Pink Rock Candy-Fashion

I find great pleasure in working. I know that sounds quite odd, but the fact of the matter is, I like to shop and with out money I can’t shop and without work I have no money, hence the reason I like work. Did that make sense? I have two quasi jobs, one is an office job and the other is being a hostess/whatever else needs to be done at a bistro by my house. For the most part, working in an office and a restaurant doesn’t leave much room for outfit creativity, but for both jobs I do try to bring my own personal touches into the standard semi-professional look.

The general rules I, and I assume most people, was taught about dressing professionally are:

1) Black is always a good choice.

2) Don’t wear crazy color nail polish (i.e. Black, Bright Orange, Electric Blue, anything fun).

3) Pantyhose…

4) Cover your shoulders “The office is always freezing anyway…”

There are more rules, but for the most part I don’t follow these four so why would I follow the others? Actually, I do follow the first, because black pretty much works with every situation. Sometimes I feel bad about wearing navy nail polish to my office job, but it happens anyway. I hate pantyhose, especially when they’re flesh tone, and I only make sure I’m wearing sleeves at my office job, though it isn’t always cold in the office.

The outfit at left is a classic example of something I’d wear to both jobs, with minor adjustments (fyi…sometimes I like to sing MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” before work and act like I could be as frivolous as the song says). Sure the skirt is black (actually black and brown), but the pattern is really fun and fits into my tribal-themed summer. Wearing it with a burnout tank top makes it a little more relaxed, and throwing on a sparkly headband and the bright yellow necklace my little brother made, keeps me feeling and looking young and fun.

Now for the adjustments. For my office job, I would wear a grandpa cardigan over it. It doesn’t really matter what color, since the skirt is black and the top is white, so anything would match. And, for my hostessing job, I’d have to change my cute gladiator heels to flats for practicallity’s sake. Standing in 5″ heels for 6-7 hours straight is a bitch!

Which office dress rules do you follow when you head to work and which ones do you like to kick to the curb?

p.s. I’ve been invited to join a few new sites including: Indies United (from Fashion Indie), Lookbook.nu, and Modpass so if you’re on any of them add me. I promise I’m going to figure out someything cool to do with them other than just having them sit and gather webdust!

Remember when? Its back again! Okay, not really, but sort of. When I was younger MASH (the game, not the show) was the best way to blow 15 minutes of class time, and according to at least one of my MASH plays, I’m supposed to marry someone famous, have 2 kids, drive an Aston Martin, and live in a shack— you can’t win ‘em all! Oddly enough, when I saw this t-shirt from Fred Flare I realized I didn’t resent my predestined modest dwellings and actually wished it was still okay for a piece of paper and a bunch of swirls to tell my future.

I’ve been making a staunch effort to not but t-shirts with words on them…unless they’re really cute, and this may be one of those times when a shirt’s amazingness trumps any sort of functionality. I would normally rather buy a great, slightly over-sized burnout tees that I could wear with pretty much anything, but the ‘MASH tee’ is just one of those shirts you have to buy just to say you have it.

“Hey, Gabe Saporta, king of the ‘Teedom of Radness’, I see you think your t-shirt’s really cool. Well, I have a MASH shirt back home that could kick your tee’s ass…OWNED!”

In all actuality, I just want proof that I will in fact own a Ferrari, live in a mansion, have 2 kids, and marry Zach Morris. What else could a girl ask for?

p.s. Yes I did just name check a certain Cobra Commander, and yes, saying “owned” at the end of my sentences actually happens sometimes. Its my guilty pleasure, pun totally intended!

Though today is my mom’s birthday, its started off quite lazy— on my part that is. I woke up late, not that I thought I had anything to do, but apparently I did. My phone was ringing for almost 2 hours without my knowledge because my brother missed the bus after his last final, he decided to start walking home and by the time I got the message to pick him up, I was already in loads of trouble and he was almost home. I felt like such a schmuck, especially after he let me borrow one of his old shirts yesterday to lounge around in.

Sometimes I like wearing guys clothes. There’s something comforting about being enveloped in a over-sized t-shirt. especially when you’re used to wearing form fitting clothes.

Since my brother is a lot taller than I am, he’s at least 6 foot and I’m only 5′4″, the shirt was giant on me, and a belt was required. I took a plain black tube top and turned it into a skirt, and put on my new brown sandals I bought from Marshall’s.

I wore those shoes on my first day of hostessing— bad move Chelsea! My feet were screaming by the time the night was finished, and would much rather have cut them off and gotten a wheelchair than made the short walk across the street to my car. I still love the shoes and think they’re really cute, but I will never wear 4 inch heels to my hostessing job again!

I’m off to sip yummy drinks and eat good food with my family in celebration on my mom’s birthday— I think she’s turning 26 or something, at least that’s how young she looks!

p.s. Go download Coldplay’s Viva La Vida and Katy Perry’s One of the Boys, if you already haven’t. Both albums are fresh!

The constant rain this week made my first full week off from college a real downer, but today, it’s gorgeous and sunny outside and finally feels like its spring. I know it’s technically been spring for about a month, but the weather is completely spastic and doesn’t know if it wants to be 70 degrees and sunny or 45 degrees, windy, and pouring— I choose sunny. Today, being the fantasmicly gorgeous day it is, I decided to throw on one of my many skirts— apparently I’m rebelling against pants this spring and summer— and wander around my house taking pictures.

The skirt is actually my sister’s. She bought it from Target a couple years ago, and we, yes WE, break it out every year because it’s so cute, but after my first wear of the season our conversation goes something like this:

Blythe: “Hey, that’s my skirt!”

Chelsea: “Yeah, well, that’s my (insert item of clothing)! You know what? I swear to God I just ironed this dumb skirt, like, 10 minutes ago.”

Blythe: “Yeah, that’s what happens when you wear linen. Ironing is futile. Just go with it!”

Never will I buy another linen skirt! They’re usually the only pieces of clothing I take the time to iron, and by the end of the day I look like I just rolled out of bed. The t-shirt, on the other hand, is from Glamour Kills, and I happen to love it more than anything. It says “Stay Fresh!” at the bottom, making me smile every time I look down and decipher the upside down words.

While I was meandering around my abode, I found this little container of water behind a couple of bushes. About a week ago, there was a stray cat hanging around my house, except she didn’t really act like a stray. She came right up to me an let me pet her and she hung around our house all day— I called her Ginger. She was really emaciated and shaking so I went to the store to buy cat food and used that container I just found to give her water. I only was able to take care of her for a couple of hours because my parents wouldn’t let me keep it, but there was a lady who is helping to fix the “historic house” next door to me, and she offered to take the kitty home. A couple days later, the lady came by to tell us the cat was doing great, and she named her Molly, which isn’t as cool as Ginger, but that’s just my opinion.

Anyway, finding the container made me wish I had a pet, that I could walk in such nice weather. I guess I’ll have to add that to my list of things for the future, but for now, I’m going to concentrate on enjoying this warm spring day!

Behind the cut is a picture of the kitty I save. (more…)

Spring has officially sprung and it has been effecting me in the funniest ways. Not only have I decided I want lots and lots of Native American tribal things: t-shirts, feather headbands (if I make a more Pocahontas-y one I put it up), and a dreamcatcher (which I’m currently making), but I am really honing my hippie look-a-like skills and starting to appreciate nature a whole lot more. I sort of like feeling as if I should have been an extra in Across the Universe and maybe had Jim Sturgess fall madly in love with me, but that’s just a pipe dream.

In the picture I’m wearing an entire outfit I bought from H&M, except at separate times (I didn’t realize that until now). That’s the Art By: Anna Frederiksson tee I swiped from some poor unsuspected shopper. Everything was less than $20 a piece, except for the shoes that are Nine West, but I can’t remember how much they were.

My entire family kept calling me a flower child yesterday. I just bought a couple more sparkly headbands from the Sally Beauty Supply store by my house (they’re not in this picture), one of them is bright blue and as I walked through the mall yesterday, I was complemented-ish on it and my modern day 60s outfit twice. The first time, was by the sales guy at this store called Zumiez or something. I’d never gone in the store before, but my sister is going on a cruise and they had sporty swimsuits she wanted to look at. The guy was sort of awkward and probably hitting on Blythe/me/both of us, but we had a nice conversation about headbands, mostly about how he liked mine and how the guys in Paramore like to rock the sexy sweatband.

After that we went to H&M and passed this model booth thingy. They’ve asked me 4 separate times to sign up to be a model, but after finding out I’d have to pay I decided it was stupid. I’m not going to pay anyone to take a picture of me, that’s what Spencer and Heidi do! Anyway, one of the guys at the booth starts screaming “Peace and Love, man. Peace and Love!” as I walked by, and I think I gave him a dirty look, but it was just sort of obnoxious.

After the mall, my sister and I went to a super market and bought pretty pretty orchids. I have no idea how to take care of orchids, and I hope I don’t kill them. I decided to take some artsy-ish pictures of them. You can seen them after the jump! (more…)

It’s getting about that time. The flowers are blooming, the rain is subsiding, and the temperatures are definitely rising— the summation of all these elements yields an end result of me showing a lot more leg and being able to wear t-shirts with out getting those annoying “do you know there’s snow on the ground” looks. Over my almost 20 long years, I’ve been through quite a few different tee trend obsessions, including the almost clever, boy-bashing tee phase during middle school and my last phase, revolving around graffiti art tees, but now I’ve moved on.

My latest tee-obsession du jour is more of the tribal nature, and by tribal I mean, Native American “tribal”. Think birds of prey, feathers, trees, and maybe even a dear or two.

Luckily, Truly Madly Deeply has a whole slew of t-shirts at Urban Outfitters which were obviously inspired by the phantasms they stole from my dreamcatcher. My favorite tee out of the bunch is the Tribal Feathers Tee, I know feathers again! The shirt not only has this super back-to-nature feel, but is a v-neck which is one of my favorite t-shirt necklines, of late. I think I’d wear it slightly tucked into a voluminous high wasted skirt (though most high waisted things look as if set normally on my extremely long torso) and with the knock-off YSL Tribute sandals from Bakers (I know, I know, knock-offs, but YSL doesn’t fit my student budget, and I love those sandals so much!) strapped around my day-glo painted toes

Are you a tee girl? If so, what are your favorite types of t-shirts, and if not, what do you love to mix and match with your warm-weather bottoms?

Note to self, never try to hide clothes in H&M on 42nd and 5th. Why? Because people, like me, disregard any form of covert shopper etiquette and will gladly rifle through your barely hidden finds and take the t-shirt I’ve been dreaming of right from under your nose. It’s not my fault. You have to be ruthless when shopping in the city— at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. My prize however, I’m totally willing to tell you about. It was the freshest t-shirt I’ve seen in a while and part of H&M’s ART BY collection.

The ART BY collection was H&M doing their good deed toward aspiring artists and putting their awesome designs on t-shirts for simple American girls to wear with pride. The tee I hijacked from some poor unwitting customer was designed by Anna Fredriksson, and I first lusted over it in the April issue of Nylon. Anna is a graffiti artist/illustrator and draws these really cute, awkward looking doll-girls. Something about the over-sized glasses and necklace reminds me of myself, and my family members are convinced the girl looks a bit inebriated, which makes me chuckle every time I see it.

In terms of sizing, the shirt I found, and now own, is a US size 8, but totally fits how a medium would on me, a bit baggy and long. I didn’t have the chance to try on any other sizes because this was the only one I saw in the entire store.

p.s. Please tell me I’m not the only one who goes for what she wants when shopping, NO MATTER WHAT!

UNDER THE CUT is a video I found of the super-cute Anna Fredriksson talking about her designs for H&M and how she was tagged to be one of the ART BY designers. The other designers are Lina Boden and Jo Ratcliffe. (more…)

Marc, oh Marc, what exactly are you doing? I just found out that you have a t-shirt with Hillary Clinton’s face on it, and that’s not even the worse part. You are actually charging money for it, $38 that is, meaning people are expected to buy it. And, If you do buy a Marc Jacobs for Hillary tee all the proceeds go to her campaign. I for one, have a couple of problems with MJ’s little foray into political paraphernalia.

First of all, I don’t actually care who you would like to be president, congressional representative, mayor, or even high school treasurer, all I want from you are amazing, usually cheeky clothes that I probably won’t buy but will salivate over until a deep depression sets in. However, in the event you, for some reason, decide to run for president, feel free to make as many tees with your own mug plastered across them as your little heart desires. Perhaps, you could have Dakota Fanning in your “I care about education” commercials and Victoria Beckham in your “I’m sympathetic to immigrants” commercials.

Also, If you are going to put a political figure on an over-priced t-shirt why put someone who is as unstylish as Hillary. I get it, there’s some sort of ugly suit dress code you have to follow if you want to be a female political leader, but personally,  I think a female politician who really wanted to stand out would at least try not to look so homely. If you really want to support Hillary, why do you just start dressing her? I promise that would do more good than a simple tee.

So, what do you think about the tees? Yah or Nah?

I count myself as a fairly fashionably person, whether that’s how others see me is up for debate, but for the purpose of this argument, let’s say I am. While surfing through the Forever 21 website, something I haven’t done in a while, I stumbled across these beauties (at least they would have the potential of being beauties if connected to an actual shirt) in their Twelve by Twelve collection.

I couldn’t quite understand why someone would want to purchase just the collar and cuffs of the shirt and I really don’t understand why a retailer would make something like this available to the public so far away from Halloween. I guess they are for layering under blazers and dresses, but I’ve never liked the idea of only wearing 1/3 of a shirt. What if I got hot or someone spilled a drink on me? I couldn’t very well take my jacket/top layer off and show the world my lack of clothing underneath. Why can’t you just buy a complete shirt, they’re about $5 more, but infinitely more useful.

Just looking at the pictures remind me of the Project Runway challenge this season when they had to design a suit for Tiki Barber, and Sweet P just tied some fabric around her model because she couldn’t finish the shirt. Maybe the notorious Forevs designers thought that was a fashion statement.

To be honest, I’m confused and am getting even more confused as I write this, so I’ll leave it to you dear readers. How would you wear these collar and cuffs (if at all), and what might the Forevs designers have been thinking?

p.s. If you want to hate Forever 21 for these collar/sleeve contraptions, just take a peek at these really cute Colorblock Leggings to douse your anger.

Why They Rock: The Furlesque t-shirts aren’t quite your average nu rave colored, rhyming phrase sporting tees, but they definitely have panache. Though Furlesque was the brainchild of designer Maggie Maki, all of the cotton and burnout tees have original ‘Pop Culture Victims’ drawings from Dion Marcellari printed in them, and each t-shirt is made unique with hand-painted accents and textures. With names like “Distressed Goth Girl” and Reflective Girl”, its obvious the girls on the tees aren’t quite so average either. They are more like your deepest, darkest fears made beautiful.

The Stand Out Tees:

• Reflective Girl Burnout Tee - It’s pink, it has roses, and its a super-soft burnout tee. What more can a girl ask for? An eerily, beautiful hand-painted girl on the front whose eyes would be mesmerize peeking out from under your favorite hoodie/jacket/blazer.
• Distressed Goth Girl Burnout Tee - Its another burnout tee, which I love because they are probably the softest t-shirts around. I also love the tree design on the back,— it reminds me of the tree of life in the Lion King.
• Smile Pin-Up Girl Tee - The brown, orange and turquoise work so well together in this shirt, and the sexy pin-up/giant ’smile’ command combo on the front are bound to make you smile or at least give a little smirk.

Where To Find Them: For more information on Furlesque, visit Furlesque.com. Furlesque tees can be purchased on their online boutique or at any retailers listed here. You can get interactive with the people of Furlesque by adding them on their myspace, at myspace.com/furlesque.