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)

deep in the [he]art of texas

Hard to believe we've been back for two weeks and this is only the first post from Texas!  Things have been such a whirlwind what with travel and moving and all, but as you may be able to tell from these pictures we are so incredibly happy to finally be back home (heat, humidity and all).  I returned from New Mexico on Saturday, we spent Sunday visiting my grandmother and yesterday running errands so today was really the first chance we had to do something fun.  Tuesday is late-opening at the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) with free admission from 4 to 9 so we decided to head over and check out the Ancient Near-East Galleries (and take some pictures, naturally).  The Gary Sweeney piece above is actually out in the museum parking lot, and it's one of my favorite of their assorted installations (the other being a Chihuly ceiling of which I was unable to get a good picture) because it simultaneously spreads the museum beyond its physical limits and contextualizes it in the architectural era of the surrounding neighborhood.  Plus I just like it. 

I hope you won't mind the excessive goofiness of these pictures ~ like I said, I'm really happy to be home.  Ordinarily we're diametrically opposed to jumping pictures (as p has stated previously) but since I hit this heel-click I kind of have to share it.  My outfit came together a little unexpectedly right at the point where I was about to give up and call the night off; it's a reprise of what I wore to have dim sum last week with my mother (but didn't get a chance to photograph) and I threw it on this time just as a demonstration but P said go with it, so there you are.  The whole thing ~ dress, scarf and shoes ~ cost me less than $20 and I've worn each piece at least twice in the week I've had them, even though P dislikes the shoes (they're leopard print with gold-glitter polka-dots, go figure).  The scarf is a relative of the green and blue ones I've posted previously with same wonderful, saturated color (and it was on sale).  

Apparently people leave their entry stickers on the post of the pedestrian-crossing sign outside the museum.  I love how it's sort of a community-art-collaboration-replaces-trash-bin thing (people also leave their gum, among other things).

Anyhow, welcome [to our] home!

(Target dress, flats and scarf, Hobo clutch and heirloom jewelry) 

blustery sunday

So, this outfit is pretty much the furthest thing ever from my typical Sunday morning coffee-run fare.  Or any day, any time, any outing, for that matter.  I am not a regular dress-upper nor am I a frequent high heel wearer, mostly out of sheer laziness but also because in London I walk quite a lot and don't want to destroy my shoes (whereas in Texas I have no good excuse).  That hasn't stopped me loving and buying tall shoes, though, and so now I'm working on wearing them more frequently (and out of the house).  I'm starting out with this slightly-less-high-though-deceptively-not-so-low-as-they-look-pair that I scored at the Selfridge's sale last week.  I should probably mention that since it's been years since I wore heels on a regular basis I'm a bit out of practice with them, and am having to reacquaint myself with the world from on high.  The learning curve is significantly more steep than I remembered.

(Paul Smith jacket, Target shirt, old Ferragamo belt, J. Crew skirt, Miu Miu shoes, Frank Gehry for Tiffany necklace and earrings, Movado watch and Navajo bracelet)

a dark and stormy mood

 Ok maybe not so stormy, just dark and grey outside.  Neither pleasant nor inspiring, regardless ~ the kind of day where you run out for coffee, then run back home where it's warm.  I'm wearing yet another too-comfy-for-words dress, this time from the uniqlo + velvet collaboration.  I haven't worn dresses very frequently since I was a young child, but lately I've found these to be a very comfortable and versatile alternative to my regular jeans-and-t-shirts: I wear the exact same accessories and layers as I would otherwise, but just over one piece instead of two.  This may not seem novel or innovative to anyone else, but it's been quite a discovery for me, and one that I think will serve me well when we return to the vicious Texas heat (11 days!).   

(uniqlo + velvet dress, target scarf, dad's vietnam shirt, mom's old sunglasses, cole haan flats, movado watch and the usual assorted silver jewelry)

always off time

This was sort of a last-minute-grab-and-go-I'm-late-for-lunch-and-my-hair-is-still-wet situation.  The original outfit I had in mind was shelved on account of potential puddles which sent me scrambling for ideas on my way out the door.  Isn't it convenient that the closet in our sardine-tin dorm-studio happens to be right in the entryway*?  Changed shirts, grabbed the nearest cardigan and then had to step back to pull the door open.  And run out.

So, right.  The cardigan is giant ~ something like an extra large, but for things like this I never really think that matters ~ and the t-shirt is super, super-soft with this lovely asymmetrical hem that keeps me from mooning people whenever I drop something (which is practically every other minute).  It is also, as you can see, very loose and roomy and thus very accommodating for my lunch of linguine and clams.  P left the restaurant early which enabled an undisturbed pop-in at the charity shop next door, of which he was the primary beneficiary.  But that's his story to tell.

(Mom's old sunglasses, Target scarf, Vince cardigan, Romeo + Juliet Couture tee, Seven straight leg stretch jeans, Coach purse, Movado watch, James Avery bangle, Navajo bracelet)

*five square feet of closet doors, main door and bathroom door = almost a hallway

c for coffee

 I'm settling in for what will hopefully be a major writing binge today and have already gone on what may turn out to be my only outing all day.  Obviously this outfit is all about the details since it basically boils down to jeans and a t-shirt.    

 The stamped Navajo barrette kills two birds with one stone as both jewelry and hair-wrangler.

The green scarf is a really great lightweight cotton-linen that looks best rumpled, and I can't get over the color.

P has had a pair of these shoes for a few years and pretty much wears them non-stop through the summer, so I when I found these on sale I decided to see what all his fuss was about.  Aside from being lightweight and comfortable, this pair has a black denim body which is unlike any of my other sneakers.

So there you have it.  Thus concludes my excuse not to work.

(Blogging is SO important!)

(Target Scarf, Paul Smith trench, Current/Elliott The Skinny jeans, Onitsuka Tiger Mexico 66 shoes, Coach purse & Navajo barrette)

There were some good things about the 90s.  Grunge finally killed off hair bands, the internet transformed the world, and Martin Scorsese made Goodfellas.  The same decade also had its failings.  Vanilla Ice tried to sample Queen, the internet transformed the world, and Kevin Costner made any number of crap movies that should forever reside in the "Steal Me!" bins at Blockbuster.  A far more tragic phenomenon, in my eyes at least, was the complete takeover of the workplace and casual trouser market by Dockers.  I know they had a Levi's pedigree, and that led many people to believe that they were cool -- a way to flout the stuffy dress code without wearing 501s to work.  And since their introduction in 1986, can anyone name an item of clothing whose brand name has become synonymous with the item itself?  I must tip my hat to the folks who managed that ad campaign.  "They're not just pants.  They're Dockers."  Having said that, if you happened to be a male who wasn't a little pudgy, the fit of the Dockers themselves left something to be desired.  Those damn pleats.   How could anyone think that those looked good?  When I had to conform to the workplace casual attire of my old office, I instead opted for tropic-weight, flat-front wool trousers and a button-down oxford shirt.  You can't imagine what a tempest in a teacup this started.  I was actually accused of being a snobby dresser.  "How could anyone not like Dockers?"  I was asked.  But I made money, and was right more often than my co-workers about fluctuations in oil prices, so I was left to my own sartorial eccentricity -- although people often wondered how I could possibly be comfortable wearing "those clothes."  The chino therefore has always been a gap in my wardrobe that I never thought I would fill.  Then I found these.  Seven For All Mankind has cotton twill trousers that fit similar to their jeans and provide a happy medium between jeans and dressier trousers in my closet.  They still have a style similar to jeans that might make them inappropriate for your place of work, but what genius in HR decided that Dockers somehow ARE appropriate?

Target shirt, Paul Smith tie, Seven jeans, Adidas shoes, Gap belt, RayBan Wayfarers

on the ph scale

Yesterday we dropped by the British Museum to meet a friend for coffee and took some quick pictures whilst waiting for her.  I was in quite a mood before we left, feeling sort of dumpy and blah and ill-equipped for the radical change in the gorgeous sunny weather.  The limitations of my London wardrobe are becoming more and more apparent now that I'm trying to compose regular outfits.  I took most of my clothes back to the States when we visited in April to avoid having extra baggage on the next go-round and it appears that pretty much all I left myself here are a couple pairs of jeans and many different colors of my favorite Target t-shirt (seen above).  While on the one hand this forces me to get creative about wearing the same things over and over, there comes a point when all my outfits start to look alike, and not in a good way.  I'm also not allowed shopping at present, so no new pieces to break up the monotony.  

So we'll see.  Hopefully my creative juices will start to flow and the next 26 days will fly by fashion-wise.  Hopefully.  Otherwise expect to see a whole lot more this skirt and t-shirt.

(Vince cardigan, Target tee, J.Crew skirt, Coach purse, Frank Gehry for Tiffany Torque earrings, Movado watch, Navajo cuff & James Avery hammered bangle)

rainy days and mondays

We picked up a celebratory pizza on Monday in honor of the bank holiday and P booking our tickets home (29th June!).  Things are going to be crazy between now and then, so we need all the joking and good humor we can get, but I'm so excited I can barely contain myself (clearly).  I can't wait to be reunited with our pets (especially my big dog!) and I won't mind having access to my full wardrobe again either.  I love London so much and I know the second I'm gone I'll miss it, but I've been really homesick this year (no clue why) so I'll be happy to be done with that.  I guess I'm just ready to move on?

Eugenia Kim for Target Striped Equestrian Hat, Target scarf & long-sleeved tissue tee, Dad's army shirt from Vietnam, Seven straight leg stretch jeans, Cole Haan flats, Ciao Bella pizza

ain't no sunshine

The weather today was not so nice as it has been, but the cooler temperature gave me an excuse to layer up plaid and stripes so I can't complain.

This jacket is another piece from the Paul Smith sample sale that I am really excited about.  I loved the style so much (tails! epaulets! a mandarin collar!) that I snagged a heavier one in navy~they were the only two in the whole place and so well cut that I couldn't resist.  This blast of cold weather has only served to confirm that decision. 

P and I keep trying to figure out if we think it's a hybrid military-equestrian cut or what, but so far none of my google searches has turned up any promising cavalry uniforms.  We'll keep looking though (we're both pretty nerdy like that).

These shoes were a bit of a trip as I haven't worn heels since maybe October.  It definitely took a little while for me to adjust to being tall.  Also walking in wet grass.  Hopefully I'll do better next time.  

(Paul Smith jacket, Vince cardigan, Target tee, Current/Elliott jeans, Sam Edelman shoes & Coach bag, heirloom jewelry)

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)