basically experiment on them. I dyed one black but it came out a charcoal gray color and wasn't evenly dyed at all.



Since it looked a little grungey already, I decided to bleach splatter it and make it look like a complete hot mess instead of half a hot mess. All you need is a shirt, liquid bleach, a cup to put it in, and a paintbrush you're willing to destroy.

 

The best advice I can give for bleaching technique is swish and flick. Wingardium Leviosa, baby. Load up your paint brush dripping with bleach and fling it. It's best to work outside or on some newspapers so you don't speckle everything within a 10 foot radius.

 

I now know what it's like to be Jackson Pollock. It's not as easy as it looks and there is a slight technique to it, unless you just want bleach globs everywhere. Make sure you do the sides of your top as well as the front and back. You want the whole garment to be evenly splattered.  

 

Here's the finished product!

 

I wasn't kidding about bleach destroying paintbrushes. Bleach is dangerous stuff; it ate most of the bristles off of my beautiful bamboo calligraphy brushes (not that I ever used it...). Be careful!