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.

the autumnal equinox

That magic time of year when you can hang onto your tomatoes and your white lace top while at the same time excitedly rolling out your lower-half-leather program before it's even salt-stained.  If you have ever been a four-year-old girl, you know that this is the realization of every wardrobe dream.  Except if the boots were pink. And sparkly.

I may or may not have been representing in my pink hairy chest vest, so I was very happy too.

the Mulleavys of Minneapolis

Man this post is doomed by overwhelming fashion references that must be explained, see,  because it's so very pleasurable when I dribble on...  I'm doing it, I'm going in -- cover me.

See the headline up there?  Kate and Laura Mulleavy are the sisters behind LA-based fashion brand,  Rodarte. You know,  the ones who work for Target.  The two above are the sisters behind Idle Child, a Minneapolis-based fashion/styling/photography group.  Of two. Who do not work for Target as far as I know.  They have demonstrated one-third of their craft here by styling the crap out of their look.  Obviously, they're saying Rajastan without the camels boho-ed up in the Silver Lake neighborhood of LA and plunked down at, like, their millionth fashion show in the delightfully toxic (don't lick the walls) East Sex World neighborhood, or as I like to call it, Minneapolis, where their designs are going down the runway hip-bones first tomorrow night. But they're here tonight to support the local design community.  And presumably because then they get to create a whole nuther narrative in filmy fabrics.  Any fool can see that. And I did.

sista rosa

Not only is that her natural hair color but she is admirably nonviolent, e.g.  because she was wearing red hair and a Jemima crown, I asked if she was in a design-related field. Like a total a-hole. Instead of kneeing me in the groin, she replied very pleasantly that she works at Starbucks.  She was taking someone else's beautiful infant for a walk at the time. Here is a woman of great restraint and real command of color. Or as the design-related say, colour.

as I see it

Oooo, I'm sorry.  I must have had the Auto-Stoned on.  I'll give you a minute to fire up a fattie ... and now give it a go.  That's better, right?  She's not irradiated!  This is Claire Ward, recent U of MN Apparel Design grad and one of the designers who trotted her wares out upstairs at Envision.  She had seven looks in the show.  Looks.  That's fashionspeke for outfits.  Though not of her own design, she styled the living daylights out of this look which I like to call Business Casual At Gucci.  I've called it that once. Just now.  

Claire and I had a moment of shared low standards for ambiance, hygiene and a full set of teeth. Which is to say, we both dig Savers!  Claire likes the fact that you can score orange shiny hip-swaddling pantalones for $6.99.  I like it because I can feel elegant and uppity about, well, I guess that's the thing about Savers -- there is no room for elegant or uppity, but everyone's running on about 87% glad.

your mom wears biker jackets

No, really.  This guy is rocking his mom's badass Harley jacket.  Or is it his badass mom's Harley jacket?  Either way, I guess I wanna meet his mom.  Apparently she dated with leather in mind because this is one of two biker jackets from her salad days as a rebel. Even with all this testosterone going on up top,  I am just a-shiver over those exposed ankles.

Moving on...

It's official.  This group of photos is part of my Yellow Period in which I explore User Error In Post-Modern America Through a Literary Technique Called BS.

going long at Envision

You know it's Envision fashion show time when shins are covered and sternums are not. And I am there to get up in people's business document it.  See above.

Actually, I was a little distressed to observe that, in eight young female brains out of ten, the words fashion show are admitted up in Optical by a dyspeptic in a dead-end relationship, handed off to Megan, Megan R. with the shihtzu, in Cerebral Cortex, and after she "processes," read: coughs on, them,  fashion is shunted to the large intestine and its inevitable end, while show travels to the fingertips which experience an itchy sensation every time they come in contact with either a crotch-length bit of poly/lycra from Wet Seal or shiny plastic fake Louboutins that can double as car jacks.  The only way to relieve the itching is to out with the credit card. Hooker happens.

But not in this case.

On the left, is a flowy blowy great excuse to exfoliate your solar plexus. She got it at Akira in Chicago, along with everything else in her wardrobe up to and including her hair -- whoa, blowout sale!  She is obsessed with Akira. Which is fine with me.

Her friend, Red, is 110% Calvin Klein but hipper because she got it in LA. Neither of them actually has cartoon yellow skin -- camera error may or may not be at fault.  I like these women because they're saying Let's get this party started, rather than This party is going to cost you $12.95 for an hour.