Tag Archives: edgy

Pin Up Style, Baby!

2 Replies

Remember I went to a pinup shoot a while back? (In case you missed it, you can read about it HERE.) I helped style some of the girls, and I got a few sessions of my own in. Of the four different looks we shot, I’ve received the sets from two of the photographers that day. They came out so great and I am one lucky girl getting to participate in the day’s festivities.

This set was shot by professional photographer, Isaac Suttell. Please see Isaac’s website for more of his phenomenal work!

Isaac’s photos came out absolutely stunning and I couldn’t be more honored to have had him shoot me. On a personal note, I’m not one for being tan, however this particular set of photos inspires me to get a little more sun this summer! Hehehee. Although I must say, Isaac captured me as a porcelain doll. Thank you Isaac!

This is one of my most favorite ensembles I’ve ever thrown together. It’s classy, elegant and has that racy, vintage pin up feel to it. Now let me blow your mind from where it all comes from…. Would you ever guess that beautiful dress is from ROSS?!! I think I paid $13 for it! My leopard heels are some cheap (and uncomfortable) heels from Wet Seal that I’ve had for years. The pill box hat is from Hot topic, and the lace gloves are actual vintage pieces that were gifted to me. The nude fence net stockings are essential for pin ups, and I found these for $1 at a costume shop in Hollywood. All the jewelry is costume jewelry that I’ve collected over the years. All this plus red lips, faux lashes, and a smashing photographer and viola! Pin up style baby!

Stay tuned for my photo set with Cooper Griggs!

Flea Market Fun

1 Reply

 

Is that a cut up, studded pajama top I’m wearing?!?!? ;)

Aren’t these amazing?! Hair picks from my one of favorite accessory designers, Antickquites. You can find her link at the bottom of the post.

Who doesn’t love flea markets?! If you don’t, you’re crazy…. UNLESS its the “flea market” in San Bernardino… then I get it. The San B flea market is more like a giant outdoor grocery store selling Dial soap and expired bags of Funyuns. If you’re lucky you might be able to get a new garden hose at a decent price, but other than that… chances of finding vintage or unique items are better at other flea markets outside the Inland Empire.

Luckily the fabulous city of Long Beach has a really big one held once a month a few miles from where I live, so my girlfriend and I decided to check it out. I was feeling gold hardware on this day so I had to bust out my JC spiked Lita’s!

I was really impressed with the Long Beach market. I was in heaven with all the vintage booths selling arrays of vintage jewelry, hats, furs and clothes. I even came across a beautiful Christian Dior fascinator style hat from the 60′s! I actually got a bunch of cool photos of “stuff” but then I accidentally deleted them all off my phone. Booooo.

I did manage to save one photo that you may have already seen posted on Instagram. As I was combing the aisles, this necklace came into vision and my eyes focused in on it while everything else just blurred around it.

This necklace oozes glamour all over! I loved it! It also reminds me of the necklace that Caroline wears on the hilarious television show: Two Broke Girls.

The necklace was beautiful and grand sitting there just begging me to take it home. Unfortunately $75 dollars was not in my budget for a necklace. Oh well. Perhaps it will come to me later in life.

I did end up finding a black mourning hat made of wool and with a netted veil for $5. I will most likely alter the hat so it’s not so depressing looking. Perhaps I’ll remove the veil and add some colored feathers into the band. I also scored this gorgeous vintage, chunky gold link necklace from a seller for a negotiated $8.

A fun and successful day at the Long Beach flea market!

Wearing:

Shirt: Glam Dollz

Pants: Denizen from Levi’s (for Target)

Shoes: Jeffrey Campbell (Spiked 2 Litas)

Bag: Big Buddha

Hairpicks: Antickquities

 

Festive in February!

2 Replies

February is sort of a drab month for me. I never felt too great about the month you know? January is cool because everyone’s all excited about a new year, new changes, and wonder what adventures await them. Then February rolls around and you stop going to the gym, the excitement fades and  the reality sinks in that it’s just another year. But on the bright side, February does offer up Pisces (Love all you Pisces out there!) and two fun, festive holidays: Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day!

This was my look for last year’s Mardi Gras (2012)… I didn’t celebrate, I just did this for work. Hair picks from Antickquities.

Below is my look for last year’s Valentine’s Day as well. Again, this look was for going to work and being festive.

I didn’t get many pictures from this year’s Valentine’s day, however after spending a nice chunk of time on my hair, I had to capture this:

Gotta love that pin up look for lover’s day! I’ve received many requests on doing a hair swirl/pompadour tutorial and I’ve actually made attempts at this project, but it has yet to be perfected. Maybe some day…

As for Mardi Gras this year, I went all out. I was going to be volunteering at a booth from an on campus club I recently joined, the Student Communication Association. Our club was amongst a plethora of clubs offering Mardi Gras related activities, club information and general recruitment.

I made my top hat last year and never got an opportunity to wear it, so I styled my Mardi Gras outfit all around my hat. This hat took me over 7 hours of hand gluing Swarovski crystals and it needed to shine!

The night before I constructed the feather and beaded epaulette on my right shoulder, and my vintage gold sequined skirt and Jeffrey Campbell Damsel’s completed the look! Head to toe festive and FABULOUS!

My friend April joined the party also dressed head to toe in fabulous festive Mardi Gras garb, with her own personal flair. We were definitely the best dressed on campus that day, and we rocked our ensembles throughout the entire day.

Make a Statement!

3 Replies

I cut, sliced and ripped my way into the crisp, sturdy cardboard box. Packing peanuts went flying as I searched for the shoe box somewhere inside this sea of white marshmallows. Finally I grab hold, pull it out and set it on the floor.

Time came to a standstill and without even noticing, I held my breath and bit my lip as I lifted the lid. Rays of sunshine burst out from the box blinding my sight instantaneously and music rang loud all around!

I couldn’t figure out how rays of sunshine had blinded me… how could this be… coming out from a box? As I regained my site, I peered down at my brand new beauties. It was then that I realized, indeed sun rays had escaped the box. The shiny golden spikes and studs covering the back of the leather boots had reflected the bright Californian sun into my face.

I grabbed them up, slid them on and sashayed around the house to get a feel for them. They fit like a glove and gave me an entirely new perspective on the world by adding about 5 inches to my height. My new Damsels. *sigh* :)

What’s that? We’re going to the mall? Perfect. Time to suit up with my new Damsels.

 

I’ve learned a lot about myself through style blogging. I’ve realized most of looks never feature just one statement piece… Usually I’ve got statement shoes, statement jewelry, statement hair and sometimes even statement makeup. It makes sense, since my whole life I’ve never held back to make a statement, verbally or visually.

In mainstream fashion, all these statement pieces in one outfit would be unacceptable. But I would hardly call my style of dress mainstream in any sort of way. As long as I can remember I’ve always used fashion to visually express my loud, out-going and firey personality. When you have a personality like mine, you just can’t help wearing 5 statement pieces at once. Besides what one person might to refer to as “statement” I might refer to as “details…”

Sunglasses and bag: Big Buddha

Shoes: Jeffrey Campbell

Jacket: Goodwill

Top: Wet Seal (on the clearance rack! hey hey heeey!)

Skirt, tights and socks: Ross

All jewelry came from sample sales.

Falling for Jeffrey Campbell (a funny story)

5 Replies

Is it sad that I Googled “people falling in Jeffrey Campbell shoes?”

I’m bummed because I cannot find ANY articles or blogs about girls falling in Jeffrey Campbell shoes. There HAS to be people falling in these shoes… where are all the stories??? All I could find were articles about people falling FOR Jeffrey Campbells. Oh please… I already know how addicting they are… I just want to read about twisted ankles, wrecked shoes, embarrassment and the loss of pride, is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

I guess I am the ONLY one who stumbles in my JC shoes. Apparently all the others wearing JC’s are just floating around like perfect little JC fairies dancing on clouds. What the heck…

I guess I’ll start the trend and tell you about the worst stumble I’ve had in my Jeffrey Campbell shoes. Let me start by saying, I’ve never actually fallen to the ground in my shoes, but I have had some trips and stumbles (all played off as best as possible.) However there was one particularly embarrassing moment I had at school last semester.

Don’t let that flat bottom fool you…

There I was strutting through the parking lot… thinking I was all bad because of my big, bad, spiked platform Jeffrey Campbell shoes. The shoes naturally draw a lot of attention so I do get a lot of stares any time I’m wearing ANY of my JC’s. I go to take a step onto the curb, and in the blink of an eye, my foot rolls to the side, my arms go up in the air, a scream bursts from my voice box and in that very moment, all pride was lost. It looked a little something like this:

“I didn’t really stumble, I was just playing charades!”

I caught myself before actually falling to the ground and there was a girl right behind me who asked me if I was okay. In my embarrassment I just said, “Yeah I’m fine, the good thing is I’m getting used to stumbling in these shoes…” Ughhhhh.

Later that day as I headed back to my car, I decided to re-trace my steps to see if there was any uneven bricks or cracks that helped me to stumble off my shoes. As I reached ground zero, I saw nothing out of the ordinary except for…. a spike!!! I looked down at my shoe, and sure enough not one, but TWO spikes had been ripped out of my shoe from the fall earlier. Luckily I found both spikes and was able to re-install them onto the shoe. But yeah, no uneven bricks… just me not being able to stay upright.

Out of all my JC shoes, I am surprised that this particular pair is the hardest to walk in… I’ve stumbled in them 3 times now! It’s to a point, where I’m scared to wear them for fear of actually breaking an ankle (this girl does NOT have health insurance!) And for the record, I’ve been wearing heels since I was 5 (thanks to Grandma’s closet) and I am a pro in heels and platforms. I can run, kick and dance in the highest of shoes. I honestly don’t get why this particular pair gives me so much hassle. You would think since the bottom is flat, that they would be easy but oh no… it’s all a lie.

Anyway… maybe now some other JC girls will read this and blog about their falls, which will bring me much pleasure in reading. Hehehhe. If anyone finds anything on the subject, let me know!

My Favorite Holiday, NYE!

2 Replies

Hands down, New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday of them all. The last 5 years I have been lucky enough to have outrageous, awesome, incredible, and fun New Year’s Eve celebrations. What better day in the whole year to wipe away any hard times from the previous months and to be hopeful and optimistic about the next yearly chapter?

My favorite holiday paired with my favorite hobby naturally calls for an outstanding outfit. I’m blessed to have many friends that love dressing up as much as I do, and I get the opportunity to attend themed parties. Themed parties seriously are THE BEST. Sure, regular parties are cool and all…. but slap on a theme, and the party sky rockets to a whole new level of awesomeness.

This year’s NYE party was themed: White Russian. The theme can go many different ways, however I made it simple and kept it Russian and the color white.

My cat Mikah is my assistant creative director when it comes to outfit planning.

The one sewing class I took in high school taught me how to sew a pillow and an apron. Naturally, these days I can’t even set up a sewing machine, let alone use it. On top of that, I don’t even have a sewing machine! Sewing would be an amazing skill to have (especially for someone who loves fashion) but for now I have to stick to hand stitching with just a needle and thread.

I headed to the Garment district in downtown LA and purchased one yard of this pretty white faux fur fabric for $14. With this one yard, I was able to create my Russian fur hat, my furry boot cover/leg warmers and even made some arm cuffs out of the fur as well. Considering the quickly applied hand stitch to bring it all together, I thought surely the articles of fur would be in pieces by the end of the night, but surprisingly, it all stayed together.

My skirt and top are from (take a wild guess…) ROSS!!! When I paired them together, they sort of blended to look like a ruffly dress. I actually had all the pieces of my outfit already in my wardrobe except for the furry pieces, so it was awesome that I only ended up spending $14 for the whole outfit.

I opted for a firey red wig instead of my platinum blonde for some nice contrast against the white. Plus, I’m sure there are a lot of hot Russian red heads out there. ;)

The outfit was a success and the party was amazing.

Here are a few shots from a photobooth set up at the party:

Off to the Theatre! (again)

5 Replies

The Book of Mormon recently played for a few months in Hollywood at the Pantages Theatre. I had heard so many good things about it, and saw that it was nominated for quite a few awards so I definitely had to see it.

For my girlfriend’s birthday, I scored us hot tickets to the show with fantastic seats! For my outfit, I ended up creating a look that mixed a classic vintage look, with some edge. If I could go back, I would have dropped the edge, and just kept it classy glam but what can you do, this is my look for the night:

One of my favrite beauty looks is platinum hair, dark eyebrows and red lips. I melt any time I see it, and love to pull it off myself. I know I know, a lot of people can’t stand dark eyebrows with light hair… but you know what I can’t stand? Bleached eyebrows!!!! What the heck is that?!

Where are her eyebrows?!??! Oh yeah!!! She BLEACHED them!!!

Moving on…

 

This gorgeous dress I scored at a sample sale in downtown LA for a mere 10 bucks. This dress retails for 90 dollars! The shoes are my fabulous Prickly’s by Jeffrey Campbell and of course my clutch is Big Buddha.

Loving the sleeve detail, and how the edges turn slightly upward.

After a lovely dinner at a nearby restaurant, we headed over to the gorgeous Pantages Theatre for the night’s show. Needless to say, the musical was fantastic and quite impressive with the actors, songs, and visual presentation. I especially loved the seemingly authentic African tribal costume and chant done in the “airport scene” towards the beginning.

Overall it was a fantastic show and the even the audience was great. My girlfriend and I had an amazing time and playing dress up beforehand was almost as fun as the musical itself.