Wicked Whimsy

Archive for December, 2009

Hi! This is noblebeeyotch from Call Me Stylista and the lovely Michelle asked me if I could do a post here on Wicked Whimsy. Let me tell you how incredibly excited I am about being here.

There are people (like us) out there who are born with style and fashion in their blood. We call them the Stylistas. But there are the unfortunate others who do not have an inkling of what style or fashion is. What should we call those? Anyway, whatever you call them, they are what they are and we are the ones who have to help them. (Just kiddin’. I personally believe everyone has a little personal style and fashion ingrained in them.) Moving on, there are some people in the world who by the virtue of their position or standing in the fashion scene feel as if it is their duty to impart their superior fashion knowledge to the measly commoners. They create television shows (Hello, Ms. Zoe!) or write books to fulfill their responsibilities of making the whole world fashionable or rather making fashion accessible to the masses. Some of their endeavors fall flat on the face, but there are some jewels that live up to the expectations and hype. I thought I’d share some of the more interesting and readable fashion/style books out there.

• That Extra Half an Inch by Victoria Beckham

I’ve always been a girls’ girl. And I know from experience that making the very best of yourself is something any woman can do. I was never the six-foot-tall pin-up. I’ve always been the girl-next-door who got lucky. I’ve come a long way in the last ten years, but this book isn’t my attempt to tell you what or what not to do. It’s just to share some of what I’ve learned.

That Extra Half an Inch is a beautiful, nothing-but-the truth, easy-to-use book on fashion, beauty and style. Victoria shares her personal style secrets so whether you’re getting ready for work, a night out on the town or even doing the school run, you too can feel confident and look great every time you step out of the front door.

• Vanitas Inshallah by Alexsandro Palombo

The book features around 100 illustrations by Palombo in which the designer analyses eleven years of his creations, accompanied by a symbolical figure, a melancholic yet exuberant little clown called Vanitas who, turning into a Virgil-like figure, guides him through the personal memories and dreams behind Palombo’s collections. The reader joins them through this journey, takes part in the making of the various garments and sits down in the front row to see the final catwalk, which represents the climax of this adventure into the world of fashion. During the final catwalk Vanitas presents Palombo’s new creations while the designer makes a satire of the fashion universe and of its main representatives.

• The One Hundred by Nina Garcia

Exactly what are fashion’s timeless pieces? The One Hundred answers this question and provides women with a tangible style map to follow when planning a shopping trip and stocking one’s closet. With illustrations from world-renowned fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo, The One Hundred contains the 100 items that Nina believes will never go out of style, and that have become absolutely indispensible for any woman reaching for her own eternal fashion look.

• My Wonderful World of Fashion by Nina Chakrabarti

An interactive coloring book for fashionistas of all ages, My Wonderful World of Fashion is packed with beautiful and sophisticated illustrations specially created by the leading fashion-illustrator Nina Chakrabarti.

The book encourages creativity, with illustrations to color in and designs to finish off, as well as simple ideas for making and doing (how to make a sari, turn a napkin into a headscarf, dye a T-shirt, and so on). Covering clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry, and other accessories, the illustrations span both vintage fashions—drawing on beautiful and interesting objects from past ages—and contemporary designs from the illustrator’s own imagination.

• The Sartorialist by Scott Schuman

Scott Schuman just wanted to take photographs of people on the street who looked great. His now famous blog was an attempt to showcase the wonderful and varied sartorial tastes of real people – not only those of the fashion industry. The book is a beautiful anthology of Scott’s favourite shots from around the world. They include photographs of well-known fashion figures as well as those shots of the anonymous passerby whose imagination and taste delight the viewer. From the streets of Rio to Bejing, Stockholm to Milan, these are the people that have inspired Scott and in turn, inspired designers and people of all ages, wages and nationalities with an interest in fashion.

These 5 fashion and style must-reads cover a wide range. From fashion illustration to fashion and style guide to fashion inspiration, this list has a book for everyone. These books will be a delight to savor for any stylista out there and I would love to hear you thoughts on these. You could also share your own recommendations here. In short, discuss, comment, make me feel welcome here and I will love your forever!

(Big thank you to Swati for sending me this post! Definitely stop by her blog and say hi!)

Regular posting will resume sometime next week – we’re moving into the new place all this week! I’m doing loads of small things while Matt’s at work and then we’re finishing up on Saturday. I’ve got a guest post scheduled for you lovelies tomorrow (and if you’d like to write one, send me an email!). In the meantime, I hope you’re all recovering well from the holidays, got some good after Christmas deals, and have great plans for New Years!

PS – if you have a favorite decorating source, I’d love to see it. We’re planning on steampunking the living room and I’m excited about decorating the new place in general. So throw any neat ideas my way, especially DIY or low cost ones!

It is 15 degrees outside & with the wind-chill, it’s -7. YIKES.

The photo was taken with my new digital camera, that is all swanky and has a rechargeable battery and stuff. And, worth nothing, also does video. I actually took a video of it snowing last night, but it was very dark and also my parents have a cap on their internet usage, so I can’t upload it now. But expect videos in the upcoming weeks. I know you’re excited!

Oh; in case you didn’t watch my tweet about it, I am super excited because we have managed to get our dream apartment for a good chunk less than we thought we’d be paying in rent (benefit of moving at an odd time of the year). We start moving in on Monday. We get home on Sunday evening. Craziness!

Anyways, I hope everyone is having a fabulous Christmas. Wish us luck with this snow melting enough to be able to go places tomorrow and head home on Sunday; right now I’m okay with snuggling up in front of the fire. I’ve got this month’s Bust, was gifted BTVS Season 8 #5 (although I sat down and read it last night), might sneak Bayou away from Matt, and also bought Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence at a going out of business sale in the mall. Along with Smoke and Mirrors, which I just realized I’ve already read. Whoops. Err. Yeah. Merry Christmas and safe travels wishes to everyone!

The Countdown Begins

Edited by Dramatis Personae

The countdown has begun–not only until the end of the year–but until the end of the first decade in the 21st century. That’s kind of amazing to think about. Styletastic and Sway, Sway, Away! both look at fashion from the Oughts with two distinctly different visions. [the3st] interviews the founder of ModCloth, while Wicked & Whimsy reviews Closet Confidential (by the hilarious Winona of DaddyLikey fame!).

Since this will be my last edit of links a la mode for this year, see you all in 2010!

Links à la Mode : December 17th

• 39thandbroadway.com: – How Brands Get Burned By Celebs
• A Typical Atypical: – Suffering from Buyers Remorse: The Real Deal
• Brunette and Pink: – Makeup Tutorial: Leighton Meester Inspired Winged-out Smoky Eye Look
• DailyDivaDish – Create a sparkling New Year’s look with the Tarte Treasure Chest Giveaway. Enter to this limited edition kit.
• Friend in Fashion – Sugar and spice and all things nice – Unearthing the unique designs of the fabulous, Arizona based designer Monique Martinez, through the captive lense of Galaxie Andrews.
• Grit and Glamour: – The Trend Conundrum–rends are a tricky thing; what makes some women look so pulled together is not a wardrobe full of the latest styles and trends, but the ability to know which ones to avoid.
• i’m the it girl: – My Love Affair With Hermes and the Great Debate: Kelly or Birkin?
• Idiosyncratic Style: – 12 Great Holiday DIY Projects – give something special this year (even if you are short on time and money)
• kaKofonie Of si(gh)lenS: – My most amazing (and green!) find this year: Denim Therapy, a company who will restore your tattered favorite jeans to like-new condition. Seriously.
• La Société de Mode | The Fashion Society: – Combats are stomping their way back into style
• Pursed Lips: – Thoughts/quotes on Lady Gaga as a powerful tool, if a difficult one to reach, for designers.
• Style on a String – Getting down to the wire: Gifts for the Stylish Geek who is kind of Girly too
• Styletastic: – As the 00’s are coming to en end, we look back at the fashion memories that will define the decade. Ah the memories!
• Sway Sway Away!: – Sway Sway Away! presents Caitie’s bitching and moaning on the worst trends of the Aughts.
• THE COVETED – Love it or Leave it : Rodarte for Target
• The Fashion Planner: – The Fashion Planner shows you how to make a jaunty beret.
• The Working Wardrobe: – Beware of “business casual” being too casual for the workplace.
• tick tick heart: – A focus on the varying fashions of some of our quirkier leading ladies in film.
• White Rabbit: – Pros and Contras of Artificial Nails
• Wicked Whimsy: – Closet Confidential: A Review
• [the3st]: – Success & Getting There: Interview with Susan of ModCloth.com

via alicepopkorn

First off, happy solstice, to those who celebrate it!

I won’t lie, posts this week will probably be thin on the ground. We’ve got tons of things to do today and then we leave in the morning for Missouri & won’t be heading back until Sunday. Posts will probably  be pretty sparse over the next two weeks; I might be re-posting some old content and putting up some guest posts (if you’d like to guest post, let me know!).

• Loved Corrine’s thought for the day last Monday!
• Sal has a holiday wishlist for you.
• Lots of good stuff in Nubby’s unexpected interview.
• Speaking of interviews, I loved the Sassy Minx’s interview with Laura of the evolve beauty range.
• Another StyleLikeU gem: Zana Bayne.

I lol'd. No lie.

• The Truth of Lagerfeld’s Idea of China. Honestly? I’m waiting for the time when the fashion world at large realizes that KL is a cranky old fart with nothing legitimate to say. Heresy, I know. (And no, “fatties get out” is not something legitimate to say…)
• The best kitchen-ukelele-blogsong I’ve ever seen. Watch it for the laughs if nothing else.
• & from the comments on the ukelele blogsong: god & the ‘gaze’: a visual reading of Lady Gaga. I thought it was super interesting, maybe you will too!
• Start a revolution.
• and the hipstercrite pretty much sums up why I love Austin. that post gave me warm fuzzies.

Safe travelling and happy holidays to you! Expect a photo/maybe video (first! how exciting!) post later this week. Oh, and good luck dealing with the snow and ice, if you have to. I’m crossing my fingers that there won’t be any in Missouri, myself!

I decided my daily outfit post titles were boring. Decided that from now on, they will be quotes instead. Would be lying if I said that Diana didn’t spark the idea!

It’s been a bit of a crazy week; hence no post on Wednesday. Job interviews and looking at places and such. If everything goes according to plan *knock on wood*, I’ll be starting a new job and we’ll be moved into a new place by the end of the first week in January. This might mean off-kilter posting for a few weeks; I’ll do my best to stay on a fairly regular schedule though!

But on to what you came here for:

I have no idea what that first pose was supposed to be. I can only think that I was in the middle of doing the macarena when Matt rudely took the picture. And then on the right, we have “backlit Michelle descending from heaven”.

Jump space cowboy boots (that’s how I think of them, anyways), secondhand top, secondhand necklace, F21 belt, Target skirt, and what I call my “witchy” bracelet (which is also secondhand).

It’s got an extremely random assortment of charms on it. Including a big sparkly heart, two or three skulls, a bat, and a faux-Roman-coin. I like to think about the presumably very eccentric old lady who owned it before me.

I’m trying to think of something to wrap this post up with, but the only thing that comes to mind is a conversation Matt & I had a while back with this crazy guy. Matt had known him for years and apparently he used to be a pretty good guy, but pretty much fried his brains on drugs. He took to the unfortunate habit of stopping by the apartment randomly and then standing around talking to invisible people. One time he walked in to us watching Pirates of the Caribbean and says, in this grandiose movie narrator voice, “Ah! The pirates! They set off in search of new lands and fortunes to bring back home to their families!”.

Matt and I looked at each other with confused looks on our faces. After about 30 seconds of awkward silence, Matt says “No, dude, those were the sailors. Pirates killed those guys and took their shit.”. We still laugh about it.

On that note – have a good weekend! I’ve got another job interview tomorrow, and we’re going to go look at scooters after that. We were going to get a second smaller car after selling the van, but we won’t need it since the place we’re moving to is right in the heart of Austin. AND RIGHT ON THE LAKE! Pictures will come, oh yes, I am so ridiculously excited. Oh and this scooter is a strong contender so far, FYI. Matt even said we can get the mint-green or powder blue. And then on Monday I go in for a test day at the job I interviewed for Wednesday, then we’re heading up to Missouri on Tuesday! Crazy crazy! Not to mention that we’ll hopefully be moved into the new place by the 3rd. Whew. It’s going to be an interesting few weeks, what a way to bring in the new year, amirite?

Nacha

Long list this week!

• How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell. (via Cupcakes and Mace)
• High Fashion & High Art…Two Worlds Apart? by the loverly Ashe Mischief. psst I’m also guest posting over there some this week, go check it out.
• Here are two videos of Simon Doonan being awesome, via farpitz. As she says – if you don’t like Simon Doonan, we may have a problem here. (I’m pretty sure he’s one of the only “celebrities” that I might screech like a five year old girl upon meeting.)
• Kissing ass, quantum leaps, and the power of being unqualified.
• I think this chick would either annoy me to death, or we’d get along famously. Hard to tell. But damn, she’s funny.

Prepare to die of the cute:

This video scares Matt. He’s convinced that cats are evolving & will one day take over the earth.

• You need to see these videos of Little Stolen Moments, a local…err…dance troupe?
• Shoe Care Secrets from Nubby.
• Jerk Lost. Weight Gained. Fashion Help Wanted. (as if we needed another thing to prove Winona’s fashion sainthood)
• Have you been betrayed by your blogger? (fascinating discussion)
• The philosphy of personal style.
• Loved Worn Journal’s interview with a colorfully-clad blogger.
• & via the Swelle Life, this jewelry is absolutely stunning.
• Also, I’ve been working with Alexia lately, whom I met through the Black Sheep Project. She’s been incredibly super helpful with several things and she just launched the website for Thrive Creative Coaching. Right now, you can schedule a free mini strategy session with her; personally, if you’re interested in the things she has to offer, I’d get on that and schedule a few more sessions while you’re at it. Mark my words, she’s going to be uber successful in a year’s time, because this gal is fabulous. (I don’t get a kickback or anything. I just think she’s awesome.)

We spotted an apartment that sounds absolutely fabulous & is sooo reasonably priced, cross your fingers for us that they’ll take cats & everything works out! I also sent in some inquiries about part time jobs (needing more regular income while I work on some projects…), wish me luck on those as well please? I hope your week is off to a good start!

So Gwen Bell is doing this thing. Where a huge variety of people reflect on their year. I think it’s a fabulous idea to reflect on the previous year before starting the new one, so I’ll be participating when a particular prompt speaks to me.

Today’s prompt: What’s the best change you made to the place you live?

My answer is twofold:

#1: We moved to Austin. To be honest, this made a lot of stuff pretty fucking rough for us. The last six months have been an absolutely insane roller-coaster. If we had waited another year, saved up more money, it would have been a much easier transition. But I wouldn’t change it for the world; we’ve learned a lot. And a lot about each other too. You want to test a two month old marriage? Put both people in an extremely high-stress, low-money situation where neither of you have any friends because you just moved ten hours away from everyone you know. Yeah. That’ll do it.

We came out okay, though, and knowing that we can get through something like that is extremely reassuring.

#2: I started treating our house like a home. The house we lived in before, we started renting in August of ’08, and we knew we were planning on moving the next summer. Shit you not, we still had things we hadn’t totally unpacked when we moved. I kept thinking “Oh, we’re just going to move in a few months, why bother decorating/buying nice things for the house/dragging out those boxes/etc.?”. The result was that I hated the way the house looked and I didn’t like having people over. To be fair, it wasn’t that great of a house in the first place (it was a bit of a fixer upper; we figured we could put the money we’d be saving on rent into our moving fund). But still, I learned my lesson: everything is totally unpacked here and I put my best efforts into decorating with limited funds, even though we’ll be in this house a year at most. Life is too short, I can’t afford to plan for the house we’ll have in six months, I’ve got to use the house we have now and make it a place that I’m happy to be in.

So, what’s YOUR answer? Did you move? Redecorate? Put in a new bathroom? I want to hear, please do tell!

JUMP Brash Booties

I’ve been lusting after these since I saw them on Zoetica. The cut of the boot is super flattering to shorties like me, who don’t want the unfortunate tree-trunk-leg effect, and I know JUMP shoes are well made and comfortable. By the time they went on deep clearance (I think $40?) at the end of last season, my size was gone, but now they’re back – albeit for the original price. Maybe this time I’ll be a little faster and get them on end of season clearance!

Here we have: Fluevog engineer boots, lace tights from TJ Maxx, red t-shirt from Kohl’s, H&M lace top via eBay, secondhand Hyde studded belt, secondhand flapper-esque necklace, and some old-ass black plastic bangles. Hot Topic, maybe?

Oh, and the nail polish:

This stuff is awesome. It’s Sally Hansen 92 Deeply Violet in the Diamond Strength line. It’s super dark purple, almost black – it’s indistinguishable from black in a lot of lights. I’ve got a bit of an obsession for almost black colors at the moment (don’t know if I already mentioned that?), I’ve got an Etsy seller working on some almost-black purple lipstick for me…we’ll see how it turns out.

This was an outfit for a day of non-exciting things. Routine trip to Planned Parenthood to pick up BC, then to Feathers to sell some vintage. They had a lot of cute things in their store, but not a one was big enough for me (outside of accessories), which is a little sad – that’s cutting out a lot of potential shoppers. Some cute shoes, too, but $90 for a used pair of Fornarina boots, which were probably only $200 or so new? Since when is half off the secondhand price? Maybe I’m just a big freakin’ cheapskate. Sucks too, because I really thought those boots were cute, but a. I can’t afford them right now, and b. they were probably too big for me. Who knows, if I still want them when I have the money, I’ll go back and see if they’re still there. And then see if they fit.

Anyyyyyways. I was pretty happy with how this outfit turned out. I think I’m learning to combine my punky/gothy tendancies and love of kitschy vintage things. Now I just need to find some drapey clothes that don’t look terrible on curvy girls, and I’ll be all set.