Mentor: Lucky Mag

I remember the summer of my junior year of high school. I was going through a mildly awkward phase that every girl goes through at ages 11, 18-ish, and probably 27. Am I dressing too young for my age? I felt that at 17, it was time to start developing my style, but I didn't know where I stood.

Having two elder sisters always led me to ask their advice. Essentially it would be me asking them to dress me, but at the time, 17, I looked at their styles and assessed that, not only did their styles not suit me, I shouldn't be asking them for dressing advice and then criticizing their style - I asked for it.

I still had the issue of not knowing where to go with style. When I would go shopping, I would barely find anything I liked - however, I did on occasion find things that I did like which was something I could bank on. Armed with the knowledge of what I did like and what silhouettes I liked, I ventured on to try to find a way to dig myself out of my jeans and t-shirt existence. At this time, I had already handicapped myself by swearing off of khaki and white for a while since our school uniform required us to wear khaki and white. I felt more tired of the combination instead of wanting to get creative with it.

While slothing one day on the couch (spring 2003), I saw a TV ad for Lucky Magazine. I ended up keeping the number. I asked my mom if I could get it and she said, something to the effect of 'sure it'll teach you how to dress.' I had nothing to lose, the subscription also came with a free bag and I knew I'd be able to relate to the clothes better than in a magazine like...Vogue. Soon enough, I got my first issue, March 2003 - it featured their shoe collection and also a very memorable picture of an organized closet (another blog). Being unemployed and 17 didn't leave much for me in terms of buying the clothes. I was able to better assess what styles I liked and what I didn't like. Throughout most of college, I lived a life with many style visions, but not having any money left me a little limited, so I had to work with what money I had and what workable clothes I had. While I must say, my t-shirt and jeans existence transformed into a t-shirt and trousers existence, the constant influx of Lucky gave me stronger ideas of what I wanted.

I know that magazines like Lucky are meant to showcase the trends of the season, but also, a person can't help what they like. Just recently, I was at my old house looking through 5 year old issues of Lucky - there were articles on Summer suits that were still quite relevant today; Summer suits are generally in paler colors and lighter fabrics like cotton and linen - and also pictures of clothes from back then. I noticed this blouse I would've bought on the spot at $48. I got rather depressed that I have the money now, but didn't then. At least I got an idea. It's better than nothing.

So, my first venture into determining my style was venturing into Lucky Mag. It's a matter of picking and choosing, you just have to see what's out there.

Fine Lines

It's been a bit of a while. I've been working and I've had a mildly incapacitating stomachache for the past 4 days. It's as hard to think as it is to update - which is kind of irritating because there's so much to write about.

I'm recalling an episode of the Look for Less where a girl was constantly dressed in suits and professional wear due to work. Afterwards, when going out with her friends, her dressing would fall into overly casual...so she was basically lacking intermediate dressing skills and the new format of the show at the time - to pick a runway outfit and recreate it - did nothing to help her problem.

It's hard to view clothing as being able to transition where one change in the outfit moves an outfit a little more in the direction towards casual or formal. Pictures will have to come a little later, but for my interview to be a tutor, I wore trousers, your white button up shirt, a black sweater vest, and (prize possession) my specs :) Now, the interviewer said that the tutors were expected to dress a teacher casual (?) which was slightly more casual than how I was dressed, but still professional...needless to say, I'm confused on that - they should have a chart of visuals when explaining that. It just doesn't seem right to where a regular t-shirt with trousers, I feel that...that combination can take something away from both of the casual and formal spectrum and just leave awkwardness. I suppose I should experiment with it more before I completely dismiss it.

Among other things, I've been meaning to post up pictures, I've just been too busy to do the editing, but expect a bit on closet organization and a preview of my up coming auctions.

Side Note

As much as I'm growing to like wooden hangers, they take up more space than my closet can accommodate and they're expensive.

For the past 4 years, I've been getting clips for my plastic hangers. Due to my bad memory, I've ended up with a variety of clips since I can never remember where I get my favorite ones. That said - my inspiration for this blog - the clips from The Container Store are exceedingly substandard. Clips should stay in place.

Portion Control

It's almost 1:30 AM (at least when I wrote this is was). I start work today in approximately 7 hours and I get to test how long it takes me to walk a mile because I live that close to campus (work). I should be sleeping, but I can't. So, why waste my time trying to fall asleep when I can blog? - There's no better time ;)

This subject is gradually becoming near and dear to me: portion control

I was organizing what little purses I have and I noticed that of the small "going out" purses I have, 3 of the 4 were of the Asian jacquard that you'd usually see on Qi Pao dresses. The one outlier was a present from a friend.

It's moving and reorganizing that gives me the opportunity to examine my wardrobe. It's also mildly depressing that I was unable to close my suitcase completely and despite the massive growth of my wardrobe, from my purse observation, it's still lacking.

Presumably, the average person has few special occasions - weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, lavish parties...etc etc. Casual outings are more frequent. It's not so simple to say that occasion wear in one's wardrobe should correspond to the frequency of occasions. There's overlap, at least in what I view as an effective wardrobe. So portion control becomes a little harder to think about in concrete terms.

Here's a good time to bring in my favorite Food Network TV personality: Alton Brown. He's not fond of cookware tools that are uni-taskers and reveals most culinary tools to be polished versions of hardware store tools. Think about this for a moment. Granted that most outfits are put together in more than one piece, clothes in an effective wardrobe can become cross-over occasional multi-taskers. Still, there might always be that one dress you want for that one occasion. I know the feeling. I want a certain dress that's way over my budget (which is currently $0) and I want it for my friend's wedding. The only thing that keeps me from going over the deep end is thinking "when else will I wear it?"

Portion control is more a positive force when considering my bag problem. The thought opens me up to where I'm not so well rounded when in comes to my wardrobe. I only have one pair of dress shoes, and they're spectators (another blog). I lack paler business trousers & anything that would be more suitable for summer, save a summer funeral. Speaking of summer...

Elements of wardrobe portion control, I think, should take into account the climate. My wardrobe is overwhelmingly fall oriented whereas my location can be define as "hot" for more than 60% of the year. I'll save my reservations about summer apparel for another blog. I use to look around and be bewildered by the seasonal fashion of the students on campus, but it can't be helped if Fall is still in high 80s and 90s (degrees F), if flip flops and shorts are more comfortable on Christmas, and winter only lasts 2 weeks. I suppose there's a climate bias to fashion...assuming that the seasons come and go in regular intervals, then again, it could just be a Texas thing.