back in black

Picture-taking today started outside but I started melting pretty much right away so we moved the operation into my study room where I stood in front of the vent and mainlined iced tea.  I'd probably have done better to bathe in the stuff for how long it took me to cool off.  Actually all I had to do was go and change clothes, which I did, but first I wanted to document what I wore to go and politely ask the bank to reverse some recent overdraft charges to my account.  I wanted something simple and conservative but also that I really loved and felt comfortable and confident wearing.  P voted against this dress when I bought it, arguing that it just looked like a t-shirt, which he doesn't seem to realize is entirely the point.  Whatever.  My orange study-buddy gets it.  He's all about fashion.  And scholarship ~ here he's flipping through William Manchester's The Glory and the Dream.  He suggests you buy it used, or borrow it from your local library.  

(Joie silk dress, Frank Gehry for Tiffany ring and earrings, Movado watch, Marc by Marc Jacobs flats)

puppy love

Just the one picture for today's post ~ one that perfectly depicts how we spent the morning: trip to the dog park, wander through the farmer's market, lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and a stop-in at the used book store where I found one book for my dissertation and another entitled Fashion in History that deserves a post of its own.

More important, as far as P and I are concerned, is officially introducing our most beloved big dog, Tammy.  We adopted her from the Animal Defense League of Texas, a no-kill shelter here in San Antonio, in 2007 after we came back from England the last time.  My mother had started looking for a dog that summer and I was only too happy to spend my time searching Petfinder for her perfect pup instead of writing my dissertation (I found him, by the way).  Having spent a few months looking at adoptable dogs online (and knowing my parents planned to keep the cat I'd rescued in college), I begged P to let me adopt a dog, which he agreed to do after I submitted my dissertation.  Instead he broke his toe, ending our marathon training, and I suffered severe writer's block with barely a week to go before my deadline.  One morning after breakfast, I prevailed on him to take me over to ADL just to see about a dog I'd seen on the internet who had a huge, fluffy tail.  We went straight to the building she was meant to be in but she wasn't there ~ later we found out she had been moved to a more social building because she hadn't been eating.  The volunteer we asked about her said she was "crazy" and that we didn't want a crazy dog.  So we walked around a little longer looking at the other dogs and finally I agreed to leave if P would let me do one last pass through one of the buildings.  When we walked in we saw a big brown dog in one of the unmarked pens that had been empty before (we got there when they were cleaning) and I fell in love at first sight.  Our eyes met and she gave a little tail-flop at which point I dropped to the ground in front of the gate and told P to please go find someone who could show us this dog.  He hobbled off (he was walking with a cane at the time) and after what seemed like forever came back with the same volunteer who informed us that this was, in fact, Tammy ~ the very dog we had originally come to see!  The second he reached for the latch she bounced five feet into the air (she's nearly as tall as I am at full length) and wouldn't calm down.  He put the kennel leash on her, handed it to me and walked away saying he'd warned us.  Underweight at 52 lbs she was still incredibly strong and nearly jerked me off my feet (which she has done on other occasions) in her excitement to get out.  She dragged me around for a couple minutes until I found someone who would let me into a play-area where I let her off leash.  She ran around a few times then found an old tennis ball, and when P finally arrived I told him flat out, "This is the dog."  We met her on a Friday but weren't able to bring her home until Monday because they wanted the vet to check on why she wasn't eating so we went to visit her Saturday and Sunday morning, playing fetch for at least an hour each time.  

Monday morning she jumped right into the car for the ride to her forever home and we've been a family ever since. 

(Target hat and t-shirt, Vince shorts, Birkenstock sandals, Coach purse, Movado watch, Ten Thousand Things earrings)

chop chop

Right, so, yesterday was Bastille Day and even though I'm late posting these pictures, you can rest assured that I did in fact dress up specifically for the occasion in tricolor (and a couple of my favorite French accessories).

I wish I could say we spent the day munching on baguettes and pâté while watching fireworks over the Seine but instead we ran errands in the 95ºF heat.  Hence I look like something of a melty mess ~ I'm working on it, I swear.  I just haven't found the solution yet. (Hey ~ if you have any great beat-the-heat-and-humidity tips, please, send them my way!)  In fairness, though, we had a lot of fun: got a haircut, popped into various random stores that we came across, and finally ended up drinking passion-tea lemonades outside Neiman Marcus (where we made some returns and took these slightly-over-exposed photos that I enjoy exaggerating)

The big deal in this outfit is obviously the skirt, and the big deal in the skirt is obviously the bow, of which I am inordinately proud (and probably not ever going to untie because I don't think I could do it as well again).  I would also like you to know that I probably spent as much or more time ironing this skirt as I spent actually wearing it.  It is also possible that my inexperience ironing exceeded the actual difficulty of the task (don't worry Dad ~ I took the plastic off the board first).

Now, I know I've gone a little bit overboard with the bag-on-table pictures lately (two is overboard as far as I'm concerned) but I wanted to explicitly highlight the incredible book I'm reading, A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel.  It's a novel of the French Revolution told through the friendships of Camille Desmoulins, Georges-Jacques Danton and Maximilien Robespierre and it is very, very good.  I started reading it just before we left London after having searched high and low for it on the Waterstone's 3-for-2 tables.  Seriously, we went to at least three Waterstone's locations before finding a single copy on special at the LSE location, which happens to have the tiniest fiction section ever.  (We also experienced our first-ever difficulty choosing a third book on that trip and ended up going with another pocket-size Moleskine just so we could get gone.  This has never happened before, nor will it every happen again.)  My obsession stemmed from just having finished her book Wolf Hall (also picked up on 3-for-2 by P the Camden outpost en route to a hair cut) which won the 2009 Man Booker prize and was so intensely intoxicating that I could not put it down ~ the best historical fiction I've read in ages.  Tudor England and revolutionary France (respectively) are two eras that I haven't studied in any particular detail, but these novels have so piqued my interest that I'm paralleling them with Jenny Uglow's A Gambling Man (yeah, okay, it's Restoration but still Cromwells so I'm counting it) and Simon Schama's Citizens (of which we have, like, a zillion copies, for whatever reason).  If you're into history, or books, or both, I highly recommend all of the above.  Besides, it's summer ~ what else are you going to do?

(Loft tee, Thakoon x Target skirt, Coach shoes, Movado watch, James Avery bracelet, grandmother's vintage costume necklace, Target scarf, Longchamp bag and Chanel sunglasses)

a new look

I made an actual effort to get dressed the other day, helped along by this pinstriped trench I picked up at the Paul Smith sample sale. 

I wasn't very familiar with Paul Smith before we came to London, but his corporate headquarters is on my walk to school, and there's no ignoring an hour-long line along the sidewalk when it's 35°F outside at 7.00 am.  After two rounds, I'm a little obsessed.

The clothes have beautiful, classic tailoring and wonderful attention to detail ~ check out the purple piping and the floral print upper lining!  It's a bit cheeky and irreverent too: water-resistant pinstripes?  Menswear-inspired, but it makes me want to dress in a very lady-like manner.

I also found this V&A edition of The Little Dictionary of Fashion by Christian Dior in the secondhand section of the bookstore.  His advice is timeless and very good:

"Simplicity, good taste and grooming are the three fundamentals of good dressing and these do not cost money.  First you must study yourself.  Learn to know what suits you and what does not.  And study your own needs.  Find the colours that flatter you and emphasise your looks."  (from the Introduction)

(Paul Smith Black trench, Target scarf, Cole Haan flats, Coach wristlet, vintage pearl and chain necklaces)