I’ve Got It All

April 25, 20165 Comments

Together…sometimes…but usually not.

The weekends when I am able to fit in work and fun are the type of weekends I come away from feeling truly whole. When you work a full time job (I recently became a buyer for a second hand/sometimes vintage shop), maintain a blog and other social media platforms all by yourself, own a dog, teach dance, help your partner with work, occasionally style and model for shoots, try to attend blogging/insta events, sometimes sell clothes…it’s hard to feel like you are on top of everything. To be honest, it’s fucking impossible to be on top of all of that. The thing that usually gets pushed to the wayside for me is friendships. It’s hard to maintain friendships (I’m mostly talking about surface friendships here) when you are an introvert, but also someone who feels literal guilt when you should be getting work done and instead are spending time with someone. And as I read that sentence, it sounds kind of awful. The thing is, I love my friends, the ones that don’t feel like work and get that I am kind of busy and will often say no to something because I have work to do. But on the flip side, I’ve had to work with the feeling of guilt I get when I am hanging out and not working by actually pushing work to the side and allowing myself to have fun without “consequence”. It’s been strange acknowledging that feeling and trying to work with it…I often feel like I never get it quite right. But this weekend felt truly balanced, and I woke up this morning with a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of wholeness. I realize it won’t always be like this. I won’t always feel like I’ve got it all together, and that’s really okay. As long as I am able to appreciate and recognize the moments where it does all fall so perfectly together, then I couldn’t really want or ask for anything else. We are all just trying to get by in the ways that make us feel good or make us feel bad, sometimes. It’s those things that drive us forward, but sometimes make us stuck. As long as we can see ourselves in all the ways we are or are not driven, well I think that’s all we can really do. In my little understanding of psychology and self-understanding, it’s just being able to see the way we work that makes us able to start changing for the better.

Can you relate? Do you have the opposite issue? Let me know in the comments below.

Like Mother, Like Son

April 22, 20168 Comments

We go together like…

When I received these matching sweaters from Hayley Elsaesser, I knew I’d end up with some pretty sweet and hilarious photos of me and my main man Gussy. It’s a sweater that’s a little outside my style wheelhouse with it’s neon colours and camo print, but I hardly think it matters when you’re able to match outfits with your dog, right? Right. I decided to go for a sort of family portrait-style concept with these images (I also have a couch now, hi couch!), so hopefully you enjoy them as much as I did shooting them.

If you too would like to co-ordinate with your dog, you can find these cutie, matchey sweaters here, and in a different colour combo if orange and blue isn’t your thing. Larkspur Vintage | Like Mother, Like Son

sweaters c/o Hayley Elsaesser | Skirt: Common Sort

Ways To Wear: One Kerchief Worn Four Ways

April 5, 20162 Comments

OH THE POSSIBILITIES!

If you follow me on snapchat, or just know me IRL, then you will be well aware of the fact that I’ve been having a minute with kerchiefs (or scarves), tied around my neck. So since I’m having an obsession with them of late (and yes, I would call it an obsession), I thought it made sense to share that with you along with some other ideas of how you could wear one. I find the best place to get real gems for very cheap is at vintage, thrift or secondhand stores, so head there if you don’t already have one on hand. The one I am using here is a fairly small square…try to keep the kerchief small with these styles because it won’t work as well (if at all) if you are working with a large scarf. Anyways, now that you have your kerchief… Larkspur Vintage | Ways To Wear: One Kerchief Four Ways You see me rollin’. We should talk about my rolling method, because I think it will be helpful in keeping that ribbon shape when you are working with a small, square kerchief. Here’s how! I roll the scarf by bringing the opposite corners together to form a triangle, then I roll the long end toward the triangles peak till it is almost all the way rolled, then I take the peak and roll it toward the long end and I wrap the long end around the rolled peak (this way your peak won’t be peeking out all day), and voilà, you have a rolled kerchief that shouldn’t come undone right fast. Larkspur Vintage | Ways To Wear: One Kerchief Four Ways En Français: This is how I have been wearing my kerchiefs nearly everyday; just tied it into a knot around the neck. I usually wear the knot off to the side because it feels v Parisian, and if there is one thing I wish, it is to be born Parisian…or British.
Larkspur Vintage | Ways To Wear: One Kerchief Four Ways Lil Bow Peep: Dress up any old hairstyle; tie your kerchief into a bow around your pony or braid. It makes an other wise simple hairstyle a little less simple.
Tiedy Up: You can use the kerchief to actually pull the hair out of your face or decoratively as a hairband; tie the loose ends together and either have them out and visible like a bow, or pull the loose ends under to be hidden beneath your hair.
Larkspur Vintage | Ways To Wear: One Kerchief Four Ways Wild Wild West: Back in my up tha punx days, I sported a bandana like this almost always; to achieve this look its very similar to our rolling method, only this time don’t roll all the way and tie the kerchief loosely around your neck with the peak at the front (off the the side for *coolness*).

Kerchief: vintage via Common Sort | Dress: Topshop via Common Sort

Labels

March 29, 2016March 29, 201611 Comments

are for clothes, or soup cans, or whatever

As they often do, outfits come to me at random times, and only once I try them on do I know if it was a great idea, or a terrible one. This outfit was one of those “great idea” times, but I initially felt pretty certain it wouldn’t work. Not because I didn’t think these pieces were suited to each other, but because I wasn’t sure if I would actually like this type of outfit anymore; that is to say, school-girlish and kind of Lolita.

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I have talked about my style confusion a few times here, and it seems I keep coming back to it because I feel in a transition of sorts. However, putting this outfit on and seeing that it still spoke to me felt a bit like revelation. Sure, I have grown out of certain types of pieces (peter pan collars, I’m looking at you), but that is not the absolute rule. The thing is, there is no rule. I keep feeling like because I am a personal-style blogger, I have a duty to stick to what I have always purported to be, and that wearing anything outside of my style wheelhouse would potentially hurt my brand. But, after doing much thinking and really taking in the styles of bloggers and IRL people I feel most connected to, the ones that spoke to me most were the ones that kind of wear whatever the hell they want. There is always a way of making everything you wear feel like you, while also being able to actually wear whatever you want.

Like some much in life, we slap a label on it and feel frustrated if that label is not 100% accurate; well, it must be full of shit or a lie then! But nothing in life is that black and white, and it shouldn’t have to be. Humans are messy and confusing and ever-changing and those qualities should reflect all things, even something as silly as the things we wear. And they often do, and that’s okay. The differences and the inconsistencies are the interesting parts, we should embrace that about ourselves and others more, it would probably feel somewhat freeing.

Not Everything Is Black and White

March 22, 2016March 22, 20164 Comments

a new uniform

When I was a teenager, I loved black and white stripes. I owned striped pants, shirts, cardigans, skirts, dresses, anything I could find in stripe, I wanted. To the goth community (or at least my circle of friends), stripes were very Beetle Juice, and BJ was super chill in our eyes and got the (v hard to come by) goth seal of approval. But like most of my style choices from my teenage years, I grew tired of stripes and garnered a sort of disdain for them. So I’m not sure why, but more recently I felt compelled to add stripes to my closet again. It’s as if my eyes (or mind) suddenly saw how they could work for present-day me and accept that not everything when it comes to style needs to be so black and white (pun!) – there are some pieces that are definitely suited to a certain style, but that’s often the exception, and stripes, stripes are for everyone (amen). This outfit is like an ode to teenage me, but more grown up and definitely more present-day me. I’ve felt sort of off in most things I have been wearing of late. I’ve been saying for awhile now I feel very little connection to most of the clothes I own, but when I purchased this dress recently (from my new job, which I will talk about later!) and put this outfit together, this sense of comfort, confidence and ease washed over me. It’s hard not to feel confident with a vintage neck scarf, faux-leather moto jacket and over the knee faux-suede boots…it just feels quintessentially bad-ass.

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Let me know what outfit or piece of clothing makes you feel your best. What do you grab in your closet that you know will feel just right?