Hello from DC!

I am having a fantastic time. I'm visiting museums, taking long walks, eating decadent meals, and basically spoiling myself with culture. Tonight I saw Les Miz; it was amazing.

I leave tomorrow night. I'll begin posting again soon after, but maybe not until 2009 (!)

Grunge, Glorious Grunge

Source

Oh hello, winter uniform!

What is it about soft, baggy plaid? I am so obsessed.

Grunge is my homeboy.

Off to visit family in NY, and then to do some touristy things in DC. I should have access to internet unless my computer decides to hate me. Anything fashion-y I absolutely must see in the American capital?

Kicksss

Hello, lovelies. These are my new kicks:

I found them on sale at Urban Outfitters, with my size just sitting there waiting for me. Since I've spent about five years wearing various Chuck Taylor All Stars, it felt like a good idea to switch it up a bit. So I did. The silver is more silver-y in real life than in the picture, by the way.

Anyway, I took some photos of them. You may think the girl in the photos looks like me, but I assure you she is not. She is named Danielle Jones. She likes to be called DJ, but most people call her Dani J. 

Her favorite activity is dancing, and she often dances instead of walking. Therefore, she dresses so she can move easily and well. Her favorite color is purple. She likes to stand out, and so above is quite a typical outfit; her signature Nike kicks, black-and-silver-striped Hot Topic romper folded to look like a skirt, Zara T-shirt, Wet Seal silver leggings, and a rhinestone-encrusted cap worn sideways. 

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She loves standing out, which means lots of wild colors and patterns. Her idols are MC Hammer and Lil Mama. She abhors mp3 players and maintains that a big ghetto-blaster-style boom box is the only way to go. She often carries her boom box with her so she can dance. Above she is wearing a Zara tunic, Old Navy men's flannel shirt, Forever 21 pants, her signature Nike kicks, and a studded headband from Delia*s.

Fine, you caught me - DJ is today's alter ego. 

Background images: 1, 2. 

Shoe picture: Zappos

Artwork

Oh, you pretty, pretty pictures of pretty, pretty girls. 

Sorry, I'm too lazy to upload this on Photobucket where it will be a decent size, so just click for a bigger version. Also too lazy to do the promised kicks photo shoot just yet. I spent the day snowed in, running around in the geekiest of snow hats. I buy 'em geeky on purpose; if the hat is cool, I'm not interested. Do not ask why. 

Thanks for the birthday wishes yesterday! I had a really great day, and I'm pretty happy with things in general at the moment. Also, happy Hannukah! I now have a bit of holiday cash to spend, so I'm thinking it may be time to take advantage of the 50% off sale at Karmaloop. Maybe a bit of Tarina Tarantino, Betsey Johnson, Cheap Monday, or the like will find a way into my wardrobe. . .

It's My Birthday

I turned 19 years old today, woot!

I'm giving myself the day with my friends, but you should probably know I bought myself some sweet new kicks. Will share later/tomorrow.

If a dress had an answering machine

Hi dress,

It's me. I know you probably have a lot of admirers right now, but hear me out. I'll be good to you, baby; I can promise you that. If you'll be mine, I swear to adore and cherish you. We'll go to all the best parties together. You can rest on my shoulder whenever things get hard or whenever you feel like it, and I'll never push you away. Ever. In the winter I'll cover you with a jacket so you don't catch a chill, and in the summer I'll let you fly free. I'll bathe you gently when you need it, and make sure you don't sit in gum or wet paint or that kind of thing. I'll watch out for you. I'll love you. I'll treat you right.

Think about it, okay? We could be so good together. I just know it.

A Quick Break from Working

I'm looking through some old posts, and here are two reader comments I want to share:

"I mean, the way some people . . . have hacked at their faces. . . makes you realize that all of the money in the world can't fix self-hatred. And God forbid I be that way." - Ambika

"I was driving down the street and noticed a very glamorous-looking lady walking down the sidewalk. Then I noticed that her thighs were about twice the size of mine. That's when I figured out that nobody is staring at my thighs, thinking I look fat, everyday like I am." - Rebecca

Wise, eh? Those ladies always seem to know what they're talking about.

EDIT: I did not take the first quote as a racist comment, but I realize now that it can be easily misinterpreted. I am incredibly sorry if you were offended by this. I have removed the parts of the quote that offended, and I hope everyone's okay with that. And, for the record, I am not racist. I love diversity and all it stands for, and one of my favorite things about living in America is that it is such a melting pot of race, culture, ethnicity, religion, etc. 

Oh, and I know Ambika's not racist either.

Inspiration 'n Things

I haven't died, I swear. I'm just working very, very hard to finish up my college applications and that kind of thing. I promise the posting will return to a more regular schedule when I emerge from the depths of my (looooong) to-do list!

In the meanwhile, here are some things I've found inspiring lately:

Sources: Style on Track, Pixie Market, Mixologies, Dirrty Glam, ru_glamour, heatherjoy, Arvida, Arvida, ru_glamour, Lullie Vintage, Sandra Freij, Glam Canyon, Altamira NYC.

Mmm. I see some major outfit experimentation in my future. And perhaps some post-holiday shopping sprees.

Two Things

I'm lying here in a plaid flannel men's button-down, short flaired denim skirt, and grey zebra-striped Rogan for Target leggings. If this sounds ridiculous, it is. But it's also comfy as hell. When I walked into bio class this morning, a few older girls exclaimed, "Aw, look at you in your little skirt!" and I felt remotely patronized (even though the intention was to flatter), but it's all good. Icy days make me want to feel warm 'n cozy.

Two things:

♥ I have a Twitter account as of about 30 minutes ago. Yes, I totally jumped on the bandwagon. Look me up, lovelies; right now I am lonely and  Twitterfriendless!

♥ This is more exciting, which is why I'm writing about it second. I Heart Daily is an adorable new site run by Anne Ichikawa and Melissa Walker, former editors for ELLEgirl (RIP.) I think they explain the idea behind the site better than I could:

"I Heart Daily is a free newsletter of stuff we like. Each day, you’ll find out about one thing: The band you should hear, the girl who’s kicking ass in the world, the lipstick color that looks good on everyone, the designer who doesn’t have a fashion show yet but is completely amazing… you get the idea.You’ll never hear about stuff we hate, just stuff we heart. We’re nice that way."

It's a fun read, and even more fun is the fact that today's feature is me! There's a totally flattering article (thanks so much, Anne!) and an interview, so check it out.

Okay, back to work. Or, you know, putting off work to play with Twitter. (Just kidding, mom!)

T to da Hakoon fo' Targizzle

Ooh, rap title! Ya betta dig it, yo. 

Ahem.

I haven't been too excited about Thakoon for Target, to be honest. It just seems a bit silly to put out a resort line at a bargain store during an economic recession. Sure, the kind of people who shop at, say, Neiman Marcus may need to buy some pieces for a trip to the Caribbean, but the timing just seems odd when these pieces are sold at Target instead. Well, maybe I'm just a bit bitter because a portion of my winter vacation will be spent in Washington, D.C. instead of someplace warm (note: am actually excited about this trip; am seeing les Miz), but mostly I think it's just frustrating that I won't be able to wear some of the things I buy until the season changes. That said, this presents an interesting styling challenge should I choose to wear the pieces at the end of December.

Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent. This post was meant to say something like, "The preview photos of Thakoon for Target weren't so impressive to me, but check out this majorly cute video!"

Anyway, I am now more excited for the collection, and since my birthday is coming up (the 20th! Yay!) I should have some birthday cash to drop on any Thakoon items that catch my eye.

Well, only three more weeks til we can make a more comprehensive judgement. Poor Thakoon; the Alexander McQueen and Rogan Loomstate for Target collections are kind of stealing his thunder.

P.S. I realize I've been really bad about replying to your wonderful comments lately. I just responded to all the comments from the last page of articles or so; I really do appreciate what you have to say!

Le New Bag

I have a confession to make. On a day-to-day basis, the bag I most often carry is... deep breath... a knockoff. I didn't realize this when I bought it, but my crappy black $20 bag with its fetching gold hardware is a dead ringer for the Balenciaga Motorcycle Bag. Well, design-wise, I mean. It is clearly lacking in the real-looking leather and workmanship departments. Anyway, I've been meaning to replace it for ages, and the fact that the PVC exterior started peeling away from the lining was just the impetus I needed to find a replacement. 

I'm very particular about my bags, though, and the faux Balenciaga had really been working out for me. The replacement, I decided, had to be the same colors and roughly the same size. In the end, I lucked out when a return trip (as in, I was making returns) to Zara yielded just the purse I was looking for. Look how pretty:

It may be faux leather too, but it looks quite real. Not to mention the quality is eons better, and the fact that it has a sweet vintage design and adjustable strap. I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself; can you tell?

Also, this is my first fashion-y purchase in ages, and I do believe I've missed that having-new-things-to-wear/carry feeling.

Anyone else buy something great recently?

Roar, I'm a Shoe Bully

I like (some) avant garde shoes as much as the next girl, but today it occurred to me that the completely-out-of-my-price-range-and-therefore-bitterness-causing things are have a host of problems.

What's that you say? Am I not interpreting them correctly? Har har, I may possibly crack myself up. . .

But in all seriousness, this post stemmed from my train of thought while looking at the "Crippled Shoe." It went something like this: Dear God, someone help that poor shoe up before the heel snaps and it falls and dies! It really does look like it's on crutches or something, doesn't it? Poor, poor crippled shoe.

On a related note, these Wunderkind shoes should be mine:

I don't care that I would most likely sustain injuries from an inability to walk in these babies. Just place them by the hospital bed for me to admire and I'll be happy as a barrel of monkeys on crack. Or so I imagine.

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break! I know I did. Back to work!