Sunday Style: First Try

As I said on Friday, I love fashion.  I love being creative, and putting clothing and accessories together to create a unique look.  I enjoy observing the outfits of others to come up with new ideas of how to coordinate different items.  I love fashion.  

I've been wanting to add fashion posts to this blog since it started, and well, folks, today, it's time!   I have been excited about this all day!  I took a whole bunch of what I hoped would be excellent photographs of myself... and they were bad.  

 It's been a bit of a frustrating process though because, well,  I'm not going to post them.  Yeah.

I'm awful at photographing myself.  First of all, I'm not as photogenic as I would like.  I can pull a sultry/ seductive thing moderately well, but I try to smile, and I look like a bit of an idiot a lot of the time.  

Kind of like that.  Also, I like macro effects for fashion photography, and these are hard to pull on yourself.  Along with this, the lighting in my apartment really isn't conducive.  Basically, I should have waited for Danny to get home from work so that he could help me with this, but, I didn't.  One of these days I'll ask him to take me outside and photograph me until I feel really pretty.  One of these days.  He's just busy, and there aren't too many daylight hours at this time of year.

So, my first set of photographs were pretty much failures.  I was using a flash, and you can tell.  It's washed out.  Like, really washed out.  Also, the flash is reflecting off of my tights, which is not cute.  I was having a hard time posing for the still camera, which was lower than my face.  I wasn't particularly pleased with any of them, and my self esteem was a bit low.  Then, I got on my computer to complain about blah blah blah, I'm so not photogenic, blah blah wahhhh blah fat blah so bad photography no photo good wahhhhhhhhh.... and I noticed that my Photobooth was open from when I was playing with it earlier.  Because I like to try and fix the problem when I'm upset, instead of wallowing in self pity and loathing like an obnoxious and toxic pessimist, I started taking some photographs.  The light was shining down through my window, my makeup, so carefully applied, looked much better close-up.    The shots weren't full body, and it was easier to use angles to make my legs look longer. I am very, very pleased with the resultsAre they amazing quality?  No.  Was this a good lesson for me in creativity and self-esteem?  Yes.  I learned something today.  Today is a great day.

I'll be trying to post a new Sunday Style every week, to keep me on track with dressing well.  My real reason, though, is that getting my photo taken, when it turns out well, increases my self esteem immensely, and, since like most young women, my self esteem could be measured in mililitres,  I'm going to decide that this is a good thing.  Even though my self esteem has increased tenfold over the past year or so, I'd like to feel even better about myself than I do, because it gets in my way, so if this is going to help, fabulous.  I'll take it.  I'll have it.  I'd like to feel consistently confident.

So, I hope that you enjoy.  I hope that you like my outfit, and think that I look pretty neat. I love how these turned out, and I feel great about them, which makes me so happy. I hope that you like the photographs.  I'm going to stop rambling now.  Or, at least try.

Uhhhh.... here I am (below) with an Abraham Lincoln mug covering my face.  Yay!  Fun, right?

Sorry about the rambling.  I get caught up  in things sometimes when I'm writing posts for this blog, and then try to apologize with silly photographs that have no relevance to what I'm posting about with the hopes that they will fix what I may have broken by making things more complicated with my rambling that happens when I'm nervous and oh god, I'm rambling again now, aren't I?  Ahhhhh....

Have a nice Sunday.  Here I am in some clothes.

Dress: H&M

Shoes: Aerosoles

Tights: Kmart... yes, really.

Earrings: Street Vendor

Sweatshirt (also seen in the Lincoln mug photo): Forever 21

Shorts: Target

Inspiration Fridays: Cold Weather Style

I like fashion.  I've always liked fashion.  When I was younger, I wasn't particularly good at it, but, in recent years, I've gotten much better.  I love looking at photographs of people wearing creative and adorable outfits, and with the weather achieving a level of cold that prohibits short sleeves, I'm getting really into long-sleeved dresses.  As a matter of fact, I'm wearing one right now.

So, here are some cute fall/winter appropriate outfits from some of my favourite bloggers.  I hope that they inspire you to dress cute... it has worked for me!

Skunkboy Creatures

Hello It's Valentine

Fancy Fine

Here Comes the Sun

Tiny Toadstool

Clothes, Cameras and Coffee

Another Day to Dress Up

Travel and Toile ... That's my sister, Julianna (right) and me (left).

Awesome Days

I'm feeling significantly better today!  Huzzah!   I still have a bit of a lingering cough, and by that I mean every thirty minutes or so a sound comes out of my mouth that sounds like I'm strangling a kitten, but I feel great.  I have all kinds of energy, optimism, and enthusiasm.  My train completely screwed me out of getting to work on time this morning, but nothing shall get me down today! Today is an awesome day. I'm even going to be able to go back to martial arts tonight, which makes me stupidly happy.  I've missed beating the crap out of people on a daily basis.  That probably sounds insane, but don't worry, we're kind of padded, and taught how to dodge/ block/ parry/ run away screaming.  

Feeling better made me actually dress up today.  That's pretty normal, to be honest, but this past week, I just kind of grabbed stuff in an attempt to be as comfy as possible.  Also, to wake up as late as possible.  Putting together an outfit takes at least 5 minutes, if not up to 25, and when you're trying to get every available moment of sleep in order to heal, waking up at 7 when you have to leave by 8 sounds much less appealing than waking up at 7:30.  If you wake up at 7:30, you still have time to eat, clean yourself up, and get dressed, but not enough time to plan an excellently cohesive outfit.  But, today, I woke up early, and I tried.  

However, I didn't get any good photos of my outfit.  I wanted to.  I love looking at fashion blogs and Lookbook, seeing the beautiful girls and handsome guys wearing their best, appearing so attractive and cool.  Sometimes I wish that I could be like that.  I had a fashion blog briefly in college, and I loved it.  But, I feel way too weird about asking someone to photograph me.  My boyfriend works at night, so when I wake up in the morning, he's still asleep.  I'm not going to wake him up for the express purpose of taking my photo, because that is lame.  I'm also not going to set up my camera on a bench in the park, because I've tried that, and it takes far too much finagling.  Also, it makes me feel awkward.

Here is is the print of my dress.  There are horsies.

So, these are some awkward shots of parts of my outfit.  One day I'll grow a pair and feel confident enough to ask someone at work to take my photograph.  Right now, I still feel like that is something that only people who are stuck on themselves do.  And I have no interest in being that jerk of a person.  At least I allow myself to feel good about looking nice!  I feel proud of the fact that I put together a nice outfit today, but I don't want to ask anyone to document it.

 This is a blurry photo of my scarf and blazer.  My scarf is blue.  My blazer is brown.  

Also, I have hair.

This shyness really is a problem. However, I'm posting this to promise myself that I will overcome it.  I will start posting fashion photos sometimes because, well, I want to, and maybe it will make me feel even better about this new, more toned and thin body I'm sporting these days.  I promise that soon, I will get someone to take photos of me posing, and I will feel good about them.  I will feel good about my body and my face in them.  This will happen. 

In the meantime, here are my boots, tights and skirt, photographed as I was walking.  

Next time instead of posting a photo of me that looks like this, and screams, "Oh god look how artsy I am!  I mean, look at me, I'm just so, oooh.  Artsy," I will post a photo that is just, well, me.  Wearing clothes.  And, at least pretending to feel good about myself in them.  Eventually, I won't be pretending.  I'll be as proud of my body as I am of what I put on it.  

That is going to be an even more awesome day!

Until then... Aaaaaarrrrrrrtssssssyyyyyyyy......

West Village Windows

The West Village is an amazing place, filled with the old architecture and cobblestone streets of the old world New York City and the new shiny nightclubs, fancy bars and glitzy designer boutiques I associate more with the Upper East Side. Grunge, new trends and buildings that look like something out of a European fairytale combine to create something magical.  At night, some streets are beautifully lit by the strobe lights flashing out of the bars, some are illuminated by tiny Christmas lights or candles outside of the classy restaurants, and quite a few are almost pitch black, with a faint light coming from a third story apartment window, perhaps. 
But these windows are those of the very upscale boutiques and design stores I mentioned earlier.  The sun was extremely bright on the day that I took this walk, and the light reflected off of the windows, which made everything glow.  I wearing sunglasses, and was a bit blind from time to time, but it was gorgeous.  I mean, I might have tripped over a cobblestone and almost been hit by a passing towncar, but no biggie.  That's New York City life for you. 

In any case, these glowing windows filled with their luxurious goods just struck me as gorgeous.  All of these items probably cost about as much as my weekly paychecks, which is disgusting in some ways, but in these windows, this stuff looked amazing.  I loved looking at it, and I adored photographing it.

Now, I'm enjoying sharing it with you!

Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Vintage Splendor.

I just... I just wish that I could wear a corset all of the time.  I wish that this was socially acceptable.  I would flaunt my little corset up and down the street and feel so skinny and ladylike.  It would be awesome.

Part of me wishes that people still dressed like they did before the flappers.  That women had to wear giant bustle skirts, with hoops, corsets, high-necked frilly lace blouses and heeled, laced boots.  All of those pieces are so elegant and gorgeous.  They make you feel womanly.  Well, they at least make me feel womanly.  For my job, I'm an actor, I've gotten to wear some pretty authentic stuff, and I just love it.  Though I know we've moved forward, and that progress is wonderful and all that, I wish that I could just dress like that occassionally.  I mean, I could, but I'd probably get some odd looks.  Less here in New York than most other places, but still, some.

Some types of corsetry have become acceptable, and I couldn't be happier.  I've picked up some nice clubwear bustiers and a few corsets more acceptable for normal wear too.  I got a neat burgundy one from Forever21 about a year and a half ago that I sometimes incorporate into my ensemble.  However, I'm loving some of the stuff I'm seeing from Topshop and H&M for spring.  They make me want the warm springtime to come even sooner!  

If I do pick up some awesome near lingerie-as-clothing kind of stuff like that, I promise a fashion post.  That's too exciting to me not to merit one.

Photographs taken in Walt Disney World, Florida, USA