Back in Mostly Black

We had a burst of weather that was surprisingly San Francisco-y, but I was determined to wear a short skirt:

Why live in Southern CA if I can't wear the things I couldn't wear in all my years in SF? :D Well, I guess the much better Japanese food is a good argument, too. (the ramen in SF sucks)

Japanese print skirt: ecoté (Urban Outfitters) size 6 on eBay

Over the knee boots: Ros Hommerson (6pm.com, gift from Dad)
Cardigan: Candie's (thrifted)
Fan necklace: Joan Rivers (thrifted)

I love this Japanese-style print skirt. I bought it several years ago for on super sale, and I still haven't figured out what to wear it with besides all black or a plain teal shirt. Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Wide shoe review (review and link not sponsored)

The over the knee Topic boots are WW width from Ros Hommerson, but they come in regular width and wide calf as well. I often have problems with my feet floating in extra wide shoes, because while mine are wide along the x axis at the toes, they're not on the y axis (up and down). Add small ankles and bony heels, and you get shoes that fit at the sides of the feet but that are too roomy everywhere else.

These aren't too bad. They're too big at the instep and ankle, but up at the toes they are fitted enough that my foot isn't floating free.  A set of heel gel inserts to boost my heels a little made the fit much better.

And of course, they are massively marked down and they can fold down or go over the knee. Love.

Personal stuff:

Giveaway winner and a peek back in time

  Congratulations *drumroll* ...to the Couturgatory giveaway winner Tag R! I'll be in contact shortly to ask about what thrifted goodie you'd like from San Francisco!

  And since things have been a whirlwind this weekend (I'll have a full post on the Bloggy award from Ally of Shybiker when I think I have some words. You should check her blog out in the highly unlikely event that you did not find my blog through hers.) here are some older outfits that got left behind for one reason or other this last month.

  Spoiler alert: the reason was usually lighting. Stupid time change. Stupid sun not putting in enough hours at its job.

Laguardia Cloche: Goorin Bros. sample sale (available here)

Long cloak hoodie in blue suede: Prairie Underground (old, more colors)

Purple knit top: Elie Tahari (thrifted)

Cotton godet skirt: Free People (old)

Floral gauze square scarf: Old Navy (available here)

Boots: Two Lips (thrifted)

  This outfit is pretty much exactly the same as the Waiting for Godet one except with a different top and a scarf. (Scarf is no longer on sale for $6. Boo.) Got skipped due to lighting, made a very similar outfit to photograph later, but I was super excited at the time because it was the first time I'd managed to coordinate an outfit, scarf, shoes, and a hat. Unfortunately also the last.

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Dress: Treasure Rock (Treasure Rock on eBay)

Top: Treasure Rock (old)

Sandals: Eastland (old)

  Last wore this shirt way back in June, when my dear friend Diana was visiting. Since I never wear it, I hacked the bottom off and turned it into sleeves as a topper for this sleeveless dress, also by Treasure Rock. Well, formerly sleeveless. I also added straps to the dress as it was driving me crazy.

  They line up great, I just wish I hadn't chopped quite so much off. I was worried the sleeves wouldn't be long enough, but there turned out to be more than enough fabric, length-wise. Width-wise it was close! I had to draft a custom sleeve pattern, but I'm pretty happy at how it turned out.

  I'm also endorsing Eastland Sandals as having a wide toe bed. I own two pairs of their sandals, and these aren't even wide width (they offer wide width on some of their designs.) My toes aren't squished, and I usually have to go with at least width D for that to happen. I'm working on a wide shoes review page that I'll stick in the sidebar. :D

  Happy rest of the weekend, folks, especially for those who have a long weekend for Remembrance Day. I have my own strong feelings on war, military, and authoritarian power pyramids in society, but I do recommend checking out the history of the 442nd Infantry Regiment from WWII. It was composed almost entirely of Japanese American soldiers who volunteered despite their families being imprisoned in internment camps. I'm sad there was a schism between those who served and those who angrily refused the draft (some of whom were deported to Japan, a country they'd never lived in,) because of the loss of their and their families' rights. I think both courses of action took such incredible bravery.

Orange is the New Black Widow

  First up, dear readers: if you're interested in entering the Couturgatory giveaway, leave a comment in this post with a valid e-mail address. I need an e-mail address to contact you if you win! If you forgot to put one, just leave another comment, and of course if you're not interested in entering but just want to say hi, you can leave it out. :D

  You can enter until Saturday, November 9th 11:59pm Pacific time. Then I'll draw the winner!

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 We've had some November sun breaking through the cloud layer the last few days, and I am loving it.

Shirt: Rennes (cheap junior store)

Vest: Last Kiss (same junior store)

Trousers: Cop Copine (thrifted)

Bracelet: Foreign Exchange (old)

Boots: ALDO (thrifted)

  I got the shirt and vest at the same cheap junior store in Colma that was going closing up shop. I never thought of wearing them together until now. I think the shirt looks a little like a shop apron in front, and I really like how the backs layered over one another:

  I feel like a black widow spider, except of course I don't kill and eat my lovers, haha. (:

  I merely lay my eggs in their bodies so that when they hatch, my larvae consume the organs and eat their way out of the thoracic cavity. Technically, my hands are clean.

  Last Kiss is kind of a macabre brand name. Last kiss of what? Of death? Of fate? Of the dragon? (Go with that last one. I had a professor with a huge crush on Jet Li. I approve and she's an amazing teacher, to boot.)

  I mentioned making a Facebook life event before to commemorate hemming some complicated pants. These Cop Copine ones are the second pair I was referring to. They look simple, but the cuffs are sewn in place with an invisible stitch, and I was worried when I cut the fabric that I wouldn't leave enough to fold under, hem, then fold back up and invisible hem. You can still see the line where I pulled the cuffs back to do the stitching.

  I've been wearing these ALDO platform boots a lot, and I never have a good, close shot of them. Reader Sue mentioned having wide forefeet, and when she mentioned squished toes, man oh man did I relate. I found these at the thrift shop and although they are only M width, the squared high toe boxes fit great. They're my go-to boots now for when I need to be on my feet for a few hours.

  Sometimes "wide shoe" labels can be misleading, because our feet have so many dimensions. People can have collapsed or high arches, high insteps or flat ones, edema or bony feet, wide forefeet and/or midfeet, or anything in between. I've learned through trial and error at 6pm.com that Naya width C is the exact width as Fitzwell EE, for example. (I have multiple pairs from both companies, and placed sole to sole, they line up perfectly.) They both run a little narrow for me, but because they are all leather they stretch out over time. Or around a big rock, which is what I use when I get impatient/uncomfortable.

  And since my feet are very wide at the toes (think bear claws) but bony at the heels and skinny on top, David Tate WW shoes are comical on me. It's like someone blew up a balloon around my foot and I have a fascinating empty space all around between me and the shoe. I'm assuming those fit feet that are wide in the up-and-down sense as well as the side-to-side. They *were* one of the only sandals that ever let all of my toes roam free, though. Sigh. Maybe I could buy them again and inject them with foam that would harden around my feet and make the perfect fitting, if really ugly shoe.

  My friend Ally has mentioned difficulties finding size 12, and I have the opposite problem where many companies carry 6-10, and I'm 5.5. What are your shoe fit problems?

Call me Ishmael

  This skirt is one of my new thrifted goodies from a few weeks ago. I wouldn't have bought it normally because it is green, and I have a documented problem wearing green skirts because I don't own anything that goes with them, but it didn't fit my friend Athena, and it is awesome, so now it is mine.

  My first morning back home from my long stressful weekend visiting family following my long stressful week of finals following my long stressful semester from hell I woke up and tried to find something to wear with it.

  It struck me that Starbuck of 2004 Battlestar Galactica wore this color, and Starbuck is awesome because I'd always wanted a female badass pilot character on TV. What little girl doesn't ride her bike up and down the street making laser gun noises, pretending to be an ace space fighter pilot shooting down enemies and downing shots of 7-UP at the front lawn cantina after a hard battle because the fizz and the toll the war takes on her humanity makes her eyes burn? ... was that just me? Ok.

  At any rate, Miss Kara Thrace and well, pretty much the entire cast of the BSG series wore the olive/army green very well with grey and black, so that is what I did:

  I'm not sure the bare gams go with the look, but I like how the rest of it came out. I might remix with black leggings or tights. Suggestions, as always, are welcome. Also the skirt really is green; it looks more brown because of the late afternoon sun, I think.

  I hadn't heard of the brand Skunkfunk before, but the skirt definitely hits my vaguely urban/punk/future fantasy aesthetic. It's got two buttons that cross past one another, unique pockets at the hips that are buttoned and Velcro'd, a random tiny leather patch, and so on. The tag inside says it is called Egia, and that it is a sample. Thrifted clothing tags are the best.

  Instead of the hexagonal ID tags worn by BSG pilots, I wore my family crest:

  I'm sure it would serve just as well, even if I'm not on a set of jagged metal that symbolizes the raw, bleak situation faced by humanity.

  Today was also the first day I wore my Naya Lark boots out:

  Naya boots always take some breaking in (I think most boots do, right?), but I love their style, and the fact that their "C" widths are as wide as Fitzwell "WW." Seriously, I've held them sole-to-sole and they match.  I'd been breaking them in by wearing them indoors for a few hours at a time last week, and I was able to walk around the city this afternoon without a hitch. Pinky toes got rubbed/squished, which they do in anything that isn't a sneaker or a sandal, but they were not raw.

  The upside to this weekend was I hit up the thrift shop in my hometown and got new goodies. I'll have more pictures once everything is washed and ironed, but here's a quick one I snapped of my non-clothing treasures:

The olive oil in the background is not thrifted. Thankfully.

  I also had a birthday while I was at it; my wonderful friends made it a lovely day. My friend Diana and Mr. Garrett Wang at Phoenix Comicon surprised me with this:

That is RIGHT, son. Birthday wishes from Ensign Harry Kim!

  That's it for now. I'm so happy to be home and happy to be back blogging.

  P.S. Since I'm Asian American, does that mean I'm Boomer instead of Starbuck? They do wear the same uniform and all. If this means I get to spend part of my screentime married to Tahmoh Penikett (move aside, actual friend named Athena!) I am all for it.

Undershirt: H&M (thrifted)

Black lace racerback tank: eBay (link to item)

Skirt: Skunkfunk Egia sample (thrifted)

Boots: Lark by Naya (brown and black available on eBay)

Casual Sun Days

  Learning about lighting is still a work in progress! It was a gorgeous day outside so in between studying and cleaning my kitchen, I stepped out for some pictures.

  I thought this getup might be too casual to photograph, but when I added the black sandals (Laura by Fitzwell), it felt like the outfit upgraded from tank top & denim to something with a skirt and ladyshoes.

  I was sold on this shirt when I saw the shredded blue overlayer in the back.

  I read somewhere that broad-shouldered women aren't supposed to wear racerbacks because it makes their shoulders appear bigger. I say it makes broad shoulders look more athletic and awesome.

   This bracelet has two spots you can snap it closed, giving me a rare chance to wear a bracelet that doesn't fall over my hands.

Never take me seriously. I don't.

  I often debate the appropriateness of short skirts to myself, in the context of age and superpowered kicking thighs, but on the rare day the sun is shining, I never think straight: I put on the shortest thing in my closet and go running outside to maximize vitamin D synthesis.

Wide shoe review!

  These sandals by Fitzwell are marked extra wide, but Fitzwell's extra wide sole is only the width of Naya's width C soles, so beware. From my experience in wide shoe land, Fitzwell "extra wide" definitely feels more like C rather than EE width. My toes are a little crowded, but since this is an open sandal, it's not bad.

  I really like the simple lines of the sandal and the platform. I'm a sucker for platform shoes, but I really don't like the pointy stiletto heel with jellybean front look. The front of the Laura sandal is slanted so you can rock onto the front of your foot to push off and take a step, instead of stumping around on wooden triangle stilts like many wedge sandals I see.

  The sandals have elastic in the front so your foot can get in and out without yanking on the leather, which brings me to my complaint about these: the elastic stretches while walking, and the leather and elastic catch a little patch on the top of my foot with each step. If I walk a few blocks, the area becomes red and loses some skin.

  I threaded a strip of black t-shirt hem through the leather loop and fixed it in place with a dot of Elmer's glue on each side. So far, so good! If you want to read more janky shoe fixes, I'll have an update on my rock shoe-stretcher later this week.

Skirt: London Jean (thrifted)

Shirt: misope (cheap junior store)

Sandals: Laura by Fitzwell (6pm.com, old)

Bracelet: Foreign Exchange (old)