High Holy Mass of Contradictions

I got it into my head yesterday that I needed yellow flats. This morning I was browsing online shoe sites, trying to find the ideal pair. I'd narrowed it down to a few, of which the lowest-price pair was $35.

Then Karsten and I randomly stopped in a thrift store on our way to a party, and I found yellow shoes. Not quite flats, but low wedges, so they're almost better, because flats actually make my size-11 feet look huge. (Well, they are huge, but they don't have to be so obvious about it.) 

And they were only $6. Yay!

I'm utterly addicted to this site. I thought I'd share it by including the link for the refer-a-friend deal they have set up: a $5 credit at redtagcrazy.com for both of us if you find something you like enough to buy.

I haven't bought anything yet. I'm hoping they'll have some vegan/sustainable/bamboo/whatever kinds of items at some point, and then I'll spring on it like a mama leopard with hungry babies on an injured gazelle. You know what I mean.

Don't say I didn't warn you, though. It's even more addictive than Woot, because they give you an estimate of how long it'll be before the next sale. Now that I think about it, it's like a Woot-off every day. Seriously, I'm finding myself checking back nearly every 30 minutes all day.

As if Twitter, Facebook, email, and all the blogs I try to keep up with aren't sucking up enough of my time.

OK, one more peek at what's selling now, and then off to do anything more productive.

Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

theogeo critiques a new magazine called Skirt! (yes, the banger is part of the title) with which she is obliquely associated:

Tell me you’ve got a publication for strong, successful women and I’ll usually be all, “Okay, right on,” thinking we’ve got a political-minded, informative, thoughtful outlet on our hands. Tell me it’s called “Skirt!” and my brain will start shutting down. Suddenly you’ve introduced fashion and feminine markers into the premise. Not to mention the secondary verbal definition of “skirt,” which means to avoid or work around. It’s indirect; it’s passive.

The whole premise is bewilderingly patronizing. And it’s not like I don’t subscribe to fashion magazines — I do! several! — but I subscribe to them to follow fashion and admire clothing design. I know what I’m getting into when I open a copy of InStyle, and believe me, I don’t read it expecting to encounter thoughtful essays written from a feminist perspective. Those types of publications simply have no credibility with me for that sort of content. But when I want those feminist essays (Bust, perhaps, or Off Our Backs? I admit I don’t subscribe to either — blogs provide me with ample content), I don’t expect to be condescended to with fashion and beauty advice. And here the credibility issue works basically in reverse: include fashion and beauty advice in your progressive women’s publication, and, for me, you cease to be a progressive women’s publication.

This sort of mental partitioning may be uncommon, but I sort of doubt it. That’s not to say that a cross-market magazine (or even cross-cross-market, if you think fashion-feminist-local) can’t work, but this appears to be the reason to undertake such a venture with extreme caution.

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theogeo critiques a new magazine called Skirt! (yes, the banger is part of the title) with which she is obliquely associated:

Tell me you've got a publication for strong, successful women and I'll usually be all, "Okay, right on," thinking we've got a
political-minded, informative, thoughtful outlet on our hands. Tell me
it's called "Skirt!" and my brain will start shutting down.
Suddenly you've introduced fashion and feminine markers into the
premise. Not to mention the secondary verbal definition of "skirt,"
which means to avoid or work around. It's indirect; it's passive.

The whole premise is bewilderingly patronizing. And it's not like I don't subscribe to fashion magazines -- I do! several! -- but I subscribe to them to follow fashion and admire clothing design. I know what I'm getting into when I open a copy of InStyle, and believe me, I don't read it expecting to encounter thoughtful essays written from a feminist perspective. Those types of publications simply have no credibility with me for that sort of content. But when I want those feminist essays (Bust, perhaps, or Off Our Backs? I admit I don't subscribe to either -- blogs provide me with ample content), I don't expect to be condescended to with fashion and beauty advice. And here the credibility issue works basically in reverse: include fashion and beauty advice in your progressive women's publication, and, for me, you cease to be a progressive women's publication.

This sort of mental partitioning may be uncommon, but I sort of doubt it. That's not to say that a cross-market magazine (or even cross-cross-market, if you think fashion-feminist-local) can't work, but this appears to be the reason to undertake such a venture with extreme caution.

Over at What Would Coco Do?, Coco has addressed the issue of fall fashion, and I unintentionally meta-punned with some fall fashion tips of my own.

Last week I was complaining to Karsten about being bored with my work wardrobe. Not only bored, but I can't help noticing that there are interns at my company that are wearing more stylish and interesting work clothes than what I'm making do with. I lamented that it may be time to make the switch from my entirely-thrift-store-bought wardrobe to one where I start buying one good piece at a time and build a real professional wardrobe.

So, with a heavy heart, on Friday I started doing a little research. I checked some of the big retailers online, like bananarepublic.com, nordstrom.com, macys.com, and so on. Mind you, I've only paid retail prices for, oh, about two garments ever in my life. So I was getting pretty depressed at the prices and what it would mean for my budget if I were to start having to pay a lot of money for each piece. We're talking pants -- on clearance, mind you -- for between $40 and $80.

I also took a lunchtime run by a few of the more trendy independent stores in town. I liked some of what they had, but I was very unimpressed with the prices. Even on the clearance rack, we're still talking about $30 to $50 for a pair of pants.

Then on my way home Friday evening, I stopped in at Goodwill. I don't know what made me think it would be worthwhile on a Friday at 7:00 PM to bother with a thrift store (my usual approach is not to bother with thrift stores past mid-morning because most of the stylish stuff has usually been cleared out by resellers and other savvy shoppers), but the car just sort of steered itself.

( I found... )

Originally published at The Bee Hive. Please leave any comments there.

Last week I was complaining to Karsten about being bored with my work wardrobe. Not only bored, but I can’t help noticing that there are interns at my company that are wearing more stylish and interesting work clothes than what I’m making do with. I lamented that it may be time to make the switch from my entirely-thrift-store-bought wardrobe to one where I start buying one good piece at a time and build a real professional wardrobe.

So, with a heavy heart, on Friday I started doing a little research. I checked some of the big retailers online, like bananarepublic.com, nordstrom.com, macys.com, and so on. Mind you, I’ve only paid retail prices for, oh, about two garments ever in my life. So I was getting pretty depressed at the prices and what it would mean for my budget if I were to start having to pay a lot of money for each piece. We’re talking pants — on clearance, mind you — for between $40 and $80.

I also took a lunchtime run by a few of the more trendy independent stores in town. I liked some of what they had, but I was very unimpressed with the prices. Even on the clearance rack, we’re still talking about $30 to $50 for a pair of pants.

Then on my way home Friday evening, I stopped in at Goodwill. I don’t know what made me think it would be worthwhile on a Friday at 7:00 PM to bother with a thrift store (my usual approach is not to bother with thrift stores past mid-morning because most of the stylish stuff has usually been cleared out by resellers and other savvy shoppers), but the car just sort of steered itself.

( I found... )

But far more importantly, I found out that they were having a 50% off of everything sale the next day, and opening at 7:00 AM for the occasion.

So Karsten and I got there yesterday morning right at 7, and we were there until after 10, hunting, trying on clothes, hunting, trying on clothes. And I got 62 articles of name-brand (Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Benetton, Express, Gap, Limited, etc), stylish clothing, most of them appropriate for work, plus a hip Hawaiian-style shirt for Karsten, plus some children’s books (he uses them for art projects), plus a new Ralph Lauren 100% cotton sheet for our non-bed, for just under $150.

Let’s do the math real quick, shall we? A work wardrobe of five pairs of work-appropriate pants, a skirt, and, let’s just call it 40 shirts and sweaters and such. (Not all of the 62 items were work-appropriate, but definitely more than half were.) Even if I were buying these on deep, deep clearance, and the pants and skirt were, let’s say $15 each and the tops were, let’s say $10 each, that still adds up to $490. And my grand total of $180 for both shopping trips was well under half of that. Whee!

Anyway, I spent the next few hours at home trying things on again, looking for outfits in what I bought and what I already own (there were lots!), and then clearing out the less interesting pieces from my closet.

Now I just have to get to the laundromat and dry cleaner (only three of my new pieces are dry-clean only — I made an effort to avoid those except where it seemed really worth it) and then reorganize my closet.

Oh, and Goodwill is having another one of these big sales next month.

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Finally! A decent haircut.

I've been cutting my own hair for years now -- I trim it every few weeks. A few months ago, I changed the shape of it a bit to make it graduate in length from front to back, but a natural looking blend has been hard to get right. I think I finally made it work this morning, but the real test is when I wash and style it tomorrow.

Still, I have the satisfaction I always feel when I finish cutting my hair that I just saved myself a good $60-100. (I don't do cheap haircuts. I'm happy to do my own haircuts and I'm far from a salon professional, but I swear those people who work at Supercuts and the like have no clue what they're doing. The last few times I caved in and went to one of those places, I walked out about ready to cry.)

So I went thrifting. And found a Coach purse. For $3.99.

Technically, it's a carryall tote. I looked around on the web and educated myself on the varieties and styles of Coach bags. I bought it planning to sell it on eBay (I once found a Kate Spade handbag in a thrift store for $6 and sold it on eBay for $60 -- and this one seems likely to beat that profit margin by quite a bit) but after looking it over, I'm tempted to keep it for myself. It's gray (kind of a greenish- or bluish-gray) twill with black leather trim, which is ideal for my gray-and-black wardrobe (though I do try to avoid leather even if it's secondhand). And let's be honest: how often am I going to have the opportunity to carry a $300-$350 purse? :-)

So now I think I'll take it with me on my business trip to Atlanta this week and see what I think of it. Then I may sell it anyway. We'll see. :-)