Yay Spring!

Or pre-spring at least...here are some polyvore sets I threw together in anticipation of warmer weather. There is content to go with these guys at Gamine.

Lazy Girl Chic!

*This post was done for Gamine, my personal pet project, to view it in its original form go to DIY Adventures: Lazy Girl Chic.

Despite that fact that I manage to look pretty decent 95% of the time that I am out on the town having coffee at various places and doing whatever else it is I pretend to do, I am very lazy at heart when it comes to fashion. I love clothes and I can navigate any shop like its my second home however, the effort required to shop, maintain a closet-I’m an uber virgo who color codes her clothes by function-and plan outfits on the reg always eludes me. For these reasons, and because I find it incredibly vain and narcissistic oh and lame, I have never nor will I ever keep a blog dedicated to daily outfits and my personal style, I’ll leave that to the folks at Lookbook.nu. What I have mastered in my years of being a procrastinating perfectionist is how to get dressed in under 15 minutes and come out looking like a winner and I owe it to two things, the dress and my winning addtiude.

To master the “I just rolled out of bed and threw on the first thing I saw but I look great” look all you need is a few work horse dresses, I call them my old faithfuls, that you can dress up or down. A great basic dress to start with is this one from AA. Say you have a cocktail type thing to go to and you’re running late, all you need is this dress, a killer pair of heels, a blazer and a swipe of red lipstick-blazers and red lipstick confuse people into thinking you’re polished with little work-and bam instant outfit. Now say you have a day date with someone you kinda want to impress, take the same dress and pair it with a denim vest, gladiators, a cute but not too big bag, and pile your hair into a top knot with a swipe of lipstick-seriously whenever I don’t feel like putting on make-up I put on lipstick it really fools people-and there you are lunch date/internship/general day time activities ready.

I have to admit that not every occasion calls for dress that is so basic, in those cases I dress down a more formal dress. For example, I actually own this French Connection dress that is a bit of an anti-boner and in a period of two months I wore it twice styled very differently to two very different occasions and guess what? Winner! First, I wore it to Jeffrey’s Fashion Cares Atlanta where I belted it with a skinny belt only in the front, I was going for a Grecian godess meets belted huke look, added my over the knee riding boots and you guessed it red lipstick and was ready to meet Jack and Lazaro of Proenza Schouler in under 15 minutes. A couple of weeks later I wore the same dress with a pair of heels, no belt and a super old clutch from Banana Republic to a wedding of one of the BF’s college buddies. That night I got quite a bit of compliments and got ready in the time it took my nail polish to dry.

Here’s the thing about dress dressing, not every occasion calls for a dress but as a woman you have the option to make every occasion a dress occasion. I’ve pulled off many a tee-shirt/over-sized button down/tank and leggings/jeans/skirt combo without thinking to hard on it-benefits of a well organized closet and dresser-but its not as easy and putting on a dress and boots and causing all kinds of style crushes.

Rihanna's S&M

I originally wrote this one for the ladies over at Miss, however it has yet to post so...I'm housing it here. That is all....Wait no it isn't. I wrote this before learning of David LaChapelle's intent to sue Rihanna over blantly ripping off his aesthetic. While I do not claim to know a thing about the law there is something sketchy about shopping around a LaChapelle-esque video without talking to LaChapelle and trying to reproduce his work without consulting him because he's pricey, oh and it makes you instantly lose street cred when people start accusing you of stealing their creativity and attempting to pass it off as your own. fin.

This week Rihanna burned up the blogs and stirred up ton of controversy with the release of her latest video S&M. Filled with overtly sexual imagery and lyrics, this video affirms Riri’s status as a good girl gone bad for better or worse. While I haven’t been a fan of Rihanna since Pon de Replay, I can say that I generally love her style and S&M does serve up a huge helping of our girl’s signature edgy style. So for a brief moment let's forget about the fact that Rihanna, who we all know is not baby, is sending a very profound message about sexuality to the legion of girls under the ripe old age of 21 who are her fans and who are already suffering the effects of being over-sexualized in the media and that as a woman of color she is perpetuating the stereotype that all brown girls are insatiable nymphos who deserve to be treated as such everywhere form rap videos to real life, and focus on the fashion.

From the first frame, when Rihanna pops onto the scene sporting a fuzzy vest, huge frizzy hair and tiara, the video feels insanely familiar almost like an update of something I saw around the turn of the millennium. Despite the deja vu I get from beginning to end with S&M, I am head over heels for the hair and makeup Riri dons in this one. The close ups of her when she’s holding her mock press conference from behind a sheet cellophane remind us that she is indeed capable of injecting a bit of old school charm into this less than classy video. Moving to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Rihanna’s huge, frizzy mass of hair is amazing in a Christina Aguilera in Lady Marmalade kinda way. I also love how she brings in some of spring’s beauty trends, juicy lips, bright eyeshadow and Dynasty-esque blush. Oh and as usual, her nail game is tight. Instead of opting for over the top nail art, she keeps it simple with pale pinks, bright red and what looks to be shimmery white color-its hard to tell with her moving so much. While her hair and make up are perfectly on point in this one her fashion earns her another gold star in my book.

Starting with the newspaper print gown and matching thigh highs, moving to the nude number she wears to walk Perez Hilton and ending at the sick hot pink spandex number, Rihanna definitely shows off some sick style. Even her lingerie inspired looks are sick, especially the one she wears in the scene reminiscent of Basic Instinct. Although I would never be caught dead in any of this stuff, aside from that gorgeous gown, I can say that I will be taking a few notes from this video’s overall love of body con styles.

At the end of the day I don’t care if Rihanna has a high freak number or not, she’s grown, I do however take issue with the fact that her fans, most of whom are still trying to come to terms with their own sexuality, are not mature enough to really understand what exactly goes with having a “whips and chains excite me” image. Other than that I love the video, not the track its pretty generic, and I can’t wait to do big hair like Rihanna this summer.

Mood of the Month: February

Gamine's February 2011 mood board...not everything that looks sweet is sweet.

Snow day style

Snow day style layout produced via polyvore. The story that accompanied this lovely set can be viewed at Examiner.com. 

Let's be best friends!

This one comes to us from Gamine, view it there in its entirety.

Dear Cassius (if I may call you that),

Last week I saw your lovely interview with the folks at the Opening Ceremony blog and based solely on the facts that you dress well and share a name with Muhammad Ali/Cassius Clay, who was named after your ancestor, I decided that we should be friends, best friends. 

I’m not saying that we should be friends like you and Kanye are friends, I don’t generally pay people to dress me or go around reupholstering women’s lady bits to make them feel like fur pillows-you have to tell me how he does this FYI, or that we should be pals like Bette Midler and Barbra Hershey in Beaches, waaay too tragic right. I think we should be friends like Cher and Dione in Clueless because like us one was white and one was black and like us one of them way too old to be playing a teenager. We could sip tea and look at cupcakes, but not eat them, while you teach me how to turn a simple J Crew pull over into a top worthy of being snapped by the Sartorialist and I could teach you the benefits of living in a city that shuts down over a few inches of snow. 

While I don’t usually hang with people under 21, I am making an exception because not only are you the coolest thing to it my twitter feed in a while but with your New England upbringing and time spent around Yeezy I figured you and I would have tons to talk about, even though I’m not from New England, went to a state school, and would only hang out with Kanye if I got my groupie game up. I say we give our friendship a go beginning with a facebook wall post here and there and moving to a full fledged real life friendship before you decide who you’re taking with you to fashion week.

xo
Ana "Yeezy can't teach me much" b

I got more online game than a lil bit

Whatever that means.

You can now check out my musings on the luxe side of Atlanta at HauteLiving.com.  See....

That is all.