Hat Attack with a twist!

  I think I've figured out layering knits! At least, for San Francisco's comparatively mild winters. I am linking to Style Crone's Hat Attack #5 because Judith is glorious and, of course, hats. Who needs more reason?

Dark red floral sweater: Nordstrom (thrifted)

Brown corduroy skirt: H&M (eBay)

Tights: UNIQLO (Japan)

Boots: Two Lips (thrifted)

Long cloak hoodie: Prairie Underground (old)

Hat: milsa (ARTH, defunct ): )

  This lovely sweater is made in Italy! Another one of those lucky wonderful thrift finds. Clearly you should come here on vacation and go thrifting with me.

  The twist part comes in because the gorgeous off the shoulder/cowl neck is really wide. Normally I have difficulty getting things over my broad shoulders. This one was in danger of slipping over them entirely! So I twisted one side inside-out to give it stability and an asymmetrical look, and put my DIY collar clips on for security:

  Then I twisted my bangs before pinning them up. Then I twisted my (made in Japan) hat! I thought it looked less like a beanie and more like a cloche that way. I am enjoying my Axis powers clothing today.

  The sweater is more tunic-length and the skirt is detailed and natural-waisted, so next time I might try wide leg trousers or something more fitted and low-slung on the bottom half, because it's a bit bulky looking here. Learning!

  What are some off-the-cuff adjustments you make to your clothing? Do you like wearing things a little differently than intended?

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  Speaking of garments' countries of origin, I've had this article by Mother Jones on my mind. It's about sumangali girls in India -young girls who go to work in garment factories to try to earn money for their dowries. It's well-written and as sad and horrifying as you would imagine.

  It also touches briefly on a topic that's not often mentioned when talking about these: it's really hard to monitor everything along a supply chain. In an ideal world I want large fashion companies to take initiative in securing living wages, safe conditions, and all sorts of protections for garment workers. In reality, there's a soup of emergent behavior, long supply chains and lack of individual accountability, subcontracting, and of course manufacturers working very hard to hide their human rights abuses. It's one of those puzzles that involves finding out how to reward the right behaviors so all can benefit, and it sucks me into a dissonant navel-gazing void every time I walk through a mall, which is why I avoid them now. (And I'm not claiming I am not part of the chain, here. I thrift a heck of a lot of my things, but I do own many things made in China. It is really damn hard to find things that aren't.)

  I'd love to hear your thoughts. I am curious where the trend of the next generation will turn, fashion-wise. It feels like things went mass-produced around the 1950s and 1960s, and we're hitting an apex of that. I wonder if the pendulum is due to start swinging another way.

Hella Cheapspensive

  This is my entry for the How I Wear My series, November edition! It's a monthly event run by Adrienne of The Rich Life (on a budget) and Jill of Everything Just So and you should check it out, because November is jeans! I am also linking up to Judith of Style Crone's Hat Attack!, a monthly linkup dedicated to that fabulous head accessory.

  I was out for August (I own literally nothing neon) and for September (the closest I had to animal print was a duck) but jeans, jeans I can do.

Navy fedora: Stacy Adams

Faux leather trim scarf: Nordstrom (online here)

Embroidered butterfly top: Karen Millen (eBay)

Hoodie: Sanctuary clothing (thrifted)

Jeans: Denim for Immortality (thrifted)

Rhinestone locket: Express (v. old)

It was windy that day

  My favorite San Francisco thrifting game is "Is this brand expensive, or hella cheap?"

  You can usually tell by construction, detailing, or material quality if something is a nicer brand or a throwaway item. And either way, I go with buying what I like over pre-thrift price. Usually it's quality of material that sells me, though I do have a favorite burnout shirt that had several small holes in it already when I thrifted it, and has continued dissolving as I have continued patching it, until one day I will have a magical garment constructed entirely from my own sewing thread.

  But sometimes, there's that intersection of lowest-bidder fabric and pre-worn soft expensive stuff that you can feel slowly disintegrating from the roughness of your plebeian fingers, and you can't quite tell which one it is. Cheap brands copy naming conventions of expensive brands, just as people name their children after the children of people with more money, so the names are going to sound the same. And that's where the game comes in. Feel free to play with your friends, especially if at least one smartphone is present* so you can look brands up. Winner should buy something the loser has to wear.

  So it was with these jeans. There were crystals on them, for one. The material was thin and stretchy. And with signage like this:

  You have to figure this would either be some expensive jeans, or something you'd see on the reality show Unstable Loud People You Feel Superior To. The crystals were subtle for well, being crystals on your ass, and I needed jeans because I shrank out of half my clothes this summer, so I bought 'em. My hunch was on fancy instead of trashy jeans.

  Check out this button! It looks like Perseus' shield! It's copper and has the head of Medusa preserved in it and everything.

  Yes, it turned out they were fancy pants. They also turned out to be extremely comfortable! And that is How I Like My: Jeans.

* This spellchecker knows 'smartphone' but not 'thrifted.' How's that for bourgeois?

Incordirigible

  You heard it here first, folks: Gracey the Giant is a bad influence. She may seem witty and sweet and friendly and lovely-well, I'm sure she is all of those things actually, but she's still a bad influence! I don't know if she's mad at me because I took more than my fair share of short or what, but this post is on her. I'll get her back, though. You'll see.

  So the other day I was reading this post over at Fashion for Giants, and I clicked the link to check out Gracey's sweet earrings on the Nordstrom website. It was there that I saw THIS:

Cara 'Royal Highness' Military Pin (linking because I love you, but no revenue)

  My friend called it "very imperialist, like someone snatched it off of Queen Victoria's corpse." :D I instantly thought of it pinned on a structured jacket or coat, but his comment made me think it could go on a sash, as well. I hope it doesn't look like or cause offense as imitating military, because what I want to do with it is be an airship captain.

  This got in my head a few months ago when I was tootling around with my cropped BIZZ jacket and wound up with a combination that made me inexplicably feel like one (didn't post it, but should in future). It's been a dream ever since.

Pin: Cara 'Royal Highness' Military Pin (Nordstrom)

Heart: vintage screwback earring (thrifted)

Lace ruffle tee: TRF t-shirt collection (thrifted)

Western-style coat: Diesel (thrifted)

Pink lace undertank: Express best-loved bra cami

Vest: Free People (eBay)

Skirt: unknown, Japanese (piked from Mom)

Boots: Naya Lightning (gift)

  This is another go at layering a soft tee with a v-neck and ruffles over a lace-trimmed camisole for some detail and less cleavage. A vest seems to make things older-fashioned looking, structured, and a little fancy all at once.

  Getting that medal on was a stone bitch, by the way. A captain needs to have her uniform in order. A captain also should have sleeves that go to her wrists instead of her knuckles, but baby steps. After several iterations of pinning it crookedly, pinning it at the wrong height, pinning it in the wrong lateral configuration, taking off the coat to try to pin it straight, trying on the coat and taking it back off again because it was wrong, I shouted in frustration, "This is why people used to have servants dress them!"

It was perfect. If you buy one, send me a picture.

  The captain would also like a hat, but this one is 140 beans. It is gorgeously shaped and the right brim shape for the period I had in mind, though. It's also not an unreasonable price, but it is about 120 more beans than I have in my pocketbook. I hung out with it on at Goorin Bros., drank free beer, and have photoshopped it onto my head for my own entertainment instead. :D

  Normally I avoid places like Nordstrom because in my mind those are places that grown ups who have money go to buy things, and I live in fear that I will be called out as an impostor or set upon by frightening salespeople and feel obligated to buy something out of social contract.

  Gracey said I should totally get the pin though, so I went. And everybody was so nice. I was left alone, and whenever I had a question, attentive lovely folks who didn't talk loudly would help out. And over at the MAC counter it looked like the most expressive and energetic young people ever were having a happy make-up party. This place has customer service down to a science. And I ended up coveting this, too:

Faux leather trim scarf (also linking for love, and because it is 1/2 off)

  Looks kind of punk and has pointy ends to look extra interesting. I don't know what would go under it yet, but just trying it on made me feel fashionable.

  My friend Diana has already called the position of First Mate in my crew. You, lovely readers, are of course more than welcome aboard, and I am saving a spot for Ken Watanabe in case he would like to come. Who would you want in your crew if you were a fantasy captain?

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  Sunday I went to a clothing swap hosted by a friend-of-a-friend. I met so many wonderful women there. I hadn't expected that in addition to finding new cool things to wear, it would be so fun to see my clothes on other people and that I'd get so much happiness from seeing them go to another home. When I've sold clothes before, I feel sad, because I have all sorts of sentimentality tied up in things and the memories I made while wearing them. The personal connection of having someone's smiling face exclaim that she loves your former things took that all away.

  And I managed to achieve the major goal of a clothing swap: I came back with far less than I'd gone there with. Score! The extra clothes went to a YWCA drive for women who had rescued themselves from domestic abuse situations. They are definitely a target for my next rage donation.

  The haul:

2 dresses, 1 workout tank, 3 shirts, 2 skirts, 1 trousers, and accessories

  The bottom dress belonged to a gal who must've been half a foot taller than I, with truly bodacious curves. I do not know how this dress violates the laws of physics and fits us both, but you don't turn down technology like that. It could end up powering my airship.

  These are a gorgeous black and metallic red, depending on how the light hits them. Stretch fabric, very comfortable. Maybe an everyday goth look, with black boots?

  Western brown steampunk-ish skirt and plum blossoms. See that, Gracey? MINT. I got you!

  Brown steampunk style socks for my outfits! Gold bracelet that looks like armor for a fantasy war! Sandals from the young lady who got my former pink pants! :D

  Of course the winner of the afternoon had to be:

  Holy shlamoley, knee boots! I don't know who was being pursued so hotly by the mob that she had to leave these behind, but thank you. I have wanted knee high boots since I was at most twelve, probably earlier. I have stared at them online often and contemplated what it would be like, but now I know and I will never forget.

  If you were tired of me wearing my Naya Lightning boots with everything before, you might want to brace yourself for boots showing up in every one of my posts now, forever. :D