Showing posts with label Tim Gunn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Gunn. Show all posts

Monday, January 1, 2018

New Year, No Fear: On Wednesdays We Wear Black


 Garden Glam Slam Necklace

Sweater: Mudd, Kohl's
Skirt: Material Girl, Macy's
Shoes: Ami Clubwear
Bag: Delia's
Yellow bangles: B Fabulous
Green stretch bracelet: Parade of Shoes


 Ruby Red Romance Necklace

Top: Bisou Bisou, J. C. Penney's
Yellow tee: So, Kohl's
Skirt: Xhilaration, Target
Shoes: Penny Loves Kenny, Zulily
Clutch: Express
Belt: Apt. 9. Kohl's


Hot Hoop Necklace

Sweater: Kohl's
Skirt: Candie's, Kohl's
Shoes: Guess, DSW
Bag: Nine West, Marshalls
Belt: B Fabulous
Lime stretchy bracelet: Cloud 9, Ocean City boardwalk
Yellow bangle: Silver Linings, Ocean City boardwalk

For this post, I had my heart set on a black and red rose-print cold shoulder crop top from the Kohl's line for Disney-Pixar's hit Coco.  Not to be confused with, "You go, Glen Coco!"from that other hit movie, Mean Girls, which has its own impressive merchandise.  (I've got the "so you think you're really pretty" compact mirror to prove it, as seen below with my until-now-never-been-stripped-of-its-cellophane DVD.  There was no need, as Mean Girls is almost always playing on TBS, Comedy Central, E!, WE, Ion, Oxygen, Pop, and/or Animal Planet.  Just kidding about that last one.  Then again, there is that wildebeest attack dream sequence or whatever, so who knows?)  


Anyway, I wanted to team the Coco top with a yellow lace midi pencil skirt from J. C. Penney's Project Runway collection.  But, alas, that too was sold out, forcing me to renounce my mid-priced department store product placement-themed ambitions and make it work, Tim Gunn style, with some stuff that in no way resembled what I'd planned.  Such is the roller coaster that is fashion blogging.

Speaking of which, a word about stretch bracelets.  When the beads begin to separate, however slightly, you know that your beloved bracelet is on its way to becoming a necklace.  Well, I know it's on its way to becoming a necklace.  You may just know that you're about to unleash a shower of rhinestone slider beads out into the world, sending a pack of mall-walking grannies scrambling in front of a Wetzel's Pretzels.  This happened to me with a much-adored, much-worn faux diamond and ruby stretchy stunner just before Christmas (not the Wetzel's Pretzels part, the repurposing part).  So I gave it new life by making the above darling Ruby Red Romance Necklace.  I did the same with Garden Glam Slam, which is similarly crammed with costume jewelry castoffs.  Hot Hoop, not so much, although the pendants are vintage.

Finally, if there's anything that fascinates me more than color, it's the absence of color.  Which is why I used this ironically named Vanilla filter on my outfit pics to dart to the dark side:




I love how the grayscale really makes the details pop, kind of like a close-up of a closet in a black and white movie.  So, it seems only fitting to ask, "(Compact) Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fetchest of them all?"  Why, Ms. Addams, of course, and I don't mean Rachel Mc.  Indeed, the first daughter of darkness could have taught the Plastics a thing or two, both in sartorial savvy and scariness.

In closing (I know I just said "finally," but then, when have you ever listened to me?), no resolutions this year.  Because resolutions are just rules, and rules were made to be broken.  So, no rules, just right.

That's Outback.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The Power of Flowers and Then Some



 Fancy Footwork Necklace

Top: Wet Seal
Skirt: H&M
Cardigan: Merona, Target
Shoes: Chinese Laundry, DSW
Bag: Bueno, Marshalls
Belt: Candie's, Kohl's
Sunglasses: JCPenney



 Fabulous Felt Spider Barrette

Fabulous Felt Lily Pad Barrette

Tee: Merona, Target
Skirt: Xhilaration, Target
Shoes: Ami Clubwear
Bag: Xhilaration, Target
Sunglasses: Michaels



 Thunderbolt Jolt Necklace

Tee: So, Kohl's
Camisole: So, Kohl's
Skirt: Material Girl, Macy's
Cardigan: Delia's
Shoes: Qupid, Alloy
Bag: Apt. 9, Kohl's
Belt: Apt. 9, Kohl's
Sunglasses: JCPenney





Skirt (a dress!): JCPenney
Tank: Hollister, Marshalls
Bra top: Macy's
Shoes: Chinese Laundry, DSW
Bag: Xhilaration, Target
Belt: Candie's, Kohl's







Back in grade school, when they taught the five kingdoms (which have since then, Google tells me, burgeoned into six; never take a sick day, do you, science?), my favorite was always the plant kingdom.  Oh sure, I might have claimed that it was the Protista kingdom in an earlier post, but that was probably just to set the stage for an ode to JELL-O or to hawk the Fabulous Felt Mad Scientist Necklace, which featured an amoeba.  Those unicellular splotches may have inspired a funky fashion statement or two, but it's stamens and pistils that bring out the big glamour guns -- or should I say Tim Gunns? (no, it seems clear to me now that I shouldn't).  After all, we plant flowers, we bring people flowers, and perhaps most prolifically, we splash flowers all over our clothes in an infinite and ever-dizzying array of nature artfully distorted.  Also, when's the last time you brought a sick pal an amoeba?

So, it wasn't as surprising as it might have been when I broke my no gardening streak.  That's right, I started a garden.  Sort of.  If filling boxes and pots with annuals counts (which I suspect it does not, at least not with the bulb and pruning set).  That having been said, I had nothing to do with the specimens in flower photos 1, 2, and 4, all of which were planted by some more ambitious previous tenant.  Still, my marigolds, hibiscuses, and petunias transformed my porch into a mini rain forest (well, okay, into a porch in Florida instead of one in New Jersey).  True, a few dried up.  But most are still thriving, albeit a little more untamed and sun-bleached than they were back in May.  But then, that's most of us by Labor Day weekend.

Thankfully, felt flowers require a lot less maintenance than live ones (you didn't think I'd wrap this up without sneaking the crafty angle in there somewhere, now did you?).  Ever crisp and colorful, they forge on through the fall and winter, cozily entrenched in beds of life-sustaining, once-gelatinous glue.  The same goes for the factory-fashioned pastel pumps, luxe lightning bolt, and cameo queen that grace the remainder of this post's pieces (in terms of heartiness, that is, not glue.  It's not always about you, glue.).

Those, by the way, are the "then some."