provident style

Well, my mono relapse is (hopefully) over, and I’m finally back at school! Yay….TONS AND TONS AND TONS OF HOMEWORK! RIGHT BEFORE FINALS! OH MY GOD KILL ME!

Scarf: Target
Belt: Thrifted
Dress: Vintage (eBay)
Shoes: Thrifted

I was also wearing this with a grey cardigan, but it got WAY too hot out for that or the scarf when I was walking home so I left the cardigan in my gym locker.

ALSO, I thought you guys might want to enter the Favourite Spring Dress contest, if you haven’t yet! The lovely Brenda alerted me to it, but sadly I can’t enter it as I’m not a resident of the USA. :( Which totally sucks, because the prize is something I’d very gladly accept! Well, my loss is your gain so if you live in the states… ENTER!! :D

I thought some of you guys might find this interesting! Although that might just be my infatuation with all things New York talking…

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/business/20080521_LOOK_FEATURE/index.html

I am in love with this site! LOOKBOOK.nu lets you upload your own outfits and join a community of creative people. Tons of inspiration on here and lots of really interesting style! It’s invite only, so leave a comment if you want to join and I’ll invite you. :)

My most time-consuming Polyvore creation to date! My cousin is getting married this summer (they are an ADORABLE couple) and I am in search of the perfect dress as of right now. The above are my inspiration! I kinda want to break the no-white rule since a perfect white summer dress would be a lovely thing to have an excuse to buy, but I am not sure if that is still taboo or not! Well, I’ll probably get drawn to a colourful one anyway. Oh, and like my mannequin?! I thought she looked a little lonesome headless, and then I even added an arm (erm…ignore the difference in skin tone *cough*) holding an apple! Summery, amirite?! Polyvore, I think I love you…

PS. Yes, I do realize that I could just wear the dress I’m waiting for in the mail from eBay. But…ummm…DRESS SHOPPING!

I never used to be the girl who was obsessed with shoes, especially since they’re one of the items most notorious for being produced using terribly paid and treated labour, but…

…Damn you, Polyvore!! You make it so hard to resist, although I am not quite sure if I could afford any of these shoes anyways. I know that these aren’t all the most summery shoes ever, but I’ve been dying to have a pair of heeled brogues for so long that I would wear them even if my feet fell off from the heat!

Well, since I got everything I wanted from my last mental wishlist (red lipstick, combat boots, army backpack, poofy skirts, COMPLETELY AWESOME GLASSES) my brain has been noticing even MORE things that will make my soon-to-be-summer wardrobe complete. First off, a high-waisted pencil skirt. I hate to admit it due to my hatred of the pretentiousness that has been surrounding American Apparel lately, but I love their denim skirt. I used to love the whole store, in fact, until I got sick of the ads and the pretentious girls at my school who refuse to wear anything that’s not from AA. Just a note: having a unique and creative style does NOT equal shopping at the latest ‘trendy indie’ chain that uses sexist advertising! Whoa, okay, mini-rant over. Uuh, yeah, I like their skirt, but I’ll probably try and find something like it for cheaper somewhere else.

This picture makes my eyes want to roll out of my head, but you get the idea. I’m liking the lighter colours, but a black one would also be nice too to wear with colourful tights or bare legs if this frozen wasteland I live in ever warms up. (Okay, okay, so it’s actually not that bad outside anymore. Still!! SUMMER! COME FASTER!)

Another item that I won’t be able to wear for a couple months is the high-waisted short. LLLOOVVVE! They’re so cute and the details on some of the pairs I’ve seen online are gorgeous. I love the buttons on this one from Topshop and the sailor vibe.

And the gathers at the pockets are nice too! Oh Topshop. Why are you so inaccessible to us Canadians?!

I’ve been looking for a romper for a while, and it’s hard to find something that’s not, well, really ugly. I love most of the ones I’ve seen on other bloggers, so maybe I’ll get lucky and stumble upon one I like, but this one is alright. I just wish it was a different colour and didn’t have long sleeves!

And I’d wear the belt at the waist! Pfft. Silly models. Actually, I wouldn’t mind the sleeves as much if this was grey instead of khaki coloured. There’s got to be better stuff on eBay. Ooh! There is!

Loooove this one. Click the image to look at the rest of the pictures, because the back is knotted shut and it’s really interesting. I’m not surprised that people are bidding on this!

Of course, to go with my romper, a nice pair of gladiator sandals. A look today while shopping turned up nothing, which was surprising since I would assume that even the Canadian stores would realize by now how big they are going to be this summer. They don’t have to be freakishly high, but maybe a bit above the ankle would be nice. These ones are shorter, but I like the colours and they’re pretty fun.

From everyone’s favourite shoe company, Nine West! I’ve been seeing shoes from this brand in every blog I look at, and after looking at the site I can see why. They’ve got a really interesting selection.

I love love love this shoe from Aldo, and for $60, I might actually be able to afford it!

I guess I’m not going to find anything with straps that go any higher then this unless I once again dive into the depths of eBay…

There we go! These are a great colour and just the height I am looking for. For a second I thought they would be pretty annoying to put on and take off until I realized there was a zipper in the back!

I think I’d better curb my wishlist at that. Realistically, I could probably go on forever, but to be honest I actually need NONE of these things…but summer is coming and I want to have interesting stuff to wear so I don’t just throw on a t-shirt and shorts every day. I like feeling like my outfit has thought put into it, and I feel boring now if it doesn’t, so I guess that helps me justify it!

Another reason that I simply cannot wait for summer is my itch to bike. And that itch is definitely worsening after stumbling upon this wonderful blog! Check out how chic these women are while biking.

Looks like Copenhagen is a freaking haven for cyclers. So not fair! Calgary’s still so behind. There’s a couple teensy tiny bike lanes on some of the roads here, and bike paths, but nothing like the space that these lucky Eurpoeans get. This makes biking a rather daunting task, especially if I have to travel on main roads that are still covered in gravel from winter. Eek! Also, none of them are wearing helmets…and since it’s the law where I live that everyone under 18 must wear a helmet while biking, I tend to look a little (okay, WAY) less fabulous then the above. I found some pretty cool helmets on nutcasehelmets.com. I’m especially loving the 8-ball ones, because a lot of the prints seem pretty predictable and hard to match to an outfit.

And…the bikes. The wonderful bikes! I think I might fall asleep dreaming of wonderful vintage bicycles tonight. These are all WAY out of my price range and more for collecting then riding, but still, nice to look at!

(All bikes from http://www.rustyspokes.com/)

So. Awesome. Maybe I can hunt down a bike that’s more recent, but still old enough to be interesting. Like my dad’s old one that he refuses to get rid of…hmmm…

I absolutely LOVE wardrobe_remix. Unfortunately, since I’m trying to keep my Flickr account to artistic photography and portraits, I can’t bring myself to upload any of my daily outfits…but I sure do browse. So I’m going to imitate a few other awesome blogs I read and post my favourites!

Something about this totally draws me to it. The red tights are perfect! And the detail on the shoes is amazing (click the picture to go to the Flickr page).

You’ve gotta see the detail to appreciate this outfit, especially in the layering of the tights! Simple and lovely, and I could definitely do something like this with the green sweater I bought a couple posts ago.

One of my favourite remixers, it girl_rag doll. So effortless and yet so, so awesome! Especially loving those shoes.

Mmmm, all of these outfits are making me want spring even more, and some more tights, too. I looked EVERYWHERE at H&M but I couldn’t find any! I guess I’m coming at the wrong time of year, which really sucks because it’s not going to be warm enough here for bare legs until May at least. I’ll probably end up going to the Bay and buying black tights in a huge size in the hopes that they’ll stay opaque, but maybe spring will surprise me and show up. Every blog I’ve been reading lately is dying for spring, except for those lucky bloggers who live in the warmer climates, and I’m dying for it too.

…I GOT ANOTHER PAIR OF GLASSES! I’ve been looking for “The Henry Glasses” (given this title by me and my mother, as they are the style of glasses that Henry from Ugly Betty wears) for a long time, and I could never find any in the shops I looked in. And believe me, I looked in a lot!

Dreamy, amirite?

I had to give up when my glasses got broken and I picked a pair that I really liked, but alas, they were not The Henry Glasses. But then my brother broke HIS glasses (hmm…destrictiveness must be in the genes?) and him and my mom went to get him some new ones. And then they saw them.

Being the amazing people that they are, they took me over the next day, and there they were. They suit my face and they’re unique but not costumey. I go to the best optometrist in the world, and so they gave us a pretty sweet deal on them. And after we claim them on my dad’s insurance, they will have cost us a grand total of $20. I think that’s pretty damn good for the coolest glasses on the planet, no?! I’m picking them up on Tuesday, and oh boy, there will be pictures.

Everyone loves online shopping. (Well, almost everyone.) I’m an avid online browser since I have neither money nor my own credit card, but lately I’ve been trying to stop torturing myself by avoiding looking at the millions of beautiful items that I cannot have. But tonight, I broke down and visited the Topshop site…and to be honest, I didn’t find that much stuff that I absolutely loved. I was especially expecting more in the shoe department. This is a relief! I’m not missing out on much that I am dying to have. Here’s some of the stuff that I do like:

Frill Detail Tea Dress, £45.00

This dress could go so many ways, depending on what it was worn with. This + a leather jacket + boots = classic juxtaposition of styles! Yay! The ruffle is also pretty freaking cute, and I like the fit.

Paintbrush Tulip Silk Skirt, £50.00

I like this skirt because the pattern speaks for itself. You wouldn’t have to put a ton of thought into making the rest of the outfit interesting, because the skirt itself is so damn interesting! It’s a lot more bold then the tiny floral prints floating around lately, but that also makes it harder to mix with other patterns if you so desire.

Embroidered Pinstripe Short, £40.00

Now these shorts, I love. They’re REALLY short, which is even more exaggerated on me because of my ridiculously spindly legs, but it would totally be worth the laughs my friends would get. I can see myself throwing on a brightly coloured tank and tucking it into these all summer. So easy, but the embroidery makes it way more interesting!

Well, I guess Topshop ain’t all that bad…