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Tuesday , December 14, 2010

A Day In The Life: Dopest Shit We'll Wear This Summer

KAT VERSUS THE SUMMER GRUMPS

Even though I was born during high summer, I pretty much actively dislike summer most out of all the seasons possible on the planet. Theoretically it's great with all that sun-kissed warmth and long, lazy days and blah blah blah. But the sun is poisonous now, and I hate sweat, dirt, heat, body odor, icky toes, greasy skin, bugs and humidity with a passion. I also hate that I can't wear my favorite things -- boots, skinny jeans, coats, sweaters, blazers and jackets -- with any real comfort. It makes me so unhappy to be parted from the clothes I feel most at home within, even temporarily! I'm always at a loss on what to wear that would replace the happy, cozy, snuggly yet sturdy feeling that fall/winter fashion gives me -- which is the feeling of being myself, being a happy, cozy, snuggly yet sturdy kind of person despite my Bringer of Darkness affections. Since dealing with summer fashion pisses me off in general, I thought I'd go the Cayce Pollard route and be all minimal and sleekish and just forget about it. But deep down I know that my favorite summer things are pretty patterns like stripes and florals -- not wacky, abstract ones, but really sweet, clean, almost innocent versions, like the kind in country homes or 18th century French textiles. This has been surprisingly difficult to find, because I am picky and want the patterns to be almost fragile or delicate. Most florals are very heavy-handed and feel like sofas, and most stripes can be mediocre or too prison-convict/Hamburgler-y in proportion. But yes, stripes and florals: I've decided to just go with that in as simple of a manner as possible. It's not high concept, but it feels happy and sturdy enough. Now, hmmm, how to get cozy and snuggly in there? Where is the proverbial hot dude when I need him? (Kat)

(l-r: a super cute house dress from Urban Outfitters; detail from an American Apparel t-shirt; a stripe-y L.L. Bean shirt.)

LIKE IF ZEBRAS AND MARK ARM FROM MUDHONEY WERE MY TOP TWO STYLE IDOLS

(Me and my $8 summer outfit; Mark Arm with his old band Green River. He's the sassy blonde.)

Lately I've had a crush on Mark Arm from Mudhoney, mostly because he's the only Seattle-band guy who kinda looks like like a surfer, but also cuz he's a wiry sexy beast who wrote a lotta fuzzed-out rock songs you can dance your face off to. Two weekends ago in Massachusetts I drove to the Salvation Army thriftstore with Mudhoney playing really loud in my nana's car, and then I found myself the $5 zebra-striped skirt in the above photo. If Mark Arm asks me out this summer, I'll wear that skirt, maybe with the ripped-up tank top at the bottom left, those weird black-suede heels to its right, and some sort of aggressively cherry-red chunky/clunky necklace that's yet to find its way into my life. If Mark Arm doesn't ask me out this summer, for some stupid reason, I'll probably wear the $5 zebra-striped skirt a lot anyway, maybe with the $3 blue tank top I bought at the same time, and ideally with those creepy Vans slip-ons (center) I fell skull-over-boots for sometime last week. The skirt'd also be way cute with ModCloth's Nomadic Ninja tee (second from right), and/or some lame-o faux vintage t-shirt with the Periodic Table of Elements. I'd never wear my $5 zebra-striped skirt with that black-and-white bag at right, but I'm really crazy about that claw poking out at the bottom.

So there you have it. Surf + grunge = zebras. Surf + grunge also = plaid flannel and a beanie, which is cool, since that's exactly what I'm wearing right now. But zebra stripes are funner cuz they're kinda trashy - odd, considering that zebras themselves aren't very trashy. In fact, I've never met a zebra who wasn't a total class act.

P.S. Sometime between yesterday, when I started writing this post, and today, when I finished it, I decided to change my summer fashion concept to "SOME RANDOM CHICK WHO'S REALLY INTO FOGHAT." The truth is I'm always really confused about how to work seasonal fashion concepts, the same way high school English teachers are always really confused about how to work the VCR DVD player. But, Mark Arm: You're still my number-one babe. Now let's all dance to your hit song "Overblown," from the goddamn Singles soundtrack. (Liz)

LAURA JANE PRESENTS...

I had the harshest awkward phase known to man. I was a very stressed-out eleven-year-old, and justifiably so- I was nervous that my awkward phase was not a phase. I was chubby, bespectacled, and the class clown. Dudes weren't that into me, not even ten-year-olds!

Then, on the most Martin Luther King-esque night of my life thus far, "I Had A Dream." I dreamed that I met Grown-Up Laura in a hotel room. She was wearing a short-sleeved red shirtdress with white polka-dots. She was neither short-haired nor emaciated. She was a woman, and she was beautiful. Dream Dude was there too, but his face has been lost to time. "It's all gonna be okay," Grown-Up Laura told Awkward-Phase Laura. It was a true moment. One day I will find that dress, and I will re-dream that dream, from Grown-Up Laura's perspective. It must have all happened in Savannah, Georgia.

I am not allowed to look like a seven-year-old boy anymore. It is time for me to suck up my dysmorpho-bullshit, accept my womanhood/stop being a crappy feminist sometimes, and embrace my femininity, SOUTHERN GOTHICKALLY. It is time for me to grow up. It is time for me to become her.

I. SCARLETT O'HARA ON HER WEDDING NIGHT:

Shopping is really easy for me. I only buy clothes that have already been worn by people from the past; my motto is "Vintage is the midpoint between destiny and capitalism." To figure out if something is worth buying, all I have to do is ask myself "Did this item of clothing travel through time to become mine?" If the answer is yes, I buy it. If the answer is no, I do not. It's that easy. This dress is my favourite dress I've ever had. It is Savannah. It is a Mint Julep, a Pink Lady. It is the Ray Davies' Front-Teeth Gap of Dresses.

II.I. NOUVEAU CARSON McCULLERS: I'm so hot! My kitchen floor was slobbering all over me, with lust. How dumb was I not to pick Carson McCullers as one of my Style Icons this round? My entire summer will be spent overcompensating. If I'm not being SUCH A CHICK about Embracing My Femininity Southern Gothickally, I just wanna be this.The rule of those kicky black trousers is that they must only be worn with these ugly flip-flops I bought because I needed comfortable footwear to take acid in; Real Carson McCullers would think anything else was stupid. It is.

II.I. ANOTHER TAKE ON NOUVEAU CARSON McCULLERS: I'm sure we can all agree that Anni Albers was the Carson McCullers of the Bauhaus. I mean, Walter Gropius certainly was not! This outfit is an example of how true my Summer Fashion Concept is. Normally my Seasonal Fashion Concepts are semi-lies, in that I tend to abandon them shortly after writing them up (case in point: I wore almost no pink this spring). But all I ever do is embrace my femininity Southern Gothickally, even when I least expect it! This outfit was a happy accident. I wish I could give the skirt to the Ghost of Carson McCullers for her next dead Aquarius/Pisces-cusp birthday. Do you approve, Dead Truman Capote?

III. LAURA BUSH NEE WELCH AT HER SENIOR PROM: Yeah right! Laura Welch looked heaps lamer, I should think. But this dress spikes my Georgia-centric Fashion Concept with a much-needed hit of Texan Energy the size of Texas. Texas in the 1970s. With my loser drunk boyfriend's twenty-trillion-gallon cowboy hat atop my head, falling down over my eyes. We all laugh.

IV. FRANKIE "F. JASMINE" ADDAMS, THE 2009 EDITION: I know it's, like, "bad" to want to look like a twelve-year-old, but I think if the twelve-year-old you're talking about here is the protagonist of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding- if you are basing fashion concepts around Carson McCullers novella characters at all- you probably aren't that stupid. Forgive yourself, Laura "F. Jane" Faulds. This tennis dress rules, and I think enough time has passed since the initial thieving of Converse All-Stars by losers (the type who these days wear those crazy-ubiquito Urban Outfitters "Where the Wild Things Are" t-shirts) that they just look like Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom again.

V. GEORGIA PEACHY-PIE, PEACHY KEEN:

It was the middle of the day, on a cold day, and this dress was hanging outside the vintage store in Mirvish Village that is way too awesome to be that close to my house. It was clear that this dress had travelled through time to become mine, so I grabbed it off the rack and took it up to the register without trying it on. "It's $42," said the cashier. "Fuck," thought I. I said, "Oh, sorry, I thought it would be, like, twelve," and then ran away without buying it.

Two weeks passed, and on every one of those days, "I Saw Her Standing There."

Finally, it was last Saturday, and I accepted defeat. I tried "her" (you should call dresses "she," like a ship) on, and it confirmed what I already knew. This dress is perfectly me. This dress is my arms, my eyes, my tattoos, my day, my night, my notebook. In the words of both Lula Carson Smith McCullers and Frankie "F. Jasmine" Addams: THIS DRESS IS THE "WE" OF ME.

Tags: a day in the life, awkward phase Laura, Carson McCullers, darkness, dresses, embracing my femininity, embracing my feminity Southern Gothickally, fate, flip-flops on acid, florals, Foghat, Frankie "F. Jasmine" Addams, grunge, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, Kat hates summer, Laura Loves Summer, modcloth, Ray Davies' front-teeth gap, Savannah, Southern Gothic, stripes, summer, summer fashion, surfers are hot, surfing, The Member of the Wedding, vintage, womanhood, zebras

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