Another Moodboard Because I'm A Terrible Person

Yeah, that's right.

I won an award.

(Not really I just made it myself)

This past... oh, has it been a month? About a month. Anyways, this past month has been one of those "eat-sleep-work" periods of time for me. All I've been wearing recently are pajamas, or my work uniform. I don't think you'd like a zillion posts of me wearing that. So... if you think about it... I'm saving you from multitudes of boring-as-hell posts. You're welcome!

Even though today has been one of those days (currently wearing the pajama portion), I still have fashion floating around my brain. Because let's face it, when do I not have fashion floating around my brain? I'm such an addict. Someone help.

This fashion floating around my brain has been focusing mainly on the family vacation my mom, my sister, and I take every summer. New York State, Keuka Lake. After watching The Seven-Year-Itch a month ago I found myself less focused on Marilyn Monroe's outfits and more excited about the main character's wife. She was vacationing lakeside, and it was the mid-fifties. Is there anything better for summer? I think not.

And with that... a stream of "50s vacation" themed photos!

 Again, being a terrible person, I left out sources. (Did I mention I'm lazy?)

So if any of this is yours and you want me to take it down, let me know and I'll be glad to.

Thank you, all of you wonderful people, for putting up with my foolishness. 

I promise I'll reward you with an outfit post sometime soon.

Sunsets and watermelons,

Viva La Mode Personelle

It's time. I'm gonna post right now, mostly because it's about 11:30 PM on a thursday night and it's the first day of summer for little old me. Yeah, that's right, I finished all my exams! BORN FREE, AS FREE AS THE WIND BLOWS...

Anyways, I've been thinking a lot about personal style, and as I was wondering how to get out these thoughts that my friends are so sick of me blabbering about, I slapped my palm to my forehead. I have a blog. ABOUT PERSONAL STYLE. Duh, Sarah, duh!

So! My thoughts about personal style, and then a little moodboard-type-deal, even though I don't typically do those (truth be told, I felt bad for not posting an outfit... but I couldn't be bothered to set up a tripod).

First off: the ALMIGHTY PERSONAL STYLE. Gee, I love America. Well... America and any other country that lets you wear whatever you darn well please whenever you want to wear it. People are only really kept in by social boundaries when it comes to dressing, if you think about it. I mean, obviously you HAVE to be dressed in public, but that's the only way the man can keep us down! WEAR CLOTHES OR ELSE!

So if we have to wear these clothes, why don't we make them say something about ourselves? I have only recently (within the last year or so) really, really gotten into personal style. Before this, I went through various phases...

Elementary school me: 

-Cloth shorts (think Soffes)

-T-shirts with monkeys on them

-Light-up sneakers

-That is all.

Middle school me:

-Uniforms during weekdays (wish I would have kept those skirts!!!)

-Oversized band T-shirts

-Skinny jeans (I remember, my first pair of skinny jeans was like my firstborn child)

-Vans slip-ons/ Converse low-tops

High school (9th-11th grade):

-9th grade: A more streamlined version of middle school ^^^

-10th grade: ANYTHING TO ACCENTUATE THE BOOBS

-11th grade: Floral/indie grunge

This year (12th grade):

-WHATEVER I DARN WELL PLEASE!

Do you see the change here?

I do, and I wish it had come sooner.

After being in the bloggin' world for a little while now, and observing these young and sprightly fashionable youngsters, it makes me kind of wistful for the past. I wish my parents would have given me the freedom of choosing exactly what I wanted to wear when I was really young.

I think it really makes a difference to let a kid figure out the consequences of wearing certain things and being able to choose for themselves in a relatively harmless way. If your eight-year-old wants to wear his pajamas to school... let him. Maybe that's a way of parenting that's considered "extremely liberal" but I think the power of free expression through clothing is SO much more valuable than a lot of people realize.

That's why I'm against uniforms. Perhaps, I pensively think to myself, perhaps I would have developed my own sense of myself far earlier if I didn't have 3 years of uniforms holding me down. I can't make that judgement for everyone who has ever attended private school, but in my opinion, uniforms made me lazy about dressing otherwise (I had about four "weekend outfits").

I believe that every person, even though they may not have enough money or time or what-have you... every person can develop a personal style and flair to whatever they're wearing, be it a prom dress or a pair of sweats. That's the beauty of it, you know? Wearing sweats isn't a fashion sin. It's a choice people make to wear those things, and they CHOOSE to not dress up. It's surprising to me that ripped shorts and sweaters and dirty boots are fashionable yet comfortable fleece pants are not. 

On that note, I am beginning to hate fashion magazines.

There.

I've said it.

I have been reading a few lately, what with my newfound free time, and I really dislike how they all seem to give "fashion rules" or "fashion do's and don'ts". Nothing boils my blood quicker than a snotty fashion editor trying to tell people they're dressing incorrectly.

If you don't get my point by now, just pay a visit to Hel-Looks.com. You'll see what I mean. Street-style websites like those make me love clothes and understand that it doesn't have to be an upturned nose, a high-school hierarchy. Clothing is a simple, necessary, and continuous form of art.

(By the way, if you want to read a good article on this very idea, written by a contributor of Vogue, click here)

So now that some of the ideas that have been festering in my brain have now been aired out... a moodboard!

(by the way, all of these pictures were saved in a folder on my desktop, regrettably without sources. If they're your pictures I'll be happy to cite 'em or remove 'em.)

So there's my weird and scattered P.O.V.

The Final Stretch

So I've been away for the weekend, everyone. 

And GUESS WHERE I WENT?

C'mon. Guess. Oh, you want a clue? Well, okay.

There's your clue. Good luck.

Anyways, this place happens to be where I got this stretchy lace dress...

From a Buffalo Exchange, no less! They don't have them where I live :(

Needless to say, I went a bit wild.

On another, more depressing note, it's finals week. I mean, it's a good thing because summer break is SO CLOSE SO CLOSE SO CLOSE, but I really dislike studying.

It's not even that studying annoys me all that much, I just hate feeling guilty the night before the test.

...AKA, tonight.

Me: "Hmm... I'm gonna take a break now and, I don't know, go on my blog or something because I'm so internet-famous."

Responsible Me: "Sarah what are you doing you freaking idiot you have a math final tomorrow and if you don't pass you aren't going to do well in the class 'cause it's 25 percent of your grade blah blah blah blah blah."

What I'm wearing: flea market girl gang jacket, lace dress from Buffalo Exchange, mystery socks, Predictions saddle shoes, thrifted belt, thrifted scarf, UO sunglasses.

Even so, the prospect of summer doesn't really excite me anymore.

I just think "Oh, cool, more time to work."

Remember when summer vacation was the best time of the year?

Now it's just kind of one less thing I have to do.

Which is nice... but... I just wanna sit around the house and play Animal Crossing.

Is that such a crime?

Pattern-Mixing for Dummies

Okay, kids.

I know you've been waiting and waiting to hear from me, so let out those held breaths because...

HERE I AM!

And I come bearing a very short and to the point two-step guide to mixing patterns:

1. Moderation is key, young'uns.

2. JUST DO IT. Nothing even matters.

I decided to mix tiny flowers with tiny-ish polka dots.

And maybe it worked.

Who can tell for sure? Isn't that the greatest thing about fashion?

NOTHING IS STYLISH SO EVERYTHING IS STYLISH. 

One could also say that the patterns chosen were inspired by The Endless Summer (see my last post)

Summery summer summer!

I wish I lived in a place where we actually have seasons.

Every freaking day is summer here, but that doesn't stop me from romanticizing it. 

ALSO! I have an announcement for you all. I'm considering pursuing a career in film.

That's frightening to type.

Extremely frightening.

Imagine how terrifying it is to look at film schools...

Especially as an upper middle-class white girl with a relatively high GPA.

No scholarships there, that's for sure.

I'll just have the student loan sharks tattoo dollar signs on my forehead.

BUT THE AMERICAN DREAM!

Maybe that's what this outfit reminds me of. Maybe.

 What I'm wearing: flea market/DIY jacket, Full tilt bralette, Urban Outfitters velvet platforms, thrifted skirt.

On a final note, can we talk about how amazing this song is? I feel like I can put any Broken Social Scene album on shuffle and find one freaking hidden gem after another.

It's All Gonna Break by Broken Social Scene

Have a grand ole week...

The Perfect Wave

Last night (when I should have been sleeping, whoops), I saw the classic surf doc by Bruce Brown: 

The Endless Summer

I watched it on TCM, which has been my late-night best friend since early '09.

Unfortunately, my best BEST friend, Robert Osborne, was on vacation :(

Look at him. He's a wonderful human being. 

Anyways, this movie was actually pretty awesome and totally amped up my summer aesthetic:

The entire film was shot on 16 mm film, in the absolutely gorgeous Technicolor.

(Am I the only one who prefers Technicolor to HD? Oh, the nostalgic youth.)

 There was a kind of awesome "vacation-slide-show" feel to the movie, since the narrator of the doc was friends with the two stars, Robert August and Michael Hynson. Along with the narrator's wise-cracking nature, the movie followed these two surfers from Hawaii, to California, to Africa, to Australia, to New Zealand... all in the search of the "perfect wave" and the season of summer.

What I really enjoyed were the little reminders that, yes, this WAS filmed in the 60s. The joking about a dollar per gallon of gas being a rip-off, the ridiculously revealing (now considered normal) bikinis of Australian girls, the expensive hotel room at 30 dollars a night... it went on and on.

This movie made me want to surf, even though I have a HUGE fear of the ocean. So I resolved to be involved in more water-sports (tubing, water-skiing, etc) when I go to Keuka Lake this summer.

SO excited for that now! Off to go find a good Hawaiian shirt.

So watch The Endless Summer if you're longing for summer and love the 60s aesthetic.

Outfit post set for Friday, perhaps, if I'm not a lazy bum.

Love Song of the Chameleon

What I'm wearing: F21 lace dress, thrifted belt, Fulltilt jacket, Charlotte Russe boots, Charade leggings

Why hello there, my fine feathered friends. 

I'm posting again on a Monday (why is my behavior so predictable?!) 

And I think after describing this outfit I might go into a small rant... so, you know, take a potty break, grab a water bottle, curl up into a ball, prepare yourself.

Nahhh, I promise it'll be painless. Something I've just been thinking about recently.

To leave you hanging a bit (like you can't just scroll a bit down the page, ha!) I'm going to describe what has adorned my body today.

I have been listening to The Cure and The Cocteau Twins a lot recently, and I think this outfit reflects that.

Plus I'm all angsty and moody from all this freaking end-of-semester homework.

SO obviously when I saw this lacy dress in my closet I knew I had to wear my skellie leggings.

I haven't worn them yet, since I bought them at The Junkman's Daughter in Athens, GA.

(By the way, if you haven't been there, GO, it's such a fantastic place.)

So enough of that, here comes the rant. Ready?

I've been thinking a lot about the fact that I don't have much of a "viewpoint" in a lot of things.

Most people seem to think artists need a direct sense of taste to produce good art.

I do so many things, though! I make music, collages, clothes, short stories, spoken word poems, screenplays, and soon, films! (more on that later, though)

I don't know how I can have such a concrete point of view when I'm changing so often.

Seriously. The things I like change so often I'm left in a whirlwind. 

I also never use those security questions that say things like "what's your favorite book?"

Because it changes. Like once a week.

I'm wondering if that's normal, if it's normal to change so often.

Sometimes it leaves me without a "sense of self" but staying the same seems so...

So...

Boring.

Can't I just be my own silly self?

Maybe people won't seem to recognize my work, but as long as it's good work... right?

Word to your mother,