147. YES!

I knew it was coming. Oh I knew it =).

143. The Basics: Flats

I don't have all the details yet, but there's been some serious deal-making going on in the world of women's shoes.  As best as I can tell, at some point in the last 2-3 years a meeting was held.  A bunch of women got together with American shoemakers and they all agreed that women under 40 would wear boots, and only boots, from fall thru spring for the foreseeable future.

I'll skip the part about me not being invited to the meeting.  That's beside the point.  The point is, WTF?  I was in DSW the other day looking for a pair of jazzy black flats, and what I found was 4 entire rows (which I'm estimating were roughly 120 pairs) of black and brown, leather and vinyl, ankle, calf, and knee-length women's boots.  Who needs that many effing boots?!

Can I get some oxfords?  Or maybe a pointy-toe leather flat?  Anything that's not a ballet flat or a boot?  (Sad face.)  Not all of us are rocking the skinny jeans and boots look.  Some of us still wanna wear our regular pants.  And we'd like to have shoes to go with them.  Cute, comfortable (enough), affordable fall shoes to wear with our extensive collections of unskinny jeans and fabulous wool trousers, which by the way do not go with leather boots. 

Boooooo to you all.

142. Mix-n-Match

 This is another element of style I really struggle with.  First of all, this chic is fabulous.  You may disagree, and I wouldn't argue with you.  But for yours truly, she is the epitome of casual, comfortable, I-Could-Get-Dressed-In-The-Dark-And-Somehow-I-Would-Still-Be-Fly style. 

Maybe she just came from yoga class.  Or maybe she's headed to lunch with one of her equally and effortlessly fabulous friends.  The look works either way.  Right down the fully functional bag, handmade scarf (you can see the little tails on the ends), and semi-messy, pulled-back curly hair.

But those aren't the hard parts.  The "hard" part is the jacket.  She's wearing a brown jacket over black pants and a cream top.  With a black bag and a grey scarf.  I would never have done that.  Because in my world the jacket, bag, belt, and shoes should all be the same color.  Black and brown do not co-mingle.  But they obviously should.

(Photograph copyright The Sartorialist 2010)

141. Black Girl Drama

 If there's a more integral and stressful part of a little black girl's identity than her hair, I don't know what it is. Hair care should be added to the list of lessons black girls get when they hit puberty.  By third grade I was wishing my mother would let me do my own hair. I was out of college before I actually figured out how.

For the first ten years of my life, my mother would wash my hair in the large sink in the basement. Then we'd spend the next hour combing it out and blow-drying it. Back then my hair was probably 24 inches long and I was tender-headed as all hell, so this was not my favorite process.  When it was over I was left with what my uncles called my "lion's mane."  I don't remember that I hated having it done, but I certainly never liked it.

In 6th grade my friend's mother told my mother that she got her hair pressed and that it made it much easier to manage. For the next 3 years I was faithful to the hot comb. Changed my life.  My mom would drop me off at the beauty shop on Saturday mornings and I'd wait my turn to press&curled up.  Strangely, I don't actually remember wearing my hair straight at the time, but I was definitely getting it done.

By the time I went to high school I had up/downgraded from a press to a relaxer. Again, life changing. The smell, the process, the time, the cost, the scabs, it's all some stuff you gotta experience for yourself to fully get it. But I was fond of my relaxer.  It made it possible for me to effectively do my own hair, really for the first time in my life.  I could wash it and blowdry it myself without reverting to the lion's mane.  So I was happy.

The first time I cut my hair, I was in tenth or eleventh grade. I had had the relaxer for a few years and I was used to having long, straight hair.I decided to cut the front into a bob and kept the back long. It was a huge deal.  At the time I couldn't conceive of cutting all of my hair short. This was a baby step. By 12th grade I had grown it all back.  I kept it long for the next 5 years.

My senior year of college, I decided to grow out my relaxer and go natural. After about six months of growth I cut off most of my hair. It was about 6 inches long. The first few months after the cut were the most baffling hair months of my life.  I had no clue.

I knew I had curly hair, but I had no idea how to get it to actually be curly. I mean it kinda was.  But I had a bit of a limp, curly 'fro going on.  Not cute. I still frown at myself a little bit whenever I look at my graduation pictures. Those were The Lost Days, as far as my hair is concerned.

Nowadays I think I have a handle on my hair in all its incarnations. I can rock the curls long or short; I can flat-iron it out and wear the bob when it's not too hot (can't handle the humidity without a relaxer); I've even figured out what to do with my hair when my curls have been flat-ironed to death and have to be re-grown from scratch, something I've done 2 or 3 times.  And of course there's an entire team of favorite shampoos, conditioners, and the all-important leave-ins that help maintain my hair in its various forms of flyness.  (Thanks to you all.) 

I say all this to say... It's happy hair times in my world... which I think is a special thing to be able to say as a black girl.

131. The Basics: 36-24-36

One day in 12th grade, me and a couple of my drafting classmates somehow got on the topic of breasts and how unequally distributed they are.  One of the girls observed that this was particularly unfair because it requires all kinds of extra work from those of us who got the short end of the breast stick.  Specifically, we have much less room for error when it comes to keeping everything in proportion.

For instance, a chic with D's can carry an extra 20 lbs. around her waist and still be shaped like Coke bottle.  A 34A with an extra 20 lbs is all outta shape, in more ways than one.  Smaller chics have no choice but to keep it tight around the midsection.  This means that counting calories and burning through ab routines play key parts in developing my sense of style.

Loose-fitting tops help, and I have a stable of those.  But at some point, you wanna be able to step out in a nicely tailored 'fit without having to suck and contract your torso for three hours.  So it's off to the gym, or the track, or wherever you get it in.  For me it's the lakefront trail.  And soon, the yoga mat.  I'm about to be all about a yoga mat.  More on that later.

128. The Basics: Fitted Tees

My favorite piece of clothing right now is a black Timeless Crewneck Tee (pictured) from Banana Republic.  It completely captures my clothing personality.  I wanna be neat, but comfortable.  I want to be elegant, but not in any way that takes very much work.  And I want to not spend very much money.  This top accomplishes all of those things.  It costs $20 and has a long, sleek fit that's really flattering.

I also have it in green and red.  Any color over neat jeans ("denim trousers") or slacks makes for a super-simple chic look.  I don't wear skirts often, but the few I do wear go well with these tops.  They make for a good look.  There's something about pairing a t-shirt with a fancier bottom that says, "Yes, I want to impress.  But no, I'm not going to inconvenience myself too much to do it."  And that pretty much sums up my personality =).  Sidenote: This is also the reason you're not likely to catch me in heels in a club.  It's just not worth it (anymore).

I also go for printed tees with slacks.  I used to have a Mickey Mouse top that I wore under a blazer or nice jacket.  It got retired years ago.  But I plan on rebuilding my collection of graphic tees with some fun, cheap options.  I have my eye on that Tootsie-Roll "That's How I Roll" t-shirt.  It's so me.

127. Persona-fication

I've been thinking a lot about (my) style lately.  I've always been into fashion in theory, but as I've become an adult I've been thinking much more seriously about why I wear the things I wear and what I want my clothes to say.  For most of high school and college I shopped in the men's department.  Baggy pants and loose-fitting men's polos and button-downs were my staples.  My clothes were comfortable, stylish (to me), and I think they fit my personality at the time. 

Toward the end of college, I transitioned into women's clothes and filled out a wardrobe of Express, NY & Company, and Forever 21.  I wanted to be cute, but not fancy, and not spend too much money.  I'm also a lazy shopper and don't like to go to too many stores to find what I want.  So I tend to find a reliable source for my basics and then do 75% of my shopping there.  For the first couple years of grad school nearly every top in my closet had a NY & Company tag in it.

Now I've moved solidly into a Banana Republic phase.  For a while I just thought "I like their style" and figured they had good sale prices so it was a good match for me.  But I think my shopping there is mostly about my own style and what I look for in clothes.  I'm learning that I have a pretty distinctive, but exceedingly basic sense of style.  I like "clean" clothes that are reasonably comfortable and still somehow elegant.  Simplicity is key. Figuring out how to exercise that and put pieces together in a way that feels right has been more trial and error than I would expect.

For instance, we've all seen those lists of the "10 Pieces Every Man/Woman Should Own," or something similar.  Here's an example from Real Simple magazine.  The first few items on the list (and the pictures that go with them) could've come straight out of a GAP ad.  Black tank top, white tee, jeans, khakis.  But these pieces actually aren't for everyone.  I don't own a pair of khakis and I don't wear black tank tops outside the house.  They're both underwhelming on me.

I once asked a bunch of people, "What outfit most accurately captures your personality?"  For me, it was a pair of worn in jeans, a fresh fitted beater, hoop earrings and flat sandals.  That outfit is quintessentially me.  I feel great in it.  My style goal for the next couple years is to deconstruct that quintessential outfit to build a wardrobe full of pieces that make me feel just as good.  I've got a good number of them already, maybe even most of them.  But collecting them is the easy part.  Putting them together is trickier.  It gets the creative juices going though, and that makes it a lot of fun.

125. The Deep End

In my quest for sneaker chic style, I've been spending some time in sneaker stores seeing what's out there.  The purple and orange Air Force 1's I had my eye on didn't wanna be had in my size, so I had to come up with a Plan B.  I had heard that Creative Recreation has good options for ladies, so I looked into a pair.  I ended up with these.

I found the ladies' Galow Hi in a sneaker shop in the South Loop.  How ridiculously fly are they?!  I was in immediate shoe love.  I didn't try em on at the time cuz I saw the price tag.  But after mulling it over I decided to holler at em.  Go big or go home, right?  Rather than spending $60/pair on 2 or 3 more subtle "intro" pairs, why not spend a little more and start right at the height of awesomeness?  So I pulled the trigger.

Problem is this: 1) I don't have anything that goes with these shoes. 2) Hi-tops aren't particularly flattering on me.  Now I woulda known number 2 if I had bothered to try the shoes on instead of just ordering them online (where they were $20 cheaper).  Number 1 surprised me because they're essentially brown and white shoes.  Who knew they'd be so hard to match?  

I don't have skinny jeans to tuck into them, so that's not an option.  Wearing regular jeans that hang down over the tops would defeat the purpose of wearing high-tops (a) and would risk having the blue dye bleed onto my not-cheap new shoes (unacceptable).  That means shorts or dresses.  My limited dress collection is not at all compatible.  And I don't wear shorts.  What to do?

Since I'm not tryna buy new clothes to go with my new shoes (I have a quasi-strict no new clothes policy), I'm gonna have to pull a rabbit outta the hats I already have.  So I'm getting creative.  This weekend I tried the sneakers with some men's khaki cargo shorts and a ladies' white button down.  Not two pieces I'd otherwise put together, but desperate times...  I figure this is a good opportunity for me to get my Carrie Bradshaw on and step out wearing whatever the hell I want.  If I ever work up the nerve to wear the outfit out of the house, I'll post a pic.

63. Sneaker Chics

Once upon a time, I made up my mind to become a sneaker chic. There were a few reasons:

1. I've always thought there was something especially fly about a chic who could be sexy in sneakers. Anyone can pull off sexy in 3-inch heels. But if you can rock some Air Maxes and still be the flyest chic in the room, then you're doing something.

2. Hard as I fight it, I'm a gym shoe girl at heart. Jeans, a t-shirt, and gym shoes everyday. I'm trying to get away from this. But if I could find a way to fall back on it now and then and somehow still be really stylish, that'd be nice.

3. Lupe Fiasco, who I have plans to stalk at some point, is a sneaker dude. And this would give us something in common.

4. I like the idea of adding bright colors to my wardrobe in a functional way (e.g. with something I could wear everyday). This is as an alternative to buying 7 new brightly colored shirts, etc.

So... In my quest for Sneaker Chic style, I've settled on the Air Force 1's in the picture as my intro pair. I think it's a good look. Not too expensive, colorful but not gaudy, should go with lots of stuff. Maybe an early birthday present from Me to me.

52. Style

One of my favorite blogs is The Sartorialist (peep the blogroll to the right). The blogger is a fashion photographer who takes pictures of folks on the street in his spare time and posts them online. The idea is to showcase great style. And great style has eluded me thus far in this life.

My grandmother has it. I think the woman in this photograph (copyright The Sartorialist 2009) has it. I do not have it. Jean Cocteau said that "Style is a simple way of saying complicated things." I read that on a New York City Subway car. I like it a lot.

Great style leaves you with the impression that a person put on everything they're wearing on purpose. There is no laundry day. They weren't running late. They're not wearing the things that didn't need to be ironed. They decided to wear what they're wearing. Almost as if they were wielding their clothes.

And what's most remarkable is that it doesn't have to be complicated. This woman is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. I wear jeans and t-shirts all the time, and I never look like this. I'm just covered in clothes.

As I get older, I've set for myself the goal of someday equaling my grandmother in flyness. I think I can do it. I just have to crack the style code. To figure out the difference between wearing one's clothes, and wielding one's wardrobe. It'd help if there were a set of rules I could follow, but there aren't. It's not a matter of matching this kind of top with that kind of bottom, or not. It's a matter of seeing in 3 dimensions I think. Not just color and fit, but feel.

I'm determined that it doesn't have to cost a lot of money either. Mostly because I don't have a bunch of money. I have some time though. And a sort of passion for making more out of the face I present to the world than I do now. As I have small successes here and there, maybe I'll post a few pics to the blog.