Posts Tagged ‘ fashion ’

existential crises of communication.

Listening to: Modest Mouse — Perpetual Motion Machine

First, something superficial: the #1 taboo of boarding school roommates is to never match. Usually, my roommate and I — two people with completely different styles and different wardrobes — avoid this pretty well. Until yesterday when, having not seen each other until first period math, we realized, horrified that we were both wearing the exact same dress (which I was going to link to, but apparently it’s no longer on forever 21′s website), with gray sweaters and black boots. The boots and sweater part wasn’t so bad, since I wear black boots and/or a gray sweater about 75% of the time, but the situation was rather awkward, and made even more so by the fact that the two of us aren’t really close as in “matching-buddies” close. Or at all, really. Crisis (and English class, God) was averted by my roommate’s decision to get changed between classes, which was only fair because I got dressed first. But what was ironic was that we were talking about probability in class, and we’d just figured out that the probability of one person with three shirts, skirts and pairs of shoes running out of distinct outfits was almost infinitesimal.

Okay. Superficiality out. I guess I’ll have to talk about my spiffy new shoes at some later time.

Something you may or may not have inferred about me is that I have a deep love of modernist architecture, especially of the glass-walled open-spaces neighbor-irritating variety. I’d live in one of said houses if I hadn’t already decided that I’m living in a minimalist loft/studio/penthouse. So recently I’ve been thinking about architecture as my Future Plan, since I’d be able to marry art/design and science and get to Create Stuff. The only snag here is that I can only draw diagonal lines, not horizontal or vertical ones, which might not be such a problem if I’m going to be all modern and such.

Also, the dance troupe has just been alerted that our upcoming performance is going to be black box-style, which is both cool and intimidating. One of the sections of the piece we’re working on is to Yael Naim’s cover of “Toxic”, which is a really good cover of a questionable song except that it ends in pan-fluting. The dance itself is this half-burlesque half-broken doll/clown/ballerina doll clown type thing, which actually looks a lot better than whatever the hell I just described. We practiced it yesterday in tutus, except that my tutu was actually a crinoline so it was rather difficult to roll around the floor in. Today I will have to act fast and take one of the normal tutus, so I don’t spend the entire practice hiking up my skirt.

Speaking of dances, though, this coming lack-of-weekend is going to be party central around here. Friday’s our previously Winter, but postponed until Spring Formal, which is awkward because there’s still school the next day. But Saturday, there’s a GSA-hosted interschool dance somewhere else, so by Sunday I expect that my feet will be quite sore. Last year I was even more socially awkward than I am this year, and so dances of all kinds were rather uncomfortable for me (I was dragged along, nevertheless, by my dear friend the Hungarian), but I’m determined to make them better this time around.

I have so much awkward free time right now that I’m procrastinating my procrastination. I’m actually starting to resent it, it and the uncomfortable rain that hasn’t got the memo to STOP ALREADY.

hammerpants.

Listening to: Peter Gabriel — In Your Eyes

Happy spring, bloglings! I love spring. Except that I don’t have a functional umbrella and it’s raining 24/7, this season is pretty sick. Before it started raining, Blé and I got to working on our photo shoot. And it was a real Fashion Shoot this time, as evidenced by the fact that the clothes didn’t fit.

So, without further ado, authoraiINK is proud to present a selection  of “hammerpants.” Please note that the title of the shoot has little to do with the content of the following images.

it’s only the end of the world.

Listening to: Panic! At the Disco — Nails For Breakfast, Tacks For Snacks

Let me begin with a complaint: my coccyx aches. I just had my weave taken out and my hair wrangled into single braids, so now I’m blonder than ever. Firefox crashed every time I tried to upload this header photo and every time I turn on any sort of media all I hear about is news of death and destruction and even more impending doom. Maybe we set the year 0A.D. too far back and it’s already the Mayans’ 2012, and we’re all going to die (well, we are anyway, eventually, and I don’t actually believe that 2012 is Armageddon because Ragnarok should totally come on a February 31st).

On Saturday I went house shopping with my aunt and cousin and enjoyed petting other people’s cats and debating doors vs. windows as sniper targets (my cousin doesn’t want to live in a house with lots of windows, because “nobody’s ever been shot through a door;” I told her I was going to shoot her through a door just to prove her wrong). I won a silver medal for a double exposure LC-A+ print in the national Scholastic Art Awards, despite my photography teacher’s telling me not to hold my breath waiting to win anything. And I’ve planned an epic photoshoot with Blé for Friday inspired by:

but in suburbia and with cheaper clothes (obviously, since stylist/photographer anwa has a nonexistent clothes budget and all the shmancy vintage dresses she just inherited from her mother are at the cleaner’s). Have I ever mentioned that I love love love Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, possibly definitely even more than I love Annie Leibovitz (okay, definitely definitely more)? But I’m having a crisis of method in deciding whether to shoot this shoot in digital or in film, but I’m kind of leaning towards the film because then I get to use all of my better lenses AND I will take a “behind the scenes” little photo-movie with my new Flip camera to make up for the fact that it’ll take way too long to get the prints developed.

everything is C-41 processed.

Listening to: Peter Bjorn & John — Objects of My Affection

Soooooo. Back home for the holidays. Yay? Lots of driving. I finally got the CDs that I put on hold at the local library (I had to dash in 0.25 seconds before closing), which means I had to choose four CDs to exclude from my next iPod syncing. I received the terrible news that CARINE ROITFELD IS RESIGNING AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY DREAMS and the lady at the CVS ruined my black and white roll of film, so now its sad corpse hangs from my bulletin board. But I still have two rolls of color film, one from my LC-A+ and one from my FM-10, to share with you, so all is not lost.

 

insert here something meaningless in korean.

Listening to: Stars of Track and Field — End Of All Time

…for the record, that nail polish has since chipped off, I lost my pencil and broke the clasp on my beaded bracelet. Le sigh.

But guess who’s done with exams? Yes, that would be me. I bought a PopTart at the bookstore and snatched a banana from the dining hall, so now I’m gonna sleep until I leave tomorrow. When I get back, the middle of the three sticky notes on my desk — the one that says “Happy Christmas” in Korean — will no longer be relevant, but it will aid in confusing people along with the other two written by the same messenger, the first of which says “THANKS SO MUCH From the Asian :) ” and the second, which contains nothing more than nonsensical Korean vowels. I wish I spoke a language that didn’t use the Latin alphabet.

But I got a new pair of boots. They’re actually kind of spiffy, so I hope they’ll fit when they arrive.

I’ll admit that I was kinda inspired by the current Urban Outfitters catalog to find a pair of tough-looking boots, even if it’s unlikely that I’ll ever wear them with a sequined party dress.

 

a mammoth nonetheless.

Listening to: Florence + The Machine — Hurricane Drunk

The title is from a conversation I had earlier this evening. This post was going to be really long, but I suppose that it won’t be now.

In a comment left on my last post, the lovely Mae Lu of thereafterish. asked when I was going to do another outfit post. So here you are, daahlings: What Anwa Wore Today.

I don’t have English class on Fridays, so it wasn’t as if I could freak out my classmates by dressing in all black (here, at my School of Uber-Prep, any black clothing is a sign of OMG EMO KID IS SHE, LIKE, CUTTING HERSELF OR SOMETHING?), it was just one of those days when I felt like exploiting the fact that the majority of my wardrobe’s black and/or gray. The blazer’s from the Gap; the slouchy suede boots that you can’t see are from Naturalizer; the dress, believe it or not, is from Kmart. ‘Cuz I’m cool like that. I made the camera necklace myself with molding clay, and you can actually see through the viewfinder, which is pretty cool.

Also, yesterday, I received my very first ever fitting pair of skinny jeans in the mail from Gap. I had a picture of me wearing them, but it was awkward and such so I decided not to show you. They said that jeggings are supposed to be stretchy and whatnot, but that’s a LIE. Actually, the biggest problem I had in putting the jeans on was that my feet are so big, I have to  point my toes so that they fit through the tiny ankle hole. But having obscenely big feet is a good thing, I guess, when it comes to wearing heels; six inch heels on my feet aren’t nearly as uncomfortable as on someone who has a size 8 foot, since I can stand completely on the ball of my foot and comfortably have six inches of air space to spare.

Later, maybe I will share with you some photos and a short story or whatnot, because I’m gonna be published in my school’s art magazine for the 3rd time. But right now I have to deal with the fact that my weekend doesn’t start tonight, so that I can go to a bunch of hockey games and stuff my feet into skinny jeans tomorrow.

 

said the angsty teenage raven, “nevermore… shall I believe movie rumors”.

Listening to: Pony Pony Run Run — Hey You

‘Allo there! These have been a busy few days. Yesterday I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with my buddy El. Since it was a Monday night, there were only a few of us in the theater, so we were able to giggle/ plot explain/ complain about how a specific few of the rumors we’d heard were untrue. But before that I was getting my hair redone (the blonde streak’s gone now… sad face) and before that I was playing the Sims 3 Late Night, where I managed to cheat myself into a corner regarding their new “celebrity” feature. A vaguely amusing note before we journey on to my next topic: my Sims screenshots share a surprising number of aesthetic similarities with my real-life photographs.

Is it not so?

But, anyway, on Sunday Blé came over and we staged a photoshoot, styled and shot by yours truly. And since I was aware of the inevitable criticisms of my photo prof (“She looks so angsty…”/ “It’s so posed!”/ “What is the narrative here?”), I decided to make the narrative “Teenage Angst as Channeled by Poe’s Raven”. So I’d like to see him argue with that.

Well, I’m off for Montréal in a few hours, so there will be no internet/ prolly no posts for a few days. Until then, Happy (American) Thanksgiving — go and stuff yourselves with good food until Karl Lagerfeld will no longer look over the top of your head!

apparently, fashion can be farm friendly, or something like that.

Listening to: Animal Collective — Guys Eyes

Well, yesterday I found the clip to my “borrowed” tripod — it was sitting on the bench out on the soccer field, in mint condition even after enduring the rain/snow/sleet these past few days. But I’ve been in the photographic doldrums lately, so there’s really nothing new from me in that regard… instead I thought I’d share a few whimsical shots from this month’s Anthropologie catalogue with you. Because nothing makes a cold and rainy November day better than a bit of whimsy.

 

 

anwa goes shopping and displays the innards of her bag, or this might’ve been a trend once.

Listening to: Mates of State — My Only Offer

It’s depressing to think that Sunday is almost over already, even though the day is technically one hour longer thanks to daylight savings time. This Friday I went to see a play when I probably should’ve been doing homework for Saturday classes; today I went to town and decided to share the fruits of that labor with you in this haul photo/ “what’s in my purse” post.

So, exactly what is in my purse/ what did I buy? Well, let me tell you:

1. Vintage vest.

My shopping buddy and I went thrift-whoring at the local thrift-and-vintage store, and I managed to snag this sweet vintage vest for less that twenty bucks. In case you were wondering, it does not fit in my purse, but somehow it magically fit over my  bust.

2. My cellphone.

Which I almost lost about three times in the two hours I was out. I’m pretty sure I almost accidentally used it to pay at the art store.

3. My pencil.

I, honest to goodness, own only one pencil (well, only one mechanical pencil). And I’m always almost losing it. The other day I stuck it on the rim of my knee-high boots and spent the next period and a half looking for it until I remembered where it was.

4. Bigelow Co. Mocha Mint Lipstick.

I usually have a tube of lipstick on my person. Either it’s this one, my brown Burt’s Bees, or my dark red Revlon.

5. My Moleskine.

Otherwise known as my baby. ‘Nuff said.

6. My iPod.

Whose earphones I’ve replaced about three times this year. First they were white, then they were from the McGill bookstore, then they were blue, and now they’re green. One day I hope to upgrade them to an epic pair of Skullcandy Aviators.

7. 0.5mm Sakura Micron pen.

I bought this today on my second trip to the art store, because I was dumb and left all of my Faber Castell pens at home. Since I’ve given up on journaling, I’m going to try and go back to drawing.

8. White Galaxy Marker paint marker.

Also bought on my second trip to the art store, once I realized that I had enough money to buy two pens. As before, I left my white marker (which really didn’t work that well, anyway) back home.

9. Doublemint gum.

My bread and butter. I have about eight packs of these sitting in my desk drawer at the moment.

10. My new sketchbook.

I’d really wanted to find one of those limited edition Moleskine Pac-man notebooks on my first trip to the art store, but a) I did not have $30 to spend on a sketchbook, and b) they didn’t have them, anyway, and the only  other Moleskine sketchbooks they carried had pages far too big for my poor procrastinate-y self to ever ink and color in. So I snagged this one instead, for under $10.

11. The CBOQO.

For those of you who don’t remember, that stands for the Communist Bag Of Questionable Origin. I bought four new buttons for it at the thrift store today; the first one says “Sarcasm: Now served daily,” the second says, “I ♥ Cats. It’s people I can’t stand,” the third says, “Patience is such a waste of time,” and the last says, “Does it bother you that I’m always right?” I buy way too many buttons.

Not pictured here: my Nikon D3000 and it’s lens cap, which I was using to photograph the rest of this crap. Also, the delicious mocha almond ice cream + espresso beverage I consumed at the local creamery. And I can’t wait to wear that vest tomorrow, even though I might need to disinfect it first.

my magazines are far more fashion-forward than your air-mail hunter boots.

Listening to: Flyleaf — Fully Alive

Don’t you love getting mail? I definitely do — it’s one of the small joys of boarding school, knowing that someone cares enough (or lets you use their credit card enough) to send you a package. Mostly girls here order Hunter boots in all colors of the rainbow, oversized J Crew sweaters, and floral dresses from Forever21; some international students buy food they can’t get Stateside; I don’t order anything, because I am broke. Which, in retrospect, kind of saddens me — there’s nowhere to shop for clothes here, and as winter nears I’ve been feeling like I need a bit of a wardrobe update. The girl you see in the photo above (who is now one of the about three people on campus who are willing to model for me, so props to her) has the most amazing clothes ever, and it always makes me think, “Well, I don’t think that I could pull off anything as flamboyant as that fur-elbowed blazer, but maybe a new plain black sweater  would be nice….”

Anyway. Back to the point, which was: mail. I was super excited today because I got a package in the mail, and inside, along with medicine and enough gum to last me until December, was the October issue of Nylon and… the 90th anniversary issue of Vogue Paris.

To say that I’m ecstatic would be a major understatement. I haven’t even touched the Vogue yet, in part because I’m saving the best for last and in part because it’s HUGE. But I know what I’m going to be doing this Sunday (other than playing the Sims for several mindless hours, of course).

In other news, I think that I might have, erm, misplaced the camera shoe of the tripod I was borrowing from the photo lab. Whoops….

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