Slipper Genie!

 Attention hardwood mofos! Hold onto your holy socks because your world is about to be rocked. I ran across these marvels at Walmart as I was buying Borax -- Slipper Genies. Delightful, green, versatile, with velcro detachable chenille mop-bottoms that are machine washable. Slip em on and they do the work for you! What would you pay for mind-blowing wonderment like this? $100? A million$? How about five dollares? I had these fuckers in the cart like that. See below, my dog Rascal checking out the dust-grabbing chenille soles at close range. 

 Almost as enjoyable as the slippers themselves is the copy on the packaging. Exercise care when using this product-- can be slippery. Do not slide or run. Slipper Genie cleaning slippers are not a toy. Do not use if your balance is not stable. I did not exercise care. I exercised carelessly. I worked up an excellent routine to Michael Jackson's "Bad."  They fit femmes tailles 36.5 a 40.5. I've never been more delighted with a product.

 I'm also delighted with my yard and the flowers and the birch tree. See how the Slipper Genies blend in? There is every chance I will hurt myself wearing these things.

Victoria & Grand, St. Paul

 It's not often one finds a whole group of people in which each member pulls their own weight sartorially, but bing bang, here they are. The woman on the left's inspiration is street style poster woman/camera whore Kate Lamphear.  Don't get me wrong -- I should be that whorish. Wait, I am...Or that attractive. The woman in the middle got this wonderful STRIPED (absolutely seminal to me, bonus for how many times I've photographed stripes in the past two months) linen shift at Grethen House. I think. The woman on the right got her summery white maxi dress in Brazil. Which would be easy if you were from Brazil, as she and the middle fraulein are. No idea why they were standingsmoking with Kate Lamphear.

this is the real Kate Lamphear, who is trying to look like the woman in St. Paul, and doing pretty well.  Note the heavily embellished wrists above and abover.

from the Bed-Stuy Salvation Army

 

 Found this place 20 minutes before it closed for the day. Squarely in Bed-Stuy so hipster-free, and two floors up with no elevator so also bum-free. It was between this and an Armani jacket. Duh. Those are real dyed maribou feathers strands of plastic or maybe human hair. I have been molting ever since.

more Brooklyn Art Museum

Recovering from acute awkwardness so I went for stalking mode. Look at her softer gentler leather jacket, pleated in back with gathered sleeves. And then look look look at her gold-foundationed booties with peep toes and red red nail polish.

free night at the Brooklyn Art Museum

 Stripes + peekaboo shoulder + striped bike shorts + harness boots = I could not get my camera up fast enough. This event was Brooklyn hipnin' (i made that word up) which naturally served to highlight my dorkiness. Did I heed these junior high levels of self-consciousness and quietly try to blend in? I did not (see below).

Oh my gosh, I am terminal, but what would you do? Whatever it takes, right? First of all, groups of people intimidate me. Groups of hip people make my forehead go numb. Groups of hip, attractive guys wearing sunglasses in a dark room, grey laceups with white soles and blue heels, red boat shoes and a Mr. Rogers cardigan with artfully worn pants and boots make me babble uncontrollably and cut off their heads. They may or may not have thought I was one of those sad women you hear so much about who snort kitty litter. Pretty sure I played it off though.

Brooklyn Flea, Fort Greene

 Maybe I was a little dehydrated but I think she said this trippin' caftan is not even vintage. Or else I was trippin' and it is vintage...

 Can't get enough of stripes, see above and below.  Those tats? They're the real deal. She must have really really liked the Rodarte show a couple seasons ago. And I really really like these -- the simplicity, the symmetry, the 360-ness. Forearms are overlooked.

the Met

 This was outside the Met where I was blown away by the Alexander McQueen exhibit and of course by the sheer volume of wonderful get-ups worn by visitors. I was virtually paralyzed by overpowering style. Above, her Turkish eye necklace which she wears for protection and a closeup look at that animal that's got on her.

 The shades of grey and white in this picture delight me. That's nice now, isn't it.

Grunge is not dead! So go ahead and rip your clothes.

NYC!

That's right gangstas, I've been momming it up in the Big Apple. As usual, street style was full-on, thick and fast, so what you see here was the tiny portion I was able to capture when my hands were not occupied with metro card, map and bag of Nutz for Nutz.

 I walked behind/stalked this entourage in mid-town just moments after arriving.  They were all thin, very stylish (note: military jacket with leather pants and leopard Tods, Sonny Bono vest on the child) and speaking Russian. Obviously Moscow mobster's family. Or off-duty models. I was only a little bit afraid the guy on the left would beat me up and stomp on my camera.

 Very casual, really and truly effortless, but it would be a cold day in May before you'd see something like this in the Twin Cities. Wait a minute....

A guy! Univ of Minnesota

I decided to start seeing guys, as this here blog was getting way too estrogenous. Didn't have to look too hard now did i? Was so intent on capturing the Minnetonka-esque boat shoes without socks that i cut off the tiniest bit of his head. He was cool, this undergrad, and he treats all the pesky street style bloggers graciously. What a class act. Scored his jacket at a thrift shop for like $3.99.

snow on May 2

I'm loving this mother-daughter streak that's come my way since Mother's Day is... soon. This pair, again, shares a winsome look and a killer sense of wardrobe irony. Mom's born-and-bred up-to-the-lake sweatshirt/parka/jeans/stocking hat uniform swanked up with a stole (that she bought at a thrift store for a buck) just sings. And her daughter's oversized mad-bright wild child ensemble is but an inkling of excellent things to come. Incidentally, their strong and quirky style make Savers' lineup of prom candidates in the background look...crazy conservative (What Would Michele Bachmann wear?).

Art in Bloom, Mpls Institute of Art

Just a word or ten in edgewise before i start in with the blinking photos -- i have never been to the Institute's Art in Bloom and i made the scene today purely by accident, and what a happy accident it was. The concept is that floral designers design fleurs (and sometimes trees and stuff in the wider botanical family) using a piece of art as inspiration. There were crazy beautiful, and in the case of lilies, aromatic, arrangements all over the place -- must have been more than 200. Not only did it exercise my rusty creativity, it made me start seeing art (which is not at all like seeing dead people or motorcycles) and it attracted a rich rich source of people who are fluent in clothes. You'll see what i mean.

 Mom and daughter -- surprise! Not only do they look alike, their sweaters are in the same color palette with the same parallel lines in the front worn with jeans. (i edited out that comment since it made zero sense). One of these women is not like the other though because she's wearing a cool mixed chain lariat necklace. 

 What you can see is that the coat is red and the boots are high which is all my-T-fine. What you can't see is that the coat is doublebreasted, gathered in the back and has lantern sleeves. It's not as good when i just tell you, is it?

 Where to start... the whole feathered hat feathered hair that speaks to me of bird of paradise is detailed below, see? That's a pancake pin on her menswear vest, nubby sweater, tribal skirt which is the new way of saying ethnic skirt and Tintin (Belgique comic character) socks. 

In profile like this, doesn't she just look like a Vermeer portrait? Woman in feathered hat. Maybe i've had too much art for one day.