style inspiration saturday: emma pillsbury

I am overwhelmingly inspired by Emma Pillsbury's wardrobe on Glee. Like the other fabulously stylish redhead currently gracing the small screen, the sheer awesomeness of her styling is almost a distraction. I had been planning to post about the adorable blouses and cardigans I've been coveting for my own closet, but since I started watching Glee it all became clear to me. I want to BE Emma Pillsbury (well, in a stylistic sense...). I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Isn't she so incredibly adorable? Peter pan collars, puffy sleeves, ruffles, bows here and there and everywhere in between... I love, love, love this look!

(And I loved this look so much that I searched high and low to purchase the cardigan. Sadness descended when I realized that A) it was sold out and B) it was $215 so even if it was still available it would never be mine. Boo.)

Wouldn't it be such a great job to style a character like this for television?

keeping up with the jone$es

Transitioning from summer into fall with a breezy floral blouse buttoned-up underneath the more autumnal mustard knit and tweed...

(sweater: H&M; shirt/belt: Bargain Boutique; skirt: Goodwill; shoes: Seychelles; nail polish: American Apparel)

The other night, K and I watched another Redbox gem, "The Jone$es," which I actually thought was rather timely and clever. It's a modern twist on the old catchphrase "Keeping up with the Joneses," which [fun fact!] originated in 1913 when a fellow named Arthur R. Momand penned a comic strip of the same name:

(source)

*SPOILER ALERT* In the film, a perfect nuclear family (the Joneses) moves into an enormous tudor mansion in an affluent suburban neighborhood and immediately infiltrates (and corners the market on) the "cool" sector of the community. They have all the newest gadgets, all the most fashionable clothes, and a picture-perfect life. As the story progresses, we discover that this "unit" is not a flesh-and-blood family, but a sales team--designed to push a variety of products on their unknowing neighbors with constant product placement and viral word-of-mouth advertising. And it works! As the indie-funk new girlfriend of the teenage "son" remarks, "You've been here two months and everybody's already drinking your Kool-Aid!" It was refreshingly clever--a creative portrayal of our current possession-obsessed consumer culture that had me nodding all the way through. I like these new movies (Up in the Air is another good example) that explore an attempt (and failure) to de-humanize us, to strip away the very best natural human qualities (compassion, love) and create a corporate robot that lives for the benefit of some economic coup (saving money, making money).

I just thought it was interesting, especially in lieu of recent blogger debates re: sponsorship and trend-chasing. It's like we've unwittingly signed up to inspire each other to consume, and a lot of bloggers are struggling with that. I think it's rather fascinating. Since fashion has always been a part of life (even ancient peoples liked to accessorize!), I don't feel like it falls under the same category as technological gadgets or other trendy toys. Fashion has a comforting cyclical quality, and there are always classic pieces that will never go out of style, whereas technology is all about abandonment and transience--just when we catch up (with the Joneses), they've moved on to the next big thing (case in point: in the film, Mr. Jones inspires his bankrupt neighbor to buy a fancy sports car identical to his, only to get the newer model a few weeks later) and we're left wanting once again. Last week, Tavi wrote an (always) amusing post about this very problem. What do you think? Will we even stop consuming? Will Apple ever plateau? Will we ever be able to keep up with the Joneses? Do you think we've been sucked into a neverending vortex of leapfrogging newer, better versions of the same products? I feel like I've accidentally merged onto some frenetic freeway and I just have to keep driving faster and faster around sharper and sharper curves until my car explodes (which it inevitably would--it's not the newest model). You know?

chevron ballerina

I got this skirt about six years ago, on the super-sale rack at Urban Outfitters. It may have been the very first thing that I ever bought at UO, back when it wasn't the hipster hotspot it is today. When I bought it, the skirt was too big and too long, and I think I wore it maybe once before burying it in my dresser with an imaginary "project" sign on it. It's still too big (hence the belt), but the shorter length has definitely brought this funky little skirt back to life in my book.

(skirt: UO; top: Marshall's; shoes: Kohl's; belt: Old Navy)

Pink really isn't a color that I wear very often. It's a little bit too Pepto-Bismol Barbie for me, I guess. When I do happen to wear pink I usually feel too... sweet, or something. Like an eleven-year-old girl clinging furiously to her femininity in a boys-have-cooties kind of way. Like Shelly Tambo (if you don't get this reference, you need to watch Northern Exposure--stat!) and her sickeningly pink interior redecoration of Holling's apartment.

Of course, that's overkill. A little bit of pink can go a long way. This skirt also makes me feel a bit like a ballerina, with the slight tutu-inspired poof and the unapologetically girlish hue.

ballet after the rain

I totally intend to embrace my inner girly-ballerina this spring. It may be January, but the torrential downpours of yesterday undeniably invoked the spirit of April showers, so I'm getting a jumpstart on the business of being arabesque-esque.

(shirt: Old Navy; skirt: stolen from mom, hemmed; tights: Marshall's; shoes: Madden Girl; pearls: Claire's; crystal beads: Grammy Flood; ring: vintage)

Sometimes I still wish I were born to be a ballerina, even though I know that the life would be grueling and painful and I would be hungry all the time... but alas, even at five years old my ballet teacher could tell that I would never be great. She said that my spine was too curved for ballet and that I should try gymnastics, which I was actually pretty good at and enjoyed, to an extent. Apparently I decided to quit when the pressure to compete became too great... that's kind of a theme in my life. I also quit the violin when my teacher suggested that I compete in Fiddle festivals.

It seems odd, even to me, but I often find myself a victim of cultural-exposure envy. I have this unfortunate feeling that there are things I wish I had known about or experienced in my youth, which might have churned out a better-formed, better-informed individual who could easily discourse on the pop culture of decades past (though perhaps with partiality toward a particular era), on art or rock music (I so often wish I had been a little rock and roll rebel--Almost Famous is one of my favorite movies). It's not that I wasn't exposed to culture--the opposite, in fact--but it was the equivalent of aboriginal culture: music and art that was organic and freewheeling and influenced by the cerebral cortex more than modern popular culture. The kind of culture that is inwardly expansive but outwardly alienating. Of course, I'm exaggerating. I love the life I had growing up and I know I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world... but I do wish I could identify more than fifty-percent of pop culture references when they arise.

I leave you with a quote, re-blogged from the amusing blog of miss Marisa Meltzer, which I spent more than my fair share of allotted internet-time wading through yesterday afternoon. This particularly struck me (and made me laugh) because so often I wish I could be an artist (preferably a painter) and spend my days strutting around a wide-open studio with a brush in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, alternately splattering paint and vino on big, thick, thirsty canvases:

"Writers always envy artists, would trade places with them in a moment if they could. The painter’s life seems less ascetic, less monkish, less hunched. Instead of the austere mess of the desk there is the chaos of the studio: dirty coffee cups, paint-smudged cassette decks, drawings of the artist’s girlfriend, naked, on the walls… In the age of the computer the writer’s office or study will increasingly resemble the customer service desk of an ailing small business. The artist’s studio, though, is still what it has always been: an erotic space. For the writer the artist’s studio is, essentially a place where women undress." (from Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer, which has just made my reading list... plus, I love D.H. Lawrence)

This is why making films might work for me. I have all of these imaginary scenes in my head--lives I'd love to lead--and I see them play out in dynamic detail. The film about my life as a painter is bright, vivid, and chaotic--the art of looking lovely while completely falling apart, like an explosion of light and color--like fireworks. The film about my life as a ballerina? Soft-focus and overexposed pastels and floral prints in a quiet, calm room, maybe set on the bay--fluttery, transparent, worn.

Plié and stretch...