Pinstripes

***If you're in the Bay Area, I'll be showing off many of my newest hat designs at the Dark Garden Pre-Edwardian Ball Trunk Show this Wednesday from 6-9 pm! Click here for more details.***
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This was an easy, casual outfit I put together for one of the last days of work before I left for my vacation. Not even wanting to deal with my hair, which was starting to grow out and look sloppy, I threw on a hat.

I've had the idea of wearing tight-fitting pinstriped pants with these black boots for quite some time now, having been inspired by a smartly dressed girl I saw on the street on my commute home one day. But the right pair just hadn't presented itself to me, so it's something I've kept in the back of my mind. I found these on Clockwork Couture, a sort of steampunk online clothing store, and because they were so inexpensive I decided to give them a try. The quality is frankly pretty poor, and in fact one of the belt loops came unattached as soon as I grabbed it to pull the pants up, but I suppose that for now they're fine. I'm assuming these will only be good for a few wears, and then they'll fall apart and I'll have to start my search all over again.

I liked how well the pants tied in with the soft brownish-purple of the hat in this outfit. If you look carefully, you'll see that I have several shades of brown mixed together here; the long-sleeved t-shirt is a deep chocolate brown, the pants are medium brown, and the belt is sort of a cognac color. Technically the scarf is brown too, but it's so dark that it's really hard to tell.

Hat: Accessorize (Copenhagen)
Scarf: Duke et Duchesse
Tunic, t-shirt: H&M
Pants: Clockwork Couture
Boots: Modern Vintage

Postcards From San Francisco: Feel the Teal

Today I'm kicking off a new running feature I'm calling Postcards From San Francisco. This feature may occasionally touch upon fashion and style, and may even be accompanied by photos of what I'm wearing, but it's equally likely not to feature clothes at all. Its main purpose is really to bring you little snippets of life in San Francisco, and more importantly, snippets of life outside my office. I have a few reasons for starting up this feature:

• Posting nothing but work outfits every day gets sort of dull, so I got the notion that I should mix things up a little.
• San Francisco is an interesting place and it influences me in lots of ways, fashion included. So it really isn't too much of a stretch to make it more of a presence in this blog.
• I love my city dearly, and I feel like running features about it will inspire me to explore it in different ways.

This feature isn't meant to be a comprehensive guide to living in the city, especially since my experience here is quite different from say, someone in their 20's or someone my age with a husband, kids, and a giant mortgage. But I think it'll be fun, and if it gets good feedback then I'll keep on doing it. For now I'd say these features will appear every few weeks, or as often as I have something interesting to share. So with that, let's get started!
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Today's feature is about sports, or specifically, hockey. Now San Francisco is an interesting place for sports, because as a city we aren't really very fervent sports fans, and yet we have a number of professional teams right here. Much of the fan base for bay area teams comes from central valley cities such as Sacramento, and as far as ice hockey goes, most San Franciscans couldn't care less. Go a few miles south to San Mateo or beyond, and you'll find a completely different story: sports bars abound in which the Sharks games always pack in the fans, but up here you'll be hard-pressed to get a bartender to turn on the game even during the playoffs. Most SF sports bars will show anything but hockey, even if neither team is local.

Such is the dilemma for my best friend Laura and I, both longtime Sharks fans, when it's game night and we want to go out for Girls' Night Out and watch it. As I think I've mentioned before, I don't have any TV reception at my apartment. This was a conscious decision I made when I moved here, because I wanted to make sure I got out and did more interesting things than watch TV, things such as, um, hanging around in bars (Shh! Don't judge!). So as a result, Laura and I really have no choice but to pound the pavement every time, searching for just one bar that'll accommodate our zeal for teal.

On the night in question, I donned my Sharks hoodie, teal cap, and the ultimate in sports fan attire, my Wendy Brandes swear rings. I decided to wear them in the more aggressive, fist-friendly orientation, in case there were any Anaheim Ducks fans lurking around. We started out at Aces, a divey sports bar in the Tenderloin neighborhood. I arrived before Laura and made sure that the bartender was willing to turn the game on before I'd order my first drink. Having secured at least one TV monitor, I happily sat down with my beer, and soon Laura joined me. But we had mistakenly thought the bar served food, and after the first period we hungrily wandered down the street in search of the perfect spot to eat, drink, and cheer for our team.

We found our ideal location at the most unlikely of spots: a hip, trendy restaurant-bar called Fly. Never in a million years would I have thought of it, but once we set foot in the door it all became clear: as soon as we saw the giant flat screen TV and room full of bored-looking, disaffected hipsters who were conscientiously ignoring it, we knew we had come to the right place. We merrily spent the rest of the evening cheering the Sharks to a glorious victory, eating gourmet pizza, and occasionally talking hockey with our new favorite bartender. F@#! YEAH!

So what did we learn about our fair city? It's actually a great place to watch hockey, provided you stay away from the sports bars.

Flashy

With this outfit I wanted to put together something that had sort of a 50's vibe. I thought the cuffed jeans were a good place to start, and the cropped cardigan, beret, and scarf were the perfect finishing touches. Not too overt, but it had the feel I was going for. My outerwear was my navy pickstitch coat from Tulle. As you may remember from way back in my Buyer's Remorse series, this coat was on my 'specific rules' list for quite some time: I was only allowed to buy another coat if it was a navy one. I found this one on a crazy sale for something like 12 bucks, and it's a great basic coat for mild winter days.

What's that on my hand, you ask? Oh, of course it's my Wendy Brandes for Frances swear rings! This outfit needed lots of flashy silver to give it some punch, and the rings fit the bill perfectly. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, which spotlights the rings again and is the first installment in a brand new series I'm kicking off this year!


Cardigan: Old Navy
Striped hoodie: ??
Scarf: Banana Republic
Rings: Wendy Brandes
Jeans: Acne
Shoes: Tsubo
Coat: Tulle