This sweater is from the Temperly for Target collection (if I remember correctly, I bought 7 pieces from that particular collection).

This is essentially a raglan sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off worn over a V-necked dolman and yet it manages to get more complements than anything I have actually taken time to design and construct. Every time I wear this combination random strangers will ask me about my top and then tell me I should really be a designer - I find this all rather hilarious!

This coat came from my friend J. He was getting rid of a large sack of clothing, and as usual, I offered to take it off his hands (I find it damned near impossible to pass up free clothing). Despite previously belonging to J., this is a woman's coat leading me to believe that just about all of my male friends wear, or have worn at times, ladies clothing. It's a bit too big in the shoulder area, so when I get a bit more confidence altering raglan sleeves I'm going to take it on. The "scarf" (if you can call it that) is from Target. When I was interning at Western Costume last year, Target was the only thing worth checking out in that area during my lunch breaks. I will blame my profligate Target shopping last year on that, though I suspect it's not really the only reason. At any rate I bought this scarf/tie during one of those lunchtime expeditions. If you view this picture up close, you can see that those are tiny sea horses making up the pattern. It reminds me of a Vera pattern.

Today my car battery died and I had to walk home. Thank goodness for this protective head covering! This is the first large soft brimmed hat I ever bought (Urban Outfitters, but if you are following my purchasing patterns you will have already guessed that). Like long hair, I don't really find that these sort of hats suit me. I like this one though. These shoes were also from UO, but unlike the hat they did not help me in my trek. In fact, they downright hurt my poor feet. The jeans and sweater you have already been introduced to, so let me talk a little about my newest piece - my lovely bag. I have finally switched out my purse, despite my intention of doing it every two weeks. This was a birthday gift from R. It is from her wonderful Automatic Sweetheart line. My T-shirt (which says "Thailand" on it) came from a Girl Scout yard sale back in high school. I haven't really worn it since then.

This sweater came to me by way of my great aunt. If I remember correctly, this was given to her by a friend of her and my grandmother who smoked said brand. The irony is that my grandmother died of emphysema related causes. I like to think she smoked these too. The pants are from the McQ Target collection. I am slowly beginning to realize that they are not the most flattering of garments. But, damn, they sure are comfortable!

Another piece from the McQ Target collection and an H&M skirt. I think Alexander would approve of these purple fishnets.

I have been extremely grateful for the cooler weather this week as it has allowed me to wear a few more of my sweaters before the heat sets in. This little number was given to me by an elderly colleague of my Dad. In addition to quite a few nearly finished sweater dresses, she also gave me a couple of 1920's evening gowns and a Victorian blouse that were promptly taken by mother and deemed "museum pieces".

This is my Earth Day outfit (naturally it has very high "green" credentials). I bought it, second hand I need hardly add, from Dumpster Values.

Hard at work with R. this morning, so I didn't bother getting too dressed up. This is a Loomstate top I bought at T.J. Maxx.

This is the same McQ for Target skirt I wore in our band pictures (more of which are now up on Pony Venom). The shirt I think came from the Jet Rag $1 sale. I actually pulled it out of the closet this morning a bit reluctantly. I have no idea when I last wore it - it's never really been one of my favorites and when worn with pants tends to have Hawaiian shirt sort of vibe. It looks pretty great with the high waisted skirt though, and I ended up being quite pleased with today's outfit.

I didn't take an official picture of today's (Sunday) outfit, because frankly I spent the night out and pretty much wore the same thing as yesterday. This is me last night. R. threw a little cocktail party which was really just an excuse for me to air one of my nicer dresses. This particular piece was my draping class final. I wore it because almost every time I run into Mr. K., he looks at what I'm wearing and asks "Yours?" and I always tell him that my pieces are a little too dressy to wear to work. The headpiece is also my own creation in the sense that I took a black flower pin and attached it to a headband. Both components were originally from H&M. Incase you were wondering what I looked like today, here is a picture of me and M. enjoying a plate of Thai chilli fries:

R. gave me these pants years ago and we had both forgotten about them til I happened to come across them in a suitcase I got out of storage. They look pretty good from the front, but could use a little adjusting in the back as the bagginess is not exactly flattering. R. thinks they look like jodhpurs. The T-shirt is from The Gap. It has a nice square neckline and I own another one in magenta.

That evil store sent me a birthday coupon since I'm signed up for their loyalty program. Really, how could I refuse? And since it WAS my birthday on Thursday . . . a nice warm felted cardigan to see me through the Southern California summer.

Today is the start of another year for me and I figure that called for a bit of effort on my part. Begin as you mean to go on right? I wore this skirt a couple days ago, but you couldn't see the faux pocket flap details at the waistline that day. The shirt is from what I have affectionately been referring to as "that evil store" lately. The sweater is my trusty H&M summer cardigan.

This outfit is a bit odd in that I'm breaking two of my normal style dictums and somehow it still works (in my mind at least, I could be totally wrong about that). Generally I wouldn't ever cuff both top and bottom, for the simple reason that wearing short pants and 3/4 length sleeves at the same time makes you look like your clothes shrank. Another thing I don't usually do is wear a monochrome colour scheme, especially if that colour is of the denim variety. Anyway the jacket is from, where else, UO. It never really worked for me until today when I decided to roll up the sleeves. Underneath it I'm wearing a hooded short sleeved sweatshirt from the Jovovich-Hawk Target collection.

A customer at work asked me if this was Marc Jacobs (I don't see how that couldn't be a complement, but I'm also not sure how he thinks I can afford Marc Jacobs given where I work). I got this at the Sunday Up Market in London. The dress was £10 while everything else at the stall was around £50. After I bought it I realized why - the side zipper is completely busted. No problem in this case, I just fashioned a makeshift body suit out of a black tank top and stretch pants, and now it really doesn't matter if you can see in through the side of my dress.

My Easter outfit. This is the top half of a suit that I got at the Vintage Fashion Expo from one of my Mother's CSA buddies. I have never worn the full ensemble, I think if I ever did, I would probably need white gloves and a large flowered hat. Since I was just going to a casual family brunch at my Aunt's house, my Mom and I decided we would both go for a fancy, "spring-y" top and functional bottom. I'm also wearing a tiny ladybug necklace, but you can't see really see it.

The week in review

Hooray! I finally got my new camera this week! About half of this week's pictures were taken with it. Can you tell which? I've not entirely worked out the finer points of taking self portraits with this camera yet, but who cares because I am damned happy not to have to borrow other people's digital cameras anymore.

This sweater reminds me of either a bumble bee or a rugby player. K. gave it to me and though I've always felt it didn't ever look quite right with jeans, I didn't really figure out 'til just now that what it needs is a mini-skirt, some high heeled boots and maybe even a little mod hat. I promise (if only to myself) that I will never wear this combination again.

The story behind this windbreaker is that my ex-boyfriend spent about a month trying it on at the shops (in a larger male size of course), debating whether he should buy it, not buying and then questioning whether he should have bought it for a week at which point the cycle started again. I finally got fed up and bought one myself just to shut him up. This is a Diesel jacket and I bought it around the time I was moving from Scotland to N. Ireland. Because of this I'm not really sure which city I bought it in.

One of my Aunts gave me this jacket. It's got a look that is half 1940's tailoring and half 1980's power suiting. The label is Byblos, which is a line I don't really know anything about. I think their deal is that they have a rotating cast of head designers, though I'm not sure that that is really any different from most large fashion houses these days.

Not sure if I should really be admitting this in public, but during my punk rock high school days, my Mom had some sort of arrangement with the folks who ran some of our local church rummage sales. She would show up after the sale was over and take everything that hadn't sold to the Goodwill or some other worthy institution. I seem to remember helping her on one of these occasions and "donating" a black trash sack of clothing to myself. I think that is how I came by this jacket.

This sparkly top I got at a thrift store.

This top is a Brownie Girl Scout top. It's the style that was adopted a few years after I was in the Brownies, and so probably not what the kids are wearing these days.

(I wrote this last Sunday, but didn't really feel like posting it that day. For whatever reason, I felt like I had to take a week off from posting.)

Here's how I put together today's outfit. Firstly I decided I felt like wearing a skirt. This one is from Richard Chai's Target collection and was a favorite of mine last summer. Next I decided that the blue turtleneck went with the skirt's colours nicely. I've worn this top before, so I don't really have anything more to add about it. After the top and skirt were chosen I realized that it's still a little too cold for me to be wearing short skirts, so I found a pair of black leggings. Again, something I have worn before so no need to comment on it. This particular combination of skirt and leggings didn't look so great what with the black ending somewhere around my mid-calf, so I decided that whatever shoes were going to be worn needed to come above the bottom of the leggings. Really, it could only be these boots. I bought them at a thrift store in Pomona years ago and since they are not the most comfortable, I pretty much only wear them for shows. Truth be told, I haven't really worn them much at all in the last few years. So there you have the thought process behind my getting dressed this morning.

The T-shirt is from the Jovovich Hawk collection for Target. The blazer is from UO. It is the first article of clothing I ever purchased online.

I've been feeling rather uninspired writing about my clothing lately, but I'm hoping this will pass. I recently had a conversation about this blog with my #1 friend A. who asked me if I felt I was meeting all the goals I set out for myself when I started. Well . . . no, not exactly. I was hoping to come to terms with my massive clothing collection and streamline it a bit. This hasn't really happened. Since January I have thrown out 1 pair of tights and gave an overcoat to R. I tried to get rid of a pair of cords, but fished them out of the Goodwill pile a week later with the idea that I could remake them into something that fit a little better. They are now in pieces and no further towards being something I can actually wear. One of my rules at the beginning of this project was not to wear the same article of clothing twice. This quickly proved to be impossible, because frankly I have no intention of wearing clothing that doesn't match just because the pieces that would look good with them have already been worn. This project has very much brought home the importance of basic staple items like solid turtlenecks, black tights, jeans and leggings (Y'know, the stuff they always talk about in "How to dress yourself 101"). Anyway I guess this little unburdening of my sartorial soul here is sort of response to A. Mostly my goal was to start this thing and have it still going in March. In that respect I have achieved what I set out to do.

My colleague D. asked if I was trying to go for a "librarian" look today. The blouse is from a Pomona thrift store. I bought it many, many years ago. The skirt is from H&M in Glasgow and no I'm not wearing tights, my legs are just naturally that pale.

This is how boot cut jeans are meant to be worn . . . with boots!!! The denim jacket is from a thrift store in San Francisco.

(Can you see my cat hiding behind me there?). These pants somehow looked a bit comedic in the other pictures I took of them - baggy at the top and tight from the knees down. I don't think they looked like that in the flesh though. They are a very subtle pinstripe, and inspired me to wear the striped shirt. The shirt is from Topshop. I got it deeply discounted, so I think it was one of those designs that just didn't work for the general public (I'm almost always buying that sort of thing) possibly because of the slightly awkward neckline. Is it a cowl? Is it a scoop? No! It's somewhere in between. The bangle is Giles Deacon for New Look. This is the only thing I have ever bought from that particular store. I always get a fair amount of complements on it when I wear it, generally along the lines of "That looks sort of like one of those insects incased in resin".