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@laurenspendsmoney
Don't Buy This Gift for Anyone
Worst thing on the internet or worst collection of molecules to ever be gathered by hand or by nature in the history of this universe and those that surround it and still those unknown? U tell me!
Gifty Quickies, Part 2: For People You Like A Lot And Want To Gift For the Hell Of It And/Or For The Sake Of Showing Them How Tasteful You Are
Welcome to my most favoritest part of gift giving--the part of your list where you can just go to the '100% FRIVOLOUS' part of the need/want spectrum and drop all your dumb money on treasures that don't matter but that make a nice person's life a tiny bit nicer. Who exactly fits on this sparkly list? Think significant others' parents, your cute teenage cousins, your work bestie, etc. People you like, and whom you want to like you right back. I imagine perhaps a longtime doorman would fit into this category for some people, but since I live in a garbage hut, I can't be sure.
This list is the sort of list that the GIFT tabs on your favorite stores' websites are all about. Would you get your mom a chalkboard-cheeseboard? No, because that woman literally rolled you into existence like a fucking uterine snowball for 9 months and she deserves better than something from the Williams-Sonoma $50-and-under sub-page. Would you get your favorite aunt-and-uncle pair whom you only see twice a year a chalkboard-cheeseboard? Hail yes! And that, my friends, is the litmus test.
OK, now for the gifties!
1. Snow Day Appetizer Plate Set, $54 (plus 30% off for a limited time!), C. Wonder
OK, all cards on the table here, C. Wonder is kind of the mecca for all things "gifts for ppl you like a lot and want to gift for the hell of it." Like, this place carved out its own weird niche in the retail world and is basically the store equivalent of that dude made of punctuation marks who is always shrugging in a laid-back manner. Nothing at C. Wonder is important to anyone on planet earth, which is why it's possibly the best possible store for gift shopping. These appetizer plates follow suit, and have several qualities that limit their usefulness and practicality: first of all, they're appetizer plates, which, how often do you serve appetizers if you're not Lauren Conrad? Second, they're hyper-seasonal, so you can only use them for a few months per year. Hah! They're so dumb and pointless! Get them for anyone! Who cares! Well, I guess they could hold like a candle? Idunno, but, SO cute.
2. Cord Taco, $30 for a pack of 3, This Is Ground
[Music notes] Cord-tac-o, a tac-o-for-cords! [music notes]. I hate to gender my gifts, but if I had to, I'd say these lil snappy leather nuggets fall into Dude territory. Boyfriend's brother? Bingo. Uncle who thinks he's the only person on earth with an iPad? Yup. (But if you're shoppin' for a lady, try the metallic ones!) So simple, so cute, so actually practical (a little TOO practical to satisfy the philosophy of this particular gift guide, but I guess I can make an exception, because, after all, entire cows were slaughtered to make these dumb little pieces of leather that exist solely because of our obsessions with dumb little pieces of plastic, which ranks at a high 9 on the how-fucked-is-this-product-o-meter). For a fun surprise, gift these to the vegans on your list!
3. Cake Stand, $9.95, H&M
No cake should ever have to lay heaped on a tabletop like some kind of filthy napkin, true, but cake plates are so wonderfully versatile that almost any lady could put this pretty little number to good use (and at $10, you can get one for like, your fucking laundress if you wanted to). It could work great for parties, as a centerpiece (filled with fruit!), as a hangout for makeup or jewelry on a dressing table, even in a guest bathroom on a shelf holding soap and towels and other bathy items. Cake stand! It's just what she sorta kinda always wanted if she had the counter space but oh well she got it anyway from you great thank you ok see you soon call me saturday bye.
4. Peppermint S'mores Kit, $24 (lol), Anthropologie
There is a particular sect of this particular gift-giving group that I like to call, People With Children That You Must Acknowledge Exist at This Time of the Year. You are allowed to not care that some of your favorite people have children almost every other time of the year, except this one, because in ancient times, Jesus was born as an infant, and 1 person in the village was like "Christmas is for children." Well, we all know that NOT to be true in the modern age (with our Googles!), but still we clutch onto that truth-trodden idea as if it were our last link to the simpler times when mangers were de rigueur. The best way to cross entire FAMILIES from your social outer-circle off the list? Food gifts that are equal parts yummy and fancy (remember, this is about you looking good). This s'mores kit, with its whimsical packaging, pretty food items, holiday theme and stoopid price tag, is just the thing. Pls note this package makes approx 1.6 s'mores so do advise that the s'more-making happens AFTER you leave the house party, so you don't have to see the disappointed faces of the hungry children who were originally like, "THIS IS ALL ABOUT ME AND I GET TONS OF STUFF AT ONCE!". It's not your job to teach sharing.
5. Monocle Speaker, $34, Fab.com
The people you truly love forever and always either deserve the DANKEST speakers for their gadgets, or none because you know them well enough to know they don't give a flying F about making their embarrassing Joe Cocker Spotify Radio playlist audible to all (me!). The people on this list over here, though? Who cares whether they wanted gadget speakers or not, they're getting them anyway, and the sound quality is gonna come in at a coooool "Middling." These speakers are colorful, take-anywhere-able, super-easy to use, linkable for sound-buildage, and make perfect little hostess/host gifts. They also work as handsets and speakerphone receivers, so your giftee can look even COOLER screaming the supermarket's daily rotisserie chicken flavors into her iPhone to her husband.
Need more inspo? Just type "Gift Guide" into Pinterest and go nuts. P.S., order asap if you're shopping online, because today and tomorrow are officially last minute if you're trying to get stuff under the tree by 12/24.
dream a little
Gifty Quickies, Part 1: For People Whom You Love Deeply And Personally
If it's the thought that counts, what does that make the pathological compulsion to spend all the money you have as instantly as yesterday? For this year's gift giving high season, I'm basically Warren Buffeting all over the C Wonder website and Amazon.com. After three consecutive Christmases spent in various states of brokeness, I finally, finally, finally make the great salary I deserve (no humility here--I kick ass at my job mmmk?) which means I can spoil my people like they deserve. I've always liked gift-giving (it offers the same adrenaline rush as shopping for myself, without the heart-ripping guilt that comes with paying the dead minimum on your student loan but affording yourself yet another pair of ankle boots), and I consider myself pretty damn fine at it. The secret? If you ask me, people get too caught up in ultra-personalizing gifts and trying to detect whatever ONE AMAZING THING each person on their list HAS GONE WITHOUT ALL THIS TIME AND NOW DESPERATELY NEEDS.
The point of taking out loans from a bank or taking on a second job? To buy things you desperately need. The point of Christmas and birthdays and other hilariously materialistic holidays? To get things that you like. That you might not need, but like. That you can place on a shelf and smile at once in a while.
Once you start allowing yourself to buy people truly likeable, rather than militantly needable, objects of desire, gift giving becomes less stressful and more like a wonderful treasure hunt. It helps to further section out your list into two groups: People Whom I Love Deeply And Personally, and People I Like A Lot And Want To Gift For the Hell Of It And/Or For The Sake Of Showing Them How Tasteful I Am. The title of that latter category should not be something to feel ashamed about. Gift giving is inherently a self-conscious act. If we didn't expect a pleasant reaction from the recipient, and anticipate a return of affections, we probably wouldn't have them on our lists in the first place. So, breathe, it's ok, this can be a little bit about you (although this advice is coming from a feral narcissist who overdrafts her checking account more often than she pays her mobile phone bill so take it at face value).
Now that you're thinking like a crazy person, let's get to the gifts, which, again, are important because they make you look great, and because they are gifts, not necessities.
And now for part 1: Gifts For People Whom You Love Deeply And Personally
1. An Updated Version of the Original Tote, $49.95 (plus $8 for monogram), LL Bean
Long before there were reusable shopping bags from Urban Outfitters and witty shoulder bags from The Strand exposing your undying love for Jane Eyre, there was the LL Bean Boat and Tote, quite possibly the sturdiest (and most iconic) canvas bag out there. I got my mom one for Christmas when I was like 14 and she still uses it to this day. While the original design reads a little bit 'teacher,' this updated design, with its leather handles and streamlined shape, makes a perfect gift for just about anyone who carries more than personal item to more than one place per day. The monogramming is essential--classically preppy but also having a moment of its own right now--and at only $8 extra, how could you not? Oh, and, practically speaking, the canvas is so thick and rugged that the weight of the tote's contents is easily distributed, so your recipient's shoulder doesn't snap off just because she decided to spring for the extra-large olive oil at the grocery store. Oh, and did I mention that everything from Beans has a lifetime guarantee? How evergreen!
2. Penguin Classics Hardcover Set, $95, One Kings Lane
Speaking of Jane Eyre, when was the last time you read the classics outside of the cinderblock walls of a classroom? With age comes wisdom, which means you might actually fucking GET wtf Dickens was talking about at all, ever, if you try rereading at your current robust, adult age. Give the gift of literary prowess; gently urge your writerly buddy to give Wuthering Heights another go now that he's impressively conquered Infinite Jest. Not to mention, this collection looks so good, it would be an equally fitting present for a design nut as it is for a voracious reader. Oh, and, jacketlessness means they'll stay great looking as they age. Know a precocious teenager or freshly minted college kid? Drop some canonical knowledge on their asses--and spice up their sad, university-issue book case while you're at it.
3. Custom Lipstick-Crafting Session, from $36, Bite Lip Lab
Thing not to get Ladies Whom You Love Deeply and Personally: those lame-ass nail polish-filled Christmas Tree ornaments in the Sephora check-out line. Thing more aptly fitted for the Girl Who Has Actually Let You Have Her Entire Apartment To Yourself As You Preoped For A Colonoscopy: custom-made lipstick (and a fun experience to remember [the lipstick session, not the colonoscopy session]). At the Lip Lab, you sit down with a "Lab Artist" and consult over what you want in your one-of-a-kind shade (not too red but kinda red but pinky too oh and nude! and sheer-ish! For free!), then spike your color with fun add-ins like shimmer, flavor and more. Every time she selfies, she'll think of you. Awwww, girl! Not anywhere near Manhattan? Grab her a set of Lip Tars and some empty cosmetic jars and let her go buckwyl'! (Just be honest if the color she makes herself ends up being Clown).
4. A Naked Chair To Refinish, $156, Wayfair
Look at this little nudey dude! So cute already, but imagine what your crafty mom/brother/auntie could do to make it even better? Furniture might be a tricky buy for others, but chairs are the exception, in my opinion. Who doesn't have some fugly hand-me-down at their desk or table or hidden away in shame, only to be unearthed if it is the LAST POSSIBLE OPTION (i.e., your unannounced dinner party guest either sits on the dog's floor pouf, or....). And with casters (removable ones), and jaunty little angles, this chair has the makings to be great. Serve it up with a few issues of Wallpaper magazine, some Pinterest printouts and paint chips for inspo, and you've got one heck of a DIY stew going (not to mention, a throne ordained just for you every time you visit the recip's apartment).
5. Monthly Delivery of Japanese Goodies, $12/mo, Skoshbox
Are dads not the hardest to shop for? They're so weirdly not into clothing, footwear, beauty or pop culture (although mine had a brief Kardashian affinity that we never really looked that deeply into but perhaps should have). Oh, also, brothers, sometimes boyfriends, and sometimes your coolest friends. So difficult! So obsessively preferenced! That's why there's Skoshbox, one of the few actually interesting candidates out there from the recent onslaught of monthly subscription boxes (Fresh veggies that aren't from the local CSA? Candles made for men? What is wrong with you people? Clothing that some complete stranger picks out for you and then sends to you? What is this voodoo black magic?) that are perfect for your creative person who likes cheekyJapanese things (we all have that person!). Each delivery is filled with sweets and tchotchkes direct from Japan, which will have your dad being like "OMG WHAT IS THIS EVEN?!!" all excitedly, and have your cool on-the-pulse roommate being like "Here's something I can like that no one in my group has ever heard of, AS USUAL." Konnichiwa, Pikachu, Mister Roboto.
There. There you go. There are your ideas. It was really hard coming up with these, because there are so many good gift guides out there already, and because you all know how to buy gifts already, but I like to think that my gift-giving philosophy (JUST GET RANDOM CUTE SHIT AND GIVE IT TO PPL THEY'LL LOVE IT BUT IF THEY DON'T OH WELL) is 100% original and proprietary and should probably get its own segment on the Steve Harvey Show.
Tomorrow: Gifts For People You Like A Lot And Want To Gift For The Hell Of It And/Or For The Sake Of Showing Them How Tasteful You Are (Hint: This list is way easier than today's)
Holy. Pant. ("Batman.") (?)
Is this some kind of joke. Am I supposed to be opening all these fashion emails and seeing shit like these fucking pants and just casually continue not buying crap in favor of paying off my credit card like some kind of sad blind fool idiot. I am bursting.
Look. At these pants. She's like a beautiful candlestick emerging from some an upside down Disney-animated anthropomorphic candelabra, refusing to sing. She's like a closed iris, also upside down, having hung there for years, dried to an inky crisp. She is a cluster of falsies fit for a lady god. Look how they bloom! Give them to me. It's Giving Tuesday. Give them to me. Let me swish in them.
Is it Dying if all I Want to Shop for Anymore is Loungewear
Briefly in high school, in a desperate (and so, so misguided) attempt to get boys to like me more before I graduated and missed all chance of losing my virginity before college (spoiler: didn't happen!), I got into girly sweatpants, because that was what all the hot girls were wearing. I'd never wear them to school or anything, because that would probably drive my mother into infanticide or worse, into making fun of me, but I did own a pair of them for around the house, or for sleepovers, or for, you know, just hangin' with my girls (who, at the time, were, typically, a block of uncooked ramen noodles and a Delia's catalog).
It was a strange sensation, wearing them around. The way they had no buttons or zippers. How the fleecey fabric pilled up in the wash and they ended up feeling like sandpaper on the inside. How the thick waistband made my boyish body look almost like it belonged to a music video backup dancer, but only for the three or so inches spanning the bottom hem of my t-shirt and an inch below the pants' drawstring. I felt like a genie, or an Arabian cool girl. I felt like an athlete. I felt things there weren't yet words for--basic, normcore. Sliding them on was like taking a break from a deeply unsatisfying life of want--wanting designer jeans, wanting tailored coats, wanting to have a debit card so I could shop online at Urban Outfitters--and entering a nice, calm world of not caring. I remember the face my mom made when I asked for some Victoria's Secret PINK brand sweats for Christmas that year. She did the "well, it's your funeral" thing. It burned. My tryst with them ended soon after Christmas morning that year, when I unearthed from my mountain of presents a pair that said PINK across the ass, and PINK ROYALTY on the upper right thigh. PINK ROYALTY. I fled the kingdom.
They came with me to college years later but I only wore them while navigating through the throes of my very first true hangovers, or on days I had the flu or bad gas or something. They were the not-me-today pants. My lie-around pants. The other girls would wear their local-high-school-varsity-sport-girl pants to the dining hall, and I'd watch their wide legs billowing out from under their North Face zip-ups like sails from ghost ships. The hems would drag across the dining hall floor, picking up all the grease and french fry and melted ice cream drips. The worst though, the worst of all, was when girls would wear them to the library. There is nothing more inexplicably appalling to me as that college stereotype of the Girl with the Messy Bun and Sweats all Curled Up in a Nook in the Library with Like a Big Tote and a Coffee and Lots of Color Coded Notes and Notebooks all Over the Place. The never-leave-the-womb types. The nester-cuties. The comfort-types. My motto was always, "What is clothing comfort and what is it not? I've never put on jeans and a blouse and thought, well this is uncomfortable."
On study days, or nothing-special days, I'd wear a good pair of stretchy jeans, and a nice roomy sweater. Some driving moccasins. It all felt very dignified.
Now at 26, over three years into post-undergrad life (not to be confused with post-graduate life, which is a thing I will not be a part of) and I'm coveting the neon trainers everyone has, the sleek black neoprene stick legs jutting out from under their roomy sweaters, the half-zip anoraks that form no real barrier against the wind, but gently whisper back at it, "Shh, shh." I'm going back on the promise I made to myself at birth, when, cuddled against my mother's chest, she enchanted within me an irascible hunger to stay polished, pressed and ever-so-slightly overdone, regardless of how broke or upset or empty you are. And now look at me, spending everything I have at fucking Victoria's Secret, on slim-fitting gym pants and T-shirts with strange decorations on them. My collared blouses drip crestfallen on their hangers, collecting dust. My waistline cowers at the grip of its elastic fencing, ew, ew, ew.
What is it all about, this shift? Is it an intuitive lean toward motherhood, all that stretch and easy-wash and softness? Is it a distasteful plea backward, to college, to the easy years, when comfort was so plentiful that I felt fine wearing the trousers with the sharpest pleats, and showing up to parties in silk? Is it ok, is it just an evolution? Is it just the style now? The racing stripes down the legs, the witty butt-skimming slope of the back of the sweatshirt, the apres-ski-inspired neck cuff of the 90s-esque zippered pullover, like a clerical collar of urban priestesshood, a resignation to some higher god, a bow to Him that says, "I'm done here, take me when you're ready, the seam around my ribs of my favorite black dress is about to give, and the party is over."
Is this dying?
We adopted a dog. We named him Cheddar. He's intense and strange and fiercely loving and kinda fat and really just all around the best living thing I've ever cuddled.
Big Twitter Achievement Today
what why
Thing I’m All About: Scalloped Hems
If all the world’s a stage at a town fair, it is the job of the townsladies to pas de deux all about the grounds and be the décor. And like the redwhiteandblue bunting that the town fair wears like skirts around its raffle sign-up tables and whitewashed gazebos and chili cook-off tents, a scalloped edge rounding the wheel of a skirt hem, or introducing a bust-line, is just about the prettiest thing a gal could wear.
There is a certain paper doll-ness to this trim, or perhaps something cake-like, or perhaps something paper-cupcake-liner-like. It is feminine and fun and decorative and new and old at the same time, and you all should buy at least one scalloped-edge garment this summer and use it (or them) to replace the crass raw-edged denim shorts you’ve been seeing in the windows of the clubwear shops post-haste.
Last summer in my gastroenterologist’s waiting room there was a woman too pretty to even need a gastroenterologist—because she was so pretty I doubt at all that she even has intestines—and she was wearing a bleached-neon-green-colored shift with scalloped arm openings, neckline and hemline. Her hair was long and colorless, her shoes were the Marc Jacob’s mouse-face flats, and from the moment I saw her I knew I needed that dress. I also knew it was J. Crew just by looking at it. I also knew that, because it was J. Crew, I could not have it. But then I found its lookalike in peach at TJ Maxx for $16 a few weeks ago and have been sleeping soundly.
Here are some other scalloped options if your TJMaxx hunt isn’t as fruitful.
1. Scalloped Layered Cami Dress, ASOS, $41
Seafoam green and delightfully layered, this dress will make your hips look like they're connected to your torso by a ball-and-socket joint, a la a dashboard hula girl, which is basically the epitome of summer sexy sex appeal. I may buy this and wear it to a wedding with a big fat plastic necklace.
2. Scalloped Seersucker Mini, Lily Pulitzer, $88
It's pink and white seersucker. It's got a delightfully wide scalloped hemline. It's Lily Pulitzer. This thing is so cute and sweet it might as well be lickable. It can be the strawberry candy bulb atop your lollipop-stick legs.
3. Scalloped Day Dress, J. Crew Factory, $88
Well if it isn't the dress of the hour. I mean year, because it's the same dress I saw that girl wearing an entire year ago that I haven't forgotten yet. Made from a luscious textured stretch that closely resembles neoprene and featuring four soft darts drifting up from the waistline to the bust and down from the waistline to the thighs, this frock has to be seen to be believed. It is like a scoop of sorbet. It is like a veil of dainty Styrofoam. Oh and here are those cat flats, by the way.
4. Scalloped Crepe Boxy Top, Topshop, $68
If you think scallops are "too girly" and you don't want people to misinterpret your choice of clothing as a signifier of your femininity and thereby as a signifier of your stupidity, well, that's really sad, but at least you could try this sturdy crepe tee, which can be taken very seriously, especially if paired with some sleek black matchstick pants (front crease required) and some of those severe mid-heeled ankle-strap shoes with the conical toes that are everywhere right now, preferably in black with pastel blue.
Yabba Dabba Don't: Beware of the styling of your scalloped edge. If the scallop's arcs are too acute or too narrow or too long, you run the risk of looking like Betty Rubble or Wilma Flintstone. Not terribly timely look, especially if paired with a topknot. Yikes.
OUTFIT GIF: Yellow Coat Appreciation Day
Princesses of springtime, is there anything more beautiful than a shock of marigold against the new blooms and fresh leaves at their brightest?
No, which is why I've kept this Gap canvas rain jacket since 2006, when my mom got it for me. Year after year it remains crisp, pure, bright and perfect. Year after year it unfurls from my storage chest like a somersault.
It got lost at the laundromat last week and days later Joe came home victorious, a heap of butter yellow in his arms. I knew it would come back. It always does, like the first warm day you crack your windows after a long winter, and the frame creaks like a tired old spine and the screen quivers and the house smells new.
Jacket, Gap, $?, gift from mom, 2006. Bandeau, Forever21, $6, Printed skirt, Forever 21, $11.
Lauren, you said you liked the Dr. Jart BB cream. I wanna buy it but, like, how can it only come in one shade? Did you try it on before buying? Or is part of the BB magic that it works on many skin colors? Plz Advise.
Hi you elegant and complex delicacy of the universe!
I too was super confused when I found out Dr. Jart Water Fuse was only one shade. I asked for it for Christmas (my mom MAKES me make a list, I swear I'm not a weird adult-child who makes santa lists every year I swear) after receiving it in my Birchbox and LOVING it, so I already knew the mystery shade--whaddever the fuck it was--would work on me.
I can't speak to whether it would work for all plants and animals, but I can tell you this:
It's super, duuuuper, poooper sheer. Very sheer. Like basically translucent. The tint is more an tone-evener than it is a mask of color.
I HATE the yellow-y, pasty look of foundation, and I love my own skin (most days), so I'd HATE wearing this BB cream every day if it wasn't so delicate and subtle
This is the best beauty product I've possessed in a long, long time. I feel very happy to have it.
It's really important to wear sunscreen every day and this stuff gives you that protection without you even having to think about it
The bottom line: It's a pretty versatile tint! And it's a fuckin' SICK product that makes me feel like a beautiful skin ninja every day with perfect tulip petal flesh. And a little goes a long way. And the price point is decent considering it's made by a DOCTOR! And it's really just all-around a great goop, especially if you have super-dry Death Valley skin AND are rather beauty-lazy like yours truly.
If you're still unsure--which, SMART, because this internet is full of vicious lies--pop into your local Sephora to try a sample. But do not, I repeat DO NOT buy it from Sephora if you decide to buy it--it's $2 cheaper at Birchbox!
me every time i realize fritos honey bbq flavor twists exist
STOP the Proliferation of Cotton Mary-Janes at Mass Trend Retailers
U know what I'm sick of? Wearable items that exist to make people look LESS good. Living is so difficult, so riddled with tragedy and disappointment, and one constant we can all depend on--that we can at least try to look alright during our 85-some-odd-year descent into the brothels of hell--is so easy to do right. Wear a nice pair of jeans that don't stretch too tensely in the areas between zipper and pockets. Wear a good t-shirt that has some drape to it. Eat some spinach every other day, call your mother, tell a good joke. Put a little tinted chapstick on you face. It's really that fucking simple!
But no, it isn't even, you know? There are uglifying land mines everywhere just beckoning you to them, with their siren songs of "comfort" and "practicality" and, ugh "vegan leather."
Case in point: These flippery cotton maryjanes that somehow, somehow!!, like a stinking bilious joke vomited forth through the city's manholes by satan, remain stalwarts in the Urban Outfitters shoe collection.
Ugh! What a stupid thing! How have we let these slip through the cracks all this time? We've eradicated the use of lead paint and done away with gaucho pants but these malevolent freaks still flop around our streets unchecked? Who is buying these and why are they not starring in a show about serial killing on Investigation Discovery?
It's not even a different strokes for different folks thing. I hate a lot of things for personal taste reasons that i don't even understand, like strapless bras, for example, or when millennial women eat apples on the subway, or stonewashed denim. But these shoes? They just offer us nothing. Nothing. We don't need them. We're the Western world, for fuck's sake. We have SNEAKERS. We have those ADIDAS slip-ons with the velcro strap.
I hate these shoes. I hate their weird orange-y rubber soles. I hate their cotton uppers and the way the vamp looks all wrinkly when it stretches over toes. I hate the weird tipping around every edge. Especially the part that goes through the buckle. It looks so...IDK...unfortunate country girl from a Grimm story? Like what she wears to romp through the cattails before she gets cursed by a whatever?
I also hate HATE that these come in many colors and patterns. Normally, I'm a patternaholic. Like, pls put patterns everywhere, is what I'm like. Bandaids, hairties, tissue boxes, you name it. Gimmie a repeating iconographic pattern and we're good. But these mary janes in a printed fabric? IT'S LIKE OMG JUST USE THE FABRIC FOR BALLET FLATS INSTEAD THIS WOULD LOOK GREAT AS A BALLET FLAT.
It's like they're going OUT of their way to make the ugliest thing ever so that YOU look worse. Are you like? So good looking that you buy these in bulk because it's fun for you to look worse? I WANT TO UNDERSTAND.
Not to mention, these shits go for like, $10 a pair. Like why can't a simple sandal or canvas flat go for $10? Because they're actually desirable, that's why. But these fuckers? Fuck, give 'em away, for all Urban Outfitters cares! THEY ONLY EXIST TO MAKE PPL UPSET. Therefore we should make it AS EASY AS POSSIBLE TO OBTAIN THEM. Health insurance? No let's keep that really impossible to afford. Cotton buckle pointless foot coverings? PRACTICALLY FREEEEEE.
You may ask yourself, is there precedent for something like this? Some horrible venmous clothing item that is NEVER attractive or useful but just keeps existing? Yes. I've done my research. My eyes are wide open. Yes. Precedent:
Oh the humanity. Let's take a window screen and spray paint it the color of sadness and then stitch some goddamn sparkles onto it because why not and staple it to a foam fin. Basically the chill summer-girl version of the cotton Mary Jane.
The difference is AT LEAST, at LEAST the mesh slip-ons aren't available overflowing in friendly little baskets at mass retailers like the mary janes are. At least the mesh slip-ons have been relatively quarantined to the furthest corners of eBay. Cotton mary janes are still out there, alongside crop tops and denim cut-offs with nailheads adorning the pockets. Like they can HANG with them. it's fucked up and gross and I'm ashamed.
I'm ashamed of us. I will not rest until these fuckers are a dark shudder-inducing memory, like... world wars. Or whatever.
No No No No No No No No No must not bear offspring No No
Dressing in Strangers' Clothes
My good friend and moon sister Carolyn recently had me over to try on some clothes a friend who broke up with her boyfriend and moved out of the apartment they shared gave her but which didn't fit Carolyn or her roommate my other friend Kendall.
Does this make sense to you? It's awful hard to write the logistics out.
Anyway, said friend is clearly size the of Lauren circa the golden days of high school, so most of it barely fit over my birthing hips. But the above simple navy shift was a miraculous size Medium and was of the New Englander-J. Crew-when-it-was-just-J. Crew-nice-normal-young-mom proclivity look I've been trying to nail since I gave up on trying to be the best-dressed young dummy in New York. Where I once tried to pull off an oversized sheer blouse over nothing but boyshorts and a bra, these days things around here (gesturing at female form at large) are decidedly less Teen Choice Awards and decidedly more... idunno... TJ Maxx commercial? Ah, being 25.
Anyway, it's a great dress. It displays a high tolerance for color-pops and statement jewelry. I thought it was going to have dumb gathered fabric at the shoulders, but it does not after all. It was not too short for work. I can wear it in wintertime, with tights, or in summertime.
What is not as simple as the good dress is the concept of wearing someone else's dress. I know people thrift and buy consignment and all that--so do I--but there is something weirder about wearing a dress that belongs to someone that is definitely two degrees from knowing you in this universe. It is like you are a shade of her. A parallel her. A tree that grew from an eyelash she lost. A her with a bigger nose and an entirely different life, except, of course, for the part where you're friends with Carolyn.
Second from feeling like an astral do-si-do partner to this unknown woman while a dress that she purchased and wore rubbed against my skin all day, I also fear that this dress might bring some of her unluck into my life. I mean, she and live-in boyfriend break up, she moves out, she gives excess stuff to Carolyn, Carolyn gives navy shift dress to me... sisterhood of the traveling NOTHANKS, anyone? Sisterhood of the traveling I FINALLY FOUND ONE MAN WHO HAS NEVER CALLED ME CRAZY PLS DON'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME, anyone?
But then again, it fits very well; it drapes nicely. The former flesh-tone-leotard wearer in me likes its stretchlessness, and the way it hikes up the thigh a little when I move my legs a certain way.
I'm going to take my chances. It's going to be like Jumanji in that way.
If in a year or two I offer you this dress during a post-break-up fit of downsizing... well, consider the drape, is all I'm saying.
Dress, MNG Basics, whatever that is. Necklace, gift from Joe, J. Crew Outlet.
OUTFIT GIF: Spots for Spring
Twenty-five year old ladies of the world: Do you have an incredible mama who understands your personal style on a deep, personal, almost freakishly accurate level? And does that mama snap things up for you during shopping trips and then send it to you in packages along with cleaning products and dish sponges she knows are really expensive in NYC?
If not, sorry. But over here, I've got 99 (billionjillion) reasons to love my mom, and her sending me the best just-because packages ever is one of them.
When I unfurled this polka-dotted blouse from its package at work today, after receiving a particularly hurtful bout of bad feedback from a client, the perfect colors and gently rounded collar made my heart sing and my soul float. I pictured it with the flippy floral mini I scooped up on store credit over the weekend, and truly, I was whole again. Have you heard about that painfully stupid "Happify" app that was released recently?* Yeah, forget about that nonsense, get yourself some spring prints instead, and call your mom.
All that's missing from this look is the warm weather in which I can finally permit myself to wear it. I haven't done a bare leg yet in 2014, believe it or not. It just still doesn't feel like the right time But when I do, this is what you can expect to see from mid-thigh on up.
* h/t Devon
Blouse, Ann Taylor LOFT, gift from mom. Skirt, Forever21, $16. Necklace, Forever21, $5. Watch, Michael Kors like, 100 seasons ago, $250.
