Style Collage

Here's what I wore to a cocktail party that we attended on Friday, festive yet subtle.





Coat: TJ Maxx
Black Shirt: H&M
Red Top: Banana Republic (I've had this top since the summer and have yet to wear it. I just always thought it looked funny as a strapless top with jeans and heels. I even tried to return it but I had had it for too long. Then I decided to put it over this black boatneck tee and it looked great. It totally transformed the top from a flimsy summer strapless to an almost cocktail dress. You never know what a little mixing things up can do)
Necklace: vintage (Christmas present from Michael. I'll post more about the great things I got this holiday but I was incredibly impressed with Michael's choices of vintage necklaces for me. He got me three!! and they're all totally great.)
Jeans: Levi's (of course)
Boots: vintage
Super warm socks that you can't see: Wigwam

A Few of My Favorite Things

What a great Christmas I had! I know that it was over a week ago but the holidays sure are draining and I've been feeling a bit under the weather for the fast few days. I got some pretty great gifts though, most of which were completely unexpected. The best ones were vintage and hand made! My wonderful boyfriend bought me some amazing vintage necklaces, his mother, Ann, gave me a framed needlepoint/painting, Carrie made me a beautiful vintage inspired necklace, and Frieda made me a hat that I've worn just about everyday for the past two weeks. There was also a book from my sister that seems like it'll be a good read "The Beautiful Fall, Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970's Paris." I think the title says it all and Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent are the main characters. I also received gift certificates for a massage and a facial. Looks like it's going to be a great 2008!

New Items!

Kaitlyn was here yesterday and we rocked and rolled our way through a great photoshoot! Soon I'll be adding new coats, dresses, and boots to the site. Here's a sneak peak.

Visit Fidget Finds!

The store is having it's Official Unofficial Opening! There's still a few things that need tweaking, and I have tons more items to add (including some killer coats and boots by next week!) but other than that, it's a working vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories website. Tell all your friends and look forward to lots of goodies!

Style Collage

Dress: Vintage
Sweater: TJ Maxx
Leggings: Target
Boots: Vintage Ebay
Belt: Thrift
Earrings: Thrift

PS- The more that I look at this picture, the more i realize how corny/awful I look. But seeing as Michael has such a low tolerance for taking pictures of me in random outfits, I only have a few to choose from. Unfortunately this one was the best. cringe.

Rhode Trip

Today I had the pleasure of escorting my dear friend Julie off the island for lunch. We decided to venture over to Crazy Burger (crazyburger.com) in Narragansett. Yumm!! Everything was so good. I had a delicious burger with herbed boursin cheese, sunflower seeds, and alfalfa sprouts on a grainy bun with a side of balsamic white bean salad. Juju had sweet potato and corn chowder then a oriental chicken salad. I meant to take a picture of the food but everything looked so good that we just started eating right away. I didn't remember until my burger was half gone. Maybe next time.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

On Friday night, I watched "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" a 1970 classic directed by Russ Meyer. Movies don't get much better than this. It's the story of all girl rock band that moves to LA to live the rich life and all the zany characters that they meet along the way. The clothes! The hair! The sets! The music! The one liners! If you have yet to see this movie, watch it and if you have, see it again. I watched in on my computer via Netflix "Watch it Now" and the picture was crystal clear and only took a minute to load. So much visual stimulation!

Style Collage

Sweater: H&M a few years ago
Dress: Vintage Max Studio that my aunt gave me (it used to be hers)
Leggings: Target
Socks: TJ Maxx
Boots: Vintage from Ebay
Earrings: Thrift
Gold Necklace: stolen from my sister
Red Necklace: Thrift

So, unlike other fashionable bloggers, my day job doesn't lend it self to stylish outfits. A few mornings a week I work at a coffee shop/organic market where I don't want to wear my favorite clothes for fear of them being ruined. And the other days I work from home, which usually consists of outifts incorporating what I wore to bed the night before, and slippers (my super duper warm and cozy LL Bean ones that I couldn't live without). Therefore, when Michael and I go out on the weekends, it's nice to spend some time putting together a good outfit that's both sylish and warm because we usually walk to where ever it is we're going. That means lots of layers with fun jewelry to spice things up.

Girl with Style

Lately, I can't stop listening to Jenny Lewis's album "Rabbit Fur Coat" featuring the Watson Twins, especially the songs "Rise up With Fists!!" and "Handle with Care". Her voice is so enchanting and just makes me feel good. The whole album is folksy and fun and the lyrics are pretty great too. She's also a girl with great personal style: rock 'n roll meets vintage with a quirky twist.

My Closet

In August when we moved into our new place, Michael and I had an extra smaller bedroom upstairs. After much convincing and compromising, it became my (well I guess our) closet. This is the room that I've dreamed of having since I was a little girl, especially since it's actually bigger than my childhood bedroom. (I'm still not quite sure how my younger siblings got the bigger rooms.) I have ample space for all of my clothes, shoes, bags, and jewelry and I love setting up my earrings, necklaces, and other trinkets in kind of a three dimensional collage of sorts. It makes me happy every time I walk into that room to get dressed. I feel like a little kid again creating outfits and playing dress up. You can't tell from the photos but there is also my other dresser in the corner covered in plants and a shallow closet filled with shelves of all my tees, tanks, sweaters, bags, and shoes. I would have never had this much space when I lived in New York. I guess it's one of the perks of moving back to the Ocean State.

Quoted

So a few weeks ago I filled out this online survey on The Business of Fashion Blog (a really great blog by Imran Amed that has great posts about, well, the intersection of fashion and business) and yesterday the results were posted. It's a basic overview of who reads the sight and what they're looking for from it. Here's a bit of it:

You represent all facets of the fashion industry
About a third of you come from the business side of the industry: CEOs, managing directors, senior executives, brand managers, investors and even some business and economics students. Another third come from the creative side: designers, stylists, fashion students, and PRs. The remainder is a mixture of academics, journalists, media personalities, entrepreneurs, and my favourite, a "waitress extraordinaire while I am working on my own fashion business."

Guess who the "waitress extraordinaire" is? Yours truly! I just think that it's kind of ironic that my first quote on a fashion related website is in reference to how I'm a waitress. Oh well, you gotta start out somewhere.

Please take a visit to the sight. It has lots of useful and interesting information. I highly recommend it. It's one of the few sites I try to get to every day.

http://uberkid.typepad.com/fashionbusiness/

I am almost finished reading this truly amazing book, "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. It's about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair or "World's Columbian Exposition of 1893". It tells two stories. One revolves around Daniel Burnham, the cheif architect of the fair and the other, H.H. Holmes a serial killer living in the outskirts of the city. The murder aspect of the book is of course interesting but what I found most facinating were the details about the fair itself. I had no idea that most of this took place. So many inventions were debuted at the fair, the Ferris wheel (designed by George Ferris for the fair to one up the Eiffel Tower in Paris) was a major one, but also commonplace items were showcased, like shredded wheat and Cracker Jack. I am bewildered by all the work that went into builing this fair that only lasted for a five month period. 27.5 million visits were recorded when the country's total population was 65 million. Most of the buildings were destroyed afterwards, but I think that some of them are still standing. I highly reccommend reading this book and/or doing some research on the fair yourself. It's very intriguing...



World Fair, Chicago 1893: View from the Observation Platform of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. From left to right, Agriculture Building, Palace of Mechanic Arts, Columbia Fountain. Photograph from the Collection of the Avery Library, Columbia University


World Fair, Chicago 1893: A view toward the southern colonnade across the Grand Plaza. At left, the Agriculture Building; at right, the Palace of Mechanic Arts. Photograph from the Collection of the Avery Library, Columbia University



Caption Reads: FERRIS WHEEL 254 feet high. Carries 36 cars, capacity 60 passengers each. 20 minutes required for round trip. Cost $300,000.

Photoshoot!

Today Lisa and Frieda were kind enough to come over and pose for some photos for the website. They came out great! I'm so excited for the website to finally be pulled together. Hopefully it will be done by the end of November. They modeled some clothing for me but there's also lots of shoes and bags that are going to be for sale. Here's a sneak peak....

After the Storm

Actually, I don't really know how much of a storm it really was, but it was more than just a little bit windy. In true New England fashion the grocery stores were packed with people (as they always are when "hurricane" "storm" or "snow" are mentioned on the local news) buying bread and milk. However, this morning was absolutely beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. Michael and I went on a little drive to see if there was any damage anywhere. Besides a few fallen branches and leaves all over the place, there wasn't much. We saw a pretty big sailboat washed up at King's Park and that was the worst of it. Of course there were plenty of surfers, people, dogs, and piping plovers at first and second beach. What a lovely fall day....