two daughters, sculpture garden

Daughters in the Sculpture Garden not fully appreciating that 37 degrees is warm. Emma swapped coats with her roommate and ended up with a Banana Republic of 2007 vintage.

my deck, my daughter

We were laughing about the article on how to get shot by the Sartorialist and decided to follow the directions which included lots of big label accessories (in this case, Michael Kors bag and boots), menswear with a pop of color with quirky head gear. Done and done. Some of the ingredients we couldn't come by were being Kate Lamphear, being a big name model and a Soho or Meatpacking cobblestone location. Instead we went with the natural dark texture of the deck and our lovely birch tree and the 18" of snow which we ordered just for this shoot. Sartorialist nuthin.

coat of many colors

Isn't this coat amazing? With the one big sculpted button? So arty. You will believe it if you're a style hunter, she found it at a thrift store.

do you see what I see?

It's cold baby cold but not everyone at the U of M looked like the guy striding into the frame. I spied a bold zebra print skirt and some artisanally enhanced mukluks and it positively made my day. I am not going to sugarcoat -- it takes a lot of determination to carry through an ensemble that wards off a -22 degree wind chill, and salt and chemical slush, grips glassy inclines and is visually uplifting at the same time. These are nefarious times for MN stylers.
In fact, one of my favorite recent purchases, some sort of motorcycley boots with leather soles, did not pass muster on the very first brush with snow. I might as well have waxed the frozen and treadless soles, they were that slippery. You know those gray pebbly rubber ovals that women of an age stick on the soles of shoes for insty-grip but the sticky soles don't know when to stop gripping and they come to a real sudden stop on a patch of deep pile carpeting and she headers and breaks a hip? I might try those.

more Midtown Global Market

I'm working with a loaner computer that is anti-cropping so activate your zoom and check out the big fringe mocs and downtown diva jacket.


Mama made her skirt and her baby bunting and her six-week-old baby and she looks fresh and fabulous. She did not make babette's adorable booties though. Huh, slacking. I'm wanting her snow bunny mukluks. She's standing in front of her husband's artwork.

Midtown Global Market

This Amelie put it together from such mundane sources as Target (her cloche) and the Gap (bubble skirt) but it comes off as tres mignon. The floral locket is her grandma's.

Midtown Global Market

New Year's resolution -- learn to cut your own hair. I was really really really impressed by the layering she accomplished by her very own hand. A little bit impish, a little bit edgy, the cut rocks.



And as we can see, she's surehanded when it comes to getting dressed too. Lacy tights, floral ex-maxi skirt and droll cloth boutonniere girly bits meet fatigue jacket, mocs and her mom's fabulous western belt.

pattern frenzy at Midtown Gobal Market

Oooo lookit, I inadvertantly caught this color captain twice. Sky blue love she carries through in the laces of her purple trainers. A woman of a practical bent, she bumped up the R factor of her trippy print dress with jeans.


Yes, it's hard not to notice her mega-graphic frock but what grabbed me was the legwarmers she made from the sleeves of an old sweater and the dress patent leather clogs. A textural bonanza.

crowned head, Midtown Global Market

True confession -- I went to the No Coast Craftorama strictly for the style sightings. I was not disappointed. This lavender-haired craftress knit her own Brit bomber from a punk pattern. Good show.

My Sister's Closet, St. Paul

You know how some cool girls make the transition to cool woman, and you're still kind of awestruck by the way looking good comes so easily to them? Example A, above. The rolled jeans, rockabilly boots, mixed plaids on top. I commented on her D&G bag and she said it was a gift from her 20-year-old daughter. Did I mention, I was feeling a little schlubby? She also carried off the perfect mix of gamine/rocker with her layered 'do. Cool cool Steve McQueen cool.

Trader Joe's St. Paul

Only 1% to 2% of the world's population has red hair, so when I find one wearing dreds and a swaggery military coat, I out with the camera. She's been working the dreds for about a year. I'm a sucker for extremes, and her coat went there -- very black, very long and exaggeratedly martial, the point made by white stitching. Her Hmong bag is nice and graphic, and the evil eye/keychain ornament/piece of flare looks like something Genghis Khan's mother would have given him as a baby.

Tina's new glasses, Denver, CO

Madge, daaaarling.



The shape, the color, so modern and fun. Oh yeah, and her glasses are nice too.

blue on blue, Grand Ave.

Blue pinstriped jacket, shades of blue polo, blue bag, blue jeans. He's a student at the U and said he just rolled out and put this on.

Microcenter, St. Louis Park

This proves a street style blogger should always be prepared. Actually a street style blogger should be a tad more computer savvy and be able to do more than press the On button and be dumbfounded when nothing happens. But I digress. Following aforementioned incident, I schlepped in to the help desk at the Microcenter which is very like the emergency room at a hospital -- you get in line and wait your turn with lots of other sad and desperate people in various states of brokenness. You want to exude sympathy for fellow sufferers but you don't want to stare for heaven's sake. But it's a small room with zero privacy. What would you do? Her funky granny boots had a wooden sole + heel and oversized grommets, and the green knee-highs and brown tights just sung with the William Morris-inspired print of her skirt. Naturally I broke six kinds of privacy codes by speaking and then outing with the camera -- beyond the pale. I did have the delicacy to focus on her boots which she got "next door" which I think is Burlington Coat Factory. P.S. The Microcenter IT person turned my computer on and it worked flawlessly. I'm pretty sure I'm not welcome at the Microcenter help desk ever again.

Casket Arts Building, NE Minneapolis

Apparently anarchists go to open studios on pleasant Saturday afternoons and try to score free cheese and wine whilst appearing to ponder the simple honest beauty of hand-thrown pottery. Refill the can o' whoop-ass, as it were. Anyhoo, this dangerous-looking dude was nice as could be and gave me a guided tour of his DIY pimped out jean vest and biker jacket. One caveat -- he's from New York so flare like this may not be available in our fair Cities. The strip o' lying leopard on the storm flap of the jacket and shoring up the pocket of the vest is kind of his trademark -- he glued 'em on. He cut off the sleeves of the black denim jacket to make a vest, revealing greater leather real estate. He safety pinned a Guinness spoon on the sleeve to facilitate a black and tan whenever the mood struck. The 1984 pin on the lapel is a nod to George Orwell. The Old Style patch that I took as nostalgia was a novelty to his East Coast sensibilities. I have no idea what LAMF stands for and didn't ask, and the pinned on shirt tail is both a seat cover and a mud flap. My mug shot photo styling reminded him of something but he couldn't put his finger on it.

Casket Arts Building, NE Minneapolis

How many children would you sell for this coat? A trick question of course, because there's no telling if the coat would fit. I will tell you this, it's a genuine Custo and I highly recommend clicking on the photo to fully appreciate the Byzantine level of detail, from faux fur piping to awesome metal buttons on the Napoleon-esque lapels. And while you're up close and personal, drink in her amazing lariat necklace-of-curiosities. The reason accoutrements of this intensity are not owning her is that she is a person of considerable interest, Custo or no. She's Spanish, she recently moved here from Singapore and she's a painter with a studio in the Casket Arts Building. Through her painting, via her sunny disposition and amazing sartorial expression, the world is a more beautiful place.

Parkway Theatre, Minneapolis

True, she chopped off this 80s peplum dress to make a more updated look (get it, up-dated?) which is fun, but what attracted me is her undeniably 1920s screen star looks. Clara Bow anyone? Interesting how a person can just exude an era without trying.

Maplewood Cub, the dairy case

There is no expiration date on style, and that's imminently clear. She thought I was a fool but played along graciously -- I feel like in her younger days, she would have told me what to do with my camera. Top to bottom perfection -- a friend made the hat, her scarf she "barely got on," the marvelous graphic houndstooth coat she loves so much she's going to have relined, pop of red skirt and she finishes up with alligator print driving mocs. Maybe it was the jaunty hat or the bold mix of paisley, houndstooth and red, but it was especially apparent in the sweatshirt-and-jean (swean) crowd at Cub, here is a person who has never stopped caring about what she put on in the morning. And that's what I noticed.

Lake Street Savers

I think she's mid-blink but still, with that ottoman in the background, doesn't she just look like Laura Petrie (ok young friends, that's Mary Tyler Moore in the old Dick VanDyke Show)? She punched up her New Rochelle perkiness with that ethnic bag.



Super sharp even for Savers, the textures of the plaid scarf, cable sweater and tweed jacket are just sublime. Right on indeed.

Whole Foods, St. Paul

What's relevant here is that she is wearing shorts on November 7th in St. Paul. She nailed the prevailing zeitgeist by simulcasting summer shorts, fall plaid high tops and festive holiday knee socks. Nice.

Macalester College, St. Paul

She got the eye-catching scarf in a DC thrift shop because she had no idea it could be so cold there in July. She is not the only Twin Citian relishing the schadenfreude.

the dude abides, Menard's, Maplewood

This doesn't just happen friends. The dude got the purple vest back in the 70s and pimped it out a bit with the black fringe. The feathered cowboy hat rocks, and his freak flag is nothing less than spectacular. The belt buckle says Vikings but this is just one heckuva versatile outfit because you can wear it to rock concerts "and shit" too. Believe it or not he has about five pairs of pants just like this at home. He punched holes along the side seam and did a pseudo-buckskin thing with purple leather. But he didn't stop there -- he cut out and inserted the red,white and blue on both legs to "support the troops and the Olympics and stuff." I encourage you to click away on this photo to fully appreciate the detail and the thought the dude put into this look, just to go to Menard's. I know I did.

Bloomington Savers

This woman was the class of Savers by a factor of at least seven, so I had to take her picture. I would have preferred to get down on my hands and knees and get personal with her shiny stilettos with a nonfunctional buckle around the heel that sort of meant business. But since I was in an advanced state of decay (fresh off a trail run) and she already, very reasonably, had grievous doubts about my being, my mental state, my intents, I thought best not to push it. Her shoes are by Guess, which saddens me a little. As if. An individual who reeks like three-day-old fish, has dried spit on her face and is in all respects a danger to the public has no business putting on airs.

Grand Ave., St. Paul

She got her cool carpet bag at My Sister's Closet.

closer, closer

I know you can click on photos and look at the detail but I thought I'd go ahead and do that for you because it was hard to see the pinstripes in her trousers...

Lake Street Savers, Minneapolis

Not content to pierce his face six or seven times, Spike here went medieval on his leather jacket, thanks to Saint Sabrinas. Arm, collar, epaulets, inside the sleeve gussets, inside the pockets, he carried through his vision of punk to the last stud.

Savers had it all for me yesterday-- expressive people, a Bill Blass wool kilt dress, white wool Anne Klein duffel coat with black leather buttons in snowy perfect condition, some red tweed chunky heeled boots that cannot be denied, and another of a million Savers mysteries -- a weep-worthy pair of trippy floral Roberto Cavalli jeans. Just as Moschino eluded Savers once (so much like Mossimo), so the very rare Cavalli slipped by as the similar but dime-a-dozen Cavaricci. The instant I saw this, my pulse shot up to about 220, my palms were sweating and there was an intense feeling of euphoria in the wallet region. I came home spent. Literally.

Lake Street Savers, Minneapolis

Even amid the pre-Halloween chaos at Savers, this woman stood out. Somehow or other, she managed to wrangle some really boisterous pattern and color, and ride it out like an old Paint. Maybe it's the calming taupe boots that keep it grounded. The zebra print dress is really a skirt but consenting adults dress them up all the time.

Lake Street Savers, Minneapolis

This might be my favorite and here's why-- what I initially took to be an arty Custo top peaking out from the paisley scarf was in fact a Power Rangers t-shirt. Fearlessly teamed with a girly tiny-print skirt and tied together with a striped elastic belt that echoes the colors of the shirt...genius. 70s-ish foxy coat and kicking lace-up boots, this woman has style muscles and she's not afraid to use 'em.

Lake Street Savers, Minneapolis

I was just about to check out with a cart o' lovely finds when I spied this couple. What did it for me was her leg warmers over pinstriped pants + work boots. But then there's her cool bag, his super worn-in boots, his leather jacket and muffler...

Lake Street Savers, Minneapolis

I was digging the small cutaway jacket with the tucked in jeans and high boots -- crisp and military but definitely figure fetching. Yes my friends, these were all taken ambush-style in Savers so the lighting is fatal and the backgrounds nothing short of chaotic. Try to focus on the relevant details, just as if you were shopping at Savers.

Jefferson Ave., St. Paul

I think I shall never see anything as beautiful as this tree... Someone said that. This is the street's style. Actually right in front of the house where we used to live.

Whole Foods, St. Paul

This is a photo of a DIY-er. Top to bottom. She's done this 'do herself for the past 16 years, which involves shaving the back, keeping the front trimmed up and a dose of L'Oreal ruby ("looks like catsup") as needed. When she was young(er), she sported blue or pink or other hair color not found in nature done up in a mohawk which she built with Knox gelatine or an egg white + ironing. She makes a lot of her own clothes, including the super-saturated stud belt she's wearing here. Lot o repurposed clothes which have dual advantage of having history and actually fitting her small frame. She used to have a lot of facial piercings but now sticks with tattoos in places that don't show. As much. She's mellowed.

Snelling Ave., St. Paul

Proving it's all how you put it together, the girl on the left is rocking a Forever 21 knit peacoat, and on the right, a sweet mashup of Anthropologie, Target and Gap. I particularly liked the belted cardigan and the delicate pendant on the righthand style sister.

Here I will interject a defense -- I have not been slacking, I've been out there pounding the pavement, but serendipitous sightings have been thin on the ground. Assuming that the drought was weather-related, I went out and about yesterday in idyllic conditions and pedaled down Grand Ave., through Macalester College, and on to the University of Minnesota with concerted lingering in likely style-trafficked areas. Nuthin. The women above saved me from utter despair, but I'm weak with the effort for heaven's sake. Well I'm off to wheel and deal with Everyday People on Selby for a vintage Schlampp's trenchcoat. It's for Emma, not me.

October 12th, St. Paul

This photo says many things to many people. Some pragmatists opined it was beautiful and they hurried to get out their woolly sweaters and fleece. I see my star magnolia cruelly tricked and my lounge chair befouled. Out of frame, some ivy and marigolds and tomato plants were blackened and frozen in the most hideously contorted poses. Casualties on the Russian front sprung to mind. This freak meteorological incident was not only a death knell for my garden, but also signals the beginning of a tough season for style spotting. Footwear in particular cannot survive below 40 degrees. Fashion is a zone 5-9 tender perennial. Those brave flowers who dare something more decorative than down and Uggs move very quickly from one heated building to another and the chances of spotting them are slim indeed. Further dimming the possibilities is the fact that my trigger finger is now part of a club-like mitten, and will be until May. It would be fair to say I'm not a winter person.

outside Fame/Envision, Minneapolis

After this, I went home happy.

outside Fame/Envision, Minneapolis

I didn't have to wait long before spotting Amanda who's cut out for this sort of thing. Ha. Cutout dressette, seamed stockings from American Apparel and sharp boots. Her layered rocker grrrl hair = edgy and cool.

outside Couture Noir

I'll answer your question right now -- those are their street clothes. That's amazingly beautiful Anthony Eliason in the middle. He's 18, a student at Bloomington Kennedy High School, and already designing some sexy, feminine items. I didn't attend Couture Noir because A) I couldn't stay up that late (show started at 10) and B) not sure I want to be around a lot of people embracing their dark side. I've been to the DMV. No thanks. But I happened to be passing the Varsity Theater at about 7:30 on the evening of the show and figured some of the stressed-out designers and producers and models would be outside for a cig break. And I was right.
I'm going to

outside the Envision show, Minneapolis

Lookit, off-duty models looking street smart but better because they have fake eyelashes on. A makeup artist applied the lashes. Talk about skillz.





A long cool drink in a snack-sized BCBG frock. Digging the red clutch and bow pumps. Her man-ccessory makes a nice understatement.




The glam ruching and satin finish and flattering wide neckline say Grace Kelly. She added matching ribbons to the pearl necklace and bracelet. Charmed I'm sure.



This guy is working it like the fat man on Christmas Eve. Spine-tingling vintage jacket that he got in Chicago is the doppelganger of a D&G iteration and the Balmain-ia that has seized Paris. Leopard tie, very very sharp boots and a heaping helping o' whoop ass.



How much am I luving this? Let me count the ways -- simple black mini, floral bustier, strip of gold belt, liquid leggings and classy, sparkly flat sandals. The whole is even greater than the sum of the individually wonderful parts.