Wednesday , January 27, 2010
Laura Jane's Ultimate Fashion Challenge: Week Two
For those unfamiliar with the Ultimate Fashion Challenge: formal UFC rules, guidelines and regulations can be accessed HERE.
Day 8 (08.11.08): Grey headscarf; red beaded necklace; white American Apparel longsleeve; grey shorts jumper from Uniqlo; "I got an A+ in Art" pin; yellow beaded bracelet
I felt pretty moody-broody this morning, and decided to express that by wearing predominantly grey. I called it "Eeyore Chic". This Uniqlo romper thing is mad comfortable and also comforting: it reminds me of being a baby, literally. It is as close to dressing in baby clothes as a 23-year-old can possibly come short of dressing in a baby costume, which (Sorry, World!) I simply will not do. I put on my "I got an A+ in Art" pin to give myself a little boost of encouragement, and was then further inspired to dose myself with sunshine via my yellow beaded bracelet (found on the street in Bushwick the day before my 23rd birthday), then added this red necklace to "get it out of the way". A cool breeze necessitated the addition of my white longsleeve, and by that point I liked my outfit so much, I didn't even feel moody-broody at all!
Day 9 (08.12.08): Topshop darkwash skinny jeans; purple wifebeater; Greece t-shirt; pink glitter cuff bracelet
If you think I'm self-indulgent, you clearly haven't met the weather. I've decided I hate weather. All weather. All of it, every day, forever. Lately there have been about three weathers a day (more to hate!), and one of them is necessarily rain. Let me tell you, having to dress for three different weathers per day makes participating in an Ultimate Fashion Challenge, well, three times harder.
The fly of these jeans is broken (permanently unzipped), so you have no choice but to pair them with a longer shirt, hence the purple tank top. You know how dogs sometimes confuse themselves into believing that certain behaviors are okay when clearly they are not? For instance, my old dog Tito arbitrarily decided in his golden age that it was acceptable to urinate on the basement carpet (it wasn't). That's sort of what's happened to me with my garbagey purple wifebeater and pink plastic glitter bracelet (shoplifted from Forever 21 during the spring of 2007 when I was "going through a hard time"): in my mind, they just "go"- even though they really don't.
Lessons learned on Day 9: 1) Wearing 2 shirts is a crafty way to double your "getting rid of the mediocre" returns; 2) When all else fails, jeans and a t-shirt will always do right by you.
Day 10 (08.13.08): Yellow clamdiggers; white wifebeater; grey/brown/I don't know/colorless (?) cable-knit sweater
Day 10, and I feel like I've barely even made a dent in the cavernous expanse that is my closet (and/or chest of drawers). I feel like this because it's true. Today I feel anemic and allergic and my stupid head hurts and my stupid bones ache and I just want to wear comfy cozy jammery stuff. Calling this blahsville combination of hippie carrot-farmer clamdiggers, little boys wifebeater, non-color sweater, and red undereye circles an "outfit" is really insulting to all the other outfits I've ever worn. Sometimes I care so much; sometimes I don't care at all. Who cares? I sure don't.
Day 11 (08.14.08): Uniqlo striped t-shirt dress; Anni Albers sweatshirt
I am feeling enormous amounts of self-imposed pressure to imbue this project with as much Depth and Thought-provocation as possible. And so, of course, I am drawing a blank: this shit is as empty as my soul.
WHAT ARE CLOTHES? WHAT IS LIFE? DO I EXIST?
God help me. God help us all. I woke up this morning to the Laura equivalent of the time Carrie Bradshaw went to Paris with Aleksandr "Suckiest Sex and the City Love Interest Ever" Petrovsky, couldn't find her "Carrie" necklace, and had an identity crisis triggered by the symbolism of its disappearance. While getting ready, I accidentally broke the chain of my "Laura" necklace (because I am uncoordinated and break everything), and could not concentrate on anything but that until I acquired a new chain at Claire's Accessories. That was nice, but kind of unrelated to everything I'm supposed to be writing about. Using up Uniqlo t-shirt dress was my most dazzling venture into "getting rid of something awesome" thus far, but I had a million things to do, all of varying natures, and since it is majorly utilitarian (the Swiss Army Knife of dresses, you could say), it was kind of my only choice. I made my Anni Albers sweatshirt a couple years ago when I staged the first and only annual Anni Albers Awareness Week. I like it a lot. In the end, it rained and I got wet. God help me. God help us all.
Day 12 (08.15.08): Beatle boots; Topshop Wet Look leggings; John Lennon Some Time in New York City t-shirt; Proenza Schouler for Target short-sleeved sweatshirt
I don't know if I've ever had such a strenuous and difficult getting-dressed-experience as I did today. A veritable smorgasbord of stresses and setbacks induced this bedroom carnival of raging hellishness:
1) The weather was being its characteristically schizophrenic self.
2) I chose this day to obsess over every logistical flaw that could potentially arise in the UFC's future.
3) I assigned myself the sub-challenge of "construct an outfit that is legitimately meaningful to you," which is hard.
4) I established this continuum of unpleasantness and anxiety before I even started getting ready, basically begging it to grow virally.
5) Subjecting myself to such a negatively-charged getting dressed experience spurred on a wholly unbearable internal festival of self-loathing.
6) I just kind of suck sometimes?
Nevertheless, in the end, I did manage to put together a highly meaningful outfit. This look represents the innermost core of my truest self with such startling success that I'm surprised I've never even come close to putting in on before. Punk rock to the nines, plus FOUR count 'em FOUR Lennon homages! (tattoos, t-shirt, Beatle boots, skinny black pants) Well, five if you count my sneer, and a whopping SIX if you count my penchant for portemanteau. This is who I am, World! It's true what they say: FASHION ROCKS.
Day 13 (08.16.08): Green ripped-up paint-stained American Apparel running shorts; Chisholm Cheetahs t-shirt
I wore these green shorts every single day of Summer 2006, paired with a short-sleeved red plaid taffeta blouse. If you know me, you just read that sentence and thought to yourself, "Oh yeah! I remember when Laura wore that outfit every single day for three months straight!" Oh, those were the days! But so are these, I guess. They all are, aren't they? Today was the day of 2008's second Lunar Eclipse, so I called it a draw from the first second I arose: being a Cancer, I am highly sensitive to the lunar cycle, particularly weird moon business like eclipses and blue moons and waxing gibbon moons (I actually have no idea if I'm sensitive to waxing gibbon moons or not, but I just like saying it) and I knew that by midnight I'd be scurrying around on all fours and baying at the moon, so I took it easy, did nothing, looked like crap, and sucked it up. That's cool. Good for me. I suppose the one positive thing I can say about this "outfit" is that it reminds me of lemonade and limeade. Hella citric. Just looking at me could cure a serious case of scurvy. Maybe.
Day 14 (08.17.08): Greyish cut-off jeans shorts; quilted gold belt; vintage Nike tank
Day 14 already! How the Helter Skelter does time pass so fast? (By the way, "How the Helter Skelter..." is the new "How the Helen Keller...". You should start saying it. "How the Helen Keller" is now a) lame and b) so July 2008) As a present for making it to the two-week point, I treated myself to wearing some Class A Clothes- this outfit is the kind of thing I wore almost every day back in my pre-UFC life. It's like my soul just knows I'm wearing jean shorts! I feel happy, bouncy, agile, and RIGHT. My chakras have been realigned. I forgot how rad it feels to wear stuff like this! I took it for mad granted, man. You don't know what you got 'til it's gone. Absence certainly makes the heart grow fonder. Also: the grass is always greener on the other side, and you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, count your chickens before they hatch, and/or put all your eggs in one basket. But most importantly:
When the going gets tough, the tough want to shoot themselves in the face, just like the rest of us.
Tags: Anni Albers, avant-wack, Eeyore, hella conceptual, I hate weather, John Lennon, Laura Jane Faulds, Laura loves The Beatles, scurvy, Sex and the City, Tito Faulds, Ultimate Fashion Challenge
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3 Comments!!
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i am against weather as well. weather, be damned! having three seasons in one day is just too much!
i also think you should make all these collages into POSTERS!
xo k.
By kat on August 17, 2008 11:54 PM
rilly, imma just jeaiz of yr leggz.
THEY LOOK SEW GOOD.
mine is fatty azzy, kannot wear shortz.
By JERRI Blank on August 17, 2008 11:55 PM
That Uniqlo jumper of Day 8 is the stuff dreams are made of!
I am going to use the word that Michael Kors recently called the most overused word in fashion (which it probably is) but I don't care because Project Catwalk SO beats PR any day of the week.
You are so CHIC, Laura Jane.
By S on August 18, 2008 12:29 PM