May 2013 – My Kingdom for a Hat

the creeper and her crawlies

It’s ninety-one degrees, and I’m lying in bed eating gummy bears and reading young-adult novels about witches the way good Osiris intended. Way too hot to put on anything but a bikini, so I’m bringing you another inspirations post. I haven’t done one in a while, and it’s always interesting to see how concrete my tastes are when I see all my favorite things at once. For example, I didn’t realize I was so into colorful brogues until I noticed that I’d bookmarked a good nine or ten posts featuring them.

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About those crawlies… Source

Dem brogues. I’m trying to track down a pair. Source

I’m mad about this coat. Positively luscious color and cut. See more of it here. Also, caterpillars are my favorite animals.

Can’t wait to become an Advanced Style lady one day. Source

Y’all know how I feel about eyeballs. This ain’t new. Source

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These aren’t from a fashion blog; I spotted them on Tits and Sass, a wonderfully edifying blog about sex work and sex workers’ rights. They also remind me of my second-favorite fictional witch, Elphaba Thropp herself. (Maleficent will always come in at #1.)

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Seriously, where does she find so many?! Source

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Inside me lives a garish harridan with lipstick angling past her lipline. My body’s about sixty years too young. Source

Seriously?! Source

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I’ll just leave this here. (NSFW).

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Y’all sat through this, so here’s a little bonus: my new pumpkin friend!

Oh, and as of last night, my hair is pink again. God, I’ve missed magenta so.

scathingly something-or-other

This past March, you may recall, I did a series of posts emulating some of my favorite bloggers’ styles:

March 12: Rebecca of Winnipeg Style
March 14: Marisa of Shades of Monet Chronicles
March 18: Rachel of Floral Prints and Common Sense
March 21: Bebe of Fated to be Hated

I had a lot of fun with that theme. I even got some feedback from the bloggers in question! Creativity, I’ve always found, is enhanced by boundaries and deadlines. Working within strict parameters jogs the mind.

Today I’m resurrecting my emulation streak. This outfit is inspired by Kate of Scathingly Brilliant.

I am not wearing a bra today. I was advised by my tattooist not to do so until my new jack-o’-lantern tattoo, located under my right arm, is fully healed. So I’ve been doing the ganja-gobbling earth-mama thing for the past few days. I thought I might feel all subversive-sexy, but instead my breasts just really, really hurt. Damn you D-cups.

This dress, though. I first tried it on at Old Gold a few months ago and thought instantly of Scathingly Brilliant. (The pin, I think, intensifies the effect.) I passed it up because living expenses, but then last weekend it was marked down to $5. Yeah, that’s right. $5 at Old Gold. It’s only a matter of time before I start pitching a tent in the doorway the night before sales.

I’m probably going to modify this bodice. I’d prefer it slightly more fitted, with no sleeves and some nice thick straps.

Belt on belt.

My right breast is the singularity. Try not to look too hard.

Dress & Belts: Old Gold Tights: Sox Market Necklace & Shoes: Gifted Pin: Old

More Etsy listings to come soon! Follow me on Facebook at Dressed in the Dark Vintage.

i refuse to make an eyeball pun

I’d wanted this dress since I was, oh, seventeen: I’d drooled over it at Old Gold since my freshman year of college. Two days ago, May 24th, was my birthday. When my mom placed the package from Dolls Kill Boutique in my lap, I just about knocked over the cake in my frenzy. I have now been wearing this dress for three straight days, and I seem unlikely ever to remove it. Details at 11.

It fits me perfectly in every possible dimension. I can’t wait to wear it absolutely everywhere this summer.

What to pair it with but the spiderweb jacket?

Dress: Gifted; Hell Bunny via Dolls Kill Jacket & Necklace: Battery Street Jeans Belt: Old Gold Cardigan: Yard sale (for free!) Hat, Shoes, & Tights: Gifted

Obligatory plug for my new Etsy store, Dressed in the Dark Vintage. Like my Facebook page to see updates! As of yesterday, I’ve got oodles of new stuff to list. Vintage collecting and curating has been my main project lately. I’m also:

playing in a LARP on Monday evenings. I’m part of the changeling group, and I play a Vodou priestess named Cecile who was captured by Loa.
attending a monthly “costumed sushi” event with said LARP group. I don’t like sushi, but I love any opportunity to dress to the tens. Elevens, even.
preparing to go teach theater at a middle-schoolers’ summer camp for a week in June!
trying to tour all the graveyards in the greater Burlington area. Boyfriend and I visited Ethan Allen’s grave a few weeks ago. It’s less than a mile from his house.
racking up tattoos! I – dun dun dunnn – just got my second one a few hours ago. I’m lying here on my boyfriend’s couch trying to pretend my right side isn’t ablaze with irritated pinpricks. It’s a jack-o’-lantern. Pics very soon! For my next two, I want a bloody eyeball and the word “incantatrix” (Latin for “sorceress”).
lounging, boozing, rioting, and wishing desperately to be a flapper. I’ve already got the haircut.

twelve little girls in two straight lines

A couple of weeks ago, I won a $50 gift card to Vintage Urban Renewal. I selected a lovely blue-and-white swing coat, which Michelle, the owner, shipped promptly. Shortly thereafter, the mercury dipped down into the 50s and 60s, giving me a good few opportunities to wear said coat before packing it away for the fall.

Continuing my children’s-book kick, I built this outfit as a sort of grown-up Madeline adaptation.

I couldn’t decide which purse I preferred…

Coat: Vintage Urban Renewal Skirt, Belt, & Hat: Old Gold Blouse: Handed down from Mom Necklace: Gifted Shoes: Goodwill Tights: Sox Market Red Purse: Dirt Chic Flower Purse: Classy Closet

I’ve been sitting on this announcement for a couple of weeks now, itching to come out with it. (Before you ask, I’m not a lesbian.) My brand-spankin’-new Etsy store, Dressed in the Dark Vintage, is now open for business! I’ve been having so much fun finding and curating unique vintage items to sell, and I really hope it goes somewhere. If you are so inclined, “like” my page on Facebook to see my updates!

the kishi school of psychedelia

Remember her? I think I read almost every Baby-Sitters Club book (quite a feat: there are almost 200) between the ages of 7 and 11. Looking back on them as a pretty-much-grown-up is hilarious: SO MUCH is wrong with the way these books portray, oh, everything, but I appreciate them for the rite of passage they represent to me and basically every female between 15 and 35.

Claudia was my favorite. Despite what the rest of the club said, she was waaaay more individualistic than that bitch Dawn. And her outfits put the q in psychedelic. I see no shame in admitting that she is one of my main fashion inspirations.

(Side note: if you read even a few of these books as a kid, drop everything and go check out the BSC snark community on LiveJournal. That site is my freakin’ HOMEPAGE.)

For as long as I can remember, my parents have had a finger-shaped hook on the wall adjacent the wood stove. Sometimes you can see it.

This outfit almost has too many colors. Almost. I think it works because both the the blouse and the dress have a base of white, which grounds the outfit.

I love the way this blouse accents my waist.

Boyfriend and I got fraternal-twin bowler hats at Old Gold’s $10 sale this weekend. His is tan. We are That Couple.

These shoes remind me of snakes’ faces.

Blazer, Blouse,& Shoes: Goodwill Dress: Plato’s Closet Hat: Old Gold Necklace: Battery Street Jeans Tights: Sox Market

This is probably my favorite song of late.

footloose fancy freak

I’ve finally got a decent lighting setup in my parents’ house. It’s a little blurry and temperamental depending on the time of day, but what it lacks in clarity it compensates for in angle: I can take much nicer full-body shots here than I could in my old living room.

Today I continue my general theme of “crackhead society dame”. I do love that aesthetic so.

Of course I noticed the huge tear in the coat AFTER I took all the photos. Of course.

I feel vaguely Hitchcockian. My life tends to deal heavily in motifs, and Hitchcockian themes have definitely been prominent lately. I saw my first of his films, Vertigo, last week, and I haven’t gotten it out of my head since.

Coat & Shoes: Goodwill Hat & Purse: Classy Closet Skirt: Old Gold Belt & Blouse: Handed down from Mom Necklace: Battery Street Jeans

My birthday’s in four days. NBD.

even vainer than usual (plus a little deathy goodness)

The last of the photos from Thursday’s shoot with Brent. He has the coolest dressing-table setup in his studio, and I’ve taken some great “backstage at the burlesque house” shots there. I bought this green dress and shawl to restore and sell, but I couldn’t resist prancing about in them a little first.

And here, saved for last for theatrics’ sake, are my favorites of the cemetery photos.

More outfit pictures to come soon, I promise. I’m still finagling a decent lighting setup in my parents’ house.

still not dead yet

I wore the prairie dress to a medieval fair with my boyfriend yesterday.

I love us.

not dead yet

Frolicking in a pretty dress between gravestones under a canopy of flowers encompasses, like, four of my favorite things. All I need now is a bowl of pad Thai and a few eyeballs.

I’m a puddle. Or a mushroom.

“Antebellum” is the word that comes to mind.

The only possible response.

Bonus pictures of my boyfriend, who I realized yesterday is basically a dead ringer for Inigo Montoya.

Those were taken on a totally normal day, by the way. He loves dressing up as much as I do.

here’s hoping i don’t hurt your eyes

It’s been in the 50s and 60s for the past few days. The mercury will shoot back up to balmy by this weekend, but for now I’m really enjoying the resurgence of tights and jackets. Summer outfits aren’t exactly my niche: not only am I an accessorizer through and through, I overheat painfully easily.

My apologies for the greenish light and my lank hair. I took these photos at a strange time of day.