she be spoking

We spoke.  She be spoking.  More amazingly, she be walking around in her own giddyup kicks that she be cut and formed and soled and pegged with her own MFA-from-Art-Institutes-of-Chicago certified fingers.  And she can be make them for you too!!

Ok this language gimmick be giving me the fantods.

See that little animal on her neck?  Relax, totally cleared of distemper.  See that genuine Swiss army man bag with the boyfriend attachment?  That's her Leatherman.  Get it?  Because Swiss army, she works with lea....

Holy hides,  I want those!!  This is Amara Hark-Weber's foot but it could be yours because she makes custom boots and chaps and other daywear just for you!  See?  harkweberstudio.com.  You can choose the materials, the design, the level of toughness, and she will draw around your foot and say nothing about the bunions and out with the awls and knives and hacksaws and ice picks and hammers and stretchers and belt sanders and guillotines (shoemaking is a pretty violent undertaking) and swaddle your insteps with the most achingly beautiful article you ever sweat in.  I'm gonna give you that website again in case you were unconscious --  harkweberstudio.com.  It's not as easy as you'd think.  Takes 2 - 4 weeks, depending on whether you want one boot or two. 

This picture shows she still has all her fingers which makes it pleasant to shake her hand and pass over the benjamins in exchange for your custom raccoon carrier or ring or CIA badge case or shackles wristlet or other useful stuff.  Just in time for Festivus -- remember, nothing says Happy Holidays like a custom leather vacuum cover (hint hint people).

Mr. Rogers kicks some A

First off, I can't speak to the nuclear explosion happening in Mr. Roger's neighborhood, but nevermind because that is a tear-off cardigan our on-trend can a whoop-ass is rocking     cue up Green Beret song... silver wings upon his chest...
and shiny aerodynamic kicks unencumbered by seams or laces.  It's no secret, this agent is killing it in the style department.  sorry, I...

whoa, check out those paddles

 Does something seem stiff, contrived about this photo?  Well thank you, it's not just me then.  Little things like,  A. No one likes art unless there's likker involved, or maybe cheese.  Why are they at the Mpls Institute of Art then?   B. Their hair has not been slept in and neither have their clothes. That makes me suspicious.   C.  Does it look like someone told them to stand over there and act like you know each other? What kind of hideous crone would do such a thing, all the while pretending to have a real camera?

Nonetheless...

I really like that shitzu she's carrying on the right and those tiers of joy on the left, and I could about pee my pants every time I lay eyes on their boots -- heels of the brutalist school and cuffs of the pirate school respectively.  Wendy, left, laid a square piece of heavy card stock on me that is the exact size and shape of a condom package, which happens to me a lot, so of course I put it in my wallet and went right home.  After several glasses of wine,  I retrieved it and to my great delight, found that it was in fact a business card.  We were so excited!  BrownInk.com exquisite paper products. Their motto is Safe Stationery.

using the old bean

This woman is so smart her brains are oozing out at the top.  Wait... that's her hair.  And the winner in the Ruin Knitwear That Is Both Beautiful and Versatile With Grotesque Imagery category.  A-thankyou, you've been too kind. 

Moving on... first off,  she dreamed up this design herself. It's a real honest-to-goodness fabrication.  Weird becuz...  Then,  instead of handing her initial sketches off to nine-year-olds in Mumbai, she busted out the sticks and executed this skillful fisherman sweater pattern with her own digits.  Let's visualize -- formless ball of yarn,  then we speed up the film and it appears she's winding strings of yarn around a wire,  a miracle occurs, and wala! she's walking around at the Institute of Art with a cool vented hat that didn't exist before.  Nothing, something.  Pretty big transition.  The yarn is in counseling.                

your thoughts here

         

Ok, that's enough.  Let's look at the features of this article.  By opening or tying the top vent closed, one can maintain optimal operational temperature.  One can liberate one's ponytail or fro or otherwise expansive hair.  Or, if one's neck is like,  Heads heads, 80% of body heat, blah blah. What about us?  Our veins and stringy stuff are clacking together -- if that happens, one can pull the whole thing down as a cozy windpipe warmer.  And don't even get me started on the turban-y swagger. This is a one-off but she's thinking about selling them.  I'm gonna write the marketing materials. Prob'ly.

She buttoned the grey sweater vest in back because she felt like it.

going back in time

Even aside from the enormous magnetic nostalgic draw of this puffed and plaided blouse,  I'm puzzled as to how she could manage to not look like a Home Economics major?  I would have said it couldn't be done -- the little house on the prairie collar, the four food groups puffed sleeves, teamed up with school uniform navy pants?  I mean, this gal has gone deep into what I know to be very hostile -- deadly even--  style territory, liberated the hostages and has returned triumphant.  And somehow, sassy.  She is my hero.   

But a wise caveat lest you're I'm tempted to relive my glory days as a Sunday school teacher (the parallel rise of religious extremism is purely coincidental)  -- style is a one-way street.  You can never go back,  regardless of how mad hawt you I looked in your Boundary Waters red and black oversized sweater.  Ever forward my friends,  inexorably,  bravely staggering forward, blazing new trails of eye-watering impropriety.

awe-Somali

Here we find award-winning style in the person of one of the star soccer players representing Jimmy Lee Rec Center, runners-up to the St. Paul City Championship in the 14U division.  The team is all Somali or east African girls, the only one of this demographic in the Twin Cities.  The girls kick it in a more aerodynamic and one would assume, hi-tech, hijab (head scarf) than the one she's sporting here, Jimmy Lee soccer jerseys, shorts and leggings underneath.  Clearly, they are not hindered in sports or cramped in style. 

 The desire for personal expression through clothing is, after all, what this blog is all about.  Example A+, above.

adventurer

As you can imagine, at first this post was going to be about backpacks.  Big ones, small ones, blue ones, ones with a pot roast in them, backpacks accessorized with the most beautiful golden hair loosely done up and shining in the late afternoon sun like one of those Rembrandt paintings that illustrate the opulence and glory of a moment with foreshadowing in the long shadowing that clearly indicates she will be married to a rich old merchant with a bulbous nose but will get some awesome spices out of the deal that urges the viewer to hold onto the syrupy stillness.  Before it gets dark and cold for five months.  There's a lot to say about backpacks.

But then I got talking with this woman, she was waiting for a ride and couldn't get away who is on the nursing faculty at St. Kates,  and realized this post should not be about backpacks but rather about...

forearms!  See that fantastic Zena bullet and bad juju deflecting shield?  That's Libyan silver.  Now don't embarrass yourself by admitting you thought that was some different kind of silver like vegan or sterling, but better.  It's from an old-school mall in Libya.  Of Muammar Gaddafi death-to-Americans fame.  That Libya.  It gets better -- she was there with her mum,  just the two of them,  having a little holiday.  In Tunisia and Libya.  Most people take their mum to Old Country Buffet.  This woman and her mum have gone all over the world,  apparently taking advantage of the Civil War and Military Strongman specials airlines are always offering.  Are you, like me, getting an image of her mum driving a hard bargain in the medina with the help of a bullwhip ala Harrison Ford?  Dammit, no means no, and I don't drink tea!  Anyway, that was a long time ago, before 9-11, but she recounted that a Libyan guy came up to her and her mother and asked where they were from.  Naively they admitted to the stars and stripes and their new friend put a damper on things by saying, "We will kill you all."  I asked if the two of them gathered up their I Came To Libya And All I Got Was This Death Threat t-shirts and took the next camel out of town and she laughed and said no, but for the rest of the trip, they were Canadians.  No one hates Canadians.

The wonderful ring is from another mother-daughter outing to Finland, undoubtedly from when her mum won that fermented reindeer milk drinking contest.

upholstery

From real hide to Naugahyde (her posse called em vegan) to fringed and possibly faux,  this woman presents a conundrum to PETA.  But that's their problem.  I am fully in favor of the comprehensively black, vacuum packed for freshness look.  As we know from my previous neoprene shorts expose, a day without rubber clothing is stupid.

boots, nostalgia ... which is better than wigs, nostalgia. or dustmops, nostalgia.

Sometimes all it takes to make me happy are some brand new work boots against a brick floor in close company with a filigreed wall.  

I'm drawn to this style of work boot (these happen to be Sebago that he's just breaking in) because they're seminal to my youth.  Teens of every ten-year age group adopt a boot that represents their ... I'm gonna say it... zeitgeist.  (I feel bad about using that word but experience has shown I can get over all sorts of journalistic crimes)  The cohort before me chose Frye harness boots as their shoe mascot, and the group after did those flat floppy semi-pointy toed boots like Robin Hood wore.  Or hi-top LA Gear sneakers -- feel the burn!  At the 1970s convention, which I did not attend because I was busy nerding it up in AP Biology gosh, a committee decided to go ahead with mullets, bellbottoms, Qiana knit, mauve, curling irons and construction boots, usually in a buckskin color with the iconic white sole and stitching.  Of that list, the only item I was able to score even remotely within the statute of limitations was the boots.  I wore them with my Wrangler jeans.  And a floral cotton blouse with Peter Pan collar, tucked in to the jeans.  Since I was unjustly cheated out of those other elements of style,  I've pursued them with unreasonable zeal now because I can do whatever I want, gosh.  Every time I see work boots like this,  I think they are so so happening.  And I think about ciliates.

University of Meta-floras

Yes, yes I tell you -- floral pantalones in the fall, white before dinner and sex after marriage.  All the rules are in the window.  Short is long and hair is cute,  80s is cool and 30s is cold.  And the alligators aren't real, they're shoes, silly. 

If we get any closer, they'll bite.

two things to love

 This is going to be one of those days.  The power has already gone out twice,  despite some very persuasive cursing under no circumstances will iPhoto or Blogger or whoever is really in charge of my life upload the edited version of this picture, my lower front teeth still feel like they're being filed with a real course grade metal rasp so I'm going around like a llama, and it's not even 9:30 am. 

So by golly, let's make lemonade. With a shot of methyl alcohol.

Look at that beautiful head o rapunzel ringlets with red highlights!  And that's not all!  Roll your orbs southward and look at these Strawberry Shortcake Gets A Job At Morgan Stanley shoes!

Llama love.

black and boots = New Yorker

Sarah plain and tall walks into her favorite place to malinger and finger the merchandise, My Sister's Closet,  and boom boom gets kicked in the eyeballs by these gangstas from the upper east side.  My blood pressure hiccuped and my eyebags filled up like a toad's threat display because I initially took them for Balenciaga.  But, duh, this is Balenciaga

und I vill do vhatever he says und like it.  Crap, no wonder the dude has sold so many expensive shoes and handbags. In fact, just gazing into those demonic eyebrows,  I'm compelled to cash out our 1995 Villager van and put the proceeds toward some of those Balenciaga socks.  Those ones with the straps and buckles.

Do you see how we I have been drawn off by his sinister powers?  Must...get...back...to...the...home...

Ahhh, that's better.  This is the New Yorker,  a native of Forest Lake, MN,  who owns the still-smokin Tibi boots and the black wardrobe required of all residents of Manhattan and a tri-media little-bit-ombre-little-bit-manic-little-bit-Prozac Kenzo bag (see below) and the best job in the world.  That seems a lot to fit into any NY apartment and I stand ready to take some aspect of it off her hands.  Preferably the job.  She works for Corsican mob boss street style goddess and divine illustrator Garance Dore, whose name you'll see over there to the right of this drivel.  The one I have been pronouncing GA-rens DOOR.  My god, stop embarrassing yourself -- it's  gu-RAHNS DOR-ay.  Anyhoo,  this woman, underneath her noir New York exterior, was just a delight, so nice, did not say a word about the swath of prairie that girded my loins and was shopping with her stylish mom and neither one had stabbed the other in the neck with a nail file.  It was a pleasure I tell you.