The In on the Fade of Plaid

Plaid plays hide and seek with the world of fashion, sometimes comes out strong and gives you safe and comfortable pieces, other times it runs scared and is unruly with ideas that will make you eyes spin. One thing I know for sure it will always come back in style and you might as well learn how to wear it for yourself. I luckily grew up in Colorado were L.L.Bean, Timberland and JCrew are staples for the outdoors bunch and plaid runs rapid in those stores. Big thick plaid shirts, tiny cute plaid shoes, plaids for weddings, soccer games, and school could be seen everyday. So I have failed buying good stuff for along time and now get a sense of what really works for me and what doesn't. Plaid is a staple in my wardrobe. I have tiny oxford Abercombie & Fitch plaid oxfords, and Gap flannel shirts to layer with all my LLBean sweaters. I once owned a pair of plaid ballet flats. I would squeeze my size 11 feet into these precious blue & green plaid with bright red ribbon and piping on the sides. It was loving wearing them until about 10 o'clock , it was hard being fashionable with my very own fippers for feet. So for surfing this trend I have 3 golden rules. 1, no polyester. 2, is it something that goes with other stuff in your closet? 3, are you comfortable in it? then there are other rules like is it age appropreiate, and made well. My last question is it worth it? How many times will you wear it? So right there on the spot I imagine outfits with it, can it be worn for evening and day. If you apply these to your trendy purchases you will be a happy person. It totally sucks to look in your closet and see that you made a wrong choice. I have been editing out bad clothes for the last 5 years. I have a lot of clothes.

The beautiful evils of Shopbop

Each day I receive an email from Shopbop filled with amazing and unbelievable clothes, jewelry and shoes. As an avid buyer of budget beauties I am ever drawn to the craftsmenship & innovative work of designers. I guess you must dangle the carrot in front of me so I can keep up with all that is holy in fashion. I know everyone has that moment in their life, where a trend began or an outfit changed their life. To dramatic? Maybe for some but for the other group they know what I am talking about. I had a pair of slouchy grey boots in high school. I wore them with jeans and skirts, they were a signature for me and even though people made fun of them I still loved them. It was the beginning of me breaking way from the typical Levi 501 meets LLBean and Polo upbringing. I started shopping at Thrift store and garage sales, looking for things that were stylish and interesting to me.

Fall 2009 forecast RED

Red has it's very own special place in fashion, one must always have a good red lipstick, a smashing red dress, I always say a tailored velvet red suit (like Gwenyth's Gucci one), and of course the perfect red stiletto. The designer Valentino has taken the color red and built an empire of sizzling graceful and exquiste red evening wear.Years back Prada made a red velvet wedge that was so popular, Time magazine wrote about it. When I went to Chicago that year, I ran over to Neiman Marcus on the Miracle Mile and purchased myself those very shoes. Red can make anyone feel empowered, alive and beautiful. I am always in awe of those who wear bright red, look fab in red lipstick, they seem ahead of the game. It is royal, true, and most of all eye catching!

The Red behind every shoe!

I have always been a Manolo Blanhik girl and still love and adore his shoes and now there is another player Christian Louboutin. So yummy and beautiful you can't just have one. The way these elongate your legs and shape the foot is dreamy. The boots he makes look like butter

A Stab at Creating a Page

Here is one of my Fall 2009 pages for budget shopping

2009 will be remembered for one thing ANKLE BOOTS!

I decided to get all the ankle booties and boots favorites out of my fashion file and onto the blog. I have been collecting these pictures for the past 4 months. This was my first time collecting and I thought the boot info who made it, where you can buy it, stuff would come along in the picture info but it did not. So next time I will have that stuff. I can probably figure out each one. A lot of them came from Vogue's coverage of the Fall 2009 collections in NY, Paris and Milan. Alexander McQueen has that fierce black leather with red interior one with studs on it. There are some Topshop boots as well.

Just a few I would like to have

and some more....

then a few more

Meet Erica Pressely a new fashion friend, who just appeared at the Dog Park last week, and to no surprise, she was wearing BOOTS! I love a good dress/boot combo for any event even if it's 96 degrees. The dress was from a Target rack last season with some simple alterations making the dress much more her own. Boots from Report shin high with faux fur. But don't forget the most unrated accessory the SOCK. She had on pink ones to match the dress. The bag, an aqua cloth skull & flowers bookbag and turqouise hoops. I always think monochromatic dressing is eye catching and really easy to do. You have to watch out on proportions to let the clothes flow and let accessories layered directed by more personal items such as jewelry, scarves, even shoes.

I totally feel in love with this bubble dress from none other than Topshop. It has simple classic lines yet becomes more modern & youthful with the cut. Wear this with some playful ankle boots or fierce bright red studded stilettos, jewelry needs to be simple yet compelling as well. Either a Lanvin monochromatic black satin tie necklace or BR's new (2009) fall collection(plus Forever21 for the cheap) easy easy look for anyone!

check out the beautiful collar cape lace thingy. It's intense, when wearing this carefully weigh all other accessories this takes most the weight but have strong classic shoes black heels, with a modern zipper or studs..in skinny black of dark denim jeans with white shirt or black tank, could be worn over a coat