Fashion, two ways.

Two favorites:

Dead Fleurette.

Tavi, the Style Rookie.

They're both very young, but old for their ages. They both have killer style.

Fleurette has a very French approach--an extremely pared-down, minimalist wardrobe of beautiful neutral pieces, carefully selected for color and fit and saved-up for.

Tavi sees fashion as play and art, with an apparently huge wardrobe of thrift finds, designer freebies, neon brights, frumpy grandma shoes, and things that don't fit "right" and she likes it that way.

And here's me--wanting to look so polished and classic and fine. And wanting to just have fun with ridiculous colors and crazy makeup.

I suppose I lean more towards Tavi's end--clothes, beyond the immediate function of protection from the elements and covering parts of one's body not considered acceptable in public, are a frivolous pursuit. Why spend a giant chunk of change on a beautiful designer bag that is utterly and in all ways perfect, when I could put a fraction of that into an equally functional bag that I like pretty darned well, and the rest can go to a nice dinner out, a trip to somewhere fun, rent, fixing my car, an electric mixer, a gift for my boyfriend, a ton of great second-hand books, or a video game that will provide hours of entertainment? Granted, some of said other things are just as frivolous, if not more so. And that cheaper bag might fall apart after a year or so, or even a few weeks, and could have been made in a horrible sweatshop, and I'll probably hate it before it even manages to fall apart because cheap items are also often fearfully trendy.

THIS IS WHY I WANT TO MAKE MY OWN CLOTHES, DAMMIT.

My mother gave me her sewing machine. Why spend $80 (US) on the perfect t-shirt, when a few dollars worth of lovely organic cotton and a few hours can earn me a replica or better, and I can say "oh this thing? I just whipped it up the other day" when anyone asks.

Granted, some things I definitely can't make. Shoes and chunky sweaters spring to mind. But I don't mind so much spending money on nice versions of those things, which I usually don't grow as bored with.

Now if I can train myself out of buying beautiful cheap stilettos, though, THAT will be something :-\

Red, Gray, Turquoise

Hey, another mood board!  I find making these things fun to unwind with when I have enough time to do them.

This time, I looked mostly at color--red and gray (my favorite combo), with turquoise (another favorite) thrown in for variety.  And some beige slipped in too, oddly enough.

The couch, desk, and desk chair are IKEA; the side table (which I love), the coffee table, the rug, and the slipper chair are Target.  The art is from art.com.  The throw pillow and paper lamp are World Maret, and the table lamp is Pier1.  You can really tell which stores I favor from this blog, no?

In other news, More Ways to Waste Time just featured two posts on steampunk aesthetic, an example which I featured without naming it as such in my last moodboard.  I've always found it an interesting style, intriguing if not exactly livable to me right now.  I have always liked the Victorian library look though, so we'll see where that takes me once I have the means to buy the heavy furniture it needs--though I do already have an Oakley display case, which I adore and have no idea how to use.  It's good for keeping dvds in right now though, because it locks.

Meanwhile, design*sponge recently sneak-peeked a beautiful home that also reminded me of the Curry moodboard, with "world" influences and beautiful heavy furniture (that bed is -beautiful-) tossed together without looking pretentious or stuffy, something I'm not sure I could do in real life.