what to wear when you work at home

 You could do something classy and rich-looking, like Abby, above, who is positively made of vanilla cashmere.  And accessorized (!) with a belt (!) that matches (!).  Her skin is perfect, her hair is neat, her coat is grade A creamy, her last meal is not visible on her clothes or face.  She works at home, one assumes,  doing socially redeeming work at which she is very capable. In a word, she looks successful.

And then there is this.  

A poster child for the holes in the mental health network,  this calamity was already in progress at 8 am, though the public was largely spared.  Those are neoprene midsection girders, fully functional, so that at any given time, the perpetrator could hurl herself into cold water with almost no immediate damage to the parts covered.  Her nod to professionalism, more like a spasm than a nod, is the man's button-down shirt and corset stilettos.  Different professions, but professionalism nonetheless.  I've lowered the curtain of decency over the bad parts (so you can just imagine) but I will say, her eyebags were neatly folded.  One can almost smell the acrid smoke from burned bridges.

questions answered

If you've been wondering how to do Sexy Nerd, wonder no more.  If you've been wondering about that pimple, squeeze it.  This is the editor of Riff Metal Mag, which answers the question,  Does this bruised and bloody hell-inspired makeup wash me out?

they got the memo

The one I didn't get. The one that instructed visitors to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to dress like Janelle Monae.  But I caught my mistake right off when I saw these two, because duh, the black and white, the hair, the neckwear, the poppin lipstick.  And while I don't usually document costumes,  these women nailed Janelle Monae so perfectly, I went ahead and broke that rule.  See?

Dang, I wish I'd gotten that memo because I can really do a Janelle Monae if I try, and I felt like a great big dummy dressed as I was, a tranny version of Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, Part XV.  Anyway,  I was just complimenting  the Janelle Monae look-alikes on their awesome black glasses with the white nosepiece when they said they'd added that white tape themselves. Becuz, see, it was Nerd Night at the MIA, not Janelle Monae Night, and those were taped-up nerd glasses not awesome black and white Janelle Monae glasses.  Oh.  

I knew that.

walk like a Parisian

One of the many bad things that happened just after I raised my camera (not quite high enough, as we are missing the uppermost layers of her cute layered hair) is that her rich-looking green coat lost all its woolly magnificence and looks instead like it was made out of playdoh.  Doh!  I think I can explain.  Because that is so pleasurable.  I was experiencing quite a bit of retinal dissonance with the cute haircut and gorgeous scarf at the north side and the Most Wonderful Shoes In The World all the way on the south.  At the last minute, the shoes won out.  She got them in Paris this summer and is afraid she's wrecking them by wearing them to bed and in the shower and stuff.  But I agree with her -- don't take those pups off until they disintegrate. Nonstop enjoyment.

My understanding of portraiture is that you can get all the body parts of one person into a frame, but this is a skill I'm developing.  It's in development. In fact, word to Canon -- AutoWholeBody.  My camera has all these crazy auto features -- AutoDevilEyes,  AutoDrunkPhoto,  AutoPlaydohClothes,  AutoStrangerInPerfectFocusWhileYourSubjectLooksLikeAlgae.   When I point my camera at a person and it looks like I intend to get the whole show in the frame, the AutoWholeBody feature overrides my shaky hands and gets in the topmost hairs.  I'd pay good money for that.

the Pope of Prints. this will be explained

Obviously, I am in luv with this vintage print that extends from the linen-like woven part of the dress to the sheer poly sleeves to the covered buttons that actually do not hold down the front pleats but look like they do.  Give me a goshdarn parsley sage rosemary and weed moment here whiles I fire up the Mamas and Papas. All of you under 98 years old, go tweet your wearabouts. Ha. I also like that she's wearing this with some murdered out sneakers. (That's kind of a violent presentation, isn't it?)

Anyhoo, this print put me in mind of the 1960s master of such prints, Goldworm (see below).

 

Is this not mind-blowing?   The unfortunately named Samuel and Gertrude Goldworm made their trippy prints on the same Italian looms as Missoni, but think to yourself -- would you brag about wearing a Goldworm or a Missoni? In doing a little research on Goldworm, I discovered that Samuel was knighted by the Italian government, which, guess what?  Italians don't have knights, they have popes, they have guidos and they have mafia kingpins.  Of these, if I was Samuel Goldworm,  I would totally have picked the Pope of Prints.  And that's how I'm going to think of him.  All the leaves are brown the leaves are brown...

house of twill

I was out on my bike looking for (fashion) love but you know how that goes -- never happens when that's the main agenda item.  So I called this excursion A Trip To The Co-op.  I was about to call it Time I Coulda Spent Staring At My Computer Screen when I came across a house wearing twill siding. 

See, twill is a way of weaving that results in a very tight and durable diagonally oriented fabric, example Below.  Most denim, except for the kind from Ann Taylor For Middle Aged Women, is heavy cotton twill.  But you don't see houses wearing twill that often, so I had to document and celebrate this street stylish example.  I think twill siding would, like the textile, be X-durable because the rain and snow and heavy mist gets in those grooves and just runs right off. Plus everyone knows diagonal lines are more flattering and imply movement. I'm gonna stop now.

Brooks beast

 This is Jamie, a professional athlete (9:29 steeplechaser, so for you somewhat normal people, that's running until your sternum glows like a hot coal 7-1/2 times around a big big outdoor track, but along the way there are these crotch-high wooden fences that seem to get higher and harder and more openly hostile with each lap, and oh yeah, one of them has a deep pool on the far side of it so you land in water and have to sort of slog out of it like the first human, 7 times)  whose look sings.  She has not been embittered by the difficulty of her chosen profession, as evidenced by her insouciant hair, shaved soft and velvety on one side and shiny on the other.  If you had been at this shindig, you too might have reached out and petted her tricolor lambskin (ummm, the lamb was not harmed after it was made into chops) jacket, as I did.  Droopy pocketed dress, irradiated tights, lunch-at-the-club kiltie loafers  -- go Jamie! She is in fact going to Seattle to join a group of Brooks-sponsored athletes.