Hey there! The Pajama Pants Project is humming along nicely. PS & SM's pants are almost done - they just need to be hemmed! I've spent the past few days putting the little finishing touches on the pants that take them from being pants-shaped objects to being actual pants. I like to think of this phase of a project as "putting a period on it," which I think is a phrase that I learned during my art student days (Artists use writing metaphors, and when I'm writing I usually think in terms of making a drawing. Funny how that works.) Anyway, just like a period tells you when a sentence is done, even though it doesn't really convey any of the information of the actual sentence, certain small finishing touches are needed to bring any artistic project full circle. I learned this through experience during what art historians will someday refer to as my "pear phase."
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| "St. Agatha's Pears" - Jonathan Kindness, 2009. Oil on Canvas and a torn up piece of red fabric I found in a dumpster. |
What do you need to turn a pear-shaped green blob into something that is recognizable as a pear? Turns out it's a stem! Witness:
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| Pear-Shaped Blob ------------> Pear |
Weird how that works, isn't it? The tiniest little details make something complete and real. Anyway, that's what's happening with the pajama pants, and I'll be posting the Completed Product for those two in a day or two.
Meanwhile, it's time for a little glimpse inside the world of Riley Reed's Exciting New Style! I present to you Gathering Pins's first Outfit of the Day:
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Shirt: Gap
Skirt: Thrifted (Global Thrift in Waltham)
Socks: Banana Republic
Shoes: John Fluevog
Glasses: The one and only Wellesley Optical on Newbury Street! Mention this blog entry and... I don't know. Probably nothing. But tell my dad I said hi. |
Photography by the inimitable [linearequation], whom I joined for lunch on this breezy and beautiful day last week. This skirt is an old standby for me - I do believe it is the first skirt I ever bought at a thrift store, and it was purchased as a sort of sidebar to the shopping trip that preceded this photoshoot:
Anyway, it's basically my "wear around the house when I just feel like wearing a skirt thank you very much" skirt, as it's cheap and breezy and fluttery and fun. Nothing too fancy, but suitably classy and feminine. I was going for a kind of funky but low-key look, something that might raise a few eyebrows but not start a riot. I wanted my hair to have a little more volume, but I like what happened there anyway. I forgot those glasses were transitions before I went outside, but I kind of like the sunglasses look in these photos. What do you think? Anyway, here's a few more shots for the sake of drama:
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| Backlighting. Intense. |
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| What? I can so look in other directions. I could look in whatever direction I want, darn it. I just... happened to be looking in the same direction in all of these photos. |
I don't usually like the idea of tucking a button-down shirt into a skirt. I always sort of assumed it would look goofy, but I actually kind of like how this turned out. I think it has a nice, sort of polished silhouette to it, though it did require a lot of tucking and adjusting throughout the day. So... what do you think? Did I pull it off? What looks good, and what looks awful? As you might imagine, there aren't a whole lot of places to turn for guidance on how to achieve a look like this, so any feedback from the outside world is helpful. I'll leave you with my glamorous outdoor runway shot:
I'm honestly not sure how I feel about the shirt tucked in. I'm generally not a huge fan of the look--especially with elastic waistbands--but I feel like with a typical man's shirt, which has long tails and is meant to be tucked in, it would look worse untucked.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm on the fence about the actual details, though I of course totally appreciate the gendered-clothing juxtaposition :)
But I do know I love the shoes! Man, that's an awesome color.
This has potential, but I think you need to go for a more summery look. Brighter colors! Floofy things!
ReplyDeleteHmmm... summery. I don't know that I have much that falls into the "floofy" category, though I did get a new skirt recently with lots of bright-colors zigzags. Maybe I will make that happen. Floofy things...
DeleteI don't know why that said I was unknown.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your photo captions. I was there was one for the awesome picture of you with the antlers. What were you going for there?
ReplyDeleteThat was from an old photoshoot I did with a friend. We were going for a sort of whimsical fey spirit vibe... that was one of the more majestic shots. I've considered posting all the photos here just for fun.
DeleteWhimsical fey spirit is a look that totally works for you.
DeleteNot sure if you care or not, but when wearing blouses or men's shirts tucked in to something without a belt (as in, say, a skirt), it helps to tuck the tails into one's underwear. This avoids constant re-adjusting and re-tucking.
ReplyDeleteI do care! Thank you so much! The idea of tucking stuff into my underwear sounds weird, but I know preschoolers who do it so it can't be that bad. (PS I used your awesome photo of my skirt in my latest entry, I hope that's OK! Let me know if there's a website you'd like me to link to.)
DeleteYou look incredibly dapper in the photo of you sitting on the steps. And I think the shirt looks better untucked. I've found that shirts look better tucked in if there is some dividing feature on the bottoms--I think my uniform shirts (button-down and polo) look nice tucked in because there's the belt buckle and fly/associated flaps to break it up horizontally. Perhaps a bow on the skirt would make it more appealing, but I'm not sure without seeing it.
ReplyDelete