Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho...

 Barneys New York high-waisted plaid pants, Ralph Lauren Blue Label shirt, J. Crew belt, Bally shoes, random earrings, Kenneth Jay Lane tiger bracelet

 Back to life, back to the atrocious light in New York

 

It's back to work we go...Somehow it never gets easier going back to work even after an extended holiday break. Today was especially momentous, as it marked the beginning of my first foray into fashion proper.  Needless to say, things were doubly hectic because of it, but also doubly exciting!  The consequence, however, is that there's not much between the ears today, so please forgive the brain-dead post while I gather my surroundings.  I'm also in a bit of a tizzy from an  Ebay + Yoox rampage I went on over the weekend (I just received the first of my booty: a vintage Irish tweed cape--it's too lovely for words!).  There are also a whirlwind of sample sales coming up, so I have a feeling I'll be ebay-ing some of my lovely finds in the interest of financial responsibility in the near future. With all this buying and selling, dollars and cents, it  almost seems like tax season, and not holiday season!

And an OMG P.S.-  Just saw this on the Rag & Bone blog!

The Holiday Girl: All in the Family

 Brother's Polo Ralph Lauren shirt and Club Monaco sweater; Dad's belt, socks, and Ralph Lauren sweater vest; Mom's Prada pants and random leggings; My Rag & Bone boots, Marc Jacobs shearling bag, "vintage" purple socks and headband, and Ray-Ban sunglasses

 Thinking some goose down would make me a lot warmer right now...

 Vancouver is pretty much made for fair-isle 

 Oceans are prettttttttty

 As you can tell, the object of this post was to J. Crew-ify myself with as many layers as possible (hey it's cold here!).  Damn you Jenna Lyons--you may have won this round, but....!!  Just kidding.  Kinda. Sorta.  Not really.  Keeping with the spirit of the holidays and family and good times and nostalgia and what not (or, what is probably more accurate, overconsumption and intra-familial dysfunction), I thought it would be fun to style myself using the rest of my family's clothes!  Ok, I may have also not exactly packed appropriately (I have a tendency to just throw random things in my suitcase and hope the best), so this was also kind of necessary.  But mostly fun!  Until I got frostbite at the beach.  As they say, fashion is pain.  Or something like that. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Holiday Girl: Snow Day

 

Proenza Schouler x J. Brand jeans, T by Alexander Wang shirt, Rag &Bone sweater, boots and scarf, House of Waris necklace, Dad's Akubra hat

We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief:  Lanvin x H&M has come and (largely) gone.  As I had feared, both the men's and women's lines sold out in Vancouver within hours.  People lined up in the snow! In New York, people lined up at 4 am!  By mid-afternoon, pieces were scarce even in the city that most likely had the most abundant supply.  But, this is the ultimate tragedy of these high-low collabs (at least for me):  there are few things in life that would make me exert as much effort as was required to even get one of those silly t-shirts that kind of look like the pyjamas I had as a child (does anyone else remember the embarrassment of t-shirts that had way too many tactile embellishments on them in the 90s?).  Those things are: 1) an awesome amazing vacation; 2) Proenza Schouler (including PS1 bags) 90% off; and 3).... no, that's about it. There is pretty much nothing else that would make me voluntarily get up at obscene hours of the morning to stand in line.  So, in the end, Lanvin x H&M turned out to be nothing than a fleeting internet obsession (unless they restock??!!).  Did any of you have any better luck?

In the Meantime...

While I get settled at home (i.e. stuff myself with home-cooked yummies), I thought I would play around with Google's new Boutiques.com site, which launched yesterday.  Basically, it's a place where anyone can pull pieces from e-boutiques around the internet to make your very own personalized "boutique."  It's kind of like a macro-level wishlist that's great not only for keeping track of your own needs and desires, but also for getting some very literal shopping inspiration from your favorite style mavens (there are celebrity, designer, blogger, retailer, pet (just kidding, or am i?) oriented categories to choose from).  Although it's not completely comprehensive yet (and seems to be missing key e-retailers like Browns glitchy as hell--for example, not displaying all favorites, etc.), it's almost overwhelming in its attempted scope.  Think this is going to be a really great tool for all fashion-lovers going forward.  Things like this make me feel better about Google taking over the world.  I think my soul and privacy are a fair trade if they keep inventing all this amazingly useful stuff that makes life so much easier. Much much better than just sucking you and your personal information dry (*cough* facebook *cough*).  So far, my boutique is looking more like a total dreamworld wishlist, but that's not a bad thing right?  Makes it easier to choose the exact right thing to splurge on!  

You can find The Working Girl, Esq. Boutique at Boutiques.com here!

Some of the other boutiques that have piqued my interest so far:  SusieBubble, Streetpeeper, and Carey Mulligan (though hers is quite bare and--don't tell anyone I said this--she kind of really bugs me as an actress).

Ch-ch-ch-changes

 Patrik Ervell men's shirt, Dries Van Noten sweatshirt, vintage skirt, Rag & Bone boots, vintage necklace from street fair

A few of you may have noticed that I've been a lot busier lately--and it's been for good reason!  While I will always and forever be an esquire, circumstances have conspired lately to allow me to perhaps collect a few other titles.  Part of the reason I started this blog--other than trying to give the working girls of the world some much-needed style inspiration for the office-- was to test out how much I actually loved fashion  (as opposed to just loving shopping).  While my love for the latter hasn't diminished any (that's for sure), my love of the former has not only been confirmed but even exponentially increased! Which means...I will be scaling back the law part of The Working Girl for a while to make room for a tentative foray into the fashion industry proper!  It's as scary as it is exciting, but I think I would kick myself for not exploring the opportunities (especially while living in NYC!).  Which means for the blog...not too much.  I'm going to keep on keeping on (I still think the work world is a worthy cause).  But maybe in a more free-form way. I don't really know.  I'm just going to play it by ear and do what I enjoy, and hopefully you will enjoy it as well!  Might be fun to start this little journey together!

In other exciting news: a couple weeks ago I mentioned working with APART, well--ta-da!--here it is!  As part of their U.S. promotion, APART is featuring a "Girl of the Moment" and I just happen to be that girl! For this moment!  Whaaaa??!  Super crazy, I know, but I'll take it--hell, I'd take girl of the nanosecond, attosecond, Planck time, or whatever other minuscule measurement of time there is (and which are probably infinitely more appropriate :).   I do have to say,  the experience was pretty [really] fun- playing with the pieces and styling them with my own clothing was a blast (I swear I didn't do it on purpose, but as you can tell if you clicked on the link, I have been loving the above vintage skirt A LOT--too much Boardwalk Empire?).  Anyways, I feel super fortunate to have been part of it, so thanks APART!

What else?  Oh right, the holidays are here.  Decorations are officially up all over the city.  Just waiting for the sale mailers to start dropping to tempt me in their oh-so-evil suggestive ways.  In the meantime, I'm gonna be heading to visit the parents for Thanksgiving (can you believe it's already Thanksgiving???).  I'm thinking of trying to put together a bit of a "Holiday Girl"  thing while I'm there, weather willing (it's supposed to snow!).  Let's see what turns up.  I'm at least hoping Lanvin X H&M will be a bit more civilized outside NYC.   But that's probably not the case. Let's just hope it's not 9 days of me in my pyjamas (although that sounds soooooo goood)!

Into the Woods

Balenciaga sweater, Alexander McQueen shirt, Proenza Schouler pants (that I got for $25!), Yves Saint Laurent shoes

Things have been a bit off-kilter the last week, so apologies for not having more and meatier posts.  Experimenting with different shots continues, and this one brings us the my apartment gym of all places.  Weird wallpaper for a gym, right?  I guess it's supposed to be soothing and zen or something.  Although the recent craziness has been  both tiring and trying, part of it has also been delicious--most notably dashing to a few trunk shows at Barneys to check out  S/S 2011 wares (I don't think I'll ever get over the thrill of seeing ACTUAL runway pieces in person and trying them on--it makes me beyond giddy!!!!).  The most swoon-worthy (of many swoon-worthy collections--Dries and Proenza coming up!) was the Rochas S/S 2011 collection that came to town with designer Marco Zanini. in tow.  I've sung my praises for Rochas and Zanini time and time again, but after meeting Marco in person and seeing the new collection, all I can say is that I should have gone even further!  The clothes were simply exquisite--super-soft washed silks had such a lovely worn-in feeling, as if they had seen many things and had many stories to tell.  Seriously, they were so evocative and romantic I thought I was going to cry right there and then.  The pieces, with their litany of references--Babushka, grandma, '40s, '20s, Swedish, French,  folk, city, lingerie--just seemed to somehow aesthetically capture the bittersweet paradox of memory and nostalgia--that the crispness and detail of a certain memory will most certainly fade, yet the emotion of the memory will only continue to grow more resonant despite and even because of that mental fuzziness.  Everything was incredibly elegant and easy--there was even minimal use of zippers as many pieces could simply be pulled on over the head. Yet at the same time, these seemed like truly museum-worthy pieces (especially the printed dress with  a panniere-effect crinnoline tutu).  Sigh, I feel if I could be embodied in a collection, this would be it.  And , on top of all that, Marco was such an inspiration to speak with--you can really tell the amount of love and care that goes into every piece, as well as the genuine and insurmountable delight he gets from having others enjoy and appreciate his work! 

Although the price points of some of the items were a sad jolt back to reality, they actually seemed to be worth every penny if not more.  On the friendlier side of splurge are the shoes and accessories which are right in line with even American designers (who usually have lower price points than their European counterparts), and are worth looking into for anyone willing to invest in some unique and beautifully-made footwear (and I can vouch that they are incredibly comfy!).  In particular, the cordovan brogues (both heeled and flat) are spectacular.   At least I have a few months to figure out how to finance this...I hear cardboard boxes are quite nice in the spring...

Rochas S/S 2011:

Look 11-This may be my favorite thing EVER

Look 5

                                                                

Sans crinoline

Look 19 (in a different color than runway)

        Look 11 in white--you can really see the detailed seaming and pleating

   

The Birthday Girl

APART dress, Proenza Schouler turtleneck, J. Crew cardigan, Yves Saint Laurent ring, APC woven belt, Marc Jacobs boots, (+J coat, Target handwarmers, Marc by Marc by Marc Jacobs clutch  (below))

Before we return to regularly scheduled programming, thought I would post the flip side to my birthday grandpa day look.  As you can see, I went the total opposite direction (ok, maybe keeping a bit of grandpa  there with the cardigan).  I love the idea of dressing down super fancy clothes, so an excuse to do it because of dinner at a super fancy restaurant (Jeans-Georges to be specific--so yummy and so plentiful--I was in a food coma for the entire next day!).  I have also been in the mood lately for weird color combinations, so this was a twofold opportunity for experimentation.  This particular peach and blue palette is not a combination I've seen since visits as a kid to my family's former house in Florida (ok, that's kind of a lie--we do still have some authentically "beach" seashell adorned lamps that are the EXACT same color as this dress, as well as some marginally abstract watercolor duvets and a few crustacean-inspired delights -any takers???).  But, I'm kind of digging the combo in this setting if not for home decor.   Refinery 29 just did a great post about unexpected color combinations (never fear, mine is totally original ;) -- do I smell a trend coming on?  Stay tuned for kind of screwy colors coming soon to a fashion magazine near you!  In the meantime, try it out for yourself--it's kind of fun!

Man's World

Yves Saint Laurent pants, Ralph Lauren Blue Label shirt and sweater vest, random necklace, J. Crew belt, Gant men's socks, Marc Jacobs shoes

 

 Since I'm no flasher and respectfully chose to wear clothes underneath my coats for the Outerwear Spectacular,  I thought I would highlight one of my outfits beneath the outfit in today's post (you may recognize it from the last post).  My birthday was this past week, so after hearing some good reviews of the YSL sample sale and promises of extra discounts on the last day, I held out and was wonderfully rewarded with a one of the better birthday presents I've given to myself  the pants above.  It's no secret that I'm a fan of the grandpa look, so when I saw these pants it was like the heavens cleared for a second inside Metropolitan Pavilion and the brightest sun illuminated these babies with a column of divine light (there may or may not have also been a choral Ah! accompanying it) . I absolutely love the super wide leg, high waist, pleats galore, cropped length and seriously beautiful tux-like detailing down the side.  It's basically every feature I love in other pants rolled into one. Dare I tell you the discount?  95.3 percent thank you very much.  Needless to say, it was a very good birthday this year.

2010 Outerwear Spectacular: The Statement Coat

 

 Comme des Garcons coat 

 (I'm going to do a separate post on the outfit underneath tomorrow, so that's all your getting for now!)

  

Wonderful and unexpected tailoring

 

Movement!

 

 Whachu lookin at?

As all good things must come to an end, and so too must the The Working Girl 2010 Outerwear Spectacular. This last coat may be be my favorite of the bunch.  Everyone should have that one coat that just says WOW, and for me, this Comme Des Garcons blanket/snuggie coat is it.  It's all things at once:  drapey, tailored, romantic yet modern, luxe yet completely organic and street.   And that also basically sums up the genius of designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons.  Often the inspiration (sometimes even literally) for other designers like Marc Jacobs (whose S/S 2010 collection was undeniably "influenced" by Kawakubo), she is in a league of her own--marrying true artistic merit with, yes, wearabiliity( I swear!).  The A/W 2009 collection this coat is from is a perfect example.  The runway presentation was haunting: ethereal layers mixed with tent-like military and ethnic motifs, topped off with faces obscured by tulle.  The imagery was provocative to say the least, with it being hard to deny the emotionally-charged vagabond influences that the swathes of blankets piled one on top of another evoked.  But that provocativeness is exactly the essence of her artistic ability--that she is not only able to create beautifully avant clothes, but also imbue them with complex social commentary.  Even better, the pieces really do also stand on their own, so that the commentary becomes a living, breathing part of society.  Fashion doesn't get much better than that in my books.

Aaaaaaaaand,  that's a wrap!  I hope you all have enjoyed the series, and since the response to "location" shots has been quite positive, I think I'm going to try to incorporate them more (which might be difficult, though, considering the weather is about to get positively frigid).  No matter, I think it might be worth it, even if it is also at the expense of the prolificacy of posts! Let me know if you think otherwise!  And next up will be the outfit underneath the coat!

Oh and lest anyone think I am not subject to the whims of awful weather-- this is more what I look like on a daily basis from mid-December-February (but maybe with a few more layers):