showing (off) your age

I've decided I love grey streaks. Largely to blame is a recent post in Foto_Decadent on the work of Tony Notarberardino.



Notarberardino's photos are obviously paying homage to Anne Bancroft in the graduate, and homage totally deserves to be paid as she basically created the MILF with that role. And if Anne Bancroft can be sexy with grey streaks in her hair, why not other women? I'm not saying all women have Ms. Bancroft's looks or gift for seducing young neighbors, I'm just saying that grey is frequently looked at as appalling and that's.. limiting.



I mean, sure, we value youth (maybe a bit too much). We don't want to look old. Grey hair being a sign of aging, it just follows that we'd want to hide it. But of all the physical effects of aging, grey hair may be the most elegant. I'd choose a head of silver hair any day over cellulite, liver spots, and varicose veins.

But baby boomers, frequently credited with inventing the current brand of youth-worship, are entering their unequivocal golden years, making way for some more sensible opinions on the topic of aging. I can't help wondering what generations of vintage obsessed, environmentally conscious hipsters will do when they hit their forties. Dye their hair once a month, or rock grey streaks the way they currently rock bleached platinum?

The only thing I can't figure out is how to get those grey streaks if you arrive suddenly at the decision to go natural. Emmylou Harris has some rather famous naturally fading hair, and you can watch the progression over decades. Does it look as awesome if you give up dyeing once the greys have already started to appear?



Of course this is not something you can research on the internet, which didn't exist prior to that whole "never trust anyone over thirty" thing. Searching for info on how to get grey streaks is like searching for info on how to get sexy wrinkles. Even if the info was there, it's buried so deep in an avalanche of beauty propaganda that it's impossible to find. But the propaganda is just that. I think it looks hot.

bittersweet beauty

There are so many wonderful things on Flickr. For instance, there's a Library of Congress account containing all kinds of amazing, unfiltered historical photos. I like this set of color photos from the 30s and 40s.

Besides the fact that they're beautiful, a lot of these photos are really inspiring from a fashion perspective. A lot of them show clothes and hairstyles of that era, but the palettes are pretty amazing, too.

product review: FRS is a scam

First off, FRS didn't work for me. It made me feel like I was on meth or something, made it difficult for me to focus, and gave me a terrible crash. If I took it without eating a lot first, it made me sick (big help for those taking it to lose weight, I imagine).

I know this because I signed up for the "free trial" advertised all over their site after being linked there by the thoughtful folks at Daily Candy, whom I certainly hope got a good kickback for sending recipients of their emails off to be screwed. If you're thinking of signing up for this offer, read the fine print.. if you can find it.

Fig. 1 - The FRS sample order form as it first loads, with no fine print below the form on the left.

Fig. 2 - Fine print that appears later.

Yes, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the tiny grey text on a white background, you can view terms + conditions that will also tell you they're going to continue charging your card. However, after tons of assurances that they wouldn't do anything shifty like sell your email address and that shipping is all you pay, what's pictured is the only warning you get during the order process, and if you're quick about entering your credit card information or don't notice the page has changed, you can skip it entirely.

In short? These people are jerks, guilty of deceptive business practices. Don't order their sample pack.

Note about the comments: I've received a couple of nasty anonymous comments now promoting FRS in a fairly transparent and familiar way that makes it appear the comments were written by employees of the company. Well, y'all can stop wasting your time, as I check the comments am not above deleting anything that didn't come from someone who wanted their name and credibility attached to it. The way you're selling your (bad) product is deceptive, and you can check the screenshots above to see why. Also your grammar sucks. :P

one step from giving it all away

I wish I had the patience for eBay. I don't, though. And now it looks like I'll be moving within a month or so and I have all this darn stuff. Stuff I do not need to pack along.

Therefore, everything at oui oui, bebe! is 50% off. Through the point at which I have to put it in a box, so get it while it's hot. Cause that's looking like it's gonna be a lot sooner than I thought.

the butterfly ball

If the idea of the vaguely menacing masquerade shaped my childhood, it did so long before Labyrinth. I had a book called The Butterfly Ball and The Grasshopper's Feast, which is by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer. I don't know what it's about. It's a series of short poems about various insects and vermin, linked by their preparations for a massive soiree. I find the illustrations more notable than any plot it might have.

The Butterfly Ball is kind of like a drug trip for little kids. The colors are extremely bright, super-saturated, and the artwork has a slick airbrushed quality as though everything in the book was made of satin. Yet there's something threatening about almost all of the drawings, a hint of darkness just beneath the surface. Or maybe I was just a warped kid.

These pages are from the book, and below them is my Polyvore idea of an appropriate outfit.









Now I'm thinking about what you could wear to the ball in Labyrinth. I'm glad this masquerade thing is so hot right now. It's a good cover for my David Bowie fetish.

mr. rabbit and the lovely present

There are some children's books so evocative that, decades later, you remember them not as a story or a title, but as a feeling. I had a lot of those when I was a kid. One was Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, written by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Maurice Sendak (of Where the Wild Things Are).

I scanned a few pages of my tattered old copy the other night, and thought they would be a good excuse to fool around with Polyvore. The book has for me a quiet lushness that I'm curious about how to capture.









Lately I'm getting more interested in hats, and I love this kind. Fedoras are sexy, but I'm getting a little tired of seeing them worn that way. These flat, sort of nerdy hats really appeal to me, especially with a loose shirt and lots of decolletage. Another thing I could use more of is fruit jewelry. So thanks for stoking that desire, Mr. Rabbit!

still relevant

I was scanning some things last night and among them was this page I'd torn out of Sassy magazine.

Click to see the enlarged version in Flickr.

I hope it's legal to post it here.. It's hilarious and I feel obligated to share it. The smoking pose is my favorite. I swear I am sick to death of seeing models smoking in magazines. I get it, it's terribly decadent and subversive, but dude, we've seen it a hundred times. If the goal is to be edgy, let's see some models with their arms tied off, or a smile full of meth teeth. Models with nosebleeds? That's artistic commentary.

As evidenced above, smoking in fashion spreads was played out over a decade ago.


(BTW, I never knew the names of the Sassy staff - I loathed the magazine's self-referencing aspect - and I don't know who's pictured in these photos. Little help, anyone?)

product review: fanci-full touch-up stick

Having black hair is a lot of fun. It looks shinier and fuller, to me anyway, and it's encouraged me to try styles that didn't appeal to me when my hair was various shades of auburn.

There's really only one problem, and it's one I didn't give due consideration before I dyed it. That is that my hair is naturally light brown. So unlike many other dye jobs, as it begins to grow out, I don't get punk fabulous dark roots. I get comparatively light roots, which can look from far away like a bald spot. Um, eek.

So now I'm remembering the real reason I never dyed my hair black before: the commitment. I could go get more black dye and hit it again. I could get one of those root kits with just enough dye to cover the grow-out. I could continue washing it like a fiend and hoping it fades (the dye I used was semi-permanent). And I was just about to make a decision as to which of those paths to take when one of less resistance was presented to me in the middle of the Rite-Aid.


If you've ever noticed this product at the drug store or are, heaven forbid, in the same light root limbo I am, you may be interested to know what the hell it actually is.

The Touch-Up Stick is a tube of hard, waxy paint. You twist the bottom like a chapstick to advance the rounded tip out of the cylinder it lives in. I made a mistake in not reading the directions and assumed the product was ready to use. I ended up ripping out a lot of my hair trying to press the somewhat sticky dry paint onto my head.

The correct way to use the product is to get it wet, at which point it is just a tube of drippy brown paint. You press it onto your roots and it more or less colors them brown. Especially since I'm using it along the part of my hair, I find it challenging not getting most of the paint on my scalp. However, the overall effect is one of very dark brown roots against black hair, instead of invisible mousy roots against black hair. Therefore, I'm basically happy and can sort of agree it does what it should.

I have two complaints about the Touch-Up Stick. The first is that the paint is sticky and stiff. If you like to wear your hair loose and sloppy - and I do - this looks odd. I've only applied it really badly once, but when I did it looked like I'd been bludgeoned and blood had been left to mat my hair. Not what I was going for.

Additionally, this product "stinks like Auntie". It has a definite eau de old ladies, and it cannot be covered up. I tried spraying my normal perfume right on my scalp, to no avail.

On the whole I'd recommend it if you're very indecisive and willing to comb and part your hair nicely every day. Otherwise, I don't think it's much better, cost/benefit-wise, than living with light roots.

investment sweaters

My apartment is very drafty, so since summer ended I've developed a major sweater obsession. I cannot obtain enough cardigans, cable-knit crew-necks, and tunic length housecoats. I mean it, it's really cold in here.

Anyone similarly in the thrall of knitted wool may be interested to know that Bluefly is having a sale on sweaters through early tomorrow morning. They have a lot of classic shapes in cashmere, starting in the $70 range. They get really cute once you get up into the $80-s.



I'm not going to post any from the $90 and up range because I'm broke right now and I'm not a masochist. Even broke, though, I'm considering buying one sweater (in one of the simpler styles, and probably dove grey or black). Good sweaters are the kind of thing you can't really have too many of, and I think I'd have to be actually starving to justify passing up a good deal on something at once so luxurious and so practical.

gentlemen, take note

If I were male, I'd read The Sartorialist like it was my bible. (Not that his photos of women aren't great, but the photos of guys in suits are, I think, what define the blog.)

Today he has a particularly beautiful photo of a gentleman in a suit in Florence. Dudes would probably glean nothing from this, and those satisfied just being men could probably take it or leave it. But gentlemen? Gentlemen need to see this, either to appreciate or to be inspired by.

new year, new look?

As mentioned here before, when I started this blog I grabbed what was handy for the title and design. Which was a pretty good idea at the time, since I was planning to sell the vintage clothing store from whence the branding was stolen. However, I then decided to hang onto the store and, moreover, post occasional news about it here.

The other day when I posted my first oui oui, bebe! discount code, I noticed the page look awfully repetitive and a little saccharine for my taste. Thus, I am trying something new design-wise, but still referencing the original design. Of course I'd love to hear any comments about the new look!


Credits: The new brocade background is from the appletooth LiveJournal community.

good old-fashioned eye candy

I love synchronicity. I just saw this lovely fashion spread from Elle Canada which looks like a professionally styled version of some of the things I was thinking about last week as far as defensive brainstorming. They even got the freakin' Audrey Horne angle in there!











I love the super feminine shapes with the intricate, almost over the top details, like all the beading. The decadent anti-chic is extremely appealing, especially in that setting. My favorite thing, though, is that I have a handbag just like the ones featured. Now I've got the inspiration to take it down off the wall (I've been using it as art) and carry it around.

product review: philosophy's makeup optional skincare kit

  One of the things I desperately wanted for xmas was a cohesive skincare regimen, so I asked for Philosophy's. This was mostly based on the marketing genius of something called Hope in a Jar, which Sephora lists as its best-selling moisturizer. I smoked for over a decade. I have concerns about my skin aging prematurely. So I requested that someone buy me the whole Makeup Optional skincare system. I began using it just as soon as I received it, so it's been over a week now.

My impressions, let me tell you them.

purity made simple

Ok, first off this facial cleanser smells awesome. The bottle makes a big deal about how the lovely smell is the result of the natural ingredients, not added perfumes. (The bottle also reveals that the cleanser contains Yellow No. 5 dye. Hm.) Despite it being gentle and smelling gorgeous, I am not a huge fan of this cleanser. It doesn't seem to do a very thorough job. On its own it might be ok, but combined with the greasy products that are to follow, well, I've had this one blemish since Boxing Day.

when hope is not enough

When I opened this little bottle of "firming serum", my first thought was that it had better work like the dickens to make up for the fact that it smells exactly like wet dog. Sadly, it does not appear to have any effect. I'm not even clear on what it's supposed to be firming. I can only state that my skin is not appreciably firmer. The only notable change is that I now smell like I've spent the morning bathing my pets.

hope in a jar

So this is the guy who's supposedly so popular with everyone in the entire world. I can't see why. I hate this stuff. It's thin and super greasy. My skin feels oily for a good four hours after I put it on. And despite being full of some sort of super-hydration, it stings my eyes something terrible. I frequently have to pause to cry, then blot my eyes, during the process of rubbing it on my cheeks. It doesn't make my skin look as bright as the Aveeno moisturizer I was using before. Either I'm ten years too young for this stuff, or everyone else who buys moisturizer from Sephora is totally high.

hope in a tube

This is firming goop for eyes and lips. Mysteriously, it doesn't smell nearly as bad as When Hope is Not Enough. It does seem to do a little something for my lips. They look slightly swollen and feel smoother after I apply it. It doesn't do anything for my eyes except make them shiny underneath and make it difficult to apply my eyeliner.

the microdelivery: in-home peel

You thought I was just going to hate on everything that came in this box. Not so. This vitamin C peel is freaking amazing. In the gift pack you get three envelopes each of the two steps the peel consists of. My experience was that each envelope contains enough for two doses, despite that they're billed as "single use". Which is great, because this product does something. My pores were, like, half as noticeable afterward and my skin generally felt really nice and smooth. Big fan, totally recommend.

philosophy's website

Yeek. Somebody needs to lay off the Flash. Slow as molasses due to too many dynamic widgets that could easily have been static HTML. Very frustrating.

january discount code

Happy 2008! 15% off everything at oui oui, bebe! (the vintage clothing store) through the month of January:



I've made the long-contemplated switch to Google Checkout, which will hopefully be more reliable than Paypal has been. That's how I got this fancy discount code (which took under a minute to set up, awesome). So far, I love it!

a six-figure suit

In spring a young woman's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of cold hard cash. As in, am I currently making enough of it, and if not, where can I get more of it. I've asked myself these questions (even though, yes, it's still not spring). The answers have led me, in a roundabout way, to the conclusion that I need a suit.

The prospect of job-hunting has made obvious the lack of a suit in my wardrobe. I mean, I have suits. I don't have a Suit. My suits are vintage, adorable, and make me look like something you'd chase around a desk. They were fine when I was a spunky young kid just eager to find work. They say dress for the job you want, and I no longer want just any old job. It's time to get me a Big Girl Suit. One that makes me look like I'm in charge of something. A six-figure suit.

I found two suits I liked. First I looked at Nordstrom, thinking of their reputation for good service and tailoring pretty much anything under the sun. I assumed something timeless would be right up their alley. I found their selection of 30-40 non-interchangeable suits disappointing. There was only one suit I liked and even that one hardly screams "CEO" at me. It looks more like something a bank teller or real estate agent would wear.

J. Crew is a little better. Nordstrom's jackets had an average of one option as to what you could pair them with. J. Crew's suits mostly offer two cuts of pants and a pencil skirt. They also offer two choices of jacket in most of the suit families, albeit two jackets indistinguishable aside from the number of buttons. I found a few I liked enough, but only one jumped out at me. And when I looked at the zoomed-in image, the fabric looked a little iffy.

So this brings me to a question, which is why aren't women's suits taken as seriously as men's? Why so few options as far as the notching of the collar, the shape and number of pockets, the cut of the pants? And seriously, what about the fake pockets, and the buttons that don't actually button anything?

It's almost.. gee. It's almost like they expect us the buy a new suit each time fashion changes, and not use it for anything practical in the meantime. Think I'm overreacting? Then why does Nordstrom have skinny pants in their suiting department?

I find this all really disappointing, as what I wanted was a classic suit. One made of lovely fine wool with an exceptionally careful cut, painstaking craftsmanship, and lines that will still look decent a decade from now. Now I'm feeling a bit gun-shy. If these suits are made to comply with the trendy dictates of fast fashion, how are they going to hold up? And if they can't be relied upon to hold up, what's the point of dropping $600 on one?

I'm tempted to think that vintage suits are the only decent women's suits out there.

pictures for spring

I know it's not actually spring yet. But my plans for the immediate future involve moving from a place where it's a tepid kind of winter to a climate that will feel to me like summer. So I am pretty much skipping spring this year and going from winter to summer to hotter summer. Therefore I'm going to indulge my spring fashion fantasies now.

This is embarassing, especially as a Seattlite, but inspiration struck me at Starbuck's. They've updated all their merchandising since last time I was there and what they were doing got me thinking of bleak Andrew Wyeth paintings. And I liked it. A lot. Generally I'm against spring fashion as represented in magazines, and this year has been no exception. I do not like tribal prints and that Vogue Italia spread with the patterns and tattoos is just not for me. I'm kind of surprised to find that what appeals to me is a different take on some of the same things..

Call this a lookbook for "spring" if you want. Or call it a bunch of photos from Flickr and a little Polyvore. Either way, enjoy!










































What's your inspiration for spring?

defensive brainstorming

Welcome to 2008, and welcome also to a slew of fashion predictions, color forecasts, and in/out lists. While I hate being told what I have to go out and buy and what I must throw away with last year's calendar, I admit I see this part of the year as a good time to think about what I want to be doing fashion-wise. In lieu of using other people's lists, I decided to create my own exercise to help clarify my fashion intentions for 2008. Feel free to play along!

Step 1, personal icons:

If this were a tarot reading, this part would be your foundation or something. Create a list of maybe five people who you consider your personal style heroes.

Rita Hayworth in Gilda


Brigitte Bardot


Mae West


Louise Brooks


Sherilyn Fenn in Twin Peaks


Step 2, things to try:

Now make a list of everything that excites you in fashion right this moment, even if you hated it last season or three years ago or whatever.

- steampunk
- pencil skirts
- dove grey
- waist cinchers
- sequins and beading
- feathers
- long socks
- fascinators
- latex or PVC
- sweaters
- high heel oxfords
- pinstripes
- teal satin
- shawls or capes
- disco hot pants
- red boots
- short gloves

Step 3, dress up:

Now the fun part! Try to assign an article of clothing to each of the qualities in step two and use as many of them as possible to dress up your icons from step one. You could probably do this mentally, but I'm using Polyvore.

Hint: if you can't make a complete outfit, try adding basics you already have, or just cheat and add to your list of qualities.

I started with all this..


Gilda got a shortened version of her iconic gloves and kept the slinky shape of a pencil skirt.


My version of Brigitte Bardot is just the simplest outfit I could make from what I had to work with. (As a fashion icon, for me she's 80% about the hair.)


Mae West gets to be a tease, covered up in sheer fabrics. The skirt is paying homage to her big feather hats.


Lulu has to represent with the drop-waist dress, and I think she could have owned those boots.


Fast-forward Audrey Horne and this is totally what you'd get. Still the preppie schoolgirl, but with PVC instead of wool plaid and four inch heels on those saddle shoes.


The point of the exercise? Figuring out how to combine different concepts like steampunk and femme fatale, or figuring out how to dress like Louise Brooks and still feel modern. I'm not going to pretend this is a perfect execution, but it's definitely given me a lot of food for thought.


If you tried it too, I'd love to see what you came up with!