Baby Steps, or Dress the Closet Door

Well, I still can't really get dressed and go out (still sickly, boo hoo), but I sure do know a closet door that can! ok, not the going out part.


So this is the outfit I wore to the Texas Style Council Poshmarkapp Party.  Save the sequinned bag (that flashy bundle peeking out from under the dress) and the necklace, every last stitch of it came from Target clearance, alas (the bag was old-Old Navy, and the necklace is of mystery aka forgotten origin.).  I have mixed feelings about the shoe line that Converse does for/in collaboration with Target.  Their starting cost is not much less (and often higher) than regular Chuck Taylors are at, say, Marshalls or TJ Maxx, and they seem to run wider and flatter than regular Converse.  These are the type that do not come with laces, or the option of adding laces due to how the tongue is sewn in place.  That all said, they were covered in pink sequins and they cost $11.  That drove me to need them for the TxSC party.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Being in my style blogging infancy, I was very appreciative of all of the TxSC sponsors and partners who reached out to everyone in attendance, in addition to the sponsorship they provided to the established blogger-speakers.   francesca's collections was among these kind businesses, and came to the Posh Party armed with treats to give to TxSC attendees who follow them on twitter and took part in a little game they had. I did not explore the little gift bag the francesca's rep handed me until I got home, when I was so excited to find that it contained this awesome chevron print wrap.  I have been wanting to try out a basic chevron  print (as opposed to a wild Missoni-for-Target chevron, which also has its charms) for a few months now, but I had not found a piece that I really liked.  I love this wrap because it includes deep orange/rust (a color I love) and black.  I always want to pair rust with other fall-type colors, like mustard, maroon, brown, and olive green, but this wrap will help me expand beyond that I think.  Also, the wrap is lighter weight than any of my other wraps or cardigans, which will make it much more wearable in Austin.

I tried out dressing the closet door in the wrap with the dress I wore to the Posh Party.  Yes!  Now I can wear this dress (which I love and is very comfortable) not only for fancy going-out doings, but also for, say, teaching. 

                                     

13 March 2012: I will blog. I will blog. I will blog.

This past weekend was the Texas Style Council Conference.  I was definitely one of (perhaps _the_, note the lack of posts here*) least experienced style blogger there, but I have aspirations. 

After witnessing my enthusiasm during TxSC, my dear significant other offered to take outfit photos for me.  Unfortunately, I promptly got sick after the conference, and likely won't be getting dressed in anything but pajamas for a few days.  A few days without being tempted by the charms of SXSW and without attending work meetings around town may be good for blogging, though.  I was definitely daydreaming of assembling outfits between sneezes and sniffles today.

IIn addition to her mention of her cats, I really appreciated Julie of Orchid Grey enthusiastically touting the value of instagram during the Blog Balance panel, for sharing images, ideas, and inspiration.  I need some help with blog balance, in that this blog could stand to weigh a few more grams on my time scale than it does currently; however, I have already managed to follow a social media routine in 2012, wherein I instagram at least one photo every day (not related to any of the #monthphotoaday challenges--I experimented with that but could not keep up with the theme structure), under the instagram handle @kentuckyist.  I am fairly proud of this, as I have never carried any new year daily routine through as long as even March (daily flossing always dies by 7 January).  So maybe I can use instagram to help me become a blogger.

The phrase 'become a blogger' is interesting here.  I had what would now be called a blog back in the late 90s, on which I (on a page I had built myself from HTML scratch, thankyouverymuchandcouldn'tdoittodaytosavemylife) wrote a few pithy sentences about what happened nearly every day.  People read it, and though there was no comment form on the site, it did start a lot of conversations and fueled some fun projects with my friends.  I've since played with blogging about my days on my family's farm in Kentucky (where I spent a substantial fraction of each year), and my boyfriend and I are forever half-finishing posts for a food blog we share.  But I'd like to blog about fashion and style, because they are things I value, but don't deal with at all in my life as an academic (which does actually involve the farm and food).

So, here's to becoming a style blogger, with a little flat, sick-day mock-up of the dress, cardigan, and necklace I wore on the final day of TxSC to kick off my efforts.

*There was one more yicky post up here earlier, but I removed it because it had no original photos, marginal original content, and had been mostly an experimental thing I did to get practice on the new Blogger.