The Resurrection

i don't have any real reason for abandoning my blog back in december. i guess suffice it to say that i just had more important things to do in the last six months than blog about fashion. but i'm back. with a new background .jpg (with which i might get bored quickly). & officially including Capitol Letters in my blog posts.

HERE I AM

in keeping with the cliche theme of resurrection & renaissance i am going to discuss, as per usual, history & age, but in the context of clothing in a general sense. though my closet has been periodically eradicated of old & unnecessary items, maybe 40% of all the clothing i own was amassed prior to my high school career, by me or by my mother. as it is in my maternal genes to hoard, her own collection of clothing from the 80s & 90s has been passed to me & subsequently has experienced its own revival. but these items are nothing outrageous - ill-fitting sweaters, random banana republic tees, outrageously small belts (sux 2 have a mother who was a ballerina), a betsey johnson cocktail dress, a denim button down, etc. but now, here in 2011, enough time has passed to put items like her floor-length linen dresses & square-toed heels back on the map. i have noticed the same thing of my own clothes. in the ninth grade i bought a pink dress that hits me mid-shin complete with buttons & a lace v-neck, & though i wore it back then, i rather quickly decided its time had expired. however, i never got rid of it, & it has been sitting at the back of my closet for years. suddenly, with the recent resurgence of the 70s & my new-found acceptance of long skirts, i found myself wearing it a week ago. nowadays i have a problem with it falling so as to expose gratuitous cleavage, but it is nonetheless now a viable option rather than a reject in my closet. this has me thinking 1. that it's time to revisit the collection of dresses hanging in the random closet full of shoeboxes, christmas giftbags, & aged clothing located discretely/awkwardly in my brother's bedroom to see what else of mine & my mother's i can uncover & resurrect.
considering the last of the Harry Potter movies was released yesterday, it only makes sense that i am now old enough to have experienced a full circular revolution of fashion trends. (pictured left: me at the seventh book release in 2007) the movie's release signifies the culmination & termination of my youth, officially. i'd like to think that it does so for me & my friends moreso than those even one year older or younger than i. in order to complete my Luna Lovegood costume, i had to break out my converse hightops from my infamous Band Shirt Phase, & my outfit was comprised of clothing purchased between eighth grade and tenth grade (pictured right). granted, ninth & tenth grade weren't extraordinarily long ago, but i still think it symbolic of the fact my entire adolescence was actively tied to harry potter. & with that cliched & rather forced fashion metaphor i will end this blog post.

lYk3 v0Ld3M0rT i H4v3 rEtuRN3d!!~

hampden

the area directly surrounding the hopkins homewood campus has been dubiously remastered by wise business owners to play host to moderately-priced eateries, coffee-serving establishments, & carry-all convenience stores. however, baltimore is confusingly conglomerative. there are no boroughs, but there are identifiable neighborhoods/areas. hampden is one of these small regions identified by name. hampden is unlike fells or the inner harbor in that its regionality is defined by the type of and tangible presence of a certain culture, whereas areas like fells are characterized almost entirely by the audience to whom the businesses & restaurants cater, & the area's physical appearance, & not an interwoven culture.
in laments terms, hampden is the williamsburg of baltimore, plus babies, minus frequent scoffing. (the babies are probably a product of the youth that characterizes the population.) however, unlike the poisoned world of mainstream thrifting in new york, the vintage in hampden is astonishingly affordable. the store most on par with the quality and affordability of hampden vintage at home is the thrift store hidden beneath an all-purpose town-owned building. aside from boutiques exclusively devoted to vintage clothing & vintage/re-purposed accessories, hampden is comprised of several blocks of unique, independent, non-chain stores & restaurants. the storefronts juxtapose specialty boutiques & everything-under-the-sun second-hand stores. particularly all-encompassing is a store that spans two floors of two, attached buildings, one of which identifies itself with the words "books & maps," ambiguous albeit accurately describing a collection of books & maps. (pictured: a gorgeous, 100-year-old copy of oscar wilde's plays.) some are beautiful, antique, & collectible, while others were published recently & are sold randomly second-hand. there are also several crystal bowls of free gelatin treats scattered throughout the room, which is room one of five that make up the entire establishment. the storefront is misleading - vintage furniture, furnishings, collectibles, & clothing can be found throughout the store/house. one interesting but apparently widely understood characteristic of the stores in hampden is the use of spaces that could feasibly double as rooms of someone's house, e.g. small, cramped basements. i imagine many shop owners live above their stores.
the culture is most prominent among the restaurant waiters. while patrons come from all over baltimore, there is definitely an image associated with the waiters in restaurants like the golden west. there is no negative connotation - the golden west, for instance, employs a staff of flannel-wearing, facial-hair-growing men that seem like they would love to sit back & discuss the vast assortment of artwork/decoration that almost haphazardly adorns the walls. the restaurants also help give rise to the emerging music scene in baltimore by hosting local bands &, on some occasions, local DJs.
my most recent visits to hampden have been exclusively shopping excursions. on the first, i bought a knee-length white leather skirt that has the letters "USA" printed in read all over for a whopping $10. on the second, i bought two dresses, each $30: an irresistibly sparkley betsey johnson dress that looked like it may have, or at least ought to have, belonged to an award-winning ice skater at some time in its former life, (pictured above), & a pink-purple puff-sleeved 50's style yves saint laurent dress (right). i picked the dresses out before i had read either of their tags, but the combination of their condition, authenticity & price made it impossible to leave them on the hangers.
so, in conclusion, hampden = old records, strange antiques, random home accessories, cheap vintage, delicious food, & an outspoken, interesting collection of people. thank god.

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*disclaimer - i wrote the first paragraph of this post approximately four days after halloween. it is now almost christmas, but i am not going to waste halloween picsz!

baltimore is an old city. there are historic neighborhoods that go unappreciated, historic neighborhoods that are comprised of beautiful, expensive brick homes accessible only to those who live in them, & some historic neighborhoods that have been actively preserved for the public to enjoy. fells falls into the latter category. fells point, which dates back to 1763, when it was founded by an english shipbuilder. currently acting as a manifestation of baltimore's historic value and its residents' attention to that history, & serving as a site for complacent entertainment removed from the rest of the city's urbanity, particularly for tourists, fells is a cutesy world of cobblestone roads & shoulder-to-shoulder pubs. why am i writing what sounds like a description for a baltimore travel guide? did i forget to mention i'm majoring in travel agent proficiency? no, it's because i spent night three of three celebrating halloween at fells point, where the cutseyness was transformed into vile, mesmerizing belligerency & chaos thanks to the presence of hundreds of scantily-clad women & creepily-but-thankfully sufficiently-clad men.
enough of this weird marketing syntax. my halloween costumes this year included a princess ballerina, a mechanic, & finally, lady gaga. tR!Ck 0r tR34t h0ll4~~*!


1) ballerina
i chose to be, gathered the materials to be, & got dressed up as a ballerina within 20 minutes, tops. it just so happens that i decided a leotard & tutu were necessities i could not leave behind when i packed for college. the costume was comprised of my black leotard (a la single ladies), white tutu, black striped tights, little pale pink pumps (see goodwill post to come), & a barbie crown. i wore an obscene amount of glitter & sequins & stick-on gemstones around my eyes. the ensemble fell somewhere between weirdly childish & awkwardly slutty, due in large part to the fact my tutu is the same tutu i wore as a child, and is thus a sad excuse for an article of clothing on my 18-year-old body. this outfit is survived by one lonely picture, courtesy mah gurl laura.


2) mechanic
there are two reasons why i decided to wear my ambiguous blue jumpsuit on the saturday of halloween weekend. firstly, because i own it. secondly, because it was both warm & revealing. this is an incredibly hard combination to come by. bearing an "hello my name is miss fix it" nametag & my reliable tools - a hammer that becomes several screwdrivers in a stacking doll fashion & duct tape - i went as a mechanic. this was mostly hilarious because of the size of my hammer, & because i expected my costume to be obvious to any onlooker.
*update* scanning asos for my christmas wishlist, i happened upon this pantsuit. oh, so my $20 probably-previously-owned-by-a-mechanic-or-a-doctor jumpsuit is trendy now?

3) lady gaga
the only costume that really mattered, though, was the one i saved for the fell's point celebration. what i find most noteworthy is that even this costume was comprised entirely of items i already owned. what made lady gaga challenging was the hair-do. i committed myself to the hair bow seen in the "poker face" video (2:44), which was easier to execute than i had anticipated, but time consuming. the other problem i faced was wearing nothing more than a leotard in 40-degree weather. so, i piled on three pairs of sheer tights, the infamous long-sleeved leotard, a tank top, & my strong-shouldered long-sleeved t-shirt, the latter complete with two pairs of unattached shoulder-pads - go big or go home - to best brace myself for the frigidity. consistent with the themes of the outfits in "poker face," i wore my mirrored belt & heavy metal bracelets, & ditched the signature lightning bolt makeup. i wore my black foot-binding booties, the closest thing to mcqueen's armadillo shoes in my wardrobe. sure, there were probably a dozen other gagas roaming fell's that night, but i felt i truly did her justice through non-commercial commitment & creativity. luv u gurl!*~~xo0

still alive!

alert: this is an awkwardly & uncharacteristically serious post.
I. the reincarnation
according to my blog, i prepared for college but never actually got to it. there are several reasons for my unprecedented two-month-long blog vacation.
1) moving in to & adjusting to is a far greater transition than one might expect
2) it is a lot harder to stay connected with the world whilst growing into one's college identity when you don't have a computer. (to make a long, dramatic story short, my laptop's screen cracked seven weeks ago, & HP completely neglected the issue due to laziness & lack of LCD screen parts until a week ago when they replaced my computer with an envy14.)
3) furthermore, it is inherently difficult to blog without a computer. lawlz t3Chn0LoGii3*~
4) johns hopkins doesn't believe in any activity other than reading & writing all the time. oh & medicine & everything related to science ever.

II. the brief rant
i could consider the latter fact in numerous contexts. there is not necessarily a standard of appearance here at hopkins, but i would venture to say there is a lack thereof; clothing is not a priority on a top-15 college campus. out-of-the-box fashion choices are such a rarity here that i can't go anywhere without receiving at least a couple judgmental once-overs. some people even go so far as to privately but deliberately loudly voice their opinions on how i dress. sorry that i prefer high heels to ugg boots! lawlz jjhs
these are some unfairly harsh remarks, though. i should not scapegoat the entire student body for the behavior of a few petty girls. but, on that note, how different is hopkins' physical culture from john jay, really? not very. the bookstore just started selling so-low products with bluejays branded on them.

III. the conclusion, from which i will move forward after this post for good
it has been interesting to embrace a new culture of peers even on the most superficial level. i could probably remark on & attempt to analyze the functionality that defines the wardrobes of hopkins students forever. i will bluntly, concisely state that functionality is the definitive, characteristic quality: comfort on the weekdays, put together on the weekends, willing-to-ruin on weekend nights.
is this because hopkins attracts &, furthermore, accepts very few individuals who care about fashion? or is it because the average hopkins student's personality is so academically driven that there is no room to think twice about clothing? the answer probably lies somewhere in between the two. get at me, MICA?

before i close this post, i should mention that there is a number (albeit small) of well-dressed & trendy people here i've met or seen in passing. interestingly, it feels like there are more well-dressed men on campus than girls. perhaps this will permit my blog to take a path down which i had not previously tread - that is, menswear. for now, my plan is to discuss dressing for the cold & the baltimore hipster (despite my impoverished exposure to such subculture). i apologize for how somber & serious this reflection was. had to be done. oh, & i won't fall off the face of the earth for another two months! heh
see yuh (i swear, rly)

holy grails

even though i would love to go out & drop hundreds on fancy new clothes - & by go out i mean spend a couple hours placing orders for things on my amazon wishlist & on gilt - before going off to school, necessity has taken precedence. not that the word necessity doesn't point to the absurd ideal of necessity that exists here in westchester, but there you have it. i've purchased little white socks, black tights, black shorts, leggings, & new underwear. i have all of the things i really "need" in order to go off to school. but sometimes even the plainest of necessities are impossible for me to find. i end up obsessed with the searches, keeping very particular styles in mind, & they become endless quests, i the archetypal medieval heroine searching for the holy grail.
why discuss this now? today i finally found replacement shoes for my favourite flats. clearly this was imperative as i need shoes that are not heeled to wear around campus. the shoes i need of replacement: black patent-leather peep-toe 1/2" heeled flats with little bows by steve madden purchased for probably $60 in 2007 or 2008. despite the peep-toe, i wear them year-round & the plastic on the heels began peeling off in ugly chunks last year. they do everything a shoe should do: fit snugly, have padded - not flat - soles, make noise when i step, elevate me slightly, have fabric detailing sans metal or colour, & are shiny. so, short of re-purchasing them off e-bay (which was a viable, although expensive, option a week ago), i performed extremely delicate searches on websites like zappos, shoes.com, & department stores' websites... to no avail! finally, on a whim, i google searched "black patent flat" & the google shopping tab took me to newport news, a clothing website that caters to 30-something women & is very economically reasonable. (i have a pair of lace-up "granny booties" from newport news i bought three years ago for $35 that are still in excellent shape.) there they were! the perfect replacement. & for $19! you want it, you got it. the shoes arrived in the mail today & fit perfectly. after four months, grail found.
but there is another simple, black item that is haunting me. i am in dire need - dire. really. - of a short, drop-waist black shift with sleeves. not long sleeves, but short or 3/4-length sleeves. not of a heavy material - i'm envisioning silk - & sans detailing of any kind. i want it to sit on my shoulders like a smock, accentuating nothing. this is hard to find for a multitude of reasons:
1) i found exactly what i wanted in june, but urban outfitters, without my knowledge, cancelled the order due to a random price change. by the time i had learned this, recovered from my resentment, & decided to re-order it, it was sold out. having an ideal image in mind that was at some point palpable is almost worse.
2) i don't want to spend a lot. this, for obvious reasons, hurts the hunt.
3) it is really hard to find "little black dresses" that aren't form-fitting to a degree. people are usually looking for that feature in their little black dresses.
4) i rarely find dresses that, even when designed to fall loosely, do not accentuate any part of my body. this may sound like something for which i should be thankful & about which i should stop complaining, but in this case, i'm complaining.
moral: be less obsessive & more open. but if you happen upon a dress that meets this description, please let me know. i'll probably be searching for a long time because i can't just give up now.

the e.s.m.

there are many things literally clothing-related haunting the depths of my brain as august 24th & my entire future loom. but in an effort to post consistently over the next few days, i will preface packing up all of my belongings with an age-old expression that has become an imperative tool in the pre-college shopping extravaganza this summer has been.
first, for some history: it is well known that when my family visit our relatives out west we frequent the extremely large malls & outlets that surround their small, suburban, western towns. there is a wealth of gigantic, clean, air-conditioned buildings in nevada & colorado. twenty-first century consumerism has incentivized their construction alongside the necessity of enticement: where all da humans @ in tha desert? i don't know if these stand-alone structures - literally, not even under the cover of foliage - have succeeded in enticing, but they are usually built next to sites of new condominium/housing developments, which over time will surely produce a population of cheap-home-seeking consumers. the current/long-time residents are the one reeping the benefits, however. such is the case with my maternal extended family. my father's siblings living in new jersey may have the meadowlands complex (more like spacestation), but they don't have the outlet malls.
so, why is this relevant? well, the expression to which i am referring is the e.s.m., or exciting shopping moment. it was invented by my mother, my cousin anna & me after a trip to dsw, the large shoe warehouse that did not arrive on the east coast for some time after its placement in colorado. the term is applicable to all purchases made on items extremely reduced, items that, thanks to coupons & giftcards, are significantly reduced at the register, &, most excitingly, items that are surprisingly cheaper than expected when scanned. how does this relate to college shopping? well, being frugal is a key component of dorm furnishment, and that frugality necessarily dips into overall money-spending of any kind.
my most recent e.s.m.s were a fitted, strong-shouldered black blazer marked down from $70 to $24, rung up for $19, at lord & taylor, two gigantic silver baubles & purchased at macy's, both of which started at $24 & were marked down to $12.00, further reduced at the register to $5.70 a piece.

the fact that the bracelets were purchased at macy's points to another e.s.m. factor. e.s.m.s are frequently found at the most uncommon of places, uncommon here meaning stores in which one rarely purchases anything. hence the application of the term at things like sidewalk sales. the unexpected element contributes to the "exciting" part of the "moment" in question.
herein ends an insight into both my family of girly, bargain-loving shoppers & my lack of interest in anything marked up to full-price.
one last note: the image in which i am sporting a leotard above is a shot of my performance of the single ladies dance at camp a week ago. youtube link to follow.

staff

i have thirteen or so camp t-shirts - navy, gray, & the rare white (left) - only three of which bear the bold letters on the back that symbolize maturity & indicate personal economic situation: STAFF. i was overwhelmingly pleased to finally own a staff shirt when i got my first one five years ago. even after i owned one, i coveted staff shirts. four of us stole & shared a yellow staff shirt several years ago with no motive other than wearing a shirt that read "staff" during the dance show. i reserve my camp t-shirts for sleeping, but i reliably choose my staff shirts over my plain camp shirts. & now i am getting what i asked for: those bold, white letters on my back every single day for the next four & a half weeks.
i assume everyone understands why i hate this new uniform. fundamentally yes, i like dressing like a girl. & yes, i understand the concept - campers need to be able to identify their adult, supervising counterparts with ease. but no one has ever mistaken me for a four-year-old or a four-year-old for a counselor. furthermore, getting dressed isn't entirely about looking pretty, making a statement, or mimicking my favourite glamorous historical figures. what i wear dictates my mood, & this t-shirt spoils whatever cheery mood the BBC world news puts me in before i get dressed every day.
so. now that i've adequately ranted, i'll return to the surface-level problems with this navy blue t-shirt, emblazoned with silkscreen on the left breast & this iconic - now insulting - word on the back. i was told i wasn't allowed to alter the shirt. as plain & one-size-fits-all as the t-shirt shape is, the box it creates on one's body cannot be paired with just any other article of clothing. this would be less of an issue if it were not july, because sweaters are burdensome accessories for camp. (save for in the main room where the air conditioning is below freezing & has been since i was nine years old.)
i would like to be able to look at this t-shirt as a challenge, a test of my ability to style & accessorize, but there are only so many ways to wear a t-shirt in july AND dress appropriately to play with babies all day. not to mention the shirt has red on it, which rules out one pair of red shorts & two red skirts i own right off the bat. a week & a half in & i have worn high-waisted shorts, long skirts, short hip-hugging & waist-cinching skirts (as seen above), necklaces, earrings, round-toed flats, pointy-toed flats, sandals, & i even broke out tights with a pair of plain shorts today, taking advantage of the less-than-sweltering temperature outside. i am not going to give up just yet. this is war, staff shirt. here come the lace vest i wore to winter ball in the ninth grade, my tiny top hat, my floral pants from the tenth grade, my hair plumes, & perhaps one of those soda-can-straw-hats with starbucks cups inside, seeing as i've officially become a two-cups-per-morning person. (i will be dead by age 35. plz let me know on what possessions of mine you are keen.)