You are here: Home / Archives for japan

Sometimes I Carry a Parasol

by

Peekaboo!

If Wednesday Addams had a sundress I think it would look like this. One year for Halloween I was Morticia Addams and my grand aunt sewed me a fabulous black dress with long, trailing sleeves and a mermaidish bottom. Wish it still fit, but I was eight or nine at the time. Now that I think of it, I guess I’ve always been a little bit dark with my clothing choices.

I got this parasol when I was sixteen on my first student exchange visit to Japan. It was late July/early August and hotter and more humid than anywhere I’d ever been. I bought anything that might have the ability to keep me cool, including multiple fans to match different outfits. One of my chaperone/interpreters carried this neo-Victorian black parasol with a curved wooden handle that I really admired. It was very stylish and she had a black lace fan, too.

I always get nostalgic about being in Japan around this time of year. And let’s face it, any time there’s a major cultural holiday in Japan. I wish I could travel more but Asia is just so far and so expensive. I have to start carving out a place in the budget for travel funds.

…maybe after I find a paying job.

Forever 21 dress and belt, Seychelles shoes, parasol from Japan.

Dreams That You Dream Of

by

I’ve found myself with writer’s block all week.  Not sure why, I suppose I’ve just been lacking writing inspiration.  Either that or I’ve been writing way too much professionally in the past few weeks and have reached my acceptably decent writing limit.

Wore this sometime last week on a day that wasn’t too warm.  Luckily I had the in-between winter/spring coat to wear.  This week the weather’s been quite nice, I spent some time in the park today taking photos of flowers with my iPhone’s Hipstamatic app… and then I happened to look to my right and notice a suit doing the same thing with his BlackBerry, haha.  The flowers look super nice for just having popped up suddenly so I suspect some landscapers may have had something to do with that!

Impending Potential Hairstyle Change

by

So I’d like to apologize for the dreadful state of my hair lately.  It’s a little scraggly and wild.  My regular hair cut is Monday and I’ve been doing some serious thinking about it.  Why so serious (and admittedly seriously silly)?  

 I might get bangs.  Like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction kind of bangs.  

For reference, me with bangs:  

My shutterbug friends and I in Uniqulo in Japan on February 11, 2008 (gotta love the flickr embedded metadata).  (Umm what am I wearing?)  Unfortunately no photos of me with straight up blunt bangs exist on this computer.  These were originally blunt bangs that got long so I swept them off to the side a bit.  

And again in Ireland, August 22, 2009:

Ehh, you can’t see them because the wind blended them in with the rest of my hair.  Yeah, you got me, this photo is mainly for Caitlin— I’m trying to tempt you into Ireland on the cheap (it was my friend’s and my graduation present to ourselves).  We managed it after being poor, hungry, studied-abroad-halfway-across-the-world, denim-wearing-every-day (eek!) college students for four years, it just took a budget and a plan! 

I was thinking about having them cut last time at the salon… but I still don’t know.  Since I actually did some thinking about it instead of just making an impulsive decision, I realized I’ve actually had bangs for at least 70% of my life.  And I might actually miss them?  What?  I know, bangs can be such a styling bother, especially for curly hair/humid climates.  And I don’t know about bangs when my hair is this short.  Maybe when it’s longer?  I have always loved Anne Hathaway’s in The Devil Wears Prada.  

What do you think, should I have bangs cut on Monday?

Standing in the Street

by

Worn on Thursday 11 Nov 2010 

Thoughts:  I just posted about bringing things back from trips this week, so I want to tell you that two of my outfit items (well really three, two stockings) in this post came from Japan!  This trench coat saw me through months of unpredictable weather when I was studying abroad in Osaka and remains one of my favorite lighter jackets.  In fact, this entire outfit (minus belt and add black flats) was a favorite with my friends from study abroad.  I went to Japan in January 2008 so I’ve been wearing this for quite a while!  I also wore parts of it for the blog last month and in March of this year.  

Also, red lipstick is now officially part of my everyday lipwear.  I think I’ve worn it for about a week straight!  I just woke up one day and thought why shouldn’t I?  Red lipstick was the first lip color I ever wore, starting when I was five for ballet performances.  Since then it’s always had a bit of a special place in my makeup collection.  I seem to be matching the tree again with it!  I switched places mid-photoshoot because on the LCD it didn’t look like the photos in the street were exposing properly but they ended up coming out okay!  Yay!  I would love to take more photos with the red tree in the background but unfortunately there was a huge storm Wednesday morning and now there are only about ten leaves left on the tree :(  Soon there won’t be any leaves left on most of the trees, sad because I love when the leaves change color during fall!  

Trench coat from Japan, dress from Commander Salamander, Talbots scarf, Target belt, over the knee stockings from Japan, Sofft shoes.  

Debut: Azur

by

5.15.10 (I think) 

I’m debuting my new wallet, a birthday gift from my cousin.  It’s called the Alexandra Wallet and is sadly named for a French explorer and not after me :)  I would love to use this as a clutch for evening but there is no way I’m getting an iPhone to stay in there.  

I’ve only worn this shirt twice and already it’s beginning to fall apart!  The woven fabric is literally unraveling by my arm.  Luckily it’s not too noticeable and I can mostly likely fix it without too much difficulty… I hope.  

I’ve been sitting on these photos a while wondering if I should reshoot this look.  As you can see, the elasticized waist of my shirt is visible in all the photos… I’ve inexplicably lost weight around my rib cage?  Meaning that this yellow skirt is becoming a little large on me now and kept sliding down throughout the day.  Ah well, it’s much more noticeable in the photos than it was in real life!

Blue shirt (Free People), yellow skirt (Odille – Anthropologie), gold belt (Shimamura, on one of many shopping excursions with my friends), gold shoes (Banana Republic).